The other smiled grimly. “Tovarish, if dey find you vit dat paper, dey shoot you like a dog! Dey shoot us all!”
“But why?”
“Because it is Bolshevik.”
Jimmie wanted to say. “But it's true!” However, he realized how naive that would sound. So he waited, while Kalenkin went on:
“You show it only to men you can trust. You hide de copies, you take vun and make it dirty, so you say, 'I find it in de street.' See, iss it so de Bolsheviki fight de Kaiser? If it iss so, vy do we need to fight dem? So you give dese; and some day I come vit someting new.”
Jimmie agreed that that was the way to set about it. He folded up a score of the leaflets and stowed them in an inside pocket of his jacket, and put on his heavy overcoat and gloves, which he wished he could give to the sick, half-starved and half-frozen Bolshevik. He patted him reassuringly on the back, and said: “You trust me, comrade; I'll hand them out, and they'll bring results, too, I'll bet.”
“You don't tell about me!” exclaimed Kalenkin with fierce intensity.
To which Jimmie answered. “Not if they boil me alive.”