The Man Without a Memory

by Arthur W. Marchmont

I observed that although there were police about, the tailor was right in saying they were not taking the usual steps to stop the row; and I noticed also that the crowd was growing in numbers and moving in my direction.

Then came the sound of smashing glass, with loud shouts from the women who clustered round the spot where the smash had been, and I went down the street far enough to see that a baker's shop had been forced.

The police interfered then; but it was too late, and there were too few of them. Moreover, the mob had tasted blood, or rather smelt food; and soon afterwards there was another smash; this time a provision shop. The crowd had been allowed to get out of hand; and I saw some of the police rush away, presumably to telephone for more men.

I was standing in the road at that moment and had to skip aside to avoid an open car which came rattling down the street toward the mob. An old lady and a girl were in the car, and as they passed me, the latter stood up and called excitedly to the chauffeur to stop.

If it hadn't been a German he would never have been fool enough to have attempted to enter the street at all; but I suppose he had been told to take that route, and his instinct of slavish obedience to orders did the rest. The result was what any one might have foreseen.

He was too late to turn back, and his one chance to get through was to have driven bang into the crowd and trusted to luck to clear a way. As it was, he came to a halt on the very verge of the crowd; and in less time than it takes to tell it, the car was the centre of a yelping, hungry mob of viragos to whom the sight of rich people in a costly car was like a good meal spread before a lot of famished wild beasts.

Worse than this, moreover, was the fact that some ruffians who had been hanging back began to push their way toward the car, whose occupants were calling for the police. They might as well have cried for the moon; and every cry was greeted with jeers and yells of anger from the women around. The trouble soon thickened.

One woman more reckless than the rest started a shout to have the two out of the car, and herself jumped on the step, grabbed the chauffeur, who seemed about paralyzed with fright, lugged him off his seat, and the crowd hustled and jabbed and cuffed him, till he was lost in the throng. Then some one opened the door of the car, and made a snatch at the dress of the girl, who set up screaming.

This was too much; so I shoved and shouldered my way through, pushed aside the woman who had tried to grab the girl, and urged the two panic-stricken ladies to come out. They hesitated, however, and a filthy hooligan with a long iron-shod bludgeon barked curses at me for a Junker and aimed a vicious blow at my head. I managed to dodge it, and jabbed him one in return on the mouth which sent him staggering back and enabled me to snatch his stick away.

Armed with this, I soon cleared a space about the car and again urged the two frightened occupants to leave it. The girl jumped out at once and had to help her mother, while I kept the mob at bay, and then fought a sort of rearguard action in miniature.