He never remembered the walk downstairs. But in the open he saw a crowd of faces drifting excitedly beneath him. This was a scene he remembered later. It was while looking at the faces that he had grown strong. He laughed because it occurred to him at the moment he was unconquerable. Later, in prison, he often thought, "I have only my life to lose. I'm not afraid of that. When they hit me they were hitting at an idea. But they could only hit me. They couldn't touch the idea. I'll remember when I come out--they can only hit me. If they end by shooting me they'll not touch the idea even then. That's something beyond their fists and guns. I'll remember I'm only a shadow." A year passed and Tesla came out. He returned to the office of _The Cry_. His friends noticed a change. He had grown quiet. He no longer bubbled with words. His eyes looked straight at people who spoke to him. His manner whispered, "I'm nothing--a shadow thrown by an idea. I don't argue, and I'm not afraid. I'm part of masses of people all over the world and cannot be destroyed." The new Tesla became a leader. Among the radicals whose intellects were groping noisily with the idea of a new justice he often inspired a fear. His smile disquieted them and their arguments. His smile said, "Here, what's the use of arguing? There is no argument. It isn't words we must give the revolution, but lives. I'm ready. Here's mine." When he looked at men and women who vociferated in the councils of radical pamphleteers, workers, organizers, theorists, new party politicians, Tesla thought, "That one's afraid. He's only a logician. His mind has led him into revolution. If he changed his mind he would become a conservative.... There's one that isn't afraid. He's like me. His mind helps him. But no matter what his mind told him he would always be in the revolution. Something in him drives him...." For the rabble of artists and near-artists drifting by the scores into radical centers, Tesla held a respectful dislike. "He's in revolt because he must find something different than other people," he thought of most of them. "The revolution to him means only himself. It's something he can use to make himself felt more by people. And also he's a revolutionist because of the contrariness in him that artists usually have. Especially artists who, when they can't create new things, make themselves think they're creating new things by destroying old things." Of himself Tesla thought, "I'll fight and not mind if I'm killed. Because people will still be left alive, and so the idea of which I'm a part will continue to live."