Women screamed, and one or two threatened to faint; but it was nothing more dangerous than the cameraman of the Independent Press Service, who had hired a step-ladder, and got it set up in a corner of the room, ready for any climax!  A fine piece of stage management, said his jealous rivals; others in the crowd were sure it was a put up job between Carpenter and Korwsky.  But the labor leaders knew the little tailor, and they believed.  After that there was no doubt about Carpenter’s being a speaker at the mass-meeting!

XXXII

It came time when the rest of us were ready for dinner, but Carpenter said that he wanted to pray.  Apparently, whenever he was tired, and had work to do he prayed.  He told me that he would find his own way to Grant Hall, the place of the mass-meeting; but somehow, I didn’t like the idea of his walking through the streets alone.  I said I would call for him at seven-thirty and made him promise not to leave the Labor Temple until that hour.

I cast about in my mind for a body-guard, and bethought me of old Joe.  His name is Joseph Camper, and he played centre-rush with my elder brother in the days before they opened up the game, and when beef was what counted.  Old Joe has shoulders like the biggest hams in a butcher shop, and you can trust him like a Newfoundland dog.  I knew that if I asked him not to let anybody hurt my friend, he wouldn’t—­and this regardless of the circumstance of my friend’s not wearing pants.  Old Joe knows nothing about religion or sociology—­ only wrestling and motor-cars, and the price of wholesale stationery.

So I phoned him to meet me, and we had dinner, and at seven-thirty sharp our taxi crew drew up at the Labor Temple.  Half a minute later, who should come walking down the street but Everett, T-S’s secretary!  “I thought I’d take the liberty,” he said, apologetically.  “I thought Mr. Carpenter might say something worth while, and you’d be glad to have a transcript of his speech.”

“Why, that’s very kind of you,” I answered, “I didn’t know you were interested in him.”

“Well, I didn’t know it myself, but I seem to be; and besides, he told me to follow him.”

I went upstairs, and found the stranger waiting in the room where I had left him.  I put myself on one side of him, and the ex-centre-rush on the other, with Everett respectfully bringing up the rear, and so we walked to Grant Hall.  Many people stared at us, and a few followed, but no one said anything—­and thank God, there was nothing resembling a mob!  I took my prophet to the stage entrance of the hall, and got him into the wings; and there was a pathetically earnest lady waiting to give him a tract on the horrors of vivisection, and an old gentleman with a white beard and palsied hands, inviting him to a spiritualistic seance.  Funniest of all, there was Aunt Caroline’s prophet, the author of the “Eternal Bible,” with his white robes and his permanent wave, and his little tribute of carrots and onions wrapped in a newspaper.  I decided that these were Carpenter’s own kind of troubles, and I left him to attend to them, and strolled out to have a look at the audience.