LII


But, of course, it wasn't long before this little company became
serious again. Carpenter told Franklin that he ought not stay here;
he, Carpenter, was too conspicuous a figure, the authorities were
certain to be watching him. Korwsky backed him up. There were sure
to be spies here! They would never leave such a man unwatched. They
would set to work to get something on him, and if they couldn't get
it they would make it. When Carpenter asked what he meant, he
explained, "Dey'll plant dynamite in de place vere you are, or
dey'll fake up some letters to show you been plannin' violence."

"And do people believe such things?" asked Carpenter.

"Believe dem?" cried Korwsky. "If dey see it in de papers, dey
believe it--sure dey do!"

The prophet answered, "Let a man live so that the world will believe
him and not his enemies." Then he added a startling remark. "There
is one among us who will betray me."

Of course, they all looked at one another in consternation. They
were deeply distressed, and each tried in turn--"Comrade," or
"Brother," or "Fellow-worker," or whatever term they used--"is it
I?" Presently the sturdy looking fellow named Hamby, who called
himself a pacifist, asked, "Is it I?" And Carpenter answered,
quietly, "You have said it."

Then, of course, some of the others started up; they wanted to throw
him out, but Carpenter bade them sit down again, saying, "Let things
take their course; for the powers of this world will perish more
quickly if they are permitted to kill themselves."

Apparently he saw no reason why this episode should be permitted to
interfere with the festivities. Mary Magna came in laughing, bearing
the strawberry short-cake, and set it on the table and proceeded to
portion it out. When it was served, Carpenter said, "I shall not be
with you much longer, my friends; but you will remember me when you
see this beautiful red fruit on top of a cake; and also you will
think of me and my message when you taste rich purple grape-juice
that has perhaps stayed a day or two too long in the bottle!"

Some of the company laughed, but others of them had tears in their
eyes; and I noticed that in the midst of the merriment the fellow
Hamby got up and slipped out of the room. Not long after that the
company began to disperse for various reasons. Karlin explained that
his old horse had been working all day, and had had no supper.
Colver was uneasy, not for himself, but for his friend, and I saw
him start every time the door was opened. Also, T-S was having some
night-scenes taken, and he and Mary were to see the work. Finally
Carpenter dismissed the Company, with the statement that he wished
to retire to Comrade Abell's private office to pray; and Abell and
his friend Lynch and the young Mexican said they would watch and
wait for him. The rest of us took our departure, not without
misgivings and sorrow in our hearts.



LIII


Now, you may find it hard to believe a confession which I have put
off making--the fact that at this time I was engaged to be married.
There was a certain member of what is called the "younger set," whom
I had given reason to expect that I would think about her at least
once in a while. But here for precisely three days I had been
chasing about at the skirts of a prophet fresh from God, getting my
name into the newspapers in scandalous fashion, and not daring even
to call the young lady on the telephone and make apologies. That
evening there was a dinner-dance at her home, and I supposed I was
supposed to be there; but no one had bothered to invite me, and as a
matter of fact I would not have known of the affair if I had not
seen the announcement in the papers. I was too late for the dinner,
but I got myself a taxicab, and drove to my room and changed my
clothes, and hurried in my own car to the dance.

You would not be interested in the fact that when I arrived I was
treated as an unwelcome guest, and Miss Betty even went so far as to
remind me that I had not been invited. But after I had pleaded, she
consented to dance with me; and so for an hour or two I tried to
forget there were any people in the world who had anything to do but
be happy. Just as I was succeeding, the butler came, calling me to
the telephone, and I answered, and who should it be but Old Joe!

My surprise became consternation at his first words: "Billy, your
friend Carpenter is in peril!"

"What do you mean?"

"They are going to get him tonight."

"Good God! How do you know?"

"It's a long story, and no time to tell it. Somebody's tipped me
off. Where can I meet you? Every minute is precious."

"Where are you?" I asked, and learned that he was at his home, not
far away. I said I would come there, and I hurried to Betty and had
another scene with her, and left her weeping, vowing that she would
never see me again. I ran out and jumped into my car--and I would
hate to tell what I did to the speed laws of Western City. Suffice
it to say that a few minutes later I was in Old Joe's den, and he
was telling me his story.

Part of it I got then, and part of it later, but I might as well
tell it all at once and be done with it. It happened that at the
restaurant where Old Joe and I had dined before we went to the
mass-meeting, he had met a girl whom he knew too well, after the
fashion of young men about town. In greeting her on the way out, he
had told her he was going to hear the new prophet and had laughingly
suggested that the meeting was free. The girl, out of idle
curiosity, had come, and had been touched by Carpenter's physical,
if not by his moral charms. It chanced that this girl was living
with a man who stood high in the secret service department of "big
business" in our city; so she had got the full story of what was
being planned against Carpenter. That afternoon, it appeared, there
had been a meeting between Algernon de Wiggs, president of our
Chamber of Commerce, and Westerly, secretary of our "M. and M.," and
Gerald Carson, organizer of our "Boosters' League." These three had
put up six thousand dollars, and turned it over to their secret
service agents, with instructions that Carpenter's agitations in
Western City were to be ended inside of twenty-four hours.

A plan had been worked out, every detail of which had been phoned to
Old Joe. A group of ex-service men, members of the Brigade, had been
hired to seize the prophet and treat him to a tar and feathering. It
had not taken much to move them to action, for the afternoon papers
were full of accounts of Carpenter's speech on Main Street, his
denunciation of war, and of soldiers as "murderers" and "wolves."

