Brotherhood of Bread-winners, which proved to be Offitt's lodging. They
found there a half dozen men lounging about the entrance, who scowled
and swore at Offitt for being late, and then followed him sulkily up
two flights of ill-smelling stairs to his room. He turned away their
wrath by soft answers, and hastily lighting a pair of coal-oil lamps,
which gave forth odor more liberally than illumination, said briskly:

"Gentlemen, I have brought you a recruit this evenin' that you will all
be glad to welcome to our brotherhood."

The brothers, who had taken seats where they could find them, on a
dirty bed, a wooden trunk, and two or three chairs of doubtful
integrity, grunted a questionable welcome to the new-comer. As he
looked about him, he was not particularly proud of the company in which
he found himself. The faces he recognized were those of the laziest and
most incapable workmen in the town--men whose weekly wages were
habitually docked for drunkenness, late hours, and botchy work. As the
room gradually filled, it seemed like a roll-call of shirks. Among them
came also a spiritual medium named Bott, as yet imperfectly developed,
whose efforts at making a living by dark seances too frequently
resulted in the laughter of skeptics and the confusion of his friends.
His forehead and cheek were even then purple with an aniline dye, which
some cold-blooded investigator had squirted in his face a few nights
before while he was gliding through a twilight room impersonating the
troubled shade of Pocahontas. This occurrence gave, for the moment, a
peculiarly sanguinary and sinister character to his features, and
filled his heart with a thirst for vengeance against an unbelieving
world.

After the meeting had been called to order, and Sam had taken an oath