ou.

LAURA. I'm not easily startled any more. I'm getting quite used to
meeting revolutionists.

JACK. You don't call them revolutionists that you meet at the
settlement, I hope?

LAURA. No; but all sorts of people come there.

JULIA. By the way, Jack 'phoned me this afternoon, and said he'd invited
a friend here. I hope you don't mind.

LAURA. Why, no; not at all. Is it one of your Russian friends?

JACK. Oh, no; he's an American. His name is Montague. I was just
starting to tell Julia about him when you came in.

LAURA. Go ahead.

JACK. It was quite an adventure. I don't know that I've ever had one
that was more exciting. And I've had quite some, you know.

LAURA. Yes; I've been told so.

JACK. It was last election day, in a polling place on the Bowery. I was
a watcher for the Socialists, and this Montague was one of the watchers
for the reform crowd. The other one was drunk, and so he had the work
all to himself. It was in the heart of Leary's district, and the crowd
there was a tough one, I can tell you. It was a close election.

LAURA. Yes; I know.

JACK. There'd been all kinds of monkey-work going on, and the box was
full of marked and defective ballots, and Montague set to work to make
them throw them out. I didn't pay much attention at first. I was only
there to see that our own ballots were counted; but pretty soon I began
to take interest. He had every one in the place against him. There was
a Tammany inspector of elections and four tally clerks... all in with
Tammany, of course. There were three or four Tammany policemen, and,
outside of the railing, the worst crowd of toughs that ever you laid
eyes on. To make matters worse, there were several men inside who had
no business to be there... one of them a Judge of the City Court, and
another a State's attorney... and all of them storming at Montague.

JULIA. What did he do?

JACK. He just made them throw out the marked ballots. They were willing
enough to put them to one side, but wanted to count them in on the tally
sheets. And, of course, Montague knew perfectly well that if they ever
counted them in they'd close up at the end, and that would be all there
was to it. He had the law with him, of course. He's a lawyer himself,
and he seemed to know it all by heart; and he'd quote it to them,
paragraph by paragraph, and they'd look it up and find that he was
right, and, of course, that only made them madder. The old Judge
would start up in his s