"So you are an anarchist? Yes, I helped to hang your friends. I had some doubts about the matter then. But just here, now, after my experience with you, I haven't any at all." I gave him a good sermon--the gospel of man against man, as I knew it, as I had learned it in my struggles for fortune. I showed him how I was more bound than he,--bound hand and foot, for he could run away, and I couldn't. At bottom he wasn't a bad sort of fellow, only easily excited and loose-minded. In conclusion I said:-- "Now we'll just step down. I am going home to get some supper." I started, and he followed on meekly after me. It was a rather creepy feeling I had, going over those stairs! They were perfectly dark by this time, and steep. "You'll try to fix me for this?" the fellow said, when we reached the first floor, and I had started toward the office. "I guess we'll call this square," I replied, "and forget it. Good night." He made a line for the gate, and that was the last I ever saw of him. I found the superintendent locked in the office. He had been spending his time telephoning to the nearest town for help. Then I took the train for Chicago. That experience was the greatest bracer I had ever had in my life. Hanging there with the expectation every minute of dropping into the vats below had steadied my nerves for a good long haul. And I needed it, too. CHAPTER XIX DENOUNCED _The snake lifts its head--My picture gets into the newspaper--The Reverend Mr. Hardman in his church--The opinions of ministers--Mr. Hardman points his finger at me--I reply--A scene--The real blow--May has her say--Women, religion, and this earth_ It was the Saturday after my little adventure in Indiana. As I was riding downtown in a street car, my eye was caught by a coarse cut in the newspaper that the man opposite me was reading. The picture seemed in a general way familiar. Underneath it ran these flaring head-lines:-- BRIBERY OF A JUDGE! OFFICIAL IN PACKING CONCERN IMPLICATED! EXCLUSIVE STORY IN THE _NATIONALIST_! I bought a copy of the paper, and when I reached my office I read the article. It was sprung, plainly enough, to hit Garretson, who was up for reelection, and, in the main, they had a straight story,--Lokes, Frost, the judge's brother-in-law, and all. And the right figures, too! The reference to Slocum and me was vague, and Ed was left out altogether. My picture was put in alongside of the judge's and labelled "Vice-President and General Manager of the American Meat Products Company." The inference was plain, and the paper wouldn't have dared to go so far, I judged, if they hadn't their facts where they could produce them. There was no word of the story in the other morning papers. I folded up the article and put it away in my desk, then telegraphed Slocum, who had gone to St. Louis on some railroad business for Farson and me.