"The people be damned!" responded Parks angrily. "Why should I give my life to fight for those who won’t fight for themselves? Why should I scheme for the slaves who have not the sense to follow the leaders who point the way to emancipation? We perfect our plans to free them from the oppressions of a capitalistic government, and when we call on them to take arms and follow us they fall to robbing Chinamen. When I appeal to them to follow me to the City Hall instead of the wash-house, the response I get is a black eye. That’s my reward for devotion to the rights of the people." "It must have been a most demonstrative meeting," I replied without a trace of sympathy, "and it did one good thing, for it knocked some sense into you." "Hampden," said Parks, with a lofty air that made a comic contrast with his flaming eye, "I forgive you the expression. But I assure you I retract nothing of my views. What I have learned is that the great era for which I have worked can not be brought about by men who understand neither their wrongs nor their rights. We must educate them until they see the truth." "Oh, then I suppose you are on your way to the City Hall to get your leather-lunged orator out of jail to resume his teachings?" Parks flushed angrily. "Kearney?" he cried. "He can rot in his cell for anything I will do to get him out. I refuse, sir, to voice the suspicions that I have been forced to entertain, but he is a hindrance, not an aid to the cause of the people. They must be taught the large truths, not the little truths, if they are to act wisely. Let us not mention his name." I left Parks at the corner of Kearny and Merchant Streets, and walking down to the door of the City Prison, applied for permission to see the prisoner I had captured in the final riot above the Mail docks. The death of Peter Bolton made it likely that I could induce him to answer the questions he had flouted the previous night. I was admitted without difficulty, and found the cages filled with scores of men herded together into brutal contiguousness. It was impossible to examine the prisoner before these cell-mates, but by the exercise of diplomacy I secured the privilege of talking with him in the comparative quiet of the Receiving Hospital. The man was brought shambling in, cast an impudent glance at me, and then looked sullenly at the floor. His pale face and sunken eyes and cheeks betrayed the opium smoker, and his manner was that of the hoodlum. "You had better make a clean breast of it," I exhorted him. "I suppose you know that Bolton is dead." "Yep," he said uneasily. "The old rooster that done for him was in here. He didn’t look like he’d nerve enough to kill a cat." "Well, I warn you that you have no one to protect you now, and your only chance of getting off with a light punishment is to answer my questions and tell the truth."