But that was not all, said Old Joe; and I saw that his hand was
trembling as he spoke. It appeared that there was an "operative"
named Hamby, who was one of Carpenter's followers.

"By God!" I burst out, in sudden fury. "I was sure that fellow was a
crook!"

"Yes," said the other. "He's been telephoning in regular reports as
to Carpenter's doings. And now it's been arranged that he is to put
an infernal machine in the Socialist headquarters where Carpenter
has been staying!"

I was almost speechless. "You mean--to blow them up?"

"No, to blow up their reputations. Hamby is to lure Carpenter out to
the street, and when the gang grabs him, Hamby will fire a shot, and
there will be three or four secret agents in the crowd, who will
incite the others, and see to it that Carpenter is lynched instead
of being tarred and feathered!"



LIV


So there was the layout; and now, what was to be done? The first
thing was to call Abell on the phone, and see if anything had
happened. I picked up the receiver; but alas, the report was, "No
answer." I urged "central" to try several times, but all I could get
was, "I am ringing them." Carpenter, no doubt, was praying. What
were the others doing? I kept on trying, but finally gave up.

Could the mob have taken them away? But Old Joe answered, no, a
definite hour had been set. The ex-service men were to gather on the
stroke of midnight. We had nearly an hour yet.

My first thought was that we should hurry to the Socialist
headquarters and get Carpenter out of the way. But my friend pointed
out that the place was certain to be watched, and we might find
ourselves held up by the armed detectives; they would hardly take a
chance of letting their prey escape at this hour. Also, I realized
there was no use figuring on any plan that involved spiriting
Carpenter away quietly, by the roof, or a rear entrance, or anything
of that sort. He would insist on staying and facing his enemies.

I put my wits to work. We needed a good-sized crowd; we needed, in
fact, a mob of our own. And suddenly the word brought to me an
inspiration; that mob which T-S had drilled at Eternal City! I
recalled that a year or so ago I had been lured to sit through a
very dull feature picture which the magnate had made, showing the
salvation of our country by the Ku Klux Klan; and I knew enough
about studio methods to be sure they had not thrown away the
costumes, but would have them stored. Here was the way to save our
prophet! Here was the way to get what one wanted in Mobland!

I picked up the receiver and called Eternal City. Yes, Mr. T-S was
there, but he was "on the lot" and could not be disturbed. I gave my
name, and stated that it was a matter of life and death; Mr. T-S
must come to the phone instantly. A couple of minutes later I heard
his voice, and told him the situation, and also my scheme. He must
come himself, to make sure that his orders were obeyed; he must
bring several bus-loads of men, clad in the full regalia of
Mobland's great Secret Society; and they must arrive at Abell's
place precisely on the stroke of midnight. The men must be paid five
dollars apiece, and be told that if they succeeded in bringing away
the prophet unharmed, they would each get ten dollars extra. "I will
put up that money," I said to T-S; but to my surprise he cried: "You
ain't gonna put up nuttin'! God damn dem fellers, I'll beat 'em if
it costs me a million!" So I realized that the prophet had made one
more convert!

"Have you got that bus with the siren?" I asked; and when he
answered, yes, I said, "Let that be the signal. When we hear it, Joe
and I will bring Carpenter down to the street, and if the Brigade is
there, it's up to you to persuade them you're the bigger mob!"

Then Old Joe and I ran down to my car, and drove at full speed to
the Socialist headquarters; and on the way we worked out our own
plan of campaign. The real danger-point was Hamby, the secret agent,
and we must manage to put him out of the way. Despite his pose of
"pacifism," he was certain to be armed, said Old Joe; yet we must
take a chance, and do the job unarmed. If we should get into a
shooting-scrape, they would certainly put it onto us; and they would
make it a hanging matter, too.

I named over the members of Carpenter's party who had stayed with
him. Andy Lynch, the ex-soldier, was probably a useful man, and we
would get his help. We would get rid of Hamby, and then we would
wait for T-S and his siren. By the time these plans were thoroughly
talked out, we had reached the building in which the headquarters
were located. There were lights in the main room upstairs, and the
door which led up to them was open. The street was apparently
deserted, and we did not stop to look for any "operatives," but left
our machine and stole quietly upstairs and into the room.



LV


Comrade Abell sat at the table, with his head bowed in his arms,
sound asleep. Lynch, the ex-soldier, and Tom Moneta, the Mexican,
were lying on the floor snoring. And on a chair near the doorway,
watching the scene, sat Hamby, wide awake. We knew he was awake,
because he leaped to his feet the instant we entered the door. "Oh,
it's you!" he said, recognizing me; I noted the alarm in his voice.

I beckoned to him, softly. "Come here a moment;" and he came out
into the ante-room. At the same time Old Joe stepped across the big
room, and stooped down and waked up Lynch. We had agreed that Joe
was to give Lynch a whispered explanation of the situation, while I
kept Hamby busy.

"Where is Mr. Carpenter?" I asked.

"He's in the private office, praying."

"Well," said I, "there's a sick woman who needs help very badly. I
wonder if we'd better disturb him."

"I don't know," said Hamby. "I've been here an hour, and haven't
heard a sound. Maybe he's asleep."

I was uncertain what I should do, and I elaborately explained my
uncertainty. Of course, praying was an important and useful
occupation, and I knew that the prophet laid great stress upon it,
and all of us who loved him so dearly must respect his wishes.

"Yes, of course," said Hamby.

