Rudolph laughed when he dropped them.
"They won't bite you!" he had said, and had stooped to pick them up. But
Herman had kept his foot on them.
So--America would go into the war against the Fatherland, unless many
hundreds of thousands did each their little bit. And if they did not,
America would go in, and fight for England to control the seas, and the
Spencer plant would make millions of shells that honest German workers,
sweat-brothers of the world, might die.
He remembered word for word the peroration of the evening's speech.
"We would extend the hand of brotherhood to the so-called enemy, and
strangle the cry for war in the fat white throats of the blood-bloated
money-lenders of Wall Street, before it became articulate."
He was very tired. He stooped and picked up his shoes, and with them in
his hand, drawn to his old-time military erectness, he stood for some
time before the gilt-framed picture on the wall. Then he went slowly and
ponderously up-stairs to bed.