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Hecht, Ben, 1894-1964

"A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago"

'
"'Not yet,' said Haywood, 'but in a few days. The sentence starts next
week.'
"'Twenty years?'
"'Oh, something like that.'
* * * * *
"Well," said the newspaper man, "I suddenly remembered that he was in a
theater and I got kind of curious. I asked what he was doing in the
theater and he looked at me and grinned.
"'I'm all in," he said. 'Been going the pace for about a month now. Out
every night. Taking in all the glad spots and high spots.'
"This was so curious coming from Big Bill that I looked surprised. And he
went on talking. Yes, sir, this Big Bill Haywood, the terror of organized
society, was saying goodbye to his native land as if he were a sentimental
playboy. He wasn't going to jail because by that time he had all his plans
matured for his escape to Russia.
"But he knew he was going to leave the country and perhaps never come back
again. So he was making the rounds.
"'I've been to almost every show in town,' he went on talking, 'all the
musical comedies, all the dramas, all the west side melodramas. I've been
to almost all the cafes, the swell ones with the monkey-suit waiters and
the old ones I've known myself for years. I drew up a list of all these
places in town about a month ago and I've been following a schedule ever
since.


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