LVIII
T-S and I had exchanged a few whispered words, and decided that we
would take Carpenter to his place, which was a few miles in the
country from Eternal City. He would be as safe there as anywhere I
could think of. When we had got to the studios, we discharged our
Klansmen, and arranged to send Old Joe to his home, and the three
disciples to a hotel for the night; then I invited Carpenter to step
into T-S's car. He had not spoken a word, and all he said now was,
"I wish to be alone."
I answered: "I am taking you to a place where you may be alone as
long as you choose." So he entered the car, and a few minutes later
T-S and I were escorting him into the latter's showy mansion.
We were getting to be rather scared now, for Carpenter's silence was
forbidding. But again he said: "I wish to be alone." We took him
upstairs to a bed-room, and shut him in and left him--but taking the
precaution to lock the door.
Downstairs, we stood and looked at each other, feeling like two
school-boys who had been playing truant, and would soon have to face
the teacher. "You stay here, Billy!" insisted the magnate. "You
gotta see him in de mornin'! I von't!"
"I'll stay," I said, and looked at my watch. It was after one
o'clock. "Give me an alarm-clock," I said, "because Carpenter wakes
with the birds, and we don't want him escaping by the window."
So it came about that at daybreak I tapped on Carpenter's door,
softly, so as not to waken him if he were asleep. But he answered,
"Come in;" and I entered, and found him sitting by the window,
watching the dawn.
I stood timidly in the middle of the room, and began: "I realize, of
course, Mr. Carpenter, that I have taken a very great liberty with
you--"
"You have said it," he replied; and his eyes were awful.
"But," I persisted, "if you knew what danger you were in--"
Said he: "Do you think that I came to Mobland to look for a
comfortable life?"
"But," I pleaded, "if you only knew that particular gang! Do you
realize that they had planted an infernal machine, a dynamite bomb,
in that room? And all the world was to read in the newspapers this
morning that you had been conspiring to blow up somebody!"
Said Carpenter: "Would it have been the first time that I have been
lied about?"
"Of course," I argued, "I know what I have done--"
"You can have no idea what you have done. You are too ignorant."
I bowed my head, prepared to take my punishment. But at once
Carpenter's voice softened. "You are a part of Mobland," he said;
"you cannot help yourself. In Mobland it is not possible for even a
martyrdom to proceed in an orderly way."
I gazed at him a moment, bewildered. "What's the good of a
martyrdom?" I cried.
"The good is, that men can be moved in no other way; they are in
that childish stage of being, where they require blood sacrifice."
"But what kind of martyrdom!" I argued. "So undignified and
unimpressive! To have hot tar smeared over your body, and be hanged
by the neck like a common criminal!"
I realized that this last phrase was unfortunate. Said Carpenter: "I
am used to being treated as a common criminal."
"Well," said I, in a voice of despair, "of course, if you're
absolutely bent on being hanged--if you can't think of anything you
would prefer--"
I stopped, for I saw that he had covered his face with his hands. In
the silence I heard him whisper: "I prayed last night that this cup
might pass from me; and apparently my prayer has been answered."
"Well," I said, deciding to cheer up, "you see, I have only been
playing the part of Providence. Let me play it just a few days
longer, until this mob of crazy soldier-boys has got out of town
again. I am truly ashamed for them, but I am one of them myself, so
I understand them. They really fought and won a war, you see, and
they are full of the madness of it, the blind, intense passions--"
Carpenter was on his feet. "I know!" he exclaimed. "I know! You need
not tell me about that! I do not blame your soldier-boys. I blame
the men who incite them--the old men, the soft-handed men, who sit
back in office-chairs and plan madness for the world! What shall be
the punishment of these men?"
"They're a hard crowd--" I admitted.
"I have seen them! They are stone-faced men! They are wolves with
machinery! They are savages with polished fingernails! And they have
made of the land a place of fools! They have made it Mobland!"
I did not try to answer him, but waited until the storm of his
emotion passed. "You are right, Mr. Carpenter. But that is the fact
about our world, and you cannot change it--"
Carpenter flung out his arm at me. "Let no man utter in my presence
the supreme blasphemy against life!"
So, of course, I was silent; and Carpenter went and sat at the
window again, and watched the dawn.
At last I ventured: "All that your friends ask, Mr. Carpenter, is
that you will wait until this convention of the ex-soldiers has got
out of town. After that, it may be possible to get people to listen
to you. But while the Brigade is here, it is impossible. They are
rough, and they are wild; they are taking possession of the city,
and will do what they please. If they see you on the streets, they
will inflict indignities upon you, they will mishandle you--"
Said Carpenter: "Do not fear those who kill the body, but fear those
who kill the soul."
So again I fell silent; and presently he remarked: "My brother, I
wish to be alone."
Said I: "Won't you please promise, Mr. Carpenter--"
He answered: "I make promises only to my Father. Let me be."
