"Just the thing!" said Waldorf, with warm appreciation of his colleague’s work. "It should call out every man and woman who is in sympathy with the oppressed toilers. ’To express sympathy and take other action in regard to their fellow workmen.’ That’s well put, Parks." "What other action are you going to take?" asked Enos suspiciously. "Come to the meeting and see," said Parks. *CHAPTER XX* *ON THE SAND-LOTS* City Hall Avenue and the vacant lots below it bustled with the activity of an arriving circus. Two bonfires blazing fiercely sent the crackling sparks flying skyward, and cast so warm a glow on the faces of those who approached them, that even the small boys, who dared one another to feed the flames, shielded their eyes with uplifted arm, and made their bows before the altar of the God of Fire in reverse of the customary attitude of respect. A wooden platform had been erected near the lower end of the triangle of vacant lots, and a row of gasoline torches blazed about it. Groups of men were gathered here and there about the sandy space, listening to impromptu orators arguing in dissonant chorus over the significance of the eastern riots, or denouncing the Chinese as the source of all industrial and social woes. The groups were in a state of flux, swelling where the voices rose loudest, and melting away where the discussion sank to a conversational monotone. But the most active elements of the crowd were the bands of young men, hardly more than boys, who formed into gangs of ten to twenty, and roughly pushed and jostled their way through the crowd with cries that indicated their disesteem for the Chinese, their regard for Kearney and for the Pittsburgh rioters, and their especial disapproval of the police. Behind the bonfires and torches, the dark groups and eddying streams of men, rose the half-built New City Hall. Touched here and there with the red glow of the bonfires in front, and framed in silhouette by the dying shimmer of the sunset behind, it looked like some ancient, majestic ruin--far different in outline from the ruin it was to become, when thirty years later it was racked by earthquake, and swept by a mighty conflagration--yet one that furnished a striking background for the turbulent scene enacted before it. As I entered the crowded space from the Market Street side, I had noted these details before I discovered Parks standing by the platform and glancing impatiently about him. "Hampden," he cried, "I am glad to see that you have joined this great outpouring of the people. You shall have a seat with me on the platform." "I wouldn’t miss the fun for fifteen cents. But what are you going to do? What’s your plan?"