yebrows, lips,
mouths, and ears, were radically altered. By cunning
operations on tongue, throat, larynx, and nasal cavities a
man's whole enunciation and manner of speech could be
changed. Desperate times give need for desperate remedies,
and the surgeons of the Revolution rose to the need. Among
other things, they could increase an adult's stature by as
much as four or five inches and decrease it by one or two
inches. What they did is to-day a lost art. We have no
need for it.

It was not until January, 1917, that we left the refuge. All had been
arranged. We took our place at once as agents-provocateurs in the scheme
of the Iron Heel. I was supposed to be Ernest's sister. By oligarchs and
comrades on the inside who were high in authority, place had been made
for us, we were in possession of all necessary documents, and our pasts
were accounted for. With help on the inside, this was not difficult,
for in that shadow-world of secret service identity was nebulous. Like
ghosts the agents came and went, obeying commands, fulfilling duties,
following clews, making their reports often to officers they never saw
or cooperating with other agents they had never seen before and would
never see again.

CHAPTER XXII

THE CHICAGO COMMUNE

As agents-provocateurs, not alone were we able to travel a great deal,
but our very work threw us in contact with the proletariat and with our
comrades, the revolutionists. Thus we were in both camps at the same
time, ostensibly serving the Iron Heel and secretly working with all
our might for the Cause. There were many of us in the various
secret services of the Oligarchy, and despite the shakings-up and
reorganizations the secret services have undergone, they have never been
able to weed all of us out.

Ernest had largely planned the First Revolt, and the date set had been
somewhere early in the spring of 1918. In the fall of 1917 we were not
ready; much remained to be done, and when the Revolt was precipitated,
of course it was doomed to failure. The plot of necessity was
frightfully intricate, and anything premature was sure to destroy it.
This the Iron Heel foresaw and laid its schemes accordingly.

We had planned to strike our first blow at the nervous system of the
Oligarchy. The latter had remembered the general strike, and had
guarded against the defection of the telegraphers by installing wireless
stations, in the control