I realized more than ever that I had made a mistake in letting Carpenter get into this place.  It was no resort for anybody who wanted to be patriotic, or happy about the world.  All sorts of wonderful promises had been made to labor, to persuade it to win the war; and now labor came with the blank check, duly filled out according to its fancy—­and was in process of being kicked downstairs.  Wages were being “liquidated,” as the phrase had it; and there was an endless succession of futile strikes, all pitiful failures.  You must understand that Western City is the home of the “open shop;” the poor devils who went on strike were locked out of the factories, and slugged off the streets; their organizations were betrayed by spies, and their policies dedeviled by provocateurs.  And all the mass of misery resulting seemed to have crowded into one building this bright November morning; pitiful figures, men and women and even a few children—­for some had been turned out of their homes, and had no place to go; ragged, haggard, and underfed; weeping, some of them, with pain, or lifting their clenched hands in a passion of impotent fury.  My friend T-S, the king of the movies, with all his resources, could not have made a more complete picture of human misery—­nor one more fitted to work on the sensitive soul of a prophet, and persuade him that capitalist America was worse than imperial Rome.

The arrival of Carpenter attracted no particular attention.  The troubles of these people were too recent for them to be aware of anything else.  All they wanted was some one to tell their troubles to, and they quickly found that this stranger was available for the purpose.  He asked many questions, and before long had a crowd about him—­as if he were some sort of government commissioner, conducting an investigation.  It was an all day job, apparently; I hung round, trying to keep myself inconspicuous.

Towards noon came a boy with newspapers, and I bought the early edition of the “Evening Blare.”  Yes, there it was—­all the way across the front page; not even a big fire at the harbor and an earthquake in Japan had been able to displace it.  As I had foreseen, the reporter had played up the most sensational aspects of the matter:  Carpenter announced himself as a prophet only twenty-four hours out of God’s presence, and proved it by healing the lame and the halt and the blind—­and also by hypnotising everyone he spoke to, from a wealthy young clubman to a mob of Jewish housewives.  Incidentally he denounced America as “Mobland,” and called it a country governed by madmen.

I took the paper to him, thinking to teach him a little worldly prudence.  Said I:  “You remember, I tried to keep out that stuff about mobs—­”

He took the sheet from my hands and looked at the headlines.  I saw his nostrils dilate, and his eyes flash.  “Mobs?  This paper is a mob!  It is the worst of your mobs!” And it fell to the floor, and he put his foot on the flaring print.