"Why, yes," answered Sands, surprised. "You accused Blan of practicing polygamy. I told you that you'd been listening to too much gossip, and that Blan was doing biological research. I don't believe these good people would be interested in the nature of the research."
"I do," answered Truggles, "and it will be the subject of tomorrow's meeting. I have investigated these experiments, and they are well worth hearing about. Thank you, Mr. Mayor."
Truggles was a past master at building tension. The next day, he apologized for changing the program and gave a lecture on polygamy in human society. Backgrounded with considerable research at the Marston Hill public library, he described polygamy in Biblical times, in savage communities, in China and the Mohammedan world and among the early Mormons in the United States. He told of the social objections to polygamy and the progress made in eliminating it as a way of life.
The following day, he described Forsythe's research with tetraploid plants—not too accurately, but that didn't matter with this audience—and skillfully translated chromosome doubling into human terms until his final revelation that Forsythe was a tetraploid man left them gasping. And, the fourth day, he told, with some embroidery, of Forsythe's polygamy.
During each of these talks, Lois sat on the stage. Polygamy was a known, routine affair to her. Truggles was able to word his talks so that, to Lois, his revelations appeared calm and unbiased; but at the same time they were insinuating and inflammatory to his audiences, to whom polygamy was something strange and monstrous.
During none of the first four talks did he call on Lois. But at the end of the fourth, he announced:
"I have described to you what Forsythe told me himself. Perhaps you have been wondering who this attractive young lady is. She is none other than one of Forsythe's multiple wives, and tomorrow evening you shall hear a description of a polygamous household from her own lips."
The first meeting had contained only the members of the small group which Truggles himself had organized, and two or three visitors attracted by the mayor's presence. But such words as "polygamy," "harem," "strange research," "monstrous plants and people" got around, as Truggles intended they should. The audience grew by leaps and bounds. By the night of the final meeting, the old auditorium was filled to overflowing; they were standing in the aisles.
Calmly, and yet not without some hint of the tragedy she herself felt, Lois described the day-to-day life of Forsythe's household; the friendship among the wives, their jealousies, their hopes and regrets. She did not realize that her words, like those of Truggles the day before, were building anger in the breasts of her hearers at something they had not experienced and could not understand.
When she had finished, Truggles took the stage, and now the calmness, the factualness, was gone from him.