The girl, out of idle
curiosity, had come, and had been touched by Carpenter's physical,
if not by his moral charms. It chanced that this girl was living
with a man who stood high in the secret service department of "big
business" in our city; so she had got the full story of what was
being planned against Carpenter. That afternoon, it appeared, there
had been a meeting between Algernon de Wiggs, president of our
Chamber of Commerce, and Westerly, secretary of our "M. and M.," and
Gerald Carson, organizer of our "Boosters' League." These three had
put up six thousand dollars, and turned it over to their secret
service agents, with instructions that Carpenter's agitations in
Western City were to be ended inside of twenty-four hours.
A plan had been worked out, every detail of which had been phoned to
Old Joe. A group of ex-service men, members of the Brigade, had been
hired to seize the prophet and treat him to a tar and feathering. It
had not taken much to move them to action, for the afternoon papers
were full of accounts of Carpenter's speech on Main Street, his
denunciation of war, and of soldiers as "murderers" and "wolves.
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