"Call it crime!" cried Morris, his voice vibrating with passion.
"You have seen little of it if you can call it anything else.
Was it crime last night when a man old enough to be your father
was beaten till the blood dripped from his white hairs? Was that
crime--or what else would you call it?"
"There are some would say it was war," said McMurdo, "a war of
two classes with all in, so that each struck as best it could."
"Well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the
Freeman's society at Chicago?"
"No, I'm bound to say I did not."
"Nor did I when I joined it at Philadelphia. It was just a
benefit club and a meeting place for one's fellows. Then I heard
of this place--curse the hour that the name first fell upon my
ears!--and I came to better myself! My God! to better myself!
My wife and three children came with me. I started a drygoods
store on Market Square, and I prospered well. The word had gone
round that I was a Freeman, and I was forced to join the local
lodge, same as you did last night. I've the badge of shame on my
forearm and something worse branded on my heart. I found that I
was under the orders of a black villain and caught in a meshwork
of crime.
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