"But you can get a square promise from me in business—and I can see that it's time to give that promise and make it specific. That's the way a business contract must be drawn. Hear me, then! It's the business of this city to see that no man abuses its good name or its hospitality, no matter whether he's a resident or comes here because it's the capital of the state. And I'll see to it that the men up at the State House end understand that they must play fair for the good of all of us. You must understand the same at this end. I'll take no sides in politics. The men who are entitled to their seats in this legislature will have those seats. I'm only one man, boys! But one man who is perfectly honest and is depending on the right will find the whole law of the land behind him—and wise men and good men have attended to the law. Will you take my word and let it stand that way between us?"
A chorused yell of assent greeted him.
"All right! It's a contract! Mind your end of it!"
He turned sharply from them and faced Krylovensky. The alien leaped up and kicked the mayor's garments to one side.
"Say! See here, my friend!" expostulated Stewart.
"Down with rulers!" screamed the man. "I'll be a martyr, but not a hat-rack!"
The mayor walked toward the frantic person. "I'm sorry! I was thoughtless!"
"You and your kind think of nothing but yourselves. You try to make slaves of free citizens of the world!" Krylovensky had been buffeted and had controlled himself. But the fires of his narrow fanaticism were now whirling in his brain; sitting there on high before the eyes of his fellows, the men to whom he had been preaching the doctrines of soviet sovereignty—the supremacy of the people—he had just suffered what his distorted views held as the enormity of ignominy; he had been used as a clothes-tree for discarded garments. Used by a ruler!
When Morrison, not realizing that the man had become little short of a maniac, stooped to pick up the garments Krylovensky dove forward and struck the mayor's face with open hand. "Now throw me to your dogs! I'll die a martyr to my cause!" he squalled.
The mayor snapped upright and laid restraining hands on the man who was threatening him with doubled fists.