Yet at the same time, I continued, this woman was very ill, a case
of ptomaine poisoning--

"Do you think he can cure that?" asked Hamby guilelessly; and at
that moment Old Joe and Lynch came from the big room. Hamby started
to turn, but he was too late. Old Joe's arms went around him, and
Hamby's two elbows were clamped to his sides, in a grip which more
than one professional wrestler in our part of the world has found it
impossible to break. At the same time I stooped on my knees and
grasped the man's two wrists; because we were taking no chances of
his gun. Lynch, the ex-soldier, had a cloth, taken from the big
table, and he flung this over the head of the "pacifist" and stifled
his cries.

I took a revolver from his hip-pocket, but Joe was not satisfied.
"Search him carefully," said he, and so I discovered another weapon
in a side-pocket. Then I made hasty search in a big closet of the
room, and found a lot of bundles of books and magazines tied with
stout cords. I took the cords, and we bound the "pacifist's" wrists
and ankles, and put a gag in his mouth, and then we felt sure he was
really a pacifist. We carried him to the closet and laid him on the
floor, where a humorous idea came to us. These bundles of magazines
and books were no doubt the ones which the mob had confiscated from
Comrade Abell. Since they were no longer saleable, they might as
well be put to some use, so I gathered armfuls of them and
distributed them over the form of Hamby, until there was no longer a
trace of him visible.

And while I was doing this, I noticed in one corner of the closet,
under the bundles, a wooden box about a foot square. Upon trying to
lift it, I discovered that it weighed several times as much as it
should have weighed if it had contained printed matter. "Here's our
infernal machine," I whispered, and I picked it up gingerly, and
tiptoed out of the room, and back to the kitchen, and down a rear
stairway of the building. I unlocked the door and opened it--and
there, crouching in the shadows alongside the door, just as I
expected, I saw a man.

"Hello!" I whispered.

"Hello!" said he, badly startled.

"Here's something belonging to Hamby. He wants me to give it to you.
Be careful, it's heavy." I deposited the box in his hands, and shut
the door, and turned the lock again, and groped my way upstairs,
chuckling to myself as I imagined the man's plight. He would not
know what to make of this incident, and I had an idea he would not
be able to find out, because he could not leave his post. Nor would
he have much time to figure over the matter; for when I got back to
the light, I looked at my watch, and it lacked just three minutes to
twelve.

I found that Lynch and Old Joe had shut the pacifist in the closet,
and were in the ante-room waiting for me. I whispered that
everything was all right. A moment later we heard a sound in the big
room, and peered in, and saw a door at the far end open--and there
was Carpenter, standing with his white robes gleaming in the light.
After a moment I realized that they gleamed even more than was
natural; I perceived once more that strange "aura" which had been
noticed at the mass-meeting; and by means of it I noticed an even
more startling thing. There were drops of sweat on Carpenter's
forehead, as always when he had labored intensely in his soul. This
time I saw that the drops were large, and they were drops of blood!

A trembling seized me. I was awe-stricken before this man--afraid to
go on with what I was doing, and equally afraid to back out. I
remained staring helplessly, and saw him approach the sleeping
figures, and stand looking at them. "Could you not watch with me one
hour?" he said, in his gentle, sad voice; and he put his hand on
Comrade Abell's shoulder, with the words: "The time has come."

Abell started to his feet, and began to apologize. The other said
nothing, but stooped and waked Moneta. And at that moment I heard
the shrill blast of a whistle outside on the street! "There's the
Brigade!" whispered Old Joe.



LVI


I ran down the stairs, and peered through the doorway, and sure
enough, there were four or five automobiles stopped before the
headquarters, having approached from opposite direction. I stood
just long enough to see a crowd of men in khaki uniforms jumping
out; then I ran back, and leaving Old Joe and Lynch to keep guard at
the top of the stairs, I walked in and greeted Carpenter.

He expressed no surprise at seeing me. Evidently his thoughts were
on other things. For my part, I was trembling with excitement, so
that my knees would barely hold me. How long would it be before T-S
and his crowd appeared? I could figure the time it should take them
to drive from Eternal City; but suppose something held them up? How
long would the ex-service men stay out on the street, waiting for
Hamby to answer their signal? Surely not many minutes! They would
storm the place, and hunt out their victim for themselves. And
suppose they should carry him off before the others arrived?

I had Hamby's two revolvers in my pocket. Should we use them, or
not? The thought hit me all of a sudden; and apparently it hit Old
Joe at the same moment. "Give me those guns, Billy," he whispered,
and I put them obediently into his hands, and he went quickly into
the rear rooms. At the end of a minute, he returned, saying, "I
unloaded them and threw them out of the back window." And even as he
spoke, the silence of the night outside was shattered by the scream
of that siren, which served to warn people out of the way when T-S
was moving his companies about "on location."

I went up to Carpenter. I didn't enjoy telling him a lie; in fact, I
had an idea that one couldn't lie to him successfully. But I tried
it. "Mr. Carpenter, Hamby left a message; he had to go downstairs,
and said he wanted to see you. Would you come down and meet him?"

"Ah, yes!" said Carpenter. And he walked to the door and down the
stairs without another word. The rest of us followed him; Abell and
Moneta first, they being innocent and unsuspicious; and then Lynch,
and then Joe and I.

