The socialist, who had come to speak on the streets of Bidwell, was a Swede, and his wife had come with him. As he talked his wife made figures on a blackboard. The old story of the trick by which the citizens of the town had lost their money in the plant-setting machine company was revived and told over and over. The Swede, a big man with heavy fists, spoke of the prominent citizens of the town as thieves who by a trick had robbed their fellows. As he stood on the box beside his wife, and raising his fists shouted crude sentences condemning the capitalist class, men who had gone away angry came back to listen. The speaker declared himself a workman like themselves and, unlike the religious salvationists who occasionally spoke on the streets, did not beg for money. “I'm a workman like yourselves,” he shouted. “Both my wife and myself work until we've saved a little money. Then we come out to some town like this and fight capital until we're busted. We've been fighting for years now and we'll keep on fighting as long as we live.” As the orator shouted out his sentences he raised his fist as though to strike, and looked not unlike one of his ancestors, the Norsemen, who in old times had sailed far and wide over unknown seas in search of the fighting they loved. The men of Bidwell began to respect him. “After all, what he says sounds like mighty good sense,” they declared, shaking their heads. “Maybe Ed Hall isn't any worse than any one else. We got to break up the system. That's a fact. Some of these days we got to break up the system.” * * * * * Jim Gibson got to the door of Joe's shop at half-past seven o'clock. Several men stood on the sidewalk and he stopped and stood before them, intending to tell again the story of his triumph over his employer. Inside the shop Joe was already at his bench and at work. The men, two of them strikers from the corn-cutting machine plant, complained bitterly of the difficulty of supporting their families, and a third man, a fellow with a big black mustache who smoked a pipe, began to repeat some of the axioms in regard to industrialism and the class war he had picked up from the socialist orator. Jim listened for a moment and then, turning, put his thumb on his buttocks and wriggled his fingers. “Oh, hell,” he sneered, “what are you fools talking about? You're going to get up a union or get into the socialist party. What're you talking about? A union or a party can't help a man who can't look out for himself.”