rl got up
and began to shout that she was a striking garment worker and that she
had neither money, time, nor inclination to wait until some amateur
silk-stocking felt like raising her wages.

On the platform Karl Kastner had come forward, and his icy, incisive,
menacing voice cut the growing tumult.

"You haff heard with patience thiss so silly prattle of a rich young
girl--" he began. "Now it is a poor man who speaks to you out of a
heart full of bitterness against this law and order which you haff
heard so highly praised.

"For this much-praised law and order it hass to-night assassinated
free speech; it has arrested our comrades, Nathan Bromberg and Max
Sondheim; it hass fill our hall with policemen. And I wonder if
there iss, perhaps, a little too much law and order in the world,
und iff _vielleicht_, there may be too many policemen as vell as
capitalist-little-girls in thiss hall.

"Und, sometimes, too, I am wondering why iss it ve do not kill a
few----"

"That'll do!" interrupted the sergeant of police, striding down the
aisle. "Come on, now, Karl; you done it that time."

An angry roar arose all around him; he nodded to his men:

"Run in any cut-ups," he said briefly; climbed up to the rostrum, and
laid his hand on Kastner's arm.

At the same moment a stunning explosion shook the place and plunged it
into darkness. Out of the smoke-choked blackness burst an uproar of
shrieks and screams; plaster and glass fell everywhere; police
whistles sounded; a frantic, struggling mass of humanity fought for
escape.

As Jim reeled out into the lobby, he saw Palla leaning against the
wall, with blood on her face.

Before the first of the trampling horde emerged he had caught her by
the arm and had led her down the steps to the street.

"They've blown up the--the place," she stammered, wiping her face with
her gloved hand in a dazed sort of way.

"Are you badly hurt?" he asked unsteadily.

"No, I don't think so----"

He had led her as far as the avenue, now echoing with the clang of
fire engines and the police patrol. And out of the darkness, from
everywhere, swarmed the crowd that only a great city can conjure
instantly and from nowhere.

Blood ran down her face from a cut over her temple. A tiny triangular
bit of glass still glittered in the wound; and he removed it and gave
her his handkerchief.

"Was Ilse there, too?" he asked.

"No. Nobody went to-night except myself.... Why were you there, Jim?"