“Why, that don't sound like them fellers were backing the Kaiser, does it?” And the plumber scratched his head. “Say, that sounds all right to me!” “Me too!” said Jimmie. “Didn't know they had that much sense.” “It's just what the German people ought to have, by God,” said the plumber. “Seems to me we ought to hire fellows to give out things like that.” “I think so, too,” said Jimmie, enraptured. The plumber reflected again. “I suppose,” said he, “the trouble is they wouldn't give it to the Germans only; they'd want to give it to both sides.” “Exactly!” said Jimmie, enraptured still more. “And, of course, that wouldn't do,” said the plumber; “that would interfere with discipline.” So Jimmie's hopes were dashed. But the upshot of the interview was that the plumber said he would like to keep the paper and show it to a couple of other fellows. He promised again that he wouldn't mention Jimmie, so Jimmie said all right, and went his way, feeling one seed was lodged in good soil. II The “Y” had come to Archangel along with the rest of the expedition, and had set up a hut, in which the men played checkers and read, and bought chocolate and cigarettes at prices which they considered too high. Jimmie strolled in, and there was a doughboy with whom he had had some chat on the transport. This doughboy had been a printer at home, and he had agreed with Jimmie that maybe a whole lot of politicians and newspaper editors didn't really understand President Wilson's radical thought, and so far as they did understand it, hated and feared it. This printer was reading one of the popular magazines, full of the intellectual pap which a syndicate of big bankers considered safe for the common people. He looked bored, so Jimmie strolled up and lured him away, and repeated his play-acting as with the plumber--and with the same result. Then he strolled in to see one of the picture-shows which had been brought along to beguile the long Arctic nights for the expedition. The picture showed a million-dollar-a-year girl doll-baby in her habitual role, a poor little child-waif dressed in the newest fashion and with a row of ringlets just out of a band-box, sharing those terrible fates which the poor take as an everyday affair, and being rewarded at the end by the love of a rich and noble and devoted youth who solves the social problem by setting her up in a palace. This also had met with the approval of a syndicate of bankers before it reached the common people; and in the very midst of it, while the child-waif with the ringlets was being shown in a “close-up” with large drops of water running down her cheeks, the doughboy in the seat next to Jimmie remarked, “Aw, hell! Why do they keep on giving us this bunk?” So Jimmie suggested that they “cut it”, and they went out, and Jimmie played his little game a third time, and again was asked to leave the leaflet he had picked out of the gutter.