“They’ll just beat you up worse, Al. I’m tellin’ you straight. They’ll knock hell out of you.”

“Well, I won’t care then, because I’ll be fightin’ ’em, see? But there I was, just runnin’ a little lunch wagon, an’ givin’ bums a handout now an’ then——” His voice choked and tears squeezed out of his eyes.

Dr. Burton touched him gently on the cheek. “Don’t talk any more, Al.”

“I’ll see you get an application card,” Mac said. And he continued, “By God, it’s funny. Guy after guy gets knocked into our side by a cop’s night stick. Every time they maul hell out of a bunch of men, we get a flock of applications. Why, there’s a Red Squad cop in Los Angeles that sends us more members than a dozen of our organizers. An’ the damn fools haven’t got sense enough to realize it. O.K., Al. You’ll get your application. I don’t know whether it’ll go through, but it will if I can push it through.” He patted Al’s good arm. “I hope it goes through. You’re a good guy, Al. Don’t blame me for your wagon.”