, and Joe, turning, noticed two
men leaning beside him at the counter; one, a fine and fiery Jew,
handsome, dark, young; the other, a large and gentle Italian, with
pallid features, dark hair sprinkled with gray, and a general air of
largeness and leadership about him. The Jew had spoken.

"Why a red?" asked Joe.

"Oh," said Latsky, quietly, "I come from Russia, you know!"

"Well, I'm a revolutionist myself," said Joe. "But I haven't any color
yet."

"Union man?" asked the Italian.

"Not exactly. I run a radical newspaper."

"What's the name of it?" asked the Jew.

"_The Nine-Tenths_."

The words worked magic. They were all eagerness, and exchanged names.
Thus Joe came to know Jacob Izon and Salvatore Giotto and Nathan Latsky.
He was greatly interested in Izon, the facts of whose life he soon came
to know. Izon was a designer, working at Marrin's, the shirtwaist
manufacturer; he made thirty dollars a week, had a wife and two
children, and was studying engineering in a night school. He and his
wife had come from Russia, where they had been revolutionists.

The three men examined the paper closely.

"That's what we need," said Izon. "You must let us help to spread it!"

Joe added the three to the Stove Circle.

He went to Giotto's house with him, up to the sixth floor of a tenement,
and met the Italian's neat, dark-eyed wife, and looked in on the three
sleeping children. Then under the blazing gas in the crowded room, with
its cheap, frail, shiny furniture, its crayons on the wall, its crockery
and cheap clocks, and with the noise of the city's night rising all
about them, the two big men talked together. Joe was immensely
interested. The Italian was large-hearted, open-minded, big in body and
soul, and spoke quaintly, but thoughtfully.

"Tell me about yourself," said Joe.

Giotto spread out the palms of his hands.

"What to tell? I get a good education in the old country--but not much
spik English--better read, better write it. I try hard to learn. Come
over here, and education no good. Nobody want Italian educated man. So
worked on Italian paper--go round and see the poor--many tragedies,
many--like the theater. Write a novel, a romance, about the poor. Wish I
could write it in English."

"Good work," cried Joe. "Then what did you do?"

Giotto laughed.

"Imported the wine--got broke--open the saloon. Toughs come there,
thieves, to swindle the immigrants. Awfully slick. No good to warn
immigrants-