"This is Joe Blaine." Joe gave his address. "There's a riot in front of the house—a big mob. Send over a patrol wagon on the jump!"
At that moment there was a wild crash of glass, and a heavy stone sang through the air and knocked out the stove-pipe—pipe and stone falling to the floor with a rumble and rattle—and from the mob rose murderous yells.
So Joe was able to add:
"They've just smashed my window with a stone. You'd better come damn fast."
"Right off!" snapped Headquarters.
Joe put down the telephone, and stepped quietly over the room and out into the hall. Even at that moment the hall door burst wide and a frenzied push and squabble of men poured forth upon him. In that brief glimpse, in the dim storm-light, Joe saw faces that were anything but human—wild animals, eyes blood-shot, mouths wide, and many fists in the air above their heads. There was no mercy, no thought, nothing civilized—but somehow the demon-deeps of human nature, crusted over with the veneer of gentler things, had broken through. Worse than anything was the crazy hum, rising and rising, the hoarse notes, the fierce discord, that beat upon his brain as if to drown him under.
Joe tried to shout:
"Keep back! I'll shoot! Keep back!"
But at once the rough bodies, the terrible faces were upon him, surrounding him, pushing him. He seized a little man who was jumping for his throat—seized and shook the little beast.
"Get back!" he cried.