and by scrubbing the floors of the other rooms.
The spittoons need to be cleaned. Then there are the windows."

"Is it for the Revolution?" the boy asked.

"It is for the Revolution," Vera answered.

Rivera looked cold suspicion at all of them, then proceeded to take off
his coat.

"It is well," he said.

And nothing more. Day after day he came to his work--sweeping,
scrubbing, cleaning. He emptied the ashes from the stoves, brought up
the coal and kindling, and lighted the fires before the most energetic
one of them was at his desk.

"Can I sleep here?" he asked once.

Ah, ha! So that was it--the hand of Diaz showing through! To sleep in
the rooms of the Junta meant access to their secrets, to the lists of
names, to the addresses of comrades down on Mexican soil. The request
was denied, and Rivera never spoke of it again. He slept they knew not
where, and ate they knew not where nor how. Once, Arrellano offered him
a couple of dollars. Rivera declined the money with a shake of the head.
When Vera joined in and tried to press it upon him, he said:

"I am working for the Revolution."

It takes money to raise a modern revolution, and always the Junta was
pressed. The members starved and toiled, and the longest day was none
too long, and yet there were times when it appeared as if the Revolution
stood or fell on no more than the matter of a few dollars. Once, the
first time, when the rent of the house was two months behind and the
landlord was threatening dispossession, it was Felipe Rivera, the
scrub-boy in the poor, cheap clothes, worn and threadbare, who laid
sixty dollars in gold on May Sethby's desk. There were other times.
Three hundred letters, clicked out on the busy typewriters (appeals for
assistance, for sanctions from the organized labor groups, requests for
square news deals to the editors of newspapers, protests against the
high-handed treatment of revolutionists by the United States courts),
lay unmailed, awaiting postage. Vera's watch had disappeared--the
old-fashioned gold repeater that had been his father's. Likewise had
gone the plain gold band from May Setbby's third finger. Things were
desperate. Ramos and Arrellano pulled their long mustaches in despair.
The letters must go off, and the Post Office allowed no credit to
purchasers of stamps. Then it was that Rivera put on his hat and
went out. When he came back he laid a thousand two-cent stamps on May
Sethby's desk.

"I wonder if it is th