In spite of herself she laughed, rather helplessly.

“Is there anything I am to remember?”

He smiled too, and straightened himself, like a man who has got something off his chest.

“Certainly there is, Miss Cardew.  Me.  Myself.  I want you to know that I’m around, ready to fetch and carry like Jinx here, and about as necessary, I suppose.  We are a good bit alike, Jinx and I. We’re satisfied with a bone, and we give a lot of affection.  You won’t mind a bone now and then?”

His cheerful tone reassured the girl.  There was no real hurt, then.

“That’s nice of you, you know.”

“Well,” he said slowly, “you know there are men who prefer a dream to reality.  Perhaps I’m like that.  Anyhow, that’s enough about me.  Do you know that there is a strike coming?”

“Yes.  I ought to tell you, Willy.  I think the men are right.”

He stared at her incredulously.

“Right?” he said.  “Why, my dear child, most of them want to strike about as much as I want delirium tremens.  I’ve talked to them, and I know.”

“A slave may be satisfied if he has never known freedom.”

“Oh, fudge,” said Willy Cameron, rudely.  “Where do you get all that?  You’re quoting; aren’t you?  The strike, any strike, is an acknowledgment of weakness.  It is a resort to the physical because the collective mentality of labor isn’t as strong as the other side.  Or labor thinks it isn’t, which amounts to the same thing.  And there is a fine line between the fellow who fights for a principle and the one who knocks people down to show how strong he is.”

“This is a fight for a principle, Willy.”

“Fine little Cardew you are!” he scoffed.  “Don’t make any mistake.  There have been fights by labor for a principle, and the principle won, as good always wins over evil.  But this is different.  It’s a direct play by men who don’t realize what they are doing, into the hands of a lot of—­well, we’ll call them anarchists.  It’s Germany’s way of winning the war.  By indirection.”

“If by anarchists you mean men like my uncle—­”

“I do,” he said grimly.  “That’s a family accident and you can’t help it.  But I do mean Doyle.  Doyle and a Pole named Woslosky, and a scoundrel of an attorney here in town, named Akers, among others.”

“Mr. Akers is a friend of mine, Willy.”

He stared at her.

“If they have been teaching you their dirty doctrines, Lily,” he said at last, “I can only tell you this.  They can disguise it in all the fine terms they want.  It is treason, and they are traitors.  I know.  I’ve had a talk with the Chief of Police.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“How well do you know Louis Akers?”

“Not very well.”  But there were spots of vivid color flaming in her cheeks.  He drew a long breath.

“I can’t retract it,” he said.  “I didn’t know, of course.  Shall we start back?”