"Get those two Tommies away," he begged. "Dust this fellow's jacket for him, but can't do it in uniform with men about."
I gripped his arm firmly and tried to drag him away. The war seemed to have brought all Grayle's latent ferocity to the surface.
"Don't be a fool!" I whispered.
"Not going to let a damned German agent talk sedition in my hearing!" he cried.
Even as he spoke, the decision was taken out of our hands. The soldier, rightly or wrongly described as a coal-heaver, stepped forward and called upon the lecturer to "take that back, will you?" The lecturer smiled, folded his arms and said nothing, quietly waiting for the interruption to subside.
"Take that back!" repeated the soldier, with a new note of menace in his voice, and, when there was no answer, dealt a swinging open-handed blow to the lecturer's face.
His victim staggered, recovered his balance and stood with lips tightly compressed and a print of angry scarlet on his cheek. One of the women had screamed; two of the loafers cried, after deliberation, "Serve him right!"
"When opposed to truth," the lecturer continued, when he had satisfied himself that no second blow was coming, "violence is as ineffectual in the street as on the battlefield. You do not stifle truth by sending a man to Siberia, as I've seen men sent, though you may remove an undesirable prefect of police, as I have seen one removed, sky-high in Kiev, because—well, the truth was not in him. Nor is there truth in you; there can be no truth in dogs who feed on bones flung from the table, dogs who rise up raw from their beating and give their lives to protect their masters."
This time there was no invitation to retract. The same soldier again stepped quickly forward, threw his arm across his chest and flung the full weight of his body into a sweeping backhander. The lecturer was lifted off his feet and carried a yard back, where he struck the railings and fell in an invertebrate mass with one leg curled under him. The onlookers craned forward uneasily, glanced at one another and began to separate in silence, the more quickly when Grayle limped up and confronted the avenging soldier.
"Clear out of this!" he ordered abruptly.