“Well,” said he, “I did a lot of thinking them days, and I says to myself: 'This thing is wrong, and I will go out and stop it—I will go out and stop it.'”
As he uttered these words, I looked at him curiously—his absurd flat fur hat with the moth-eaten ears, the old bulging overcoat, the round spectacles, the scarred, insignificant face—he seemed somehow transformed, a person elevated above himself, the tool of some vast incalculable force.
I shall never forget the phrase he used to describe his own feelings when he had reached this astonishing decision to go out and stop the wrongs of the World. He said he “began to feel all clean inside.”
“I see it didn't matter what become o' me, and I began to feel all clean inside.”
It seemed, he explained, as though something big and strong had got hold of him, and he began to be happy.
“Since then,” he said in a low voice, “I've been happier than I ever was before in all my life. I ain't got any family, nor any home—rightly speakin'—nor any money, but, comrade, you see here in front of you, a happy man.”
When he had finished his story we sat quiet for some time.
“Well,” said he, finally, “I must be goin'. The committee will wonder what's become o' me.”
I followed him out to the road. There I put my hand on his shoulder, and said:
“Bill Hahn, you are a better man than I am.”