The rope that towed this curious object caught for a moment on an electric light pole, the car came to a temporary halt, and Stacey, bending over to look at the thing more closely, perceived that it was the charred, naked and limbless torso of a man.
Three hysterical girls, their hats awry, their arms linked, pushed him out of the way and kicked, squealing, at the dead flesh.
Stacey left the scene.
He found a small lunch-room open in a neighboring street. It was crowded with genial exulting ex-rioters. But Stacey pressed up to the counter, ordered sandwiches and coffee, and gulped them down ravenously. He was frankly famished. This did not shock him. He was too familiar with the physical effects of emotion even to give it a thought. And, indeed, so far as emotion went, he had, despite his almost impassive bearing, gone through more of it than the mob itself. For the mob had hated the negro and the mayor; Stacey had been consumed with hatred of the colossal mob itself—and of all men, all human life.
He left the lunch-room and went to his hotel. As he reached its doorway there was an echoing tramp of steady feet, and he turned to see a company of infantry march past. He saluted, and the officer marching beside the men saluted in return, gravely.
“It’s time!” thought Stacey bitterly. “If I’d had two men and a machine-gun I could have cleared the street.”
He had thought he was done with all sympathy for armies. Error! He would have given his right hand to-night to be in command of his battalion. Not because he cared for law and order. He didn’t give that for law and order! But because he could have saved the mayor—one brave man, a living individual—from the collective beast. And because he could have saved the negro. But mostly because he could have killed! killed!
He entered the hotel. Here, too, though the hour was late, were excited groups. Stacey pushed through them and up to the desk.
“The key to four hundred and twelve,” he demanded peremptorily.
But the clerk, his elbows on the desk, was listening to the voluble conversation of a group of commercial travellers and paid no attention.