Stooping, he ladled up in his
cupped hand a quantity of gutter filth. Where the flowers had but
a moment before fluttered in the folds, he splotched it, smearing
star, bar, and blue with its blackness. At the sight, the girl
burst into helpless tears, and so stood weeping, openly, bitterly,
and unashamed.
No brain is so well ordered, no emotion so thoroughly controlled,
but that under sudden pressure--click!--the mechanism slips a cog
and runs amuck. Just that thing happened inside the Unspeakable
Perk's smooth-running, scientific brain upon incitement of his
flag's desecration and his lady's grief. To her it seemed that he
shot past her horizontally like a human dart. The next second he
was over the railing, had swung from a branch of the neighboring
tree to the trunk, and leaped to the ground, all in one movement
of superhuman agility. To the mob his exploit was apparently
without immediate significance. Perhaps they didn't notice the
descent; or perhaps those few who saw were so astonished at the
apparition of a chunky tree-man with protuberant eyes scrambling
down upon them in the manner of an ape, that they failed to
appreciate what it might portend of trouble.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199