William Adolphus Turnpike

"What! never been to a political meeting; an' you living in a city. Back to the hamlet for you, boy; you're lost.

"You're not? You know where you live, and could find your way home in the dark? My, but you're cert'nly the quick actor when it comes to thinking.

"Sure I've been to more'n a dozen political meetin's. Ain't my Pa a member er the ex-ecutive of Ward Eighteen Conservative Club? He's a charter member, too. Don't he rent the parlor for a pollin' booth on votin' day, hire himself for a scrooteneer, and have my uncle Henry for constable?

"Your father wouldn't do them things, eh! Well, maybe he ain't never had the chance.

"The first political meeting I went to? Well it was in the hall where the Sons of Italy meets, and Pa he ain't got no business there really because it's not his gang what's holding the meeting. It's all furriners organised into the Ward Eighteen European Reform Club by Jimmy Duggan, the coal and woodyard man. My Pa and Jimmy Duggan is great friends. Jimmy says to Pa, he says, 'Come along, Joe, I got the greatest bunch of murd-erers of English into the club you ever seen,' he says, 'and tonight the Honorable Wallace Fixem, Minister of Public Works, is going to attend our inaggeral meetin',' he says, 'and give us a spiel.'

"And my Pa says, 'How much are you gettin' out of it, Jimmy?' he says.

"And Jimmy says, 'Far be it from me to bandy words with a hopeless dyed-in-the-wool Tory,' he says, 'what's agoin' blindly to his crool end,' he says, 'in spite of--'

"And then Ma butts in. 'That'll do for you, Jimmy Duggan,' she says. 'Both of them political parties is rotten,' she says, 'and you know it.'

"And Jimmy-Gee! but he's the great actor-he looks at Ma with a long face on him, and he says, 'Madam,' he says, 'I admit that the party to which my poor friend here belongs,' he says, 'is all to the bad. I admit,' he says, 'that it has sunk--'

"And Ma says, 'Get out, Jimmy,' she says, 'and take Joe with you.'

"And Pa says, 'Ma,' he says, 'how about Willyum coming along,' and you bet I'm listenin' hard that time.

"And Ma says, 'I'm afraid,' she says, 'about them 'Talians. S'pose they got to fighting, anybody might stick a steeletter into the boy,' she says.

"'Pardon me, madam,' says Jimmy, 'you are doing a great wrong,' he says, 'to our noble feller citerzens--'

"And Ma gets up like she was in a kind of a hurry and she says if Pa don't take Jimmy away she'll throw 'em both out, and Pa can take me to the meeting. And we went.

"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.

"So when Jimmy gets up to the man with the steam whistle in his throat, he grabs him by the whiskers, gives 'em a tug like he'd pull 'em off, and he says pretty sharp, 'Sit down.' And the feller set, and just as he did he opens his mouth to let out another yell, and Jimmy grabs a cap from another man's head and sticks it in his mouth, and that stopped him. So after he gets the cap out, Jimmy says, 'Now what's the row?'

"And the man points at my Pa and says, 'That man says Russia is a free country,' he says, and starts in to give another yell, only Jimmy lifts a finger at him and the man stops with his mouth open, and he looked foolish I tell you. So then Jimmy bends down and whispers something in the man's ear, and the feller smiles and pats Pa on the shoulder gentlelike, every once in a while, and Pa lets on he never notices it, though I seen he's kinder mad about something.

"Just as Jimmy gets back to the platform a Dago and a Hungarian gets to words about who's the best mus-i-cans in the ward.

"Oh! moosicians, is it? Have it your own way.

"You see the Hungarians was awful mad because the Dagos beat 'em out catering to supply the music for the night, and the Dago orchestra was playing the swellest ragtime music you ever heard. Well, them two gets to blows, and about fifteen others are jumping around ready to pile in when Jimmy Duggan begins to pound on the table with a wooden hammer what they uses in lodges and club rooms.

"A gavel, eh! Very well, me learned friend, I'll not dispute it.

