§ 76
So Peter went to Eldorado, and helped to send
eleven men to the penitentiary for periods varying from
three to fourteen years. Then he went to Flagland, and testified in
three different trials, and added seven more scalps to his belt. By this
time he got to realize that the worst the Reds could do was to make
faces at him and show the teeth of trapped rats. He learned to take his
profession more easily, and would sometimes venture to go out for an
evening's pleasure without his guards. When he was hidden in the country
he would take long walks. regardless of the thousands of blood-thirsty
Reds on his trail.
It was while Peter was testifying in Flagland that a magic word
was flashed from Europe, and the whole city went mad with joy. Everyone,
from babies to old men, turned out on the streets and waved flags and
banged tin cans and shouted for peace with victory. When it was learned
that the newspapers had fooled them, they waited three days, and then
turned out and went thru the same performance again. Peter was a bit
worried at first, for fear the coming of peace might end his job of
saving the country; but presently he realized that there was no need for
concern, the smashing of the Reds was going on just the same.
They had some raids on the Socialists while Peter was
in Flagland, and the detectives told him he might come
along for the fun of it. So Peter armed himself with a
black-jack and a revolver, and helped to rush the Socialist
headquarters. The war was over, but Peter felt just as
military as if it were still going on; when he got the little
Jewish organizer of the local pent up in a corner behind
his desk and proceeded to crack him over the head, Peter
understood exactly how our boys had felt in the Argonne.
When he discovered the thrill of dancing on typewriter
keys with his boots, he even understood how the Huns had
felt.
The detectives were joined by a bunch of college boys, who took
to that kind of thing with glee. Having got their blood up, they decided
they might as well clean out the Red movement entirely, so they rushed a
place called the "International Book-Shop," kept by a Hawaiian. The
proprietor dodged into the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant next door,
and put on an apron; but no one had ever seen a Chinaman with a black
mustache, so they fell on him and broke several of the Chinaman's
sauce-pans over his head. They took the contents of the "International
Book-Shop" into the back yard and started a bon-fire with it, and
detectives and college boys on a lark joined hands and danced an
imitation of the Hawaiian hula-hula around the blaze.
So Peter lived a merry life for several months. He had
one or two journeys for nothing, because an obstinate judge
refused to admit that anything that any I. W. W. had ever
said or done anywhere within the last ten years was proper
testimony to be introduced against a particular I. W. W. on
trial. But most judges were willing to co-operate with the
big business men in ridding the country of the Red menace,
and Peter's total of scalps amounted to over a hundred
before his time was up, and Guffey sent him his last cheek
and turned him loose.
That was in the city of Richport, and Peter having in
an inside pocket something over a thousand dollars in savings,
felt that he had earned a good time. He went for a
stroll on the Gay White Way of the city, and in front of a
moving picture palace a golden-haired girl smiled at him. This was
still in the days of two and three-fourths per cent beer, and Peter
invited her into a saloon to have a glass, and when he opened his eyes
again it was dark, and he had a splitting headache, and he groped around
and discovered that he was lying in a dark corner of an alleyway.
Terror gripped his heart, and he clapped his hand to the inside pocket
where his wallet had been, and there was nothing but horrible emptiness.
So Peter was ruined once again, and as usual it was a woman that had
done it!
Peter went to the police-station, but they never found the woman,
or if they did, they divided with her and not with Peter. He threw
himself on the mercy of the sergeant at the desk, and succeeded in
convincing the sergeant that he, Peter, was a part of the machinery of
his country's defense, and the sergeant agreed to stand sponsor for ten
words to Guffey. So Peter sat himself down with a pencil and paper, and
figured over it, and managed to get it into ten words, as follows:
"Woman again broke any old job any pay wire fare." And it appeared that
Guffey must have sat himself down with a pencil and paper and figured
over it also, for the answer came back in ten words, as follows: "Idiot
have wired secretary chamber commerce will give you ticket."
So Peter repaired forthwith to the stately offices of the
Chamber of Commerce, and the hustling, efficient young
business-man secretary sent his clerk to buy Peter a ticket
and put him on the train. In a time of need like that Peter
realized what it meant to have the backing of a great and
powerful organization, with stately offices and money on
hand for all emergencies, even when they arose by telegraph.
He took a new vow of sobriety and decency, so that he might always have
these forces of law and order on his side.
