T-S had stopped at a caterer's on his way to the gathering, and had done his humble best in the form of a strawberry short-cake almost half as large around as himself; also several bottles of purple color, with the label of grape juice. When the company gathered at the table and these bottles were opened, they made a suspicious noise, and so we all made jokes, as people have the habit of doing in these days of getting used to prohibition. I noticed that Carpenter laughed at the jokes, and seemed to enjoy the whole festivity. It happened that fate had placed me next to James, so I listened to more asceticism. “He oughtn't to do things like this! People will say he likes to eat rich food and to drink. It's bad for the movement for such things to be said.”
“Cheer up, my friend!” I laughed. “Even the Bolsheviks have a feast now and then, when they can get it.”
“You'll see what the newspapers do with this tomorrow,” growled the other; “then you won't think it so funny.”
“Forget it!” I said. “There aren't any reporters here.”
“No,” said he, “but there are spies here, you may be sure. There are spies everywhere, nowadays. You'll see!”
Presently Carpenter called on some of the company for speeches. Would Bartholomew tell about the unemployed, what their organization was doing, and what were their plans? And after that he asked John Colver, who sat on his right hand, to recite some of his verses. John and his friend Philip, a blue eyed, freckle-faced lad who looked as if he might be in high school, told stories about the adventures of outlaw agitators. For several months these two had been traveling the country as “blanket stiffs,” securing employment in lumber-camps and mines, gathering the workers secretly in the woods to listen to the new gospel of deliverance. The employers were organized on a nation-wide scale everywhere throughout the country, and the workers with their feeble craft unions were like men using bows and arrows against machine-guns. There must be One Big union—that was the slogan, and if you preached it, you went every hour in peril of s............