"That was the trouble. I worked so well that I had to throw up the job, sooner or later, for fear I would get to be a fixture and settle down there! That almost happened to me once, that time in California when I was selling real estate. I was pretty much in love with a girl, and I don't know what would have happened, but one night her father turned on the porchlight and caught us kissing. The girl ran up-stairs, and left me and her father to have it out. He was n't He was n't angry at me; it seemed he liked me for some reason. He offered me a cigar, and talked to me in a friendly enough way—about himself. I guess he was as embarrassed as I was. He told me his whole history. He had been a poor boy, and had worked hard for everything he had. He had married young, when he had hardly one dollar to rub against another. It seemed reckless at the time, he said, but it had come out all right; now he owned this house, with the mortgages all paid off.

"No doubt the old man meant well, but it scared me. I saw myself setI saw myself settling down in that little town and buying a house for that girl to live in, and spending the rest of my life paying off the mortgage. The truth was, I was almost crazy enough about her to do something like that, and that was what scared me. Well, that night I did n't go to bed. I walked up and down thinking about it, and then just before daybreak I lit out and took to the road again."

On the road, of course, a man who is afraid of marriage can feel freer in his mind. A girl is not very likely to want to marry a tramp. But Jasper was a handsome lad, and his shy ways were just the sort that many a girl

takes to. takes to. As a vagabond he could find pretty girls to exchange kisses with, and yet not be afraid of becoming involved in domestic slavery and misery. If danger threatened, he drifted along and kept his freedom.

And yet it seems that he was n't content with being a happy vagabond. He must have felt all along that he had a duty to the world, and he could n't keep on running away from it. At any rate, when he was twenty-six years old he went through a swift process of conversion to the gospel of syndicalism, joined the Industrial Workers of the World, and became an active organizer.

V. His Duty to Society. Jasper Weed was now, according to his lights, striving to make the world more beautiful, orderly, and happy.

As is so often the case, these utopian endeavors were not generally appreciated. The organization was being accused of every crime, and Jasper, by becoming a member, became automatically a kind of outlaw, to be hunted down by the police. He was arrested again and again, and served many months in jail.

But he kept on, organizing the seasonal workers along the coast, assisting in strikes, joining in freespeech fights. The history of the American labor struggle, learned in many a tale from veterans old and young, became the background of his own life; names like Cœur d'Alene, Yakima Valley, and Mesaba Range stirred him like the names of battles. He was happy at last. Where else but in the "Wobbly" halls could he hear talk that was not the talk of money and the things money will buy? He had three good friends,

Pete the Peg-leg, who knew the poetry of Shelley and Blake by heart; Swede Oscar, a kindly giant out of some heroic fairy-tale; and Little Bill, with a golden tongue for singing, and a mocking tongue for speech, who laughed even at the cause he loved. Jasper had always an immense capacity for friendship, and this was, from all accounts, a gay, devil-may-care, epic friendship while it lasted.

It was not fated to last long. The war against the organization became frantic and ruthless. Men were thrown into jail for having a red card, and tales were told of others branded with red-hot irons. The death-roll mounted swiftly. Little Bill of the golden voice and mocking tongue was shot dead by a deputy sheriff down in the Sacramento Valley. Swede Oscar was thrown into a county jail of which terrible tales were told, and died there killed, his friends said. And Pete the Peg-leg, in the free-speech fight at Seattle, on the boat that was met at the dock by an armed mob of citizens, was shot and killed at Jasper's side.

Jasper himself, wounded in the arm, lay hidden in the house of a fellow-worker. And there, waiting for his wound to heal, he had hours of sick and feverish thought. The whole world was at war: it seemed to him a kind of insanity, a suicide of the human race. He had scorned that folly. And yet-the thought came unbidden-what had he himself been doing except take part in a war, the war of the classes? Was that, perhaps, a kind of insanity, too? Was it merely another way in which the human race was committing suicide?

such things. Those thoughts weakened a man for the struggle. They were not the thoughts of a fighter; they were the thoughts of a coward. Worse than that, they were the thoughts of a "scissor-bill," which is the militant term of healthy contempt for a kind of weak-minded pacifist in the class war. Jasper was ashamed of himself. But these weak thoughts continued to infest him.

He had believed that he was helping to create a new society within the shell of the old. Perhaps that was true. But it seemed very dim and far away and theoretical just now. His friends-Bill dead, Oscar dead, Pete dead, killed like mad dogs. For what? The cause, the future. But friendship is beautiful, too.

Jasper was sick at heart. Oh, no doubt he would get back his old fighting spirit some time. But, feeling this way, could he go on with the struggle?

His wound healed, and there was need for him. But he did not answer the call. He ran away once more from duty. He beat his way back to New York, took some kind of job, and let the world alone.

