"It's loaded already ... here is a pocketful of extra bullets."
She filled my coat pocket till it sagged heavily. I slipped the gun in my hip pocket.
"You're really going to stand them off if they come?"
"As long as no one tries to break into my house I will lie quiet ... the minute someone tries to break in, I'll shoot, I'll shoot to kill, and I'll kill as many as I can before they take me. I'll admit I'm frightened, but I have principles of freedom and radical right, and I'll die for them if necessary."
Mrs. Rond put her hand on my shoulder like a man.
"You have the makings of a fine fanatic in you ... in the early Christian era you would have been a church martyr."
I held immediate consultation with Darrie and Hildreth and they were both scared blue ... but they were game, too.
Darrie, however, unfolded a principle of strategy which I put into immediate effect ... she advised me to try a bluff first.
When I walked downtown within the hour, to obtain the New York papers, there was no doubt, by the even more sullen attitude of the inhabitants that I passed on the street, that something serious was a-foot....