A Diversity of Creatures | Page 6

beseeching us not to make any more noises, but the greater part writhing face downward, their hands or their caps before their eyes.
It was Pirolo who came to our rescue. He climbed the side of a surfacing-machine, and there, gesticulating as though they could see, made oration to those afflicted people of Illinois.
'You stchewpids!' he began. 'There is nothing to fuss for. Of course, your eyes will smart and be red to-morrow. You will look as if you and your wives had drunk too much, but in a little while you will see again as well as before. I tell you this, and I--I am Pirolo. Victor Pirolo!'
The crowd with one accord shuddered, for many legends attach to Victor Pirolo of Foggia, deep in the secrets of God.
'Pirolo?' An unsteady voice lifted itself. 'Then tell us was there anything except light in those lights of yours just now?'
The question was repeated from every corner of the darkness.
Pirolo laughed.
'No!' he thundered. (Why have small men such large voices?) 'I give you my word and the Board's word that there was nothing except light--just light! You stchewpids! Your birth-rate is too low already as it is. Some day I must invent something to send it up, but send it down--never!'
'Is that true?--We thought--somebody said--'
One could feel the tension relax all round.
'You too big fools,' Pirolo cried. 'You could have sent us a call and we would have told you.'
'Send you a call!' a deep voice shouted. 'I wish you had been at our end of the wire.'
'I'm glad I wasn't,' said De Forest. 'It was bad enough from behind the lamps. Never mind! It's over now. Is there any one here I can talk business with? I'm De Forest--for the Board.'
'You might begin with me, for one--I'm Mayor,' the bass voice replied.
A big man rose unsteadily from the street, and staggered towards us where we sat on the broad turf-edging, in front of the garden fences.
'I ought to be the first on my feet. Am I?' said he.
'Yes,' said De Forest, and steadied him as he dropped down beside us.
'Hello, Andy. Is that you?' a voice called.
'Excuse me,' said the Mayor; 'that sounds like my Chief of Police, Bluthner!'
'Bluthner it is; and here's Mulligan and Keefe--on their feet.'
'Bring 'em up please, Blut. We're supposed to be the Four in charge of this hamlet. What we says, goes. And, De Forest, what do you say?'
'Nothing--yet,' De Forest answered, as we made room for the panting, reeling men. 'You've cut out of system. Well?'
'Tell the steward to send down drinks, please,' Arnott whispered to an orderly at his side.
'Good!' said the Mayor, smacking his dry lips. 'Now I suppose we can take it, De Forest, that henceforward the Board will administer us direct?'
'Not if the Board can avoid it,' De Forest laughed. 'The A.B.C. is responsible for the planetary traffic only.'
'And all that that implies.' The big Four who ran Chicago chanted their Magna Charta like children at school.
'Well, get on,' said De Forest wearily. 'What is your silly trouble anyway?'
'Too much dam' Democracy,' said the Mayor, laying his hand on De Forest's knee.
'So? I thought Illinois had had her dose of that.'
'She has. That's why. Blut, what did you do with our prisoners last night?'
'Locked 'em in the water-tower to prevent the women killing 'em,' the Chief of Police replied. 'I'm too blind to move just yet, but--'
'Arnott, send some of your people, please, and fetch 'em along,' said De Forest.
'They're triple-circuited,' the Mayor called. 'You'll have to blow out three fuses.' He turned to De Forest, his large outline just visible in the paling darkness. 'I hate to throw any more work on the Board. I'm an administrator myself, but we've had a little fuss with our Serviles. What? In a big city there's bound to be a few men and women who can't live without listening to themselves, and who prefer drinking out of pipes they don't own both ends of. They inhabit flats and hotels all the year round. They say it saves 'em trouble. Anyway, it gives 'em more time to make trouble for their neighbours. We call 'em Serviles locally. And they are apt to be tuberculous.'
'Just so!' said the man called Mulligan. Transportation is Civilisation. Democracy is Disease. I've proved it by the blood-test, every time.'
'Mulligan's our Health Officer, and a one-idea man,' said the Mayor, laughing. 'But it's true that most Serviles haven't much control. They will talk; and when people take to talking as a business, anything may arrive--mayn't it, De Forest?'
'Anything--except the facts of the case,' said De Forest, laughing.
'I'll give you those in a minute,' said the Mayor. 'Our Serviles got to talking--first in their houses and then on the streets, telling men and women how to manage their own affairs. (You can't