He rolled from the bed onto the floor, easing the thud by dropping taped feet first and then angling to knees, turning to land on his buttocks and then unfolding as gently as he knew how. He made it with no undue effort. Then he rolled across the floor to the door and, turning, he caught the hinge-butt under the tape at his wrists where tape and wrists made a small triangle.
After many minutes, Bronson succeeded in weakening the tape and then, hooking the tape firmly over the hinge, he tore it loose. To remove the tape from his mouth and from his ankles was but a moment's work and then Ed Bronson was free to act!
Quietly, he dressed. Then, using the utmost stealth, he stole down the stairs and out onto the street. It was midmorning.
Nodding amicably to Lewis McManner, who scowled back across the street, Ed Bronson headed for police headquarters.
CHAPTER IV
"What Fools—"
Ed Bronson thought it out on his way to the police station. Man was an impossible mixture of altruism and selfishness. Man was inclined to give freely to those who were needy—but would fight like fury to withhold the very smallest of his possessions from the avaricious grasp of those who would wrest them from him by force.
As a world requiring pity, aid and mercy, every effort would be bent towards that end, even to the job of making room for them in an already crowded world. But they had entered like bank robbers or claim jumpers. Their own world lost, they intended to abandon it, pirating any other world they could.
The brotherhood of man collapsed at that point and became a brotherhood of hate. Tolerance and mercy and willingness to offer succor must be forgotten when the needy become vicious. Biting the hand that feeds is an old platitude which still holds true.