compromised by it, but he couldn't seem to get hold of it. He said he
did not think it important where Fischer went to; in heaven he would not
be missed, there were "plenty there." We tried to make him see that he
was missing the point entirely; that Fischer, and not other people, was
the proper one to decide about the importance of it; but it all went for
nothing; he said he did not care for Fischer--there were plenty more
Fischers.

The next minute Fischer went by on the other side of the way, and it made
us sick and faint to see him, remembering the doom that was upon him, and
we the cause of it. And how unconscious he was that anything had
happened to him! You could see by his elastic step and his alert manner
that he was well satisfied with himself for doing that hard turn for poor
Frau Brandt. He kept glancing back over his shoulder expectantly. And,
sure enough, pretty soon Frau Brandt followed after, in charge of the
officers and wearing jingling chains. A mob was in her wake, jeering and
shouting, "Blasphemer and heretic!" and some among them were neighbors
and friends of her happier days. Some were trying to strike her, and the
officers were not taking as much trouble as they might to keep them from
it.

"Oh, stop them, Satan!" It was out before we remembered that he could not
interrupt them for a moment without changing their whole after-lives. He
puffed a little puff toward them with his lips and they began to reel and
stagger and grab at the empty air; then they broke apart and fled in
every direction, shrieking, as if in intolerable pain. He had crushed a
rib of each of them with that little puff. We could not help asking if
their life-chart was changed.

"Yes, entirely. Some have gained years, some have lost them. Some few