The prophet stepped out to the street, and was instantly surrounded
by a group of a dozen ex-service men, two of whom grasped him by the
arms. He did not lift a hand, nor even make a sound. Comrade Abell,
of course, started to cry out in protest; Moneta, the Mexican,
reverted to his ancestors. His hand flashed to an inside pocket, and
a knife leaped out. A soldier had hold of him, and Moneta shouted,
"Stand back, or I cut off your ears." At which Carpenter turned, and
in a stern, commanding voice proclaimed: "Let no man use force in my
behalf! They who use force shall perish by force." Moneta stood
still; and of course Lynch and Old Joe and I stood still; and the
dozen men about Carpenter started to lead him away to their
automobiles.

But they did not get very far. Upon the silence of the street a
voice rang out. Ordinarily, one would have known it was the voice of
a woman; but in this place, under these exciting circumstances, it
seemed the voice of a supernatural being. It almost sang the words;
it was like a silver bugle calling across a battle-field--glorious,
thrilling, hypnotic. "Make way-y-y-y for the Grand Imperial
Kle-e-e-agle of the Ku-u Klux Klan!" Every one was startled; but I
think I was startled more that the rest, for I knew the voice! Mary
Magna had taken another speaking part!

I was on the steps of the building, so I could see over the heads of
the crowd. There were four of the big busses from Eternal City, two
having approached from each direction. Some fifty figures had
descended from them, and others were still descending, each one clad
in a voluminous white robe, with a white hood over the head, and two
black holes for eyes, and another for the nose. These figures had
spread out in a half moon, entirely surrounding the little mob of
ex-service men, and penning them against the wall of the building.
In the center of the half moon, standing a few feet in advance, was
the figure of the "Grand Imperial Kleagle," with a red star upon the
forehead of the white hood, and shrouded white arms stretched out,
and in one hand a magic wand with a red light on the end. This wand
was waving over the Brigade members, and had apparently its full
supernatural effect, for one and all they stood rooted to the spot,
staring with wide-open eyes.



LVII


The grand-opera voice raised again its silver chant: "Give way, all
mobs! Yield! Retire! Abdicate!--Bow down-n-n-n-n! Make way for the
Mob of Mobs, the irresistible, imperial, superior super-mob! Hearken
to the Lord High Chief Commanding Dragon of the Esoteric Cohorts,
the Exalted Immortal Grand Imperial Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan!"

Then the Grand Imperial Kleagle turned and addressed the white-robed
throng in a voice of sharp command: "Klansmen! Remember your oath!
The hour of Judgment is here! The guilty wretch cowers! The grand
insuperable sentence has been spoken! Coelum animum imperiabilis
senescat! Similia similibus per quantum imperator. Inexorabilis
ingenium parasimilibua esperantur! Saeva itnparatus ignotum
indignatio! Salvo! Suppositio! Indurato! Klansmen, kneel!"

As one man, the host fell upon its knees.

"Klansmen, swear! Si fractus illibatur orbis, impavidum ferient
ruinae! You have heard the sentence. What is the penalty? Is it
death?"

And a voice in the crowd cried "Death!" And the others took it up;
there was a roar: "Death! Death!"

Said the Grand Imperial Kleagle: "Arma virumque cano, tou
poluphlesboiou thalasses!" Then, facing the staring ex-servicemen:
"Tetlathi mater erne kai anaskeo ko-omeneper!"

Finally the Grand Imperial Kleagle pointed her shrouded white arm at
Carpenter, who stood, as pale as death, but unflinchingly. "Death to
all traitors!" she cried. "Death to all agitators! Death to all
enemies of the Ku Klux Klan! Condemnatus! Incomparabilis!
Ingenientis exequatur! Let the Loyal High Inexorable Guardians and
the Grand Holy Seneschals of the Klan advance!"

Six shrouded figures stepped out from the crowd. Said the Grand
Imperial Kleagle: "Possess yourselves of the body of this guilty
wretch!" And to the ex-servicemen: "Yield up this varlet to the High
Secret Court-martial of the Klan, which alone has power to punish
such as he."

What the bewildered members of the Brigade made of all this
hocus-pocus I had no idea. Afterwards, when the adventure was over,
I asked Mary, "Where in the world did you get that stuff?" And she
told me how she had once acted in a children's comedy, in which
there was an old magician who spent his time putting spells on
people. She had had to witness his incantations eight or ten times a
week for nearly a year, so of course the phrases had got fixed in
her memory, and they had served just as well to impress these
grown-up children.

Or perhaps the ex-servicemen thought this might be a further plan of
those who had employed them. Whatever they thought, it was obvious
that they were hopelessly outnumbered. There could be nothing for a
mob to do but yield to a Super-mob; and they yielded. Those who were
in front of Carpenter stepped back, and the Loyal High Inexorable
Guardians and the Grand Holy Seneschals took Carpenter by the arms
and led him away. Apparently they were going to overlook the rest of
us; but Old Joe and Lynch and myself took Abell and Moneta by the
shoulders and shoved them along, past the ex-service men and into
the midst of the "Klansmen."

There was no need to consider dignity after that. We hustled
Carpenter to the nearest of the busses, and put him in; the Grand
Imperial Kleagle followed, and the rest of us clambered in after
her. Sitting up beside the driver, watching the scene, was T-S,
beaming with delight; he got me by the hand and wrung it. I could
not speak, my teeth were literally chattering with excitement.
Carpenter, sitting in the seat behind us, must have realized by now
the meaning of this scandalous adventure; but he said not a word,
and the white-gowned Klansmen piled in behind him, and the siren
shrieked out into the night, and the bus backed to the corner, and
turned and sped off; and all the way to Eternal City, T-S and I and
Old Joe slapped one another on the back and roared with laughter,
and the rest of the Klansmen roared with laughter--all save the
Grand Imperial Kleagle, who sat by Carpenter's side, and was
discovered to be weeping.



