"
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.
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