100% - Upton Sinclair

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the oligarchy of business and take over its powers. The struggle of these two groups was coming to its culmination. They were like two mighty wrestlers, locked in a grip of death; two giants in combat, who tear up trees by the roots and break off fragments of cliffs from the mountains to smash in each other’s skulls. And poor Peter—what was he? An ant which happened to come blundering across the ground where these combatants met. The earth was shaken with their trampling, the dirt was kicked this way and that, and the unhappy ant was knocked about, tumbled head over heels, buried in the debris; and suddenly—Smash!—a giant foot came down upon the place where he was struggling and gasping!

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      Peter had been in the “hole” perhaps three days, perhaps a week—he did not know, and no one ever told him. The door was opened again, and for the first time he heard a voice, “Come out here.”

      Peter had been longing to hear a voice; but now he shrunk terrified into a corner. The voice was the voice of Guffey, and Peter knew what it meant. His teeth began to rattle again, and he wailed, “I dunno anything! I can’t tell anything!”

      A hand reached in and took him by the collar, and he found himself walking down the corridor in front of Guffey. “Shut up!” said the man, in answer to all his wailings, and took him into a room and threw him into a chair as if he had been a bundle of bedding, and pulled up another chair and sat down in front of Peter.

      “Now look here,” he said. “I want to have an understanding with you. Do you want to go back into that hole again?”

      “N-n-no,” moaned Peter.

      “Well, I want you to know that you’ll spend the rest of your life in that hole, except when you’re talking to me. And when you’re talking to me you’ll be having your arms twisted off you, and splinters driven into your finger nails, and your skin burned with matches—until you tell me what I want to know. Nobody’s going to help you, nobody’s going to know about it. You’re going to stay here with me until you come across.”

      Peter could only sob and moan.

      “Now,” continued Guffey, “I been finding out all about you, I got your life story from the day you were born, and there’s no use your trying to hide anything. I know your part in this here bomb plot, and I can send you to the gallows without any trouble whatever. But there’s some things I can’t prove on the other fellows. They’re the big ones, the real devils, and they’re the ones I want, so you’ve got a chance to save yourself, and you better be thankful for it.”

      Peter went on moaning and sobbing.

      “Shut up!” cried the man. And then, fixing Peter’s frightened gaze with his own, he continued, “Understand, you got a chance to save yourself. All you got to do is to tell what you know. Then you can come out and you won’t have any more trouble. We’ll take good care of you; everything’ll be easy for you.”

      Peter continued to gaze like a fascinated rabbit. And such a longing as surged up in his soul—to be free, and out of trouble, and taken care of! If only he had known anything to tell; if only there was some way he could find out something to tell!

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      Suddenly the man reached out and grasped one of Peter’s hands. He twisted the wrist again, the sore wrist which still ached from the torture. “Will you tell?”

      “I’d tell if I could!” screamed Peter. “My God, how can I?”

      “Don’t lie to me,” hissed the man. “I know about it now, you can’t fool me. You know Jim Goober.”

      “I never heard of him!” wailed Peter.

      “You lie!” declared the other, and he gave Peter’s wrist a twist.

      “Yes, yes, I know him!” shrieked Peter.

      “Oh, that’s more like it!” said the other. “Of course you know him. What sort of a looking man is he?”

      “I—I dunno. He’s a big man.”

      “You lie! You know he’s a medium-sized man!”

      “He’s a medium-sized man.”

      “A dark man?”

      “Yes, a dark man.”

      “And you know Mrs. Goober, the music teacher?”

      “Yes, I know her.”

      “And you’ve been to her house?”

      “Yes, I’ve been to her house.”

      “Where is their house?”

      “I dunno—that is—”

      “It’s on Fourth Street?”

      “Yes, it’s on Fourth Street.”

      “And he hired you to carry that suit-case with the bombs in it, didn’t he?”

      “Yes, he hired me.”

      “And he told you what was in it, didn’t he?”

      “He—he—that is—I dunno.”

      “You don’t know whether he told you?”

      “Y-y-yes, he told me.”

      “You knew all about the plot, didn’t you?”

      “Y-y-yes, I knew.”

      “And you know Isaacs, the Jew?”

      “Y-y-yes, I know him.”

      “He was the fellow that drove the jitney, wasn’t he?”

      “Y-y-yes, he drove the jitney.”

      “Where did he drive it?”

      “H-h-he drove it everywhere.”

      “He drove it over here with the suit-case, didn’t he?”

      “Yes, he did.”

      “And you know Biddle, and you know what he did, don’t you?”

      “Yes, I know.”

      “And you’re willing to tell all you know about it, are you?”

      “Yes, I’ll tell it all. I’ll tell whatever you—”

      “You’ll tell whatever you know, will you?”

      “Y-y-yes, sir.”

      “And you’ll stand by it? You’ll not try to back out? You don’t want to go back into the hole?”

      “No, sir.”

      And suddenly Guffey pulled from his pocket a paper folded up. It was several typewritten sheets. “Peter Gudge,” he said, “I been looking up your record, and I’ve found out what you did in this case. You’ll see when you read how perfectly I’ve got it. You won’t find a single mistake in it.” Guffey meant this for wit, but poor Peter was too far gone with terror to have any idea that there was such a thing as a smile in the world.

      “This is your story, d’you see?” continued Guffey. “Now take it and read it.”

      So Peter took the paper in his trembling hand, the one which had not been twisted lame. He tried to read it, but his hand shook so that he had to put it on his knee, and then he discovered

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