LVIII


T-S and I had exchanged a few whispered words, and decided that we
would take Carpenter to his place, which was a few miles in the
country from Eternal City. He would be as safe there as anywhere I
could think of. When we had got to the studios, we discharged our
Klansmen, and arranged to send Old Joe to his home, and the three
disciples to a hotel for the night; then I invited Carpenter to step
into T-S's car. He had not spoken a word, and all he said now was,
"I wish to be alone."

I answered: "I am taking you to a place where you may be alone as
long as you choose." So he entered the car, and a few minutes later
T-S and I were escorting him into the latter's showy mansion.

We were getting to be rather scared now, for Carpenter's silence was
forbidding. But again he said: "I wish to be alone." We took him
upstairs to a bed-room, and shut him in and left him--but taking the
precaution to lock the door.

Downstairs, we stood and looked at each other, feeling like two
school-boys who had been playing truant, and would soon have to face
the teacher. "You stay here, Billy!" insisted the magnate. "You
gotta see him in de mornin'! I von't!"

"I'll stay," I said, and looked at my watch. It was after one
o'clock. "Give me an alarm-clock," I said, "because Carpenter wakes
with the birds, and we don't want him escaping by the window."

So it came about that at daybreak I tapped on Carpenter's door,
softly, so as not to waken him if he were asleep. But he answered,
"Come in;" and I entered, and found him sitting by the window,
watching the dawn.

I stood timidly in the middle of the room, and began: "I realize, of
course, Mr. Carpenter, that I have taken a very great liberty with
you--"

"You have said it," he replied; and his eyes were awful.

"But," I persisted, "if you knew what danger you were in--"

Said he: "Do you think that I came to Mobland to look for a
comfortable life?"

"But," I pleaded, "if you only knew that particular gang! Do you
realize that they had planted an infernal machine, a dynamite bomb,
in that room? And all the world was to read in the newspapers this
morning that you had been conspiring to blow up somebody!"

Said Carpenter: "Would it have been the first time that I have been
lied about?"

"Of course," I argued, "I know what I have done--"

"You can have no idea what you have done. You are too ignorant."

I bowed my head, prepared to take my punishment. But at once
Carpenter's voice softened. "You are a part of Mobland," he said;
"you cannot help yourself. In Mobland it is not possible for even a
martyrdom to proceed in an orderly way."

I gazed at him a moment, bewildered. "What's the good of a
martyrdom?" I cried.

"The good is, that men can be moved in no other way; they are in
that childish stage of being, where they require blood sacrifice."

"But what kind of martyrdom!" I argued. "So undignified and
unimpressive! To have hot tar smeared over your body, and be hanged
by the neck like a common criminal!"

I realized that this last phrase was unfortunate. Said Carpenter: "I
am used to being treated as a common criminal."

"Well," said I, in a voice of despair, "of course, if you're
absolutely bent on being hanged--if you can't think of anything you
would prefer--"

I stopped, for I saw that he had covered his face with his hands. In
the silence I heard him whisper: "I prayed last night that this cup
might pass from me; and apparently my prayer has been answered."

"Well," I said, deciding to cheer up, "you see, I have only been
playing the part of Providence. Let me play it just a few days
longer, until this mob of crazy soldier-boys has got out of town
again. I am truly ashamed for them, but I am one of them myself, so
I understand them. They really fought and won a war, you see, and
they are full of the madness of it, the blind, intense passions--"

Carpenter was on his feet. "I know!" he exclaimed. "I know! You need
not tell me about that! I do not blame your soldier-boys. I blame
the men who incite them--the old men, the soft-handed men, who sit
back in office-chairs and plan madness for the world! What shall be
the punishment of these men?"

"They're a hard crowd--" I admitted.

"I have seen them! They are stone-faced men! They are wolves with
machinery! They are savages with polished fingernails! And they have
made of the land a place of fools! They have made it Mobland!"

I did not try to answer him, but waited until the storm of his
emotion passed. "You are right, Mr. Carpenter. But that is the fact
about our world, and you cannot change it--"

Carpenter flung out his arm at me. "Let no man utter in my presence
the supreme blasphemy against life!"

So, of course, I was silent; and Carpenter went and sat at the
window again, and watched the dawn.

At last I ventured: "All that your friends ask, Mr. Carpenter, is
that you will wait until this convention of the ex-soldiers has got
out of town. After that, it may be possible to get people to listen
to you. But while the Brigade is here, it is impossible. They are
rough, and they are wild; they are taking possession of the city,
and will do what they please. If they see you on the streets, they
will inflict indignities upon you, they will mishandle you--"

Said Carpenter: "Do not fear those who kill the body, but fear those
who kill the soul."

So again I fell silent; and presently he remarked: "My brother, I
wish to be alone."

Said I: "Won't you please promise, Mr. Carpenter--"

He answered: "I make promises only to my Father. Let me be."



LIX


I went downstairs, and there was T-S, wandering around like a big
fat monk in a purple dressing gown. And there was Maw, also--only
her dressing gown was rose-pink, with white chrysanthemums on it. It
took a lot to get those two awake at six o'clock in the morning, you
may be sure; but there they were, very much worried. "Vot does he
say?" cried the magnate.

"He won't say what he is going to do."

"He von't promise to stay?"

"He won't promise anything."

