Part 26 (2/2)

Anyhow, they had that perfectly good case against McCormick and the rest of the I. W. Ws. And now that things had gone so far, surely they couldn't back down on that case! All that was necessary was to explain matters to Mr. Ackerman--

Peter realized that this was an unfortunate remark. Guffey was on his feet again, pacing up and down the room, calling Peter the names of all the barnyard animals, and incidentally revealing that he had already had an interview with Mr. Ackerman, and that Mr. Ackerman was not disposed to receive amicably the news that the secret service bureau which he had been financing, and which was supposed to be protecting him, had been the means of introducing into his home a couple of high-cla.s.s criminals who had cracked his safe and made off with jewels that they guessed were worth fifty thousand dollars, but that Mr. Ackerman claimed were worth eighty-five thousand dollars. Peter was informed that he might thank his lucky stars that Guffey didn't shut him in the hole for the balance of his life, or take him into a dungeon and pull him to pieces inch by inch. As it was, all he had to do was to get himself out of Guffey's office, and take himself to h.e.l.l by the quickest route he could find. ”Go on!” said Guffey. ”I mean it, get out!”

And so Peter got to his feet and started unsteadily toward the door.

He was thinking to himself: ”Shall I threaten them? Shall I say I'll go over to the Reds and tell what I know?” No, he had better not do that; the least hint of that might cause Guffey to put him in the hole! But then, how was it possible for Guffey to let him go, to take a chance of his telling? Right now, Guffey must be thinking to himself that Peter might go away, and in a fit of rage or of despair might let out the truth to one of the Reds, and then everything would be ruined forever. No, surely Guffey would not take such a chance! Peter walked very slowly to the door, he opened the door reluctantly, he stood there, holding on as if he were too weak to keep his balance; he waited--waited--

And sure enough, Guffey spoke. ”Come back here, you mut!” And Peter turned and started towards the head detective, stretching out his hands in a gesture of submission; if it had been in an Eastern country, he would have fallen on his knees and struck his forehead three times in the dust. ”Please, please, Mr. Guffey!” he wailed.

”Give me another chance!”

”If I put you to work again,” snarled Guffey, ”will you do what I tell you, and not what you want to do yourself?”

”Yes, yes, Mr. Guffey.”

”You'll do no more frame-ups but my frame-ups?”

”Yes, yes, Mr. Guffey.”

”All right, then, I'll give you one more chance. But by G.o.d, if I find you so much as winking at another girl, I'll pull your eye teeth out!”

And Peter's heart leaped with relief. ”Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr.

Guffey!”

”I'll pay you twenty dollars a week, and no more,” said Guffey.

”You're worth more, but I can't trust you with money, and you can take it or leave it.”

”That'll be perfectly satisfactory, Mr. Guffey,” said Peter.

Section 68

So there was the end of high life for Peter Gudge. He moved no more in the celestial circles of Mount Olympus. He never again saw the Chinese butler of Mr. Ackerman, nor the French parlor-maid of Mrs.

G.o.dd. He would no more be smiled at by the two hundred and twenty-four boy angels of the ceiling of the Hotel de Soto lobby.

Peter would eat his meals now seated on a stool in front of a lunch counter, he would really be the humble proletarian, the ”Jimmie Higgins” of his role. He put behind him bright dreams of an acc.u.mulated competence, and settled down to the hard day's work of cultivating the acquaintance of agitators, visiting their homes and watching their activities, getting samples of the literature they were circulating, stealing their letters and address-books and note-books, and taking all these to Room 427 of the American House.

These were busy times just now. In spite of the whippings and the lynchings and the jailings--or perhaps because of these very things--the radical movement was seething. The I. W. Ws. had reorganized secretly, and were acc.u.mulating a defense fund for their prisoners; also, the Socialists of all shades of red and pink were busy, and the labor men had never ceased their agitation over the Goober case. Just now they were redoubling their activities, because Mrs. Goober was being tried for her life. Over in Russia a mob of Anarchists had made a demonstration in front of the American Legation, because of the mistreatment of a man they called ”Guba.”

At any rate, that was the way the news came over the cables, and the news-distributing a.s.sociations of the country had been so successful in keeping the Goober case from becoming known that the editors of the New York papers really did not know any better, and printed the name as it came, ”Guba!” which of course gave the radicals a fine chance to laugh at them, and say, how much they cared about labor!

The extreme Reds seemed to have everything their own way in Russia.

Late in the fall they overthrew the Russian government, and took control of the country, and proceeded to make peace with Germany; which put the Allies in a frightful predicament, and introduced a new word into the popular vocabulary, the dread word ”Bolshevik.”

After that, if a man suggested munic.i.p.al owners.h.i.+p of ice-wagons, all you had to do was to call him a ”Bolshevik” and he was done for.

However, the extremists replied to this campaign of abuse by taking up the name and wearing it as a badge. The Socialist local of American City adopted amid a storm of applause a resolution to call itself the ”Bolshevik local,” and the ”left-wingers” had everything their own way for a time. The leader in this wing was a man named Herbert Ashton, editor of the American City ”Clarion,” the party's paper. A newspaper-man, lean, sallow, and incredibly bitter, Ashton apparently had spent all his life studying the intrigues of international capital, and one never heard an argument advanced that he was not ready with an answer. He saw the war as a struggle between the old established commercialism of Great Britain, whose government he described as ”a gigantic trading corporation,” and the newly arisen and more aggressive commercialism of Germany.

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