"This is madness," broke in Cleverest impatiently. "It is a jargon of senseless words!"
"Tell us about the bell," seconded Mr. Courage, and "Yes, the bell-the bell!" came from half a dozen other Servants.
"I am telling you of the bell," protested Drayton. "But you are too ignorant to grasp even a simple idea of it. Perhaps you can understand if I put it another way. This man-this professor had discovered a secret power by which metal, reverberating to a blow, might destroy not only other metal but human flesh, clothes, wood, marble, the very air you breathe! And these grafters, of whom you yourselves are the lineal descendants, forced the man to use his discovery for their benefit.
"With refined irony they took the old Liberty Bell. They had it recast. They made this professor recast the Liberty Bell itself, with other metal and in his new secret way-recast it as a much larger bell. It came out red as blood. Then they built this dome. They said Philadelphia should have the most glorious city hall in the world. They hung the bell there and they put the sword there. And then they set guards at the doors, and guns behind those panels. They invited the leading citizens to a demonstration. They forced the professor to play showman to his discovery, but they betrayed him so that his precautions for his own safety were annulled at the critical moment. Before the citizens' horrified eyes the professor, and the little gong he used for the experiment, and all the solid matter around it dissolved, disintegrated, vanished. He stood right there, where your pit yawns now. When he was gone there was a hole in the pavement as if made by a great explosion.
"And they-the grafters-set themselves up as masters of the city under threat of its complete destruction. They called themselves the Servants of Penn. They curtailed the education of the people as needless and too expensive. When the people complained, they placated them by abolishing all grades above the primary and turning the schools into dance halls and free moving-picture theaters. City hall they remodeled into a luxurious clubhouse where they themselves lived and reveled.
"Two generations later-generations of unschooled, iron-ruled citizens-and Penn had become a god. The poor, good old Quaker! His Servants made him the god of Lust, of Vice, of Drunkenness, of every sort of foul debauchery. The Servants were his priests and this his temple. In mockery they named themselves for the cardinal virtues-Mercy, Pity, Justice, Love. But they were tyrants without mercy, revelers in vice-"
"Stop!"
The command came from a livid, furious Cleverest, and the hand of a policeman cut off Drayton's flow of eloquence effectively. Cleverest was not the only angry man present. Drayton faced eight Servants who would have cheerfully torn him to pieces.
"Mr. Courage," Cleverest turned whitely to his uncle's lieutenant, "are you satisfied now, or do you desire further insult from this-this lying dog who would blacken the name of Penn and of Penn Service?"
"You were right, sir," conceded Courage. "I had not supposed that the brain of a human being could compass such a tissue of lies and blasphemy! We cannot be too quickly rid of the whole sacrilegious horde!"