“That’s my secret.”
“It’s a fool’s secret. Some day he’ll kill ye.”
The angry old woman shuffled back into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her.
At eight o’clock that evening Stephen Lamar entered a saloon on lower Main Street, known as “The Silver Star.” It was a favorite gathering place for the mill-workers. It was a place where there was undoubted social equality. And in that respect, as Lamar once said to a crowd there, it overtopped any church in the city.
He was greeted noisily as he went in. Some one, standing at the bar, called out to him to come up and have something.
“No,” he replied, “I’m not drinking to-night. I’m looking for Bricky.”
“Bricky ain’t been in yet,” said the bartender.
“Maybe he won’t come no more,” added the man at the bar. “I’m told he’s been goin’ to hear that feller preach. The feller’t wears the nightgown an’ flummadiddles an’ lets on he’s for the laborin’ man. Maybe he’s got Bricky to cut out the booze.”
A man seated alone at a table in the corner of the room spoke up.