Part 21 (1/2)

”Well”--Nathan Latsky (for so he proved to be) shrugged his shoulders--”I'm one myself. But--what's in a name?”

”He's a red revolutionist!” said a voice, 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+rtwaist 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, s.h.i.+ny 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. n.o.body 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--they lose all their money. Come in crying. What can I do? I get after the b.u.ms and they say, 'Giotto no good; we will kill him.'

Then I get broke again. Go to West Virginia and work in the coal-mine--break my leg. And that was the baddest place in the world.”

”The mine?”

”And the town. Laborers--Italian, n.i.g.g.e.r; saloons and politics--Jews; bosses all Irish--nothing but the saloons and the women to spenda the money. Company own everything--stores, saloons, women. Pay you the money and get it all back. Every day a man killed. h.e.l.l!”

”Then where did you go?”

”Chicago--printing--anything to do I could get. Sometimes make forty cents a day. Little. Have to feed and work for wife and three children.