Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/50

 my way to stop it. I just slept with a gun handy and kept my eyes open during the day. I watched that Russian pretty close. You can't blame a Russian, of course, for wanting to knife people. Murder seems to be the only way of getting the necessary reforms in their country, and this fellow wasn't long out of it. All the same, I didn't want to be an innocent victim."

I think my engineer friend showed a nice spirit in making excuses for the Russian.

"Well, one day the whole conspiracy just got bursted. There was a little Irishman—the only one we had in the whole crowd, for the Irish are a bit above that kind of work now. The Russian was making a speech one evening and the rest of the men were cheering him. He was a big brute, well over six feet high. I was a football player when I was in college, but I don't mind owning that I should have thought twice before engaging in a scrap with that Russian.

"My little Irishman didn't think more than once. He walked right up to the Russian, and when he was standing in front of him he didn't reach up beyond where the top button of the Russian's waistcoat would have been if he'd had a waistcoat. 'Listen to me now, son!' said the Irishman: 'Just you can that talk about knives and killing. It's not wanted here.' The Russian kind of collapsed, and that was the end of our labour trouble."

"It's an interesting story," I said; "but I don't