The mayor walked toward the frantic person. "I'm sorry! I was thoughtless!" "You and your kind think of nothing but yourselves. You try to make slaves of free citizens of the world!" Krylovensky had been buffeted and had controlled himself. But the fires of his narrow fanaticism were now whirling in his brain; sitting there on high before the eyes of his fellows, the men to whom he had been preaching the doctrines of soviet sovereignty--the supremacy of the people--he had just suffered what his distorted views held as the enormity of ignominy; he had been used as a clothes-tree for discarded garments. Used by a ruler! When Morrison, not realizing that the man had become little short of a maniac, stooped to pick up the garments Krylovensky dove forward and struck the mayor's face with open hand. "Now throw me to your dogs! I'll die a martyr to my cause!" he squalled. The mayor snapped upright and laid restraining hands on the man who was threatening him with doubled fists. A roaring mob came milling toward the platform. "I'll be a martyr!" insisted the alien. "I can't humor you to that extent," replied Morrison, in the tone of a father denying indulgence in the case of a wilful child. He got between the man and the mob. He held Krylovensky from him with one hand and put up the other protestingly, authoritatively. "No man that's a real man lets another man bang him in the face," declared Lanigan with fury. "That's a nice point, to be argued later by us when things are quieter, Joe. Stand back!" "I'm going to kill him even if you haven't got the grit to do it." Lanigan was showing the bitter disappointment of a worshiper kicking among the fragments of a shattered idol. "I won't allow you to do that, Joe! A dead man can't answer questions. Stand back, all of you, I say!" He twisted the grip of his hand in the man's collar until Krylovensky ceased his struggles. "Do you work in this city?" asked the mayor. "He works in the Conawin," shouted Lanigan. "And I shook him down this evening for a gun, a knob-knocker, and a lot of red flags." Blanchard was backed against the big Stars and Stripes, apprehensively seeking refuge from the crowd massing on the platform. Morrison caught his eye. "Seems to be one of your patriots, Blanchard! Shall I hand him over to you?" "I never saw the renegade before." "I'm sorry you don't get into your mill the way I do into mine. I'd like to know something about this gentleman who doesn't show any inclination to speak for himself." "I'm not afraid to speak," declared the captive, all cautiousness burned out of him by the fires of his martyr zeal. "I'm an ambassador of the grand and good Soviet Government of Russia." The mayor preserved his serenity.