The little room was jammed with men, thinned out, and jammed again. The electric light flashed up.
“What's to pay now?”
The Chronicle flung its bold cone of light and glaring challenge across the street. It seemed to strike the canvas with a slap.
“Forty Reform votes thrown out in 1st Ward. Fraud!”
A hush fell on Tecumseh Street. Then a roar went up that seemed to shake the buildings. Tecumseh Street thundered below, monstrous and elemental, and trembled above like a resonant drum. The mob rolled against the brick front of the block like a surf that might be expected to splash any moment up the flat perpendicular. Grey helmets of policemen tossed on the surface. Faces were yellow and greenish-white in the mingled electric-light and moonlight. Fists and spread hands were shaken at The Press windows. Five or six heads were in the window of the little room. Wood's face was plain to make out by his grey shovel-beard. They shouted comments in each other's ears.
“It's a riot.”
“No!”
“Looks like the bottom of hell, don't it?” Then a little spit of smoke and flame darted like a snake's tongue between the advertising boards, seven feet above the sidewalk. There was a sharp crack that only the nearest heard.
Wood flung up his hand, pitched forward, and hung half over the window sill.
Someone directly beneath, looking up, saw a head hanging, felt a drop splash on his face, and drew back wincing.