the by-laws.

"I'm willin'!"

"Same here!"

"Let 'er go, cap!"

"Suits _me_!"

They were all eager to please him--too eager. It made him ask,
disgustedly:

"Don't you fellows care who is boss?"

"Naw! Don't we have to have one, anyhow?"

"Yes. But to have one crammed down your throats--"

"The beer helps the swallowing, boss," said the hatter with
conviction--and a fresh hope!

"There doesn't seem to be a man among the whole lot of you," said
Hendrik.

A young fellow of about twenty-eight, very pale, wearing steel-rimmed
spectacles, spoke back, "If you'd starved for three weeks and two days,
and on top of it been kicked and cheated and held up, there wouldn't be
a hell of a lot of fight in you, my wise gazabo."

"That's exactly what would make me fight," retorted Hendrik, angrily.
"Each of you has a vote; each of you, therefore, has as much to say as
to how this country should be run as any millionaire. Don't you know
what to do with your vote?"

"You're lucky to get a quarter and two nights' lodging nowadays," said
the old man with waiter's foot. "The time we elected Gilroy I made
fifteen bones and was soused for a mont'. Shorty McFadden made
thirty-five dollars--"

"Any of you Republicans?"

"No!" came in a great and indignant chorus.

"I used to be!" defiantly asserted the young man with the spectacles and
the pale face and the beaten look.

"And now?"

"Just a lame duck, I guess."

"Too much rumatism," suggested a husky voice, and all the others
laughed. The depths of degradation are reached when you can laugh at
your own degradation.

"Are any of you socialists?" asked Hendrik.

They looked at him doubtfully. They wished to please him and would have
answered accordingly if they had known what he wished to get from them.
What they wished to get from him, in the way of speech, was another
invitation to tank up. But when in doubt, all men deny. It is good
police-court practice. Three veterans, therefore, tentatively said:

"No!"

Hendrik was disappointed, but did not show it. He asked, "Are any of you
Christians?"

The crowd fell back.

"Is there one man among you who believes in God?"

They stared at one another in the consternation of utter hopelessness.
Mulligan was the first to break the painful silence. He said, with a sad
triumph:

"I knew it. Stung again! They'll do anything to get you to listen. We
fell for it like boobs."

"What is that?" said Hendrik, sharply.

"I