Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 37: Line 23 (605)

 He was not in the detective business out of political belief.

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Well what do you know! An independent detective! Lew ain't no stinkin' Pinkerton, I guess! Although how non-political can a detective really be? It's not like poor people can afford to hire a detective to bust some corrupt cops or some robber baron! So the job is inherently political! Lew is only going to take the jobs of people who can pay him which means he's in the pocket of the rich and powerful. Like right now! Whether he knows it or not, he's working to bust unionizers (i.e. Anarchists).

Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 37: Line 22 (604)

 Fine with Lew, who wasn't even sure what Anarchists were, exactly, though the word was sure in the air.

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Lew wasn't the only one at the time who wasn't entirely sure what an Anarchist was. It's like how people in the 21st century don't exactly know what a Socialist is. It's just a word that's in the air to mean "anybody who needs to be scapegoated by the rich and powerful in a way that turns the general populace against them." So right now, in 1893, a lot of immigrants and unionizers are being labeled as Anarchists. If some worker is causing trouble, they're an Anarchist and that's pretty much the end of the definition.

Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 37: Line 21 (603)

 "Good!" declared Chick Counterfly, "at least we won't have to get on to the Anarchist question."

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I don't know what "the Anarchist question" is nor why Chick brings it up. Do the Chums question every guest of the Inconvenience to make sure they're not dangerous Anarchists who might blow up the balloon (in a bad way and not in the getting it to float way)? And if so, does answering that you mostly read the sports page mean you can't be an Anarchist? That seems logical to me for some reason that I can't explain. Like I've known people who are really into sports and they just don't ever seem to be the kind of chaotic people you'd expect to be an Anarchist. Unless the sport they're into is Demolition Derby and their surname is Malachi. Then you'd better watch out!

Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 37: Line 20 (602)

 "I guess I read the sports pages mostly."

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They had sports pages in the 1880s? What sports existed? I guess baseball since we saw the kids already had baseball bats. And probably football since there was that episode of Little House on the Prairie where Albert has a coach that would rather see his players die than lose. Of course football was terrible back then because nobody had invented the forward pass yet and every play was just "Run right into the other guys as hard as you can!" Soccer definitely existed and golf too. Basketball had just been invented so I doubt Lew would have been reading about that when he was younger. I bet the majority of the sports page was just boxing and horse races. Oh, and how many people died during each football game.