Armstrong pondered deeply on the problems and responsibilities
now opening out before him.

The finding of that little red-leather note-book, he fully understood,
had at one stroke put him in possession of facts more vital to the
labor-movement and the world at large than any which had ever developed
since the very beginning of Capitalism. A Socialist to the backbone,
thoroughly class-conscious and dowered with an incisive intellect,
Gabriel thrilled at thought that he, by chance, had been chosen as the
instrument through which he felt the final revolution now must work. And
though he remained outwardly calm, as he bent above his toil, inwardly
he was aflame. His heart throbbed with an excitement he could scarce
control. His brain seemed on fire; his soul pulsed with savage joy and
magnificent inspiration. For he was only four-and-twenty, and the bitter
grind of years and toil had not yet worn his spirit down nor quelled the
ardor of his splendid strength and optimism.

Working at his routine labor, his mind was not upon it. No, rather it
dwelt upon the vast discovery he had made--or seemed to have made--the
night before. Clearly limned before his vision, he still saw the notes,
the plans, the calculations he had been able to decipher in the
Billionaire's lost note-book--the note-book which now, deep in the
pocket of his jumper that hung behind him on a hook against the wall,
drew his every thought, as steel draws the compass-needle.

"Incredible, yet true!" he pondered, as he filed a brass casting for a
new-type dynamo. "These men are plotting to strangle the world to
death--to strangle, if they cannot own and rule it! And, what's more, I
see nothing to prevent their doing it. The plan is sound. They have the
means. At this very moment, the whole human race is standing in the
shadow of a peril so great, a slavery so imminent, that the most savage
war of conquest ever waged would be a mere skirmish, by comparison!"

Mechanically he labored on and on, turning the tremendous problem in his
brain, striving in vain for some solution, some grasp at effective
opposition. And, as he thought, a kind of dumb hopelessness settled down
about him, tangible almost as a curtain black and heavy.

"What shall I do?" he muttered to himself. "What can I do, to strike
these devils from their villainous plan of mastery?"

As yet, he saw nothing clearly. No way seemed open to him. Alone, he
knew he could do nothing; yet whither should