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.
Pages:
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284