Bill Totts had served his purpose, but he had become a too dangerous accomplice.
He had seen her, first, from the spectators' gallery, at the annual convention of the Northwest Federation of Labour, and he had seen her through Bill Totts' eyes, and that individual had been most favourably impressed by her.
Gates nodded--sadly, it seemed to Bill. He was rather a melancholy young man, with a long face not unlike a pessimistic horse.
The one in the basement of Brown's had written on Bill's slip of paper the words: '1 p.m.
Now, if you had sailed along of Bill, you wouldn't have stood there to be spoke to twice--not you.
"Bill," said the stranger in a voice that I thought he had tried to make bold and big.
The first thing she heard was a general chorus of `There goes Bill!' then the Rabbit's voice along--`Catch him, you by the hedge!' then silence, and then another confusion of voices--`Hold up his head--Brandy now--Don't choke him--How was it, old fellow?
Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (`That's Bill,' thought Alice,) `Well, I hardly know--No more, thank ye; I'm better now--but I'm a deal too flustered to tell you--all I know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!'
As it had rained all day and her employer wanted her to begin the next morning, she had the best possible excuse for renting a room in Fallon and asking Bill to ride in horseback with some things which she would ask Aunt Rose, over the telephone, to pack.
Wade's everlasting credit, she never twitted Martin with this, although she knew it from Rose's own lips, a month before he heard of it through Bill. She was too grateful for their narrow escape to feel vindictive and might have convinced herself they had merely endured a bad nightmare if it had not been for the shiny Victrola; the sight of it underscored the whole experience and she wished there were some way to get rid of the thing, a wish that was echoed even more fervently by Martin.
"One day we ran into Tough
Bill in the Place, and he asked Charlie for the papers he'd given him."
But he secured silence by declaring that henceforth the Circles would enter on a policy of Concession; yielding to the wishes of the majority, they would accept the Colour
Bill. The uproar being at once converted to applause, he invited Chromatistes, the leader of the Sedition, into the centre of the hall, to receive in the name of his followers the submission of the Hierarchy.
"I saw the other one run off across the snow,"
Bill announced with cool positiveness.
I go further, and affirm that
bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous.
'Hush,
Bill, hush!' said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; 'somebody will hear us, my dear.
