"The wife and baby story was a rank fake--I'm a marine," said the well-dressed man taking another drink. It seemed to him that the task of helping the needy was a thankless one, and he wished he had the overcoat back again. He had been waiting nearly two hours when the switchman came in. "I had a hard time finding a purchaser," explained the striker, "and finally when I did sell it I could only get twelve dollars and they made me give my name and tell how I came to have such a coat. I suppose they thought I had stolen it and I dare say I looked guilty for it is so embarrassing to try to sell something that really doesn't belong to you, and to feel yourself suspected of having stolen it." "And you told them that a gentleman had given the coat to you to sell because he was sorry for you?" "Yes, I gave them a description of you and told them the place." "That was right," said the gentleman, glancing toward the door. "Here are two dollars; come back here to-morrow and I'll have something more for you--good-by." And the philanthropist passed out by a side door which opened on an alley. The striker gripped the two-dollar bill hard in his hand and started for the front door. All thought of hunger had left him now, and he was thinking only of his starving wife, and wondering what would be best for her to eat. Two or three men in citizens' dress, accompanied by a policeman, were coming in just as he was going out, but he was looking at the money and did not notice them. "There goes the thief," said one of the men, and an officer laid a heavy hand on the striker's shoulder. The man looked up into the officer's face with amazement, and asked what the matter was. "Did you sell an overcoat to this gentleman a little while ago?" asked the policeman. "Yes," said the striker glancing down at the two dollars he still held in his hand. "Und yer sthold dot coats fum mine vindo'," said a stout man shoving his fist under the switchman's nose. "A gentleman gave me the coat in this saloon," urged the striker. "Why, he was here a moment ago." "Ah! dot's too tin," laughed the tailor, "tak' 'im avay, Meester Bleasman, tak' 'im avay," and the miserable man was hurried away to prison. That night while the switchman sat in a dark cell his young wife lay dying of cold and hunger in a fireless room, and when an enterprising detective came to search the house for stolen goods on the following morning, he found her there stiff and cold. Of course no one was to blame in particular, unless it was the well-dressed gentleman who had "helped" the striker, for no one, in particular, was responsible for the strike. It may have been the company and it may have been the brotherhood, or both, but you can't put a railroad company or a brotherhood in jail. CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH