"No, it cannot be that. You have never been in Millsburgh before, have you?" "No." "It is strange," mused the old basket maker. "It is the papers," returned Vodell with a shrug. "Many times the papers have my picture--you must have seen." "Of course, that is it," exclaimed the Interpreter. "I remember now, distinctly. It was in connection with that terrible bomb outrage in--" "Sir!" interrupted the other indignantly. "Outrage--what do you mean, outrage?" "I was thinking of the innocent people who were killed or injured," returned the Interpreter, calmly. "I believe you were also prominent in those western strikes where so many women and children suffered, were you not?" The labor agitator replied with the exact manner of a scientific lecturer. "It is unfortunate that innocent persons must sometimes be hurt in these affairs. But that is one of the penalties that society must pay for tolerating the conditions that make these industrial wars necessary." "If I remember correctly, you were in the South, too, at the time that mill was destroyed." "Oh, yes, they had me in jail there. But that was nothing. I have many such experiences. They are to me very commonplace. Wherever there are the poor laboring men who must fight for their rights, I go. The mines, shops, mills, factories--it is all the same to me. I go wherever I can serve the Cause. I have been in America now ten years, nearly eleven." "You are not, then, a citizen of this country?" Jake Vodell laughed contemptuously. "Oh, sure I am a citizen of this country--this great America of fools and cowards that talk all the time so big about freedom and equality, while the capitalist money hogs hold them in slavery and rob them of the property they create. I had to become a citizen when the war came, you see, or they would have sent me away. But for that I would make myself a citizen of some cannibal country first." The old basket maker's dark eyes blazed with quick fire and he lifted himself with sudden strength to a more erect position in his wheel chair. But when he spoke his deep voice was calm and steady. "You have been in our little city nearly a month, I understand." "Just about. I have been looking around, getting acquainted, studying the situation. One must be very careful to know the right men, you understand. It pays, I find, to go a little slow at first. We will go fast enough later." His thick lips parted in a meaning grin. The Interpreter's hands gripped the wheels of his chair.