The Drums of Jeopardy - Page 80/202

Early the next morning in a bedroom in a rooming house for aliens in

Fifteenth Street, a man sat in a chair scanning the want columns of a

newspaper. Occasionally he jotted down something on a slip of paper.

This man's job was rather an unusual one. He hunted jobs for other

men--jobs in steel mills, great factories, in the textile districts, the

street-car lines, the shipping yards and docks, any place where there

might be a grain or two of the powder of unrest and discontent. His

business was to supply the human matches.

No more parading the streets, no more haranguing from soap boxes. The

proper place nowadays was in the yard or shop corners at noontime. A

word or two dropped at the right moment; perhaps a printed pamphlet;

little wedges wherever there were men who wanted something they neither

earned nor deserved. Here and there across the land little flares,

one running into the other, like wildfire on the plains, and then--the

upheaval. As in Russia, so now in Germany; later, England and France and

here. The proletariat was gaining power.

He was no fool, this individual. He knew his clay, the day labourer,

with his parrotlike mentality. Though the victim of this peculiar potter

absorbs sounds he doesn't often absorb meanings. But he takes these

sounds and respouts them and convinces himself that he is some kind

of Moses, headed for the promised land. Inflammable stuff. Hence, the

strikes which puzzle the average intelligent American citizen. What is

it all about? Nobody seems to know.

Once upon a time men went on a strike because they were being cheated

and abused. Now they strike on the principle that it is excellent

policy always to be demanding something; it keeps capitalism where it

belongs--on the ragged edge of things. No matter what they demand they

never expect to give an equivalent; and a just cause isn't necessary.

Thus the present-day agitator has only one perplexity--that of eluding

the iron hand of the Department of Justice.

Suddenly the man in the chair brought the newspaper close up and stared.

He jumped to his feet, ran out and up the next flight of stairs. He

stopped before a door and turned the knob a certain number of times.

Presently the door opened the barest crack; then it was swung wide

enough to admit the visitor.

"Look!" he whispered, indicating Cutty's advertisement.

The occupant of the room snatched the newspaper and carried it to a

window.

Will purchase the drums of jeopardy at top price. No questions

asked. Address this office.

Double C.

"Very good. I might have missed it. We shall sell the accursed drums to

this gentleman."