Moreover, he had discovered in Greenwich Village a kind of tramp he had never known before the artist kind. These painters, poets, story-writers, were old friends in a new guise. He and they understood one another perfectly. Perhaps I should say we understood one another, for I was one of those artistic tramps living in Greenwich Village then, and one of Jasper's new friends. We had him at all our parties, and he taught us to sing the "Wobbly" songs. It came natural enough to us to sing:

"Oh, why don't you work

Like other men do? How the hell can I work

When there's no work to do?

"Hallelujah, I'm a bum!

Hallelujah, bum again! Hallelujah, give us a hand-outRevive us again!"

It was at one of these parties that Jasper met Inez Vance, the artist, then poor and obscure and one of us. They fell in love with each other at the first glance, and for a fortnight we saw little enough of either of them.

But a fortnight was about as long as any of Inez Vance's enthusiasms lasted, and we were not surprised to see Jasper Weed back at our parties. He sang again a little sadly:

"Hallelujah, I'm a bum!

Hallelujah, bum again!"

And then came the news of the indictment by a Federal grand jury in Chicago of over a hundred members of the Industrial Workers of the

Mrs. Raymond, who had been at many of our parties, and who thought Jasper a nice boy, immediately put up the five-thousand-dollars bail set for him. And so Jasper remained with us for a while. But soon enough the time came for him to stand trial along with his friends, and we bade him good-by and good luck and saw him off on the train to Chicago. Inez Vance was not one of the farewell party.

"Good-by, boys and girls! I'm going back where I belong," was his parting word.

"Do you really think he is in any danger of having to go to prison?” some one asked.

"Oh, I don't think so," some one else answered lightly.

It was n't until the trial had gone on for some time that we realized the truth.

VII. Pandora's Box. The trial was slowly nearing its end when Jasper Weed, from his place in one of the long rows where the defendants sat wearily, glanced out over the court-room audience and saw with a pang of incredulous surprise, in a far corner, the face of Inez Vance. She was not looking at him. She was whispering to a man who sat beside her, and smiling. Jasper looked away.

What was she doing here? What had brought her to Chicago? A visit, perhaps, to some of her rich new friends, of the sort that like to patronize struggling young genius. But why was she here, at this trial? In idle curiosity, no doubt. Yes, this was summer, and there were no good shows in town except this. That

These

was why she had come, to look on, smiling, as at a melodrama. That was her way. He knew. things meant nothing to her. Nothing? That was n't quite true. These things meant as much to her as anything else did outside her art and her play; nothing of what is called the serious business of life meant very much to her. She would see this trial as she saw the whole human spectacle, with irony, with pity, as though from far away. It meant to her the hopelessness of hope, the folly of heroism, the uselessness of endeavor; it was one more illustration of a tiresome tale that she already knew by heart. Oh, she would be sorry in her remote fashion.

Her presence made him remember what he had forgotten-that there was a world where these things meant no more than that. It was an artists' world, a world of idlers and lookerson, not of fighters. He had been there, among those idlers, he had been one of them for a moment; now he was back where he belonged, among those who struggle and suffer. He would have forgotten the existence of that queer other world if she had not come back, startlingly, to remind him of it.

He felt a sudden indignation at her presence there. What right had she to bring into this arena of dust and blood her Olympian serenity? This was not a spectacle, to be looked at and enjoyed; this was real. Yes, it was real to them all, judge, prosecutors, defendants. All the world took this seriously. She alone did not.

He wondered abruptly how he could ever for a moment have fancied himself in love with her.

He looked back at her, and their eyes met dizzyingly. At that mo

ment the judge spoke, interrupting a cross-examination:

"The court is adjourned until ten o'clock to-morrow morning." All around men rose to their feet, and talk broke out. Reddy and Mike, at Jasper's side, were telling each other what they thought of the district attorney. One of the lawyers lighted a cigarette. The crowd in the courtroom began to stream toward the door. The defendants lined up, to be marched out between a guard of bailiffs and detectives. Jasper, one of a lucky few, by virtue of Mrs. Raymond's five thousand dollars, could walk forth a free man till morning. But he lingered, with a confused mind, replying indifferently to the remarks some one was addressing to him. Why had she come? Something like hatred filled and smothered him.

As he went out of the door at last, she was standing there, waiting. She took her place at his side, quietly, put her hand gently on his arm, and they walked together out of the building.

"When did you get here?" he asked. "This noon," she said.

"What are your plans?" he hazarded.

She laughed.

"My plans are vague, as usual. But first of all, I'd like something to eat. The fact is, in my incompetent way, I lost my purse, with what little money I had left, as soon as I arrived. I think I left it in a taxi. Will you take me to dinner?"

"You poor child, of course."

"I should n't have taken the taxi, should I? And then I would n't have lost my money. But it was n't very much; that 's one comfort." She