“How do you suppose they got on to you, Mr. Irving?”
“It was bound to happen,” said the other. “They have so many spies.”
“But we have been so careful! We’ve never mentioned your name, except among our own little group!”
“They’ve probably got a spy right among you.”
“A student, you mean?”
“Of course.” And smiling at Bunny’s incredulity, Mr. Irving reached into his desk and pulled out a mimeographed sheet of paper. “This was handed to me by a business friend of mine,” he said.
It was one of the weekly bulletins of the “Improve America League,” a propaganda organization of the business men of Angel City. It explained how they had their agents at work in colleges and high schools, training students to watch their teachers and fellow students, and report any signs of the red menace. The league boasted its fund of a hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year for the next five years. So here was another chunk of reality, falling with a dull sickening thud upon the head of a young idealist! Bunny sat, running over in his mind the members of the little group. “Who could it be?”
Said Mr. Irving: “Some one who was very ‘red,’ you can be sure. That is how it works—a man is looking for something to report, and when it’s too slow making its appearance, he’s tempted to help it along. So the spy almost always becomes a provocateur. You can tell him by the fact that he talks a lot and does nothing—he can’t afford to have it said that he was a leader.”
“By God!” cried Bunny. “He promised to help us sell those papers, and then he didn’t show up!”
“Who is that?”