"Say, you'd orter seen the bunch in that hall. I guess there was some from every country on the map of Europe, and other places too we ain't never dreamed of. It was a cold night, and they had the stove goin'. Me and Pa, we sits near the door because Pa says that when the meetin' gets agoin' they's no telling about what kind of a trouble there might be in a hall like that, and it's us where we can slip out when we wants to.
"Next to my Pa was a feller with whiskers a mile long, and pop eyes, and when Jimmy Duggan left us and starts down to the platform this feller says to Pa, 'Ain't he the great man!' he says.
"And my Pa says, 'He ain't so bad for a Swede.'
"And the man says, 'He ain't no Swede. No! Sir.'
"And my Pa says, 'Since when ain't he a Swede when he's born in Swedeland?'
"'There ain't no such country,' says the man, 'you mean Sweden,' he says, and my Pa says, 'I means just what I say,' he says.
"And the man looks at him and he says, 'Mister Duggan,' he says, 'is an Irishman.'
"'With er name like that,' says my Pa, 'imposserble. 'Sides I never heard of Irishmen. What country do they come from?' and, honest, my Pa never batted an eyelid. Gee! but he's a grand jollier. And I thought the man's eyes would drop out; I almost felt like holdin' out my hands to catch 'em. And he says to my Pa, he says, 'Where do you come from?' and Pa says, 'A free country,' he says, 'where every man gets a square deal and can say what he likes.'
"Well, the man looked at him hard and he says, very sarkastic, he says, 'Where's that?'
"'Russia,' says Pa, and, say, you'd orter heard that man yell. Honest, it made me sick at the stomach. Jimmy Duggan was just giving the committee the last orders on the platform when that yell man cut loose. Jimmy he looks around like he'd been shot, takes a flying leap off'n the platform, and comes rushing down towards my Pa and the man with the whiskers and the bulging eyes. And the man was yelling all the time like the fans do at the baseball game when the score's a tie and the home team's heavy hitter slugs the ball on the left ear for a home run. And he was standing up pointing at Pa with a hand the size of a shovel, and all the rest of the bunch around us was getting restless and cacklin' furrin' talk.