“Wh-where is Jake?”
“He goes ahead vit a boondle of bombs. Nobody is on the Schiff. Ve could not have so good a chence again.”
Mamise might have, ought to have, seized him and cried for help; but she could not somehow throw off the character she had assumed with Nicky. She obeyed him in a kind of automatism. Her eyes searched the crowd for Larrey, who had kept all too close to her of recent days and nights. But he had fallen under the hypnotism of some too eloquent spellbinder.
Mamise felt the need of doing a great heroic feat, but she could not imagine what it might be. Pending the arrival from heaven of some superfeminine inspiration, she simply went along to be in at the death.
Pafflow was a bit stupid and two bits stubborn. He puzzled over Mamise’s peculiar orders. He wanted to hear the rest of that fiery speech. He turned and stared after Mamise and noted the way she went, with the foppish stranger carrying the heavy baggage. But he was used to obeying orders after a little balking, and in time his slow brain started him on the hunt for Davidge. He quickened his pace and asked questions, being put off or directed hither and yon.
At last he saw the boss sitting on a platform behind whose fluttering bunting a white-haired man was hurling noises at the upturned faces of the throng. Pafflow supposed that his jargon was English.
Getting to Davidge was not easy. But Pafflow was stubborn. He pushed as close to the front as he could, and there a wall of bodies held him.
The orator was checked in full career with almost fatal results by the sudden bellowing of a voice from the crowd below. He supposed that he was being heckled. He paused among the ruins of his favorite period, and said:
“Well, my friend, what is it?”
Pafflow ignored him and shouted: “Meesta Davutch! O-o-h, Meesta Davutch. Neecky is here.”