main thoroughfare, a poor, plain man from the Eleventh Ward
of the tenement-houses--this man who had been striving and struggling,
reading and studying, endeavoring to find some way out for the poor
people; some relief--something that would help. Farr knew what sort of
men were waiting in the little hall. He had attended their meetings. It
was the only resource they understood--a public meeting. They knew that
the important folks up-town held public meetings of various sorts, and
the poor folks had decided that there must be virtue in assemblages.
But nothing had seemed to come out of their efforts in the tenement
districts.

Farr stepped back to where Citizen Drew stood.

"I think I will say something to you, after all. Tell the boys in Union
Hall to be patient and I'll bring the Honorable Archer Converse around
this evening."

He smiled into the stare of blank amazement on the man's face, flung up
a hand to check the stammering questions, and went off up the street.

"A decent man's conscience will make him keep a promise he has made to
a child or to the simple or to the helpless," Farr told himself. "I have
undertaken a big contract, I reckon, but now that I have put myself on
record I've got to go ahead and deliver the goods. At any rate, I feel
on my mettle." Then he smiled at what seemed to be his sudden folly. "I
think I'll have to lay it all to those nice old ladies who were foolish
enough to put that knight-errant idea into my head," he said.

XVII

THE MADNESS OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT

Farr glanced again at the big clock in the First National block.

He had less than one hour to wait, according to the schedule Citizen
Drew had promulgated in regard to the unvarying movements of the
Honorable Archer Converse. As to how this first coup in the operations
of that nascent organization, the Public-spirited Press Gang, was to be
managed Farr had little idea at that moment.

He decided to devote that hour to devising a plan, deciding to attempt
nothing until he saw the honorable gentleman march down the club steps.
A club must be sanctuary--but the streets belonged to the people.

Therefore, Farr took a walk. He went back into that quarter of the city
from which he had emerged during his stroll with Citizen Drew; he
felt his courage deserting him in those more imposing surroundings of
up-town; he went back to the purlieus of the poor, hoping for contact
that might charge him afresh with determination. He