“No!”
“Yes.”
“It’s forged.”
“The captain says he knows the signature. Has Forrest a legal right to sign such a permit?”
“I think so. I don’t know. Who’s the leader? Lincoln Lee?”
“No. A tall man with black hair.”
Cunningham snapped, “Arrest him. Chase them.”
“Arrest him for what?”
“For not being Lincoln Lee. What’s the difference? Any way, don’t let them parade. Chase them.”
The Secretary hesitated a moment, then spoke into the telephone and gave the order. When he had finished he turned back to the general: “What do you know about Forrest?”
The reply was incisive. “I don’t know a single damned thing about a single damned soul. It’s a good thing I’m a soldier and not supposed to, it saves me embarrassment.”
The focus of the excitement, of course, the center toward which these radii of fervor and fear converged, was the Capitol building. The police, mounted and on foot, kept clearonly those spaces which had been roped off. They tried to show forbearance, but now and then a skull got rapped or a horse stepped on a biped’s foot. No gray shirts were visible; there were many coat collars turned up, but of course it was legal for even a good citizen to turn up his coat collar. The throng increased in both size and unruliness, and the police got a little rougher. When the Chief of Police arrived on the scene around half-past eleven he was more relieved than alarmed; from the reports he had suspected worse. He even began to think he might finish the day without the army as he got out of his car and started a round of visits to his officers on their various posts at strategic points. Any in his path who did not promptly make way for him were brushed aside with vigor; he was plenty big enough and his contempt was very real. At a quarter to twelve, fifteen minutes before the scheduled time for the arrival of the President, he brought up at the foot of the steps to the west entrance, directly in front of the delegation of the Women’s League for Peace. They looked tired, excited, and grim, their banners erect on high poles; more than a hundred of them, surely.
The Chief spoke to one in front, apparently the leader: “You ladies look out of place huddled here.”
“We are not huddling!” She was indignant. “We want the President to see us. Is there a better place?”
The Chief shook his head and strode on, toward a spot where a little whirlpool was gathering around a man who had started to make a speech.
2
Inside the Capitol, in the House chamber, another mob had gathered. More precisely, three others. There were the visitors’ galleries, packed to the last inch; the press gallery, with no absentees; and the floor.
In the first there were wives of Senators and Representatives, embassy men, lobbyists, an ex-President’s widow, society bell-cows, an A. F. of L. vice-president, judges’ wives, a miscellany of government officials from bureaus, commissions and boards, and a small scattering of those who can, alas, be called merely people. The chatter was deafening, since thesession had not yet been called to order; and it was uncommonly high-pitched, for all were taut with expectancy, even those whose sophistication was of the variety that confuses itself with indifference. It was a knowing crowd; it knew the line-up in the House, the Senate war bloc, the spot where the President would stand below the presiding officers; it knew everyone by sight; it knew that Mrs. Stanley had not yet made an appearance; and above all it knew that not only a great nation but an entire world, the whole of an immense tortured civilization, was holding its breath in expectancy of what this knowing crowd’s ears would hear and eyes would see before all others.
The occupants of the press gallery, not onlookers but characters in the drama and thoroughly aware of it, moved restlessly about, talking, watching, disappearing below and coming up again. A few scribbled on pads. The
“Yes.”
“It’s forged.”
“The captain says he knows the signature. Has Forrest a legal right to sign such a permit?”
“I think so. I don’t know. Who’s the leader? Lincoln Lee?”
“No. A tall man with black hair.”
Cunningham snapped, “Arrest him. Chase them.”
“Arrest him for what?”
“For not being Lincoln Lee. What’s the difference? Any way, don’t let them parade. Chase them.”
The Secretary hesitated a moment, then spoke into the telephone and gave the order. When he had finished he turned back to the general: “What do you know about Forrest?”
The reply was incisive. “I don’t know a single damned thing about a single damned soul. It’s a good thing I’m a soldier and not supposed to, it saves me embarrassment.”
The focus of the excitement, of course, the center toward which these radii of fervor and fear converged, was the Capitol building. The police, mounted and on foot, kept clearonly those spaces which had been roped off. They tried to show forbearance, but now and then a skull got rapped or a horse stepped on a biped’s foot. No gray shirts were visible; there were many coat collars turned up, but of course it was legal for even a good citizen to turn up his coat collar. The throng increased in both size and unruliness, and the police got a little rougher. When the Chief of Police arrived on the scene around half-past eleven he was more relieved than alarmed; from the reports he had suspected worse. He even began to think he might finish the day without the army as he got out of his car and started a round of visits to his officers on their various posts at strategic points. Any in his path who did not promptly make way for him were brushed aside with vigor; he was plenty big enough and his contempt was very real. At a quarter to twelve, fifteen minutes before the scheduled time for the arrival of the President, he brought up at the foot of the steps to the west entrance, directly in front of the delegation of the Women’s League for Peace. They looked tired, excited, and grim, their banners erect on high poles; more than a hundred of them, surely.
The Chief spoke to one in front, apparently the leader: “You ladies look out of place huddled here.”
“We are not huddling!” She was indignant. “We want the President to see us. Is there a better place?”
The Chief shook his head and strode on, toward a spot where a little whirlpool was gathering around a man who had started to make a speech.
2
Inside the Capitol, in the House chamber, another mob had gathered. More precisely, three others. There were the visitors’ galleries, packed to the last inch; the press gallery, with no absentees; and the floor.
In the first there were wives of Senators and Representatives, embassy men, lobbyists, an ex-President’s widow, society bell-cows, an A. F. of L. vice-president, judges’ wives, a miscellany of government officials from bureaus, commissions and boards, and a small scattering of those who can, alas, be called merely people. The chatter was deafening, since thesession had not yet been called to order; and it was uncommonly high-pitched, for all were taut with expectancy, even those whose sophistication was of the variety that confuses itself with indifference. It was a knowing crowd; it knew the line-up in the House, the Senate war bloc, the spot where the President would stand below the presiding officers; it knew everyone by sight; it knew that Mrs. Stanley had not yet made an appearance; and above all it knew that not only a great nation but an entire world, the whole of an immense tortured civilization, was holding its breath in expectancy of what this knowing crowd’s ears would hear and eyes would see before all others.
The occupants of the press gallery, not onlookers but characters in the drama and thoroughly aware of it, moved restlessly about, talking, watching, disappearing below and coming up again. A few scribbled on pads. The
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