But we plainly heard Dal on the first floor and Flannigan on the
second yelling "fire," and the patter of feet as the guards ran
to the front of the house. And at that instant we remembered Aunt
Selina!
That was the cause of the whole trouble. I don't know why they
turned on me; she wasn't my aunt. But by the time we had got her
out of bed, and had wrapped her in an eiderdown comfort, and
stuck slippers on her feet and a motor veil on her head, the
glare at the front of the house was beginning to die away. She
didn't understand at all and we had no time to explain. I
remember that she wanted to go back and get her "plate," whatever
that may be, but Jim took her by the arm and hurried her along,
and the rest, who had waited, and were in awful tempers, stood
aside and let them out first.
The door to the area steps was open, and by the street lights we
could see a fence and a gate, which opened on a side street. Jim
and Aunt Selina ran straight for the gate; the wind blowing Aunt
Selina's comfort like a sail. Then, with our feet, so to speak,
on the first rungs of the ladder of Liberty, it slipped. A
half-dozen guards and reporters came around the house and drove
us back like sheep into a slaughter pen. It was the most
humiliating moment of my life.
Dal had been for fighting a way through, and just for a minute I
think I went Berserk myself.
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