If you don't want to talk, a team of Morgan horses couldn't make you. I
like a man that can hold his tongue."

"Then I'm your huckleberry," said Sleeny, whose vanity was soothed by
the compliment.

"That's so," said Offitt, with an admiring smile. "If I wanted a secret
kept, I'd know where to come." Then changing his manner and tone to an
expression of profound solemnity, and glancing about to guard against
surprise, he said: "My dear boy, I've wanted to talk to you a long
time,--to talk serious. You're not one of the common kind of cattle
that think of nothin' but their fodder and stall--are you?"

Now, Sam was precisely of the breed described by his friend, but what
man ever lived who knew he was altogether ordinary? He grinned uneasily
and answered:

"I guess not."

"Exactly!" said Offitt. "There are some of us laboring men that don't
propose to go on all our lives working our fingers off to please a lot
of vampires; we propose to have a little fairer divide than heretofore;
and if there is any advantage to be gained, we propose to have it on
the side of the men who do the work. What do you think of that?"

"That's all solid," said Sleeny, who was indifferently interested in
these abstractions. "But what you goin' to do about it?"

"Do!" cried Offitt. "We are goin' to make war on capital. We are goin'
to scare the blood-suckers into terms. We are goin' to get our rights--