"
"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.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268