"Veil, did you lock de door?"

I answered that I had, and then Maw put in, in a hurry: "Billy, you
gotta stay here and take care of him! If he vas to gome downstairs
and tell me to do someting, I vould got to do it!"

I promised; and a little later they got ready a cup of coffee and a
glass of milk and some rolls and butter and fruit, and I had the job
of taking up the tray and setting it in the prophet's room. When I
came in, I tried to say cheerfully, "Here's your breakfast," and not
to show any trace of my uneasiness.

Carpenter looked at me, and said: "You had the door locked?"

I summoned my nerve, and answered, "Yes."

Said he: "What is the difference to me between being your prisoner
and being the prisoner of your rulers?"

Said I: "Mr. Carpenter, the difference is that we don't intend to
hang you."

"And how long do you propose to keep me here?"

"For about four days," I said; "until the convention disbands. If
you will only give me your word to wait that time, you may have the
freedom of this beautiful place, and when the period is over, I
pledge you every help I can give to make known your message to the
people."

I waited for an answer, but none came, so I set down the tray and
went out, locking the door again. And downstairs was one of T-S's
secretaries, with copies of the morning newspapers, and I picked up
a "Times," and there was a headline, all the way across the page:

KU KLUX KLAN KIDNAPS KARPENTER RANTING RED PROPHET DISAPPEARS IN
TOOTING AUTOS

I understood, of icourse, that the secret agency which had
engineered the mobbing of the prophet would have had their stories
all ready for our morning newspapers--stories which played up to
the full the finding of an infernal machine, and an unprovoked
attack upon ex-service men by the armed followers of the "Red
Prophet." But now all this was gone, and instead was a story
glorifying the Klansmen as the saviors of the city's good name. It
was evident that up to the hour of going to press, neither of the
two newspapers had any idea but that the white robed figures were
genuine followers of the "Grand Imperial Kleagle." The "Times"
carried at the top of its editorial page a brief comment in large
type, congratulating the people of Western City upon the promptness
with which they had demonstrated their devotion to the cause of law
and order.

But of course the truth about our made-to-order mob could not be
kept very long. When you have hired a hundred moving-picture actors
to share in the greatest mystery of the age, it will not be many
hours before your secret has got to the newspaper offices. As a
matter of fact, it wasn't two hours before the "Evening Blare" was
calling the home of the movie magnate to inquire where he had taken
the kidnapped prophet; there was no use trying to deny anything,
said the editor, diplomatically, because too many people had seen
the prophet transferred to Mr. T-S's automobile. Of course T-S's
secretary, who answered the phone, lied valiantly; but here again,
we knew the truth would leak. There were servants and chauffeurs and
gardeners, and all of them knew that the white robed mystery was
somewhere on the place. They would be offered endless bribes--and
some of them would accept!

In the course of the next hour or two there were a dozen newspaper
reporters besieging the mansion, and camera men taking pictures of
it, and even spying with opera glasses from a distance. Before my
mind's eye flashed new headlines:

MOVIE MAGNATE HIDES MOB PROPHET FROM LAW

This was an aspect of the matter which we had at first overlooked.
Carpenter was due at Judge Ponty's police-court at nine o'clock that
morning. Was he going? demanded the reporters, and if not, why not?
Mary Magna no doubt would be willing to sacrifice the two hundred
dollars bail that she had put up; but the judge had a right to issue
a bench warrant and send a deputy for the prisoner. Would he do it?

Behind the scenes of Western City's government there began forthwith
a tremendous diplomatic duel. Who it was that wanted Carpenter
dragged out of his hiding-place, we could not be sure, but we knew
who it was that wanted him to stay hidden! I called up my uncle
Timothy, and explained the situation. It wasn't worth while for him
to waste his breath scolding, I was going to stand by my prophet. If
he wanted to put an end to the scandal, let him do what he could to
see that the prophet was let alone.

"But, Billy, what can I do?" he cried. "It's a matter of the law."

I answered: "Fudge! You know perfectly well there's no magistrate or
judge in this city that won't do what he's told, if the right people
tell him. What I want you to do is to get busy with de Wiggs and
Westerly and Carson, and the rest of the big gang, and persuade them
that there's nothing to be gained by dragging Carpenter out of his
hiding-place."

What did they want anyway? I argued. They wanted the agitation
stopped. Well, we had stopped it, and without any bloodshed. If they
dragged the prophet out from concealment, and into a police court,
they would only have more excitement, more tumult, ending nobody
could tell how.

I called up several other people who might have influence; and
meanwhile T-S was over at his office in Eternal City, pleading over
the telephone with the editors of afternoon papers. They had got the
Red Prophet out of the way during the convention, and why couldn't
they let well enough alone? Wasn't there news enough, with five or
ten thousand war-heroes coming to town, without bothering about one
poor religious freak?

When you shoot a load of shot at a duck, and the bird comes tumbling
down, you do not bother to ask which particular shot it was that hit
the target. And so it was with these frantic efforts of ours. One
shot must have hit, for at eleven o'clock that morning, when the
case of John Doe Carpenter versus the Commonwealth of Western City
was reached in Judge Ponty's court, and the bailiff called the name
of the defendant and there was no answer, the magistrate in a single
sentence declared the bail forfeited, and passed on to the next case
without a word. And all three of our afternoon newspapers reported
this incident in an obscure corner on an inside page. The Red
Prophet was dead and buried!

