The two men were lying in wait, either for him or for some other pedestrian they judged sufficiently unwary. He sensed them long before the first one stepped out toward him, a cigarette in one hand and what was supposed to be an ingratiating look on the brutal face.
"Got a match, bud?"
The other man suddenly plunged at him from the side, an arm wrapping itself around his neck. The assailant tried to bend him back, the forearm cutting across his windpipe. The arm of the first man swung, a rough fist smashing at his face.
Then the two assailants screamed in pain and terror. Where they had touched him, fist and arm broke into flame. Both men turned from him in horror, and ran off wildly, as if to get away from themselves.
He hadn't meant to hurt them, but they had contrived their own punishment. Perhaps—no, that wasn't it. He wasn't here to punish either.
He walked along, and soon he found himself entering the city. A man in a blue uniform watched him suspiciously and ordered him gruffly to get moving.
"I am moving," he said pleasantly.
"Don't you get wise with me," said the bluecoat, and raised a threatening club.
He paid no attention to the club and kept on, toward the heart of the city.
What he saw only confirmed the impression he had obtained from the minds of the men and women in the cars. Too many thoughts were mean and ignoble, arising only from selfish and vicious desires. Many of those who saw him seemed to sense his strangeness, and moved toward him with a single impulse—to take advantage of his ignorance. Men spoke to him out of the sides of their mouths, offering him bargains. Women offered themselves.