Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/181

 easy victim. There was a young Jewish girl, a probation-officer in Judge Lindsey's court, whom I was so indiscreet as to treat to a sandwich in a dairy lunch-room; that was sufficient for the scandal-bureau, which had to hustle in these crowded days. I recollect a funny scene in the home of James Randolph Walker, where several of these "affinities" learned for the first time to whom they had been assigned. We had a merry time over it; but meanwhile, at the meetings of the Law and Order League, and other places where the ladies of "good society" in Denver gathered to abuse the strikers, all these scandals were solemnly taken for granted, and quoted as evidence of the depravity of "foreign agitators" and the radicals who abetted them!

For myself, let me explain that during my three weeks in Denver I kept two stenographers busy all day; I wrote a score of articles, I sent hundreds of telegrams and letters—working under terrific pressure, hardly taking time to eat. My wife was back in New York, risking her frail health in the midst of public uproar, and with reason to fear that she might be assaulted by thugs at any moment. Every thought I had to spare was for her, all my loyalty was for her; yet "good society" in Denver was imagining me involved in a dirty intrigue! In several intrigues—such a Bluebeard I am! I had been in the city perhaps a week, when a young lady came to me and spoke as follows:

"Mr. Sinclair, I represent the 'Denver Post.' We have a rumor concerning you about which I wish to ask you."

"What is it?"

"We understand that you are about to move from your hotel."

"I have no such intention. Who told you that?"

"Well, I hope you will not take offense; I will tell you the report, just as it was given to me."

"Very well, go ahead."

I am sorry I cannot remember the exact words of the rigmarole; it was five years ago, and I have had more important things to remember. Suffice it to say that it was a new scandal—not the Jewish probation-officer; I had uttered a mysterious and portentous sentence, expressive of my guilty fear; if my wife were to learn why I had left the hotel, "it would be all over." I looked the young lady from the "Denver Post" in the eye and answered: "Standing in the Pennsylvania