IX

I took up Carpenter's lunch at one o'clock, and discovered, to my
dismay, that he had not tasted his breakfast. I ventured to speak to
him; but he sat on a chair, gazing ahead of him and paying no
attention to me, so I left him alone. At six o'clock in the evening
I took up his dinner, and discovered that he had not touched either
breakfast or lunch; but still he had nothing to say, so I took back
the dinner, and went downstairs, and said to T-S: "We've got
ourselves in for a hunger strike!"

Needless to say, under the circumstances we did not very heartily
enjoy our own dinner. And T-S, neglecting his important business,
stayed around; getting up out of one chair and walking nowhere, and
then sitting down in another chair. I did the same, and after we had
exchanged chairs a dozen times--it being then about eight o'clock in
the evening--I said: "By the way, hadn't you better call up the
morning papers and persuade them to be decent." So T-S seated
himself at the telephone, and asked for the managing editor of the
Western City "Times," and I sat and listened to the conversation.

It began with a reminder of the amount of advertising space which
Eternal City consumed in the "Times" in the course of a year, and
also the amount of its payroll in the community. It wasn't often
that T-S asked favors, but he wanted to ask one now; he wanted the
"Times" to let up on this prophet business, and especially about the
prophet's connection with the moving picture industry. Everything
was quiet now, the prophet wasn't bothering anybody--

Suddenly, at the height of his eloquence, T-S stopped; and it seemed
to me as if he jumped a foot out of his chair. "VOT!" And then, "Vy
man, you're crazy!" He turned upon me, his eyes wide with dismay.
"Billy! Dey got a report--Carpenter is shoost now speakin' to a mob
on de steps of de City Hall!"

The magnate did not wait to see me jump out of my chair or to hear
my exclamations, but turned again to the telephone. "My Gawd, man!
Vot do I know about it? De feller vas up in his room two hours ago
ven we took him his dinner! He vouldn't eat it, he vouldn't speak--"

That was the last I heard, having bolted out of the room, and
upstairs. I found Carpenter's door locked; I opened it, and rushed
in. The place was empty! The bird had flown!

How had he got out? Had he climbed through the window and slid down
a rain-spout in his prophetic robes? Had he won the heart of some
servant? Had some newspaper reporter or agent of our enemies used
bribery? I rushed downstairs, and got my car from the garage; and
all the way to the city I spent my time in such futile speculations.
How Carpenter, having escaped from the house, had managed to get
into town so quickly--that was much easier to figure out; for our
highways are full of motor traffic, and almost any driver will take
in a stranger.

I came to the city. Even outside the crowded district, the traffic
was held up for a minute or two at every corner; so I found time to
look about, and to realize that the Brigade had got to town. All day
special trains had been pouring into the city, literally dozens of
them by every road; and now the streets were thronged with men in
uniform, marching arm in arm, shouting, chanting war-cries, roaming
in search of adventure. Tomorrow was the first day of the
convention, the day of the big parade: tonight was a night of riot.
Everything in town was free to ex-service men--and to all others who
could borrow or buy a uniform. The spirit of the occasion was set
forth in a notice published on the editorial page of the "Times":

"Hello, bo! Have a cigarette. Take another one. Take anything you
see around the place.

"The town is yours. Take it into camp with you. Scruff it up to your
heart's content. Order it about. Let it carry grub to you. Have it
shine your shoes. Hand it your coat and tell it to hold it until the
show is over.

"We are all waiting your orders. Shove us back if we crowd. Push us
off the street. Give us your grip and tell us where to deliver it.
Any errands? Call us. If you want to go anywhere, don't ask for
directions. Just jump into the car and tell us where you're bound
for.

"Let's have another one before we part. Put up your money; it's no
good here. This one's on Western City."

I saw that it was not going to be possible to drive through the jam,
so I put my car in a parking place, and set out for the City Hall on
foot. On the way I observed that the invitation of the "Times" had
been accepted; the Brigade had taken possession of the town. It was
just about possible to walk on the down-town streets; there were
solid masses of noisy, pushing people, every other man in uniform.
Evidently there had been a tagit agreement to repeal the Eighteenth
amendment to the Constitution for the next three days; bootleggers
had drawn up their trucks and automobiles along the curbs, and
corn-whiskey, otherwise known as "white lightnin'," was freely sold.
You would meet a man with a bottle in his hand, and the effects of
other bottles in his face, who would embrace you and offer you a
drink; in the same block you would meet another man who would invite
you to buy drinks for everybody in sight. The town had apparently
agreed that no invitation should be declined. If the great Republic
of Mobland had been unable to make for its returned war-heroes the
new world which it had promised them--if it could not even give them
back the jobs they had had before they left--surely the least it
could do was to get them drunk!

And several times in each block you would have to get off the
sidewalk for a group of ten or twenty flushed, dishevelled men,
playing the great national game of craps. "Roll the bones!" they
would shout, completely ignoring the throngs which surged about
them. Each had his pile of bills and silver laid out on the
pavement, and his bottle of "white lightnin';" now and then one
would take a swig, and now and then one would start singing:

    All we do is sign the pay-roll--
    And we don't get a goddam cent.

You would go a little farther, and find a couple of automobiles
trying to get past, and a merry crowd amusing itself throwing large
waste cans in front of them. Some one would shout: "Who won the
war?" And the answer would come booming: "The goddam slackers;" or
maybe it would be, "The goddam officers." The crowd would move along,
starting to chant the favorite refrain:

    You're in the army now,
    You're not behind the plow--;
    You son-of-a---,
    You'll never get rich--
    You're in the army now!

