l
weak from typhoid--weak enough to want to see some one but stokers get
into the job that's become my life. You see," he muttered, "I was raised
among people like you. It's a kind of a craving, I suppose--like
cigarettes." Again he stopped short and there was a pause.

"Rather natural," Sue murmured. Again he turned sharply from her to me.

"I say you can help by your writing," he said. "You call my friends an
ignorant mob. But thousands of 'em have read your stuff!"

I looked up at Joe with a start.

"Oh they don't like it," he went on. "It only makes 'em sore and mad.
But if you ever see things right, and get into their side of this fight
with that queer fountain-axe of yours, you'll be surprised at the
tenement friends who'll pop up all around you. The first thing you know
they'll be calling you 'Bill.' That's the kind they are--they don't want
to shut anyone out--all they want to know is whether he means business.
If he doesn't he's no use, because they know that sooner or later
they'll do it anyhow themselves. It's going to be the biggest fight
that's happened since the world began! No cause has ever been so fine,
so worth a man's giving his life to aid! And all you've got to decide is
this--whether you're to get in now, and help make it a little easier,
help make it come without violence--or wait till it all comes to a crash
and then be yanked in like a sack of meal!"

Before I could speak, Sue drew a deep breath.

"I don't see how there's any choice about that," she said.

Eleanore turned to her again:

"Do you mean for Billy?"

"I mean for us all," Sue answered. "Even for a person like me!" Sue was
beautiful just then--her cheeks aglow, her features tense, a radiant
eagerness in her eyes. "I've felt it, oh so long," she said. "It's gone
all through my suffrage work--through every speech that I have
made--that the suffragists need the working girls and ought to help them
win their strikes!"

"And what do _you_ think, Joe?" Eleanore persisted. "Were you speaking
of Billy alone just now or did you have Sue, too, in mind?"

Joe looked back at her steadily.

"I don't want to shut out the women," he said. "I've seen too many girls
jump in and make a big success of it. Not only working girls, but plenty
of college girls like you." He turned from Eleanore to Sue--and with a
gruff intensity, "You may think you can't do it, Sue," he said. "But I
know you can. I've seen it done, I tell you, all the way from