Then the captor suddenly tripped the captive and laid him sprawling at Lanigan's feet; before the fallen man was up, Morrison, using the commander's sturdy shoulders and the thrust of the willing arms of his helper, had swung himself back to the top of the plinth. He kneeled and reached down his hands. "Up with him, Joe! Toss! I won't miss him!"
Lanigan was helped by a comrade in making the toss. Morrison grasped the man and yanked him upright and held him in a firm clutch.
The mayor was receiving plenty of advice from the crowd by that time. The gist of the counsel followed Lanigan's suggestion about punching off the fellow's face. But the mob was by no means unanimous. Men were daring to voice threats against Morrison.
As it had availed before that evening, Morrison's imperturbable silence secured quiet on the part of others.
"The opinion of the meeting seems to be divided," he said. He had recovered his poise along with his breath. "But no matter! I shall not adopt the advice of either side. I shall not let this fellow go until I have finished my business with him. I shall not punch his face off him. I'll not flatter him to that extent. A good American reserves his fists for a man-fight with a real man." He shook the captive, holding him at arm's-length. "Here's a young fool who has been throwing stones at windows. Here's a fresh rowdy who has been sticking out his tongue at authority. I know exactly what he needs!"
"He insulted the flag of this country! Turn him over to the police!" somebody insisted, and a roar of indorsement hailed the demand.
"Citizens, that would be like giving a mongrel cur a court trial for sheep-killing! This perverted infant simply needs—dingbats!" He shouted the last word. He twisted the radical off his feet, stooped, and laid the victim across a knee that was as solid as a tree-trunk, and with the flat of a broad hand began to whale the culprit with all his might.
The onlookers were silent for a few moments. Then there was a chorus of jeering approbation.
When the shamed, humiliated, agonized radical—thus made a mark for gibes instead of winning honor as a martyr for the cause—began to wail and plead the men who were nearest the scene of flagellation started to laugh. The laughter spread like a fire through dry brambles. It ran crackling from side to side of the great square. It mounted into higher bursts of merriment. It became hilarity that was expended by a swelling roar that split wide the night silence and came beating back in riotous echoes from the façade of the State House. That amazing method of handling anarchy had snapped the tense strain of a situation which had been holding men's emotions in leash for hours. The ludicrousness of the thing was heightened by the nervous solemnity immediately preceding. Men beat their neighbors on the back in instant comradeship of convulsed, rollicking jubilation.
"Always leave 'em laughing when you say good-by!" Morrison advised the chap whom he was manhandling. He held the fellow over the edge of the plinth by the collar and dropped him, wilted and whimpering, into the waiting arms of the appreciative Lanigan. "Dry his eyes, Joe, and wipe his nose, and see that he gets started for home all right."