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Updated: May 9, 2025
Practically all the characters in "100%" are real persons. Peter Gudge is a real person, and has several times been to call upon the writer in the course of his professional activities; Guffey and McGivney are real persons, and so is Billy Nash, and so is Gladys Frisbie. To begin at the beginning: the "Goober case" parallels in its main outlines the case of Tom Mooney.
"Shut up, you nut! Maybe you didn't talk about the Goober case, but you talked about yourself. Didn't you tell somebody you'd worked with that fellow Kalandra?" "Y-y-yes, sir." "And you knew the police were after him, and after you, too?" "Y-y-yes, sir." "And you said you'd been arrested selling fake patent medicines?" "Y-y-yes, sir." "Christ almighty!" cried Guffey.
He sobbed and screamed, and again and again he vowed that he had told the truth, that he knew nothing else than what he had told, and that nothing could make him tell any more. Guffey left him there until late the next afternoon, and then came again, and took him by the collar, and led him out to the steps of the jail, and gave him a parting kick. Peter was free!
He had learned from the American City "Times" how valuable a witness he was, and he ventured to demand his price, even from the terrible Guffey; he stuck it out, in spite of Guffey's frowns, and the upshot was that Guffey said, All right, if Peter would take the trip he might have seventy-five dollars a week and expenses, and Guffey would guarantee to keep him busy for not less than six months.
And so Guffey started to read an elaborate legal document: "I, Peter Gudge, being duly sworn do depose and declare " and so on.
Most of the fighting inside the house and outside came quickly to an end, because everybody who fought was laid out or overpowered. Then several of the agents of Guffey, who had been studying these Reds for a year or two and knew them all, went about picking out the ones who were especially wanted, and searching them for arms, and then handcuffing them.
"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.
If all Guffey was going to do was to pace up and down the room, and shake his fist under Peter's nose every time he passed him, and compare him with every kind of a domestic animal, Peter could stand it all night without a murmur. He stopped trying to find out what it was that had happened, because he saw that this only drove Guffey to fresh fits of exasperation.
And most convenient of circumstances the big business men of American City, who had established a secret service bureau with Guffey in charge of it, would go right on putting up their funds, and paying Peter fifty dollars a week and expenses while he served the holy cause!
He only knew that they brought him bread and water three times, before Guffey came again and summoned him forth. Peter now sat huddled into a chair, twisting his trembling hands together, while the chief detective of the Traction Trust explained to him his new program. Peter was permanently ruined as a witness in the case.
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