last positions before the great allied advance, and an
ancient hat-rack, which had held from time immemorial an umbrella with
three broken ribs and a pair of arctics of unknown ownership.

"Going to watch this boy," Hendricks confided to Doctor Smalley a night
or two after Lily's return, meeting him outside. "He sure can talk."

Doctor Smalley grinned.

"He can read my writing, too, which is more than I can do myself. What
do you mean, watch him?"

But whatever his purposes Mr. Hendricks kept them to himself. A big,
burly man, with a fund of practical good sense a keen knowledge of
men, he had gained a small but loyal following. He was a retired master
plumber, with a small income from careful investments, and he had a
curious, almost fanatic love for the city.

"I was born here," he would say, boastfully. "And I've seen it grow from
fifty thousand to what it's got now. Some folks say it's dirty, but it's
home to me, all right."

But on the evening of Lily's invitation the drug store forum found Willy
Cameron extremely silent. He had been going over his weaknesses, for the
thought of Lily always made him humble, and one of them was that he got
carried away by things and talked too much. He did not intend to do that
the next night, at the Cardew's.

"Something's scared him off," said Mr. Hendricks to Doctor Smalley,
after a half hour of almost taciturnity, while Willy Cameron smoked his
pipe and listened. "Watch him rise to this, though." And aloud:

"Why don't you fellows drop the League of Nations, which none of you
knows a damn about anyhow, and get to the thing that's coming in this
country?"

"I'll bite," said Mr. Clarey, who sold life insurance in the daytime and
sometimes utilized his evenings in a similar manner. "What's coming to
this country?"

"Revolution."

The crowd laughed.

"All right," said Mr. Hendricks. "Laugh while you can. I saw the Chief
of Police to-day, and he's got a line of conversation that makes a man
feel like taking his savings out of the bank and burying them in the
back yard."

Willy Cameron took his pipe out of his mouth, but remained dumb.

Mr. Hendricks nudged Doctor Smalley, who rose manfully to the occasion.
"What does he say?"

"Says the Russians have got a lot of paid agents here. Not all Russians
either. Some of our Americans are in it. It's to begin with a general
strike."

"In this town?"

"All over the country. But this is a good field for them. The crust'