Ed went silently up the stairs to join the mother and boy, whose voices could still be heard raised in outbursts of wrath from above as the men took their former chairs along the wall.
“Well, Bill’s sure all right,” said the red-haired young man, evidently expressing the opinion of the men in regard to the florid-faced man.
A small bent old man with sunken cheeks got up and walking across the room leaned against the cigar case.
“Did you ever hear this one?” he asked, looking about.
Obviously no answer could be given and the bent old man launched into a vile pointless anecdote of a woman, a miner, and a mule, the crowd giving close attention and laughing uproariously when he had finished. The socialist rubbed his hands together and joined in the applause.
“That was a good one, eh?” he commented, turning to Sam.
Sam, picking up his bag, climbed the stairway as the red-haired young man launched into another tale, slightly less vile. In his room to which Ed, meeting him at the top of the stairs, led him, still chewing at the unlighted cigar, he turned out the light and sat on the edge of the bed. He was as homesick as a boy.
“Truth,” he muttered, looking through the window to the dimly-lighted street. “Do these men seek truth?”
The next day he went to work, wearing a suit of clothes bought from Ed. He worked with Ed’s father, carrying timbers and driving nails as directed by him. In the gang with him were four men, boarders at Ed’s hotel, and four other men who lived in the town with their families. At the noon hour he asked the old carpenter how the men from the hotel, who did not live in the town, could vote on the question of the power bonds. The old man grinned and rubbed his hands together.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose Ed tends to that. He’s a slick one, Ed is.”