f the
red flag--here he was with his mild spectacled eyes and his furry ears
wagging as he walked. It was unbelievable!--and the sun shining on him
quite as impartially as it shone on me.

Coming at last to a pleasant bit of woodland, where a stream ran under
the roadway, I said:

"Stranger, let's sit down and have a bite of luncheon."

He began to expostulate, said he was expected in Kilburn.

"Oh, I've plenty for two," I said, "and I can say, at least, that I am a
firm believer in cooperation."

Without more urging he followed me into the woods, where we sat down
comfortably under a tree.

Now, when I take a fine thick sandwich out of my bag, I always feel like
making it a polite bow, and before I bite into a big brown doughnut, I
am tempted to say, "By your leave, madam," and as for MINCE PIE-----Beau
Brummel himself could not outdo me in respectful consideration. But
Bill Hahn neither saw, nor smelled, nor, I think, tasted Mrs. Ransome's
cookery. As soon as we sat down he began talking. From time to time
he would reach out for another sandwich or doughnut or pickle (without
knowing in the least which he was getting), and when that was gone some
reflex impulse caused him to reach out for some more. When the last
crumb of our lunch had disappeared Bill Hahn still reached out. His hand
groped absently about, and coming in contact with no more doughnuts or
pickles he withdrew it--and did not know, I think, that the meal was
finished. (Confidentially, I have speculated on what might have happened
if the supply had been unlimited!)

But that was Bill Hahn. Once started on his talk, he never thought of
food or clothing or shelter; but his eyes glowed, his face lighted up
with a strange effulgence, and he quite lost himself upon the tide of
his own oratory. I saw him afterward by a flare-light at the centre of a
great crowd of men and women--but that is getting ahead of my story.

His talk bristled with such words as "capitalism," "proletariat,"
"class-consciousness"--and he spoke with fluency of "economic
determinism" and "syndicalism." It was quite wonderful! And from time to
time, he would bring in a smashing quotation from Aristotle, Napoleon,
Karl Marx, or Eugene V. Debs, giving them all equal value, and he cited
statistics!--oh, marvellous statistics, that never were on sea or land.

Once he was so swept away by his own eloquence that he sprang to his
feet and, raising one hand high above his head (quite unc