Well, that was a fair start, you'll admit, but it went on from there. I don't remember ever reading anything quite so vitriolic. It was a bitter attack on the proposed spur track along Third Avenue, which is the habitat of the down-trodden workingman and the playground of his children. Judging solely by the handbill, any one would have thought that the main idea of the C. G. & N. was to kill and maim as many toddling infants as possible. The Council was made an accessory before the fact, and the thing wound up with an appeal to class prejudice and a ringing call to arms. "Men of Third Avenue, shall the City Council give to the bloated bondholders of an impudent monopoly the right to torture and murder your innocent babes? Shall your street be turned into a speedway for a modern car of Juggernaut? Let your answer be heard in the Council Chamber to-morrow morning--'No, a thousand times, no!'" I read it through to the end. Then I whistled. "This," said I, "is hot stuff--very hot stuff! Where did it come from?" "The whole south end of town is plastered with bills like it," said Atkinson glumly. "What have we done now, that they should be picking on us? When have we killed any children, I would like to know? What started this? Who started it? Why?" "That isn't the big question," said I. "The big question is: Will the City Council stand hitched in the face of this attack?" The door opened and the answer to that question appeared--Barney MacShane, officially of the rank and file of the City Council of our fair city, in reality the guiding spirit of that body of petty pirates. Barney was moist and nervous, and he held one of the bills in his right hand. His first words were not reassuring. "All hell is loose--loose for fair!" said he. "Take a look at this thing." "We have already been looking at it," said I with a laugh intended to be light and carefree. "What of it? You don't mean to tell me that you are going to let a mere scrap of paper bother you?" Barney mopped his forehead and sat down heavily. "You can laugh," said he, "but there is more than paper behind this. The whole west end of town is up in arms overnight, and I don't know why. Nobody ever kicked up such a rumpus about a spur track before. That's my ward, you know, and I just made my escape from a deputation of women and children. They treed me at the City Hall--before all the newspaper men--and they held their babies up in their arms and they dared me--yes, dared me--to let this thing go through. And the election coming on and all. It's hell, that's what it is!" "But, Barney," I argued, "we are not asking for anything which the city should not be glad to grant. Think what it means to your ward to have this fine big manufacturing plant in it! Think of the men who will have work----"