In the evening of the same day we met again and put together the results of each one’s investigations. The work accomplished was surprising to all. Mr. Grinnell called, and, seeing what had been done, was more than pleased. At this time we had some of the Anarchists already behind the bars. That night we worked until two o’clock the next morning, and it was half an hour later when I directed my steps homeward. As I neared my house, I saw the indistinct outlines of a man standing close to a large bill-board about ten feet north of my residence. The figure proved to be a tall man, and, as I came to a halt, the stranger spoke up in German:
“Is this Mr. Schaack?”
“I am,” I replied, “and what are you doing standing there?”
The stranger asked me to wait for a moment, and I complied, hardly knowing what to make out of the man’s intentions toward me at such an unseemly hour in the morning; but at the same time I kept my eye steadily upon him for any hostile demonstrations. The strange individual hurriedly placed a cloth of some sort over his face, and I began to think some Anarchist had been commissioned to murder me. Still, the coolness and self-possession of the man and the seeming absence of the usual bluster incident to the commission of a foul crime reassured me. Noticing all this, by way of making the man understand that I was prepared for him if he had any murderous intentions, I said: “If you make any attack upon me I will kill you dead!”
“Mein Gott, nein. I only want to tell you something,” was the reply.
I told him that that was all right and asked him into the back yard, when he said he would talk to me. I made the stranger go ahead of me, and when we reached the yard the man gave me a long story.
“I dare not,” said he, “write to you. I dare not come near you during the daytime. I don’t want you to know me, but I think you are the right man to talk to. I would not talk to anyone else.”
A BACK-YARD INTERVIEW.