"You'll let me do it?"
"Oh, no!" he said firmly. "The idea's appealing, but you mustn't think of it, Miss Sally. It will only stir up trouble."
"We ought to."
"Not for this."
"But the shirtwaist-makers are working in intolerable conditions; they're just ready to strike; a spark would blow 'em all up."
He shook his head.
"Wait—wait till we see what my next number does!"
Sally said no more; but her heart nursed her desire until it grew to an overmastering passion. She left for the night, and Joe sat down, burning with the fires of righteousness. And he wrote an editorial that altered the current of his life. He wrote:
FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN
Theodore Marrin and the forty-four who went back to work for him:
Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship.
Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade.
Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees.
You forty-four men, you have betrayed yourselves and your leader.