There was the host himself, a tall, athletic young man,
clad in evening dress, as also was the editor, a dyspeptic-
looking gentleman named Maynard. There was the
former's frail young wife, and also an elderly lady, who
taught kindergarten in the settlement, and a young college
student, a beautiful girl with an intense and earnest face.
She only spoke once or twice while Jurgis was there -- the
rest of the time she sat by the table in the center of the
room, resting her chin in her hands and drinking in
the conversation. There were two other men, whom young
Fisher had introduced to Jurgis as Mr. Lucas and Mr.
Schliemann; he heard them address Adams as "Comrade,"
and so he knew that they were Socialists.

The one called Lucas was a mild and meek-looking little
gentleman of clerical aspect; he had been an itinerant
evangelist, it transpired, and had seen the light and be~
come a prophet of the new dispensation. He traveled all
over the country, living like the apostles of old, upon
hospitality, and preaching upon street-corners when there
was no hall. The other man had been in the midst of a
discussion with the editor when Adams and Jurgis came
in; and at the suggestion of the host they resumed it after
the interruption. Jurgis was soon sitting spellbound,
thinking that here was surely the strangest man that had
ever lived in the world.

Nicholas Schliemann was a Swede, a tall, gaunt person,
with hairy hands and bristling yellow beard; he was a
university man, and had been a professor of philosophy --
until, as he said, he had found that he was selling his char~
acter as well as his time. Instead he had come to America,
where he lived in a garret-room in this slum district, and
made volcanic energy take the place of fire. He studied
the composition of food-stuffs, and knew exactly how many
proteins and carbohydrates his body needed; and by
scientific chewing he said that he tripled the value of all
he ate, so that it cost him eleven cents a day. About the
first of July he would leave Chicago for his vacation, on
foot; and when he struck the harvest-fields he would set
to work for two dollars and a half a day, and come home

[[396]]

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