s
pretty thin here, and where that's the case there is likely to be
earthquakes and eruptions. The Chief says they're bringing in a bunch of
gunmen, wobblies and Bolshevists from every industrial town on the map.
Did you get that, Cameron? Gunmen!"

"Any of you men here dissatisfied with this form of government?"
inquired Willy, rather truculently.

"Not so you could notice it," said Mr. Clarey. "And once the Republican
party gets in--"

"Then there will never be a revolution."

"Why?"

"That's why," said Willy Cameron. "Of course you are worthless now. You
aren't organized. You don't know how many you are or how strong you
are. You can't talk. You sit back and listen until you believe that this
country is only capital and labor. You get squeezed in between them. You
see labor getting more money than you, and howling for still more. You
see both capital and labor raising prices until you can't live on what
you get. There are a hundred times as many of you as represent capital
and labor combined, and all you do is loaf here and growl about things
being wrong. Why don't you do something? You ought to be running this
country, but you aren't. You're lazy. You don't even vote. You leave
running the country to men like Mr. Hendricks here."

Mr. Hendricks was cheerfully unirritated.

"All right, son," he said, "I do my bit and like it. Go on. Don't stop
to insult me. You can do that any time."

"I've been buying a seditious weekly since I came," said Willy Cameron.
"It's preaching a revolution, all right. I'd like to see its foreign
language copies. They'll never overthrow the government, but they may
try. Why don't you fellows combine to fight them? Why don't you learn
how strong you are? Nine-tenths of the country, and milling like sheep
with a wolf around!"

Mr. Hendricks winked at the doctor.

"What'd I tell you?" whispered Hendricks. "Got them, hasn't he? If
he'd suggest arming them with pop bottles and attacking that gang of
anarchists at the cobbler's down the street, they'd do it this minute."

"All right, son," he offered. "We'll combine. Anything you say goes.
And we'll get the Jim Doyle-Woslosky-Louis Akers outfit first. I know a
first-class brick wall--"

"Akers?" said Willy Cameron. "Do you know him?"

"I do," said Hendricks. "But that needn't prejudice you against me any.
He's a bad actor, and as smooth as butter. D'you know what their plan
is? They expect to take the city. This city! The--" Mr.