"You cannot know," he said with a smile, "that your friend, Johnny
Thompson, has been causing me a very great deal of trouble of late."

Mazie felt a great desire to shout on hearing this, for it told her
plainly that Johnny was no friend of this crowd.

"No, of course you could not know," the man went on, "since you have not
seen him. I may say frankly that your friend is clever, and has a way,
quite a way, of using his hands."

Mazie did not need to be told that.

"But it is not that of which I wish to speak." The Russian took a step
nearer. Mazie, feeling his hot breath on her cheek, shrank back. "Your
friend, as I say, has been troubling us a great deal, and in this he has
been misled, sadly misled. He does not understand our high and lofty
purpose; our desire to free all mankind from the bonds of organized
society. If he knew he would act far differently. Of course, you cannot
explain all this to him, but you can write him a note, just a little
note. You will write it now, in just another moment. First, I will tell
you what to say. Say to him that you are in great trouble and danger.
Say that you may be killed, or worse things may happen to you, unless he
does precisely as you tell him to do. Say that he is to leave a certain
package, about which he knows well enough, at the Pendergast Hotel, to
be given to M. Kriskie. Say that he is, after that, to leave Chicago at
once and is not to return for sixty days.

"See?" He attempted another smile. "It is little that we ask of you;
little that we ask of him--virtually nothing."