well as courage; he
realized that curiosity, properly tickled, will make men more patient in
listening.

"First, I want to call a witness. I am not known to this city. But I
have here a man whom many of you know, I'm sure, for he has stood out in
plain view of a street where many pass, and has worked there for thirty
years. It is Etienne Provancher."

Several men laughed when Farr pushed the old man into view. There was a
murmured chorus of "Pickaroon."

"It's for the children--the poor folks--for the memory of our little
girl," hissed Farr in the old man's ear. "Will you go to your bed
to-night--the night of the day we buried her--knowing that--you are a
coward? These are only men. We must tell them so that they will know.
Speak! Tell them!" He set his firm clutch around the trembling old
Frenchman's arm and held him out where all could see.

"I do not know how to talk here--to so much man--to the lords of the
city," stammered the miserable old man, licking his parched lips, scared
until all was black before his eyes.

The hush was profound. Men curved their palms at their ears, wondering
what old Pickaroon could have to say in City Hall.

"Remember what we have left up there--in the cemetery--the poor children
in their graves," muttered Farr, again bending close to Etienne's ear.

Then, thus reminded, thus spurred, all his Gallic emotion bursting into
flame in him suddenly, the old man felt the desperate resolution that
often animates the humble and ignorant in great emergencies. The little
ones had been martyrs--why not he? That thought flashed through the
tumult in his brain.

"Yes, since you all hark for me to speak I will speak," he declared.
"Messieurs, I am a poor man. Not wise. It is very hard for me to talk
to you. But I have been to-day up where the little children are bury--so
many of them, with their playthings on the graves. I went to take there
anodder little child, poor baby girl. I leave her there with the odder
ones--so very lonesome all of them--their modders cannot sing them to
sleep any more."

"This is irregular," cried the mayor. "What do you want?"

"Nottings for maself," cried Etienne, passionately shrill in his tone
now. "But I have to ask you, masters of this city, how much longer shall
you send poison down the water-pipes to the poor folks and the
children in the tenement blocks? It is poison that has kill our little
Rosemarie--and all her life ahead! The doctor say so--and he sa