And from farther down the street would come a chorus from another
crowd of marchers:

    I got a girl in Baltimore,
    The street-car runs right by her door.

Every now and then you would come on a fist-fight, or maybe a fight
with bottles, and a crowd, laughing and whooping, engaged in pulling
the warriors apart and sitting on them. Through a mile or two of
this kind of thing I made my way, my heart sinking deeper with
misgiving. I got within a couple of blocks of the City Hall, and
then suddenly I came upon the thing I dreaded--my friend Carpenter
in the hands of the mob!



LXI


They had got hold of a canvas-covered wagon, of the type of the old
"prairie-schooner." You still find these camped by our roadsides now
and then, with nomad families in them; and evidently one of these
families had been so ill advised as to come to town for the
convention. The rioters had hoisted their victim on top of the
wagon, having first dumped a gallon of red paint over his head, so
that everyone might know him for the Red Prophet they had been
reading about in the papers. They had tied a long rope to the shaft
of the wagon, and one or two hundred men had hold of it, and were
hauling it through the streets, dancing and singing, shouting
murder-threats against the "reds." Some ran ahead, to clear the
traffic; and then came the wagon, lumbering and rocking, so that the
prophet was thrown from side to side. Fortunately there was a hole
in the canvas, and he could hold to one of the wooden ribs.

The cortege came opposite to me. On each side was a guard of honor,
a line of men walking in lock-step, each with his hands on the
shoulders of the one in front; they had got up a sort of chant: "Hi!
Hi! The Bolsheviki prophet! Hi! Hi! The Bolsheviki prophet!" And
others would yell, "I won't work! I won't work!"--this being our
Mobland nickname for the I.W.W. Some one had daubed the letters on
the sides of the wagon, using the red paint; and a drunken fellow
standing near me shook his clenched fist at the wretch on top and
bellowed in a fog-horn voice: "Hey, there, you goddam Arnychist, if
you're a prophet, come down from that there wagon and cure my
venereal disease!" There was a roar of laughter from the throng, and
the drunken fellow liked the sensation so well that he walked
alongside, shouting his challenge again and again.

Then I heard a crash behind me, and a clatter of falling glass; I
turned to see a soldier, inside the Royal Hotel, engaged in chopping
out the plate-glass window of the lobby with a chair. There were
twenty or thirty uniformed men behind him, who wanted to get out and
see the fun; but the door of the hotel was blocked by the crowd, so
they were seeking a direct route to the goal of their desires.

I knew, of course, there was nothing I could do; one might as well
have tried to stop a hurricane by blowing one's breath. Carpenter
had wanted martyrdom, and now he was going to get it--of the
peculiar kind and in the peculiar fashion of our free and
independent and happy-go-lucky land. We have had many agitators and
disturbers of our self-satisfaction, and they have all "got theirs,"
in one form or another; but there had never been one who had done
quite so much to make himself odious as this "Bolsheviki prophet,"
who was now "getting his." "Treat 'em rough!" runs the formula of
the army; and I fell in step, watching, and thinking that later I
might serve as one of the stretcher-bearers.

Half way down the block we came to the Palace Hotel, and uniformed
men came pouring out of that. I heard the shrieks of a woman, and
put my foot on the edge of a store-window, and raised myself up by
an awning, to see over the heads of the crowd. Half a dozen rowdies
had got hold of a girl; I don't know what she had done--maybe her
skirts were too short, or maybe she had been saucy to one of the
gang; anyhow, they were tearing her clothes to shreds, and having
done this gaily, they took her on their shoulders, and ran her out
to the wagon, and tossed her up beside the Red Prophet. "There's a
girl for you!" they yelled; and the drunken fellow who wanted
Carpenter to cure him, suddenly thought of a new witticism: "Hey,
you goddam Bolsheviki, why don't you nationalize her?" Men laughed
and whooped over that; some of them were so tickled that they danced
about and waved their arms in the air. For, you see, they knew all
the details concerning the "nationalization of women in Russia," and
also they had read in the papers about Mary Magna, and Carpenter's
fondness for picture-actresses and other gay ladies. He stretched
out his hand to the girl, to save her from falling off; and at this
there went up such a roar from the mob, that it made me think of
wild beasts in the arena. So to my whirling brain came back the
words that Carpenter had spoken: "It is Rome! It is Rome! Rome that
never dies!"

The cortege came to the "Hippodrome," which is our biggest theatre,
and which, like everything else, had declared open house for Brigade
members during the convention. Some one in the crowd evidently knew
the building, and guided the procession down a side street, to the
stage-entrance. They have all kinds of shows in the "Hippodrome,"
and have a driveway by which they bring in automobiles, or
war-chariots, or wild animals in cages, or whatever they will. Now
the mob stormed the entrance, and brushed the door-keepers to one
side, and unbolted and swung back the big gates, and a swarm of
yelling maniacs rushed the lumbering prairie-schooner up the slope
into the building.

The unlucky girl rolled off at this point, and somebody caught her,
and mercifully carried her to one side. The wagon rolled on; the
advance guard swept everything out of the way, scenery as well as
stage-hands and actors, and to the vast astonishment of an audience
of a couple of thousand people, the long string of rope-pullers
marched across the stage, and after them came the canvas-covered
vehicle with the red-painted letters, and the red-painted victim
clinging to the top. The khaki-clad swarm gathered about him,
raising their deafening chant: "Hi! Hi! The Bolsheviki prophet. Hi!
Hi! The Bolsheviki prophet!"