both on leave from the Literate storm troops, moved quickly to range
themselves on either side of him. With a gesture, he halted the
others.

"Hold it!" he called. "I know what you're worried about. I was there
when it happened, and saw everything."

He paused, to let them assimilate that, and continued: "Now get this, all
of you! Our boss, and--_if he lives_--our next senator, was the victim of
a deliberate murder attempt, by Literate First Class Bayne, who threw out
his 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