"Are you asking me to cheat the electric company?" asked Joe.
Pearl looked startled. Then she smiled. "No. I'm asking you not to let the Devil have a chance to get loose. Certainly that's not a crime."
"From the Devil's view-point, maybe. But it isn't from mine. Anything as dangerous as he is, should be locked up. I don't think there is a jury in the world that would disagree with me in that respect."
The next day, impossible as it seemed, all hell did break loose. Joe Emerald was waiting in line with a hundred other men to check with the unemployment bureau. One of the men had a portable radio, and although he had it tuned so low that only he could hear it, his shout was something everybody could hear.
"The President!" he choked. "Somebody's shot the President!"
He turned up the volume, and for a few stunned moments Joe listened to the excited voice of the announcer blurting out a complete lack of details other than a variety of ways of expressing the single detail that he did have—that the President had been shot.
"That's a crime!" he exclaimed, and the man next to him blinked.
"What else?" he snorted. "What are you, a Democrat?"
"Pearl!" exclaimed Joe. "She's let him loose!"