s supply of nitrocaine bulbs and then goaded him into a heart attack
which, except for his daughter, would have been fatal. Claire Pelton
deserves the deepest gratitude of every Radical-Socialist in the state.
She's a smart girl, and she saved the life of her father and our leader.

"But--she is _not_ a Literate!" he cried loudly. "All she did was
something any of you could have done--something I've done, myself, so
that I won't be locked out of my own safe and have to wait for a
Literate to come and open, it for me. She simply kept her eye on the
Literates who were opening the safe, and learned the combination from
the positions to which they turned the dial. And you believe, on the
strength of that, that she's a Literate? The next thing, you'll be
believing that professional liar of a Slade Gardner. And you call
yourselves politicians!" He fairly gargled obscenities.

Looking around, he caught sight of a pair who seemed something less
than impressed with his account of it. Joe West, thick-armed,
hairy-chested, blue-jowled; Horace Yingling, thin and gangling. They
weren't Radical-Socialist party people; they were from the Political
Action Committee of the Consolidated Illiterates Organization, and
their slogan was simpler and more to the point than Chester
Pelton's--the only good Literate is a dead Literate. He tensed himself
and challenged them directly.

"Joe; Horace. How about you? Satisfied the Pelton girl isn't a
Literate, now?"

Yingling looked at West, and West looked back at him questioningly.
Evidently the _suavitor in modo_ was Yingling's province, and the
_fortior in re_ was West's.

"Yeh, sure, Mr. Cardon," Yingling said dubiously. "Now that you
explain it, we see how it was."

* * * * *

It was worse than that in some of the other boroughs. One fanatic,
imagining that Cardon himself was a crypto-Literate, drew a gun.
Cardon's guards disarmed him and beat him senseless. At another
headquarters, some character was circulating about declaring that not
only Claire Pelton but her younger brother, Ray, as well, were
Literates. Cardon's two men hustled him out of the building, and,
after about twenty minutes, returned alone. Cardon hoped that the body
would not be found until after the polls closed, the next day.

Finally, leaving his guards with the 'copter at a public landing
stage, he made his way, by devious routes, to William R. Lancedale's
office, and found Lancedale