The day following Bivens\'s offer to Stuart was made memorable by a sinister event in union Square.

A mass meeting of the unemployed had been called to protest against their wrongs and particularly to denounce the men who had advanced the price of bread by creating a corner in wheat.

On his way down town Stuart read with astonishment that Dr. Woodman would preside over this gathering. He determined to go. As he hurried through the routine work of his office, giving his orders for the day, he received a telephone call from Nan, asking him to accompany her to this meeting.

"I don\'t think you ought to go," he answered emphatically.

"Why?"

"Well, there might be a riot for one thing."

"I\'m not afraid."

"And you might hear some very plain talk about your husband."

"That\'s exactly why I wish to go!"

"I don\'t think it wise," Stuart protested.

"I\'m going, anyhow. Won\'t you accompany me?"

"If you will go—yes."

"That\'s a good boy. I\'ll send one of my cars to the office for you immediately."

An hour later when Stuart, seated by Nan\'s side, reached union Square, the automobile was stopped by the police and turned into Seventeenth Street.

Every inch of space in the Square seemed blocked by a solid mass of motionless humanity. Stuart left the car in Seventeenth Street and succeeded finally in forcing a way through the crowd to a position within a hundred feet of the rude platform that had been erected for the orators. The scene about the stand bristled with policemen, most of them apparently picked men, their new uniforms glittering in the sun and their polished clubs flashing defiance as they twirled them in the faces of the people with deliberate provocation.

Besides the special detail of picked men who moved about the stand, occasionally clubbing an inoffensive man, a battalion of three hundred reserves was drawn up in serried lines about a hundred yards to the north on the edge of Fourth Avenue. Between these reserves and the crowd about the stand an open space was kept clear for their possible assault in case of any disturbance.

Near these reserves stood the big red automobile of Hamberger, the police captain of the District. He was reputed to be a millionaire, though his salary had never been more than enough to support his wife and children. The sight of his fat insolent face as the representative of Law and Order gave Stuart the impression of farce so irresistibly that he laughed. Surely some of Bivens\'s sinister philosophy to which he had listened yesterday had a pretty solid basis in the facts of our everyday life.

When the speaking began Stuart pressed his way as close as possible, drawing Nan with him.

He was astonished at the genuine eloquence and power with which the first speaker, evidently of anarchistic leanings, developed his theme, a passionate plea for freedom and the highest development of the individual man. He sketched the growth of the American Republic from its crude beginning in the unbroken forests, and showed with clear historic grasp how all the thinking and creative deeds which had added anything to the sum of human progress belonged to this period of anarchistic liberties. He traced the growth of tyranny in the development of our system of laws until to-day we were less free than the people of England, who lived under the hereditary king against whom our fathers had rebelled. A tyranny of corrupt and ignorant politicians he denounced as the lowest and vilest yet evolved in history.

His concluding sentences roused his crowd to a pitch of wild enthusiasm.

"In the Old World, from which your fathers and mothers fled in search of freedom, men enslaved their fellow-men by becoming lords, dukes or kings, murdering or poisoning their way to a castle or a throne. The methods of your modern masters are more subtle and successful. You vote to make them your masters, and still imagine that you are free.

"Freedom belongs to him who would be free. And at last the masses of the people are becoming restless, not so much because they lack leisure and luxury, but because they have nothing to live for.

"Millions ask the question: Is life worth living?

"Because they have begun to ask it, they will never cease until they have made it worth living.

"A deep, half-confused consciousness of the injustice of life has begun to clutch our throats. We begin to curse both church and state, thank God, at last! Statesmen must hear or die. Property must respond or strengthen its bolts and bars and there\'s no room on the door for another bolt. The church that has no answer to this cry is dead already."

A cheer like the roar of an angry sea swept the crowd. Again and again it rose and fell, increasing in volume as its contagious spirit set fire to the restless minds of the thousands who had packed the Square but could not hear the man who was voicing their faith.

In the deep roar of their cheers there was no sodden despair. As Stuart looked into the faces of the crowd he saw no trace of the degeneracy and loss of elemental manhood which makes the sight of an European mob loathsome and hopeless. These men were still men, the might of freemen in their souls and good right arms.

Where had such crowds met before? Somewhere he had seen them in body or in spirit. Was it in the streets of Paris before the French Revolution sent those long lines of death carts rumbling over her pavements to the guillotine?

"Who is that fellow, Jim," Nan asked.

"Haven\'t the remotest idea."

"He\'s a great orator if he is an anarchist. He made the cold chills run down my back."

"Yes, I\'m just wondering how many more such firebrands of eloquence could be found in this swaying forest of nobodies."

He watched the sneering faces of the policemen as they demanded silence of the crowd. They couldn\'t understand what the fools were cheering about. They had instructions to pull the whole "show" at a nod from the censor. But he had deemed it as harmless as a Sunday-school picnic. The words of the orator had rolled from his uniform like water from a duck\'s back.

The next speaker devoted his time to a fierce denunciation of the church, and ended with a bitter denial of the existence of God.

When the last echoes of the cheers had died away there was a stir near the stand and Stuart saw the stalwart figure of Dr. Woodman suddenly rise. He lifted his arm over the crowd, demanding silence.

Stuart could see that his old friend was deeply moved. His big hands were trembling and his voice vibrant with emotion as he stepped to the edge of the platform and faced the crowd. Among the five thousand people who stood within ear shot at least a hundred recognized him and gave a hearty cheer.

The doctor plunged at once into the message with which his heart was quivering:

"Let n............