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They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second Coming, a novel by Upton Sinclair |
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Chapter 47 |
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_ CHAPTER XLVII I no longer had any impulse to interfere. In truth I was glad to see the policeman, considering that his worst might be better than the mob's best. About half the crowd followed us, but the singing died away, and that gave Comrade Abell his chance. He was walking directly behind the policeman, and suddenly he raised his voice, and all the rest of the way to the station-house he provided marching tunes: first the Internationale, and then the Reg Flag, and then the Marseillaise: Ye sons of toil, awake to glory! When we came to the station house, the policeman gave Moneta a shove and told him to get along; he had not done anything, and was denied the honor of being arrested. The officer pushed Carpenter through the door, and bade the rest of us keep out. Said Abell: "I am an attorney." "The hell you are!" said the other. "I thought you were an opery singer." "I'm a practicing attorney," said Abell, "and I represent the man you have arrested. I presume I have a right to enter." "And I am a prospective bondsman," I stated, with sudden inspiration. "So let me in also." We entered, and the policeman led his prisoner to the sergeant at the desk. The latter asked the charge, and was told, "Disturbing the peace and blocking traffic." "Now, sergeant," said I, "this is preposterous. All this prisoner did was to try to stop a mob from destroying property." "You can tell all that to the magistrate in the morning," said the sergeant. "What is the bail?" I demanded. "You are prepared to put up bail?" I answered that I was; and then for the first time Carpenter spoke. "You mean you wish to pay money to secure my release? Let there be no money paid for me." "Let me explain, Mr. Carpenter," I pleaded. "You will accomplish nothing by spending the night in a police cell. You will have no opportunity to talk with the prisoners. They will keep you by yourself." He answered, "My Father will be with me." And gazing into the face of the sergeant, he demanded, "Do you think you can build a cell to which my Father cannot come?" The officer was an old hand, with a fringe of grey hair around his bald head, and no doubt he had been asked many queer questions in his day. His response was to inquire the prisoner's name; and when the prisoner kept haughty silence, he wrote down "John Doe Carpenter," and proceeded: "Where do you live?" Said Carpenter: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but he that espouses the cause of justice has no home in a world of greed." So the sergeant wrote: "No address," and nodded to a jailer, who took the prophet by the arm and led him away through a steel-barred door. Abell and I went outside and joined the rest of the group. None of us knew just what to do--with the exception of Everett, who sat on the steps with his notebook, and made me repeat to him word for word what Carpenter had said! _ |
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