“Keep your hands off,” Farr advised the officer nearest him. “I'll go without any help. I have found out that I'm only wasting my time in this place.”
In the corridor men pressed around him. Some of them insisted on shaking his hand. Others shouted commendation. Still others exhibited only frank curiosity in the stalwart stranger. And others were clamorously hostile.
“By gad! If you wanted to start something you took the right way to do it,” affirmed one of the throng.
“You showed good courage,” declared an elderly man with an earnest face. “Some of the rest of us have tried to do something in the past. But those who didn't have much power were either kept out or kicked out of any office in city government or the legislature—and those who did amount to something were gobbled up by the machine. The machine can pay. Working for the people isn't very profitable. So I'm afraid you won't get very far.”
“You needn't worry about that chap not getting along all right,” remarked one of the group—but his indorsement was ironical. “He's a construction boss for the Consolidated, and he went into that hearing to start some kind of a back-fire. Shrewd operators—the Consolidated folks.”
The men about Farr pulled away from him and there was considerable malicious laughter in the crowd.
“So we see the game, even if we don't catch on to the meaning of it just now,” said the observant one.
Farr squared his shoulders. They stared at him with fresh interest and a bit of additional respect. They saw in him something more than a mere popular agitator—a disturber of a municipal hearing; he must be a trusted agent of the great political machine, executing a secret mission.
“You're right—I have been working for the Consolidated,” he admitted in tones that all could hear.
“Move on! Get outdoors! Clear this corridor—all of you,” shouted a captain of police who had come hurrying up from down-stairs and had taken command of the situation.