A human beast had coiled at his door, myriad-headed, insane, bloodthirsty, all-powerful—­the mob, that terror of civilization, that sudden reversion in mass to a state of savagery.  It boded ill for Joe Blaine.  He had a bitter, cynical thought: 

“So this is what comes of spreading the truth—­of really trying to help—­of living out an ideal!”

A snowball hit the window before him, a soft crash and spread of drip, and there rose from the mob a fiendish yell that seemed itself a power, making the heart pound, dizzying the brain.

Joe turned.  His mother was standing close to him, white as paper, but her eyes flashing.  She had not dared speak to Joe, knowing that this fight was his and that he had passed out of her hands.

He spoke in a low, pulsing voice.

“Mother, I want you to stay in back!”

She looked at him, as if drinking her fill of his face.

“You’re right, Joe,” she whispered, and turned and went out.

Billy was standing at the stove, a frightened boy, but he gripped the poker in his hand.

“Billy,” said Joe, quietly, “run down and tell Rann to keep ’em out of the press-room.”

Billy edged to the door, opened it, and fled.

Joe was quite alone.  He sat down at his desk and took up the telephone.

“Hello, Central!” his voice was monotonous in its lowness and tenseness.

“Hello!”

“Give me police headquarters—­quick!”

Central seemed startled.

“Police—?  Yes, right away!  Hold on!—­Here they are!”

“Hello!  Police headquarters!” came a man’s voice.

“This is Joe Blaine.”  Joe gave his address.  “There’s a riot in front of the house—­a big mob.  Send over a patrol wagon on the jump!”

At that moment there was a wild crash of glass, and a heavy stone sang through the air and knocked out the stove-pipe—­pipe and stone falling to the floor with a rumble and rattle—­and from the mob rose murderous yells.

So Joe was able to add: 

“They’ve just smashed my window with a stone.  You’d better come damn fast.”

“Right off!” snapped Headquarters.

Joe put down the telephone, and stepped quietly over the room and out into the hall.  Even at that moment the hall door burst wide and a frenzied push and squabble of men poured forth upon him.  In that brief glimpse, in the dim storm-light, Joe saw faces that were anything but human—­wild animals, eyes blood-shot, mouths wide, and many fists in the air above their heads.  There was no mercy, no thought, nothing civilized—­but somehow the demon-deeps of human nature, crusted over with the veneer of gentler things, had broken through.  Worse than anything was the crazy hum, rising and rising, the hoarse notes, the fierce discord, that beat upon his brain as if to drown him under.

Joe tried to shout: 

“Keep back!  I’ll shoot!  Keep back!”