The hall was packed, both the floor and the galleries; there must have been three thousand people.  I noted a big squad of police, and wondered what was coming; for in these days you can never tell whether any public meeting is to be allowed to start, and still less if it is to be allowed to finish.  However, the crowd was orderly, the only disturber being some kind of a Socialist trying to sell literature.

I saw Mary Magna come in, with Laura Lee, another picture actress, and Mrs. T-S.  They found seats; and I looked for the magnate, and saw him talking to some one near the door.  I strolled back to speak to him, and recognized the other man as Westerly, secretary of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association.  I knew what he was there for—­to size up this new disturber Of the city’s peace, and perhaps to give the police their orders.

It was not my wish to overhear the conversation, but it worked out that way, partly because it is hard not to overhear T-S, and partly because I stopped in surprise at the first words:  “Good Gawd, Mr. Vesterly, vy should I vant to give money to strikers?  Dat’s nuttin’ but fool newspaper talk.  I vent to see de man, because Mary Magna told me he vas a vunderful type, and I said I’d pay him a tousand dollars on de contract.  You know vot de newspapers do vit such tings!”

“Then the man isn’t a friend of yours?” said the other.

“My Gawd, do I make friends vit every feller vot I hire because he looks like a character part?”

At this point there came up Rankin, one of T-S’s directors.  “Hello!” said he.  “I thought I’d come to hear your friend the prophet.”

“Friend?” said T-S.  “Who told you he’s a friend o’ mine?”

“Why, the papers said—­”

“Vell, de papers ’re nutty!”

And then came one of the strikers who had been in the soup-kitchen—­a fresh young fellow, proud to know a great man.  “How dy’do, Mr. T-S?  I hear our friend, Mr. Carpenter, is going—­”

“Cut out dis friend stuff!” cried T-S, irritably.  “He may be yours—­he ain’t mine!”

I strolled up.  “Hello, T-S!” I said.

“Oh, Billy!  Hello!”

“So you’ve denied him three times!”

“Vot you mean?”

“Three times—­and the cock hasn’t crowed yet!  That man’s a prophet for sure, T-S!”

The magnate pretended not to understand, but the deep flush on his features gave him away.

“How dy’do, Mr. Westerly,” I said.  “What do you think of Mr. T-S in the role of the first pope?”

“You mean he’s going to act?” inquired the other, puzzled.

“Come off!” exclaimed Rankin, who knew better, of course.

“He’s going to be St. Peter,” I insisted, “and hold the keys to the golden gate.  He’s planning a religious play, you know, for this fellow Carpenter.  Maybe he might cast Mr. Westerly for a part—­say Pontius Pilate.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” said the secretary of our “M. and M.”  “Pretty good!  Ha, ha, ha!  Gimme a chance at these bunk-shooters—­I’ll shut ’em up, you bet!”