Section 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.
