"Why is it that we are at war? What good is all this blood to us? Is it to make our toil any lighter, life any brighter in our homes—or were we sent out by our rulers to die only in order that they in their scramble might take more of the earth for themselves? And if this is true why not rise like men and end this fearful carnage?"
Already these thousands were in the camps. Into Joe's room that evening came men to give him the names and regiments of those comrades he could trust. Joe with a few hundred others was to make his dangerous way into the camps and the barracks, wherever that was possible, of French and Russians and Germans alike, to carry news from one to the other, to make ready and to plan.
Now and then, in the talk that night, I felt the thrilling presence of that rising god, that giant spirit of the crowd, not dead but only sleeping now to gain new strength for what it must do. And again in gleams and flashes I saw the vision of the end—the world for all the workers. For in this crowded tenement room, forgotten now by governments, this rough earnest group of men seemed so sure of this world of theirs, so sure that it was now soon to be born.
One by one they went away, and Joe and I were left alone. Slowly he refilled his pipe. I thought of the talks we had had in ten years.
"Well Bill," he inquired at last, "what are you going to do with yourself?"
"Write what I see in the crowd," I said, "from my new point of view—this year's point of view," I added. I went on to tell him what the English writer had said. And I told of my book on the harbor.
"Well," said Joe when I was through, "I guess it's about the best you can do. You've got a wife to think of."
"You don't know her," I rejoined, and I told him how she had changed our home in order not to stop my work.
"But don't you see what she's up to?" said Joe.
"What the devil do you mean?" I asked indignantly. Joe blew a pitying puff of smoke.