"He bangs so hard they all quits their scrapping and begins to take notice. 'I am just informed, gentlemen,' says Jimmy, 'that the Honorable Fixem is now on the stairs on his way into this meeting, and I would ask the ork-estra,' he says, 'to greet him with a few bars of--'

"And just then the door opens, and a little procession comes in escortin' the Honorable Fixem, and the ork-estra leader waves his hand frantic and the ork-estra strikes up 'All Coons Look Alike to Me.' Well, say, you'd orter heard the row. Some was cheerin' and some was laughin', and the Honorable Fixem he was looking like a sheep outer the meadows, and Jimmy Duggan yells out, 'Stop that tune, darn it,' he says, and the ork-estra man leader he didn't hear what Jimmy says and he thought that he wanted it louder, so he waves his hands like mad and the ork-estra sails into that tune like they'd never quit it, until Jimmy leans over and grabs the leader by the back of the neck and nearly chokes the breath outer him, and the ork-estra is just comin' for Jimmy en massey when the leader says something in Italian and they sits down again looking kinder sad and strikes up 'See the Con'kring Hero Comes,' and the Honorable Fixem gets on the platform. Gee! you'd think that bunch'd never stop yellin'. They just cheered and cheered. Then they begins to present illumernated addresses in every language but Scotch, and my Pa says Scotch ain't anything but two scones on each side of a burr. So when they gets through Jimmy Duggan calls on the Honorable Fixem for a speech, and Fixem started in.

"Say, I never knowed a gover'ment was so much like angels before. The things what the gover'ment's done for this country, judging by the way Fixem told it, is enough to make people want to keep 'em in for ever. My Pa says it's mostly guff, but the pollertishans has gotter feed the people with that kinder guff ev'ry once in a while, he says, they get fat on it, he says.

"Well, everything goes on fine 'cepting some cheers once in a while, until the Honorable gets down to the gover'ment's plans for the immigrants. And he says something about not stooping to bribe any man to cast a vote for the gover'ment by promising to find work for him, but there's a big programme of gover'ment works to be done in the neighbourhood, which, of course, will help to make good times, he says.

"Just then somebody gets up in the hall and yells out, 'Rotten, rotten, what you caller dat but de bribe, eh?' and another feller shies a pineapple at him, whatever he had it there for. Pa says mebbe he's ripenin' it by the stove so as to sell it the next day. Anyway it misses the man what's makin' the noise and hits the ork-estra leader on the brain-house, and the next I knowed Pa has me downstairs-it's only one flight-and he says to me, 'We'll wait for Jimmy,' he says, and we did.

"And every minute we waited there was something doing. Why there was Greeks and Hungarians and Dagos and all kinds coming out the winders or rolling down the stairs and rushing back again, some of them with their noses bleeding and their clothes torn, and all the time shoutin' like mad. Then all of a sudden everything calms down to a whisper, and men began to fly outer that buildin' and run away like mad.

"So when the Honorable Fixem's safely in his carriage, and Jimmy Duggan's walking home with Pa and me. Pa says, 'What stopped it, Jimmy?' And Jimmy says, 'Well, I just got a few of the fellers together,' he says, 'and we hollers "Steeletters, steeletters," and that scared 'em, you bet, for they're all afraid of their lives of them 'Talian knives.'

"'Pretty smart hit, Jimmy,' Pa says, 'but it's almost a pity you didn't get three inches or so of steeletter in your hide,' he says, 'after what you said to that feller sittin' beside me.' 'Well,' says Jimmy, 'he's a Russian,' he says, 'what was mixed up in some of the Nillyist plots, and the only way to keep him quiet,' he says, 'was to tell him you'd been driven looney by the cruelty of the Russian gover'ment,' he says."

Thus William Adolphus Turnpike, office boy, to Lucien Torrance, who held a similar exalted position. They were sitting on the front stairs leading to the adjoining offices occupied by Mr. Whimple and his friend Simmons, the architect, in the city of Toronto. The city was then at the transition period; its population had just passed the 200,000 mark, and already included a fair number of lunatics who clamored for a million people. But it had not yet made up its mind that dumping sewage into the Bay and believing that it would not contaminate the adjoining lake, whence came the water supply, was a system apt to result in a large proportion of typhoid fever cases. People had typhoid, and either died of it or got better, and in the latter event they resumed the drinking of the city water.