"What is the trouble, then?" he asked, looking keenly into my eyes. "You have bad news."
Then before I could reply, he said, "Come in here," and led me into the private office. "Now let's hear about it," he said.
"The Council of Nine is ready to use its rifles," I replied. And I gave with rapid phrases the tale of the imminent revolution as it had come from Clark.
William T. Coleman listened with a rapt attention that showed he took the warning more seriously than I had taken it.
"Then we have till midnight," he said, after he had digested the information.
"My informant said that the rifle clubs are ordered to assemble at eleven o'clock."
He looked out of the window into the darkness; then he turned to me again.
"It will never do to let those men come together with arms in their hands. That would mean bloodshed--terrible bloodshed. I am using every effort to prevent an appeal to arms. I have refused to call for the militia. The National Guard is under arms, but I have a promise from Bryant that he will not ask for it until I give the word. I have refused an offer of Federal troops from the Presidio. I have a note from the admiral that the marines and sailors at Mare Island have been put under arms, and that the Pensacola is ready to take a position that will command the city. But I have refused to permit them to be summoned. I shall never summon them except as a last resort. It is an awful thing to have men shot down, and the memory of such an affair would be a lasting stain on the city."
"It would be sad to have innocent men killed," I said; "but I shouldn't weep over the loss of some of those demons I saw raiding wash-houses and trying to kill Wharton Kendrick. The world would be better off without them."
"Do not judge them too hastily," said Coleman quickly. "Civilization is at best only skin-deep. Scratch the civilized man, and you find the wild beast. It takes a little deeper scratch to find it in some men than in others; but it is there. You and I think ourselves well-balanced, Hampden, yet I have seen men of our nature turn into ferocious beasts. I pray God I may never see the like again. These men you saw in the shape of demons the other night may be good citizens in quiet times. Thank God, young man, for government. It is the blessing of organized society--of organized government--that keeps the wild beast behind bars." He spoke with feeling, yet with the philosophic calm of the lecturer on law, and he impressed me profoundly with his momentary unveiling of a broad and tolerant mind. Then he became the man of affairs again.