at his office, nearly two thousand dollars worth, he told Carpenter, but a few months previously the place had been mobbed.  A band of ex-service men, accompanied by a few police and detectives, had raided it and terrified the wife and children by breaking down the doors and throwing the contents of desks and bureaus out on the floor.  They had dumped the literature into a truck and carted it away, and after two or three weeks they had dumped it back again, having found nothing criminal in it.  “But they ruined it so that it can’t be sold!” broke in James, indignantly.  “Most of it was bought on credit, and how can we pay for it.”

James was also a Socialist, it appeared, while Korwsky and his friend Karlin advocated “industrial action,” and these fell to arguing over “tactics,” while Carpenter asked questions, so as to understand their different points of view.  Presently Korwsky was called out of the room, and came back with an announcement which he evidently considered grave.  John Colver was in the neighborhood, and wanted to know if Carpenter would meet him.

“Who is John Colver?” asked the prophet.  And it was explained that this was a dangerous agitator, now under sentence of twenty years in jail, but out on bail pending the appeal of his case to the supreme court.  Colver was a “wobbly,” well known as one of their poets.  Said Korwsky, “He tinks you vouldn’t like to know him, because if de spies find it out, dey vould git after you.”

“I will meet any man,” said Carpenter.  “My business is to meet men.”  And so in a few minutes the terrible John Colver was escorted into the room.

Now, every once in a while I had read in the “Times” how another bunch of these I.W.W’s. were put on trial, and how they were insolent to the judge, and how it was proved they had committed many crimes, and how they were sentenced to fourteen years in State’s prison under our criminal syndicalism act.  Needless to say, I had never seen one of these desperate men; but I had a quite definite idea what they looked like—­dark and sinister creatures, with twisted mouths and furtive eyes.  I knew that, because I had seen a couple of moving picture shows in which they figured.  But now for the first time I met one, and behold, he was an open-faced, laughing lad, with apple cheeks and two most beautiful rows of even white teeth that gleamed at you!

“Fellow-worker Carpenter!” he cried; and caught the prophet by his two hands.  “You are an old friend of ours, though you may not know it!  We drink a toast to you in our jungles.”

“Is that so?” said Carpenter.

“I suppose I really have no right to see you,” continued the other, “because I’m shadowed all the time, and you know my organization is outlawed.”

“Why is it outlawed?”

“Well,” said Colver, “they say we burn crops and barns, and drive copper-nails into fruit-trees, and spikes into sawmill lumber.”

“And do you do that?”