And then, startling the watchers by the bedside—“Paradise, California. Now what do you think of that? The location of the Ross Junior oil field, owned by Bunny Ross, our parlor Bolshevik! Bunny’s the boy that bails out the political prisoners, as he calls them; he publishes a little paper to dye our college boys and girls pink. Let’s see what Little Bunny’s town has to say to him. Paradise, California, 14 precincts out of 29 give LaFollette 217, Davis 98, Coolidge 693. Well, well, Bunny—you’ve got some more boring from within to do!”
The householder shifted again. “Radio QXJ, the Angel City Evening Roarer, banjo solo by Bella Blue, the Witch of Wicheta.” Plunkety-plunkety—plunkety-plunkety—plunk-plunk-plunk-plunk!
Paul’s lips were beginning to move. There was a trace of sound, and Ruth bent close to him. “He’s coming back to life! Oh, call the doctor!” The hospital doctor came, and listened, and felt Paul’s pulse; but he shook his head. It was merely a question of what areas of the brain were affected; the speech areas might be uninjured. The sounds were incoherent, and the doctor said Paul didn’t know what he was saying. He might stay that way for days, even for a week or two.
But Ruth continued to listen, and try to catch a word. Paul might be there, somehow, trying to speak to her, to convey some request. She whispered, in an agony of longing, “Paul, Paul, are you trying to talk to me?” The sounds grew louder, and Rachel said, “It’s a foreign language.” Bunny said, “It must be Russian”—the only foreign language Paul knew. It was strange, like a corpse talking, or a wax doll; the sounds seemed to come from deep in his throat. “Da zdrávstvooyet Revolútziya!” over and over; and Bunny said, “That must mean revolution.” And then, “Vsya vlast Soviétam!”—that must have something to do with the Soviets!
For an hour that went on; until suddenly Ruth exclaimed, “Bunny, we ought to find out what he’s saying! Oh, surely we ought to—just think, if he’s asking for help!”
Rachel tried to argue with her; it was just a delirium. But Ruth became more excited—she didn’t want Rachel to interfere. Rachel had saved her man, and what did she know about suffering? “I want to know what Paul’s saying! Can’t we find somebody that knows Russian?” So Bunny got Gregor Nikolaieff on the phone, and asked him to jump on the car and come down here.
When Bunny returned to the room, Paul was talking louder than ever, but still moving only his lips. The Angel Jazz Choir were shouting, “Honey-baby, honey-baby, kiss me in the neck!” And Paul was saying again and again, “Nie troodyáshchiysia da nie yest!”
“Oh, Bunny,” pleaded Ruth, “We ought to write down what he says! He might stop—and never speak again!” Bunny understood—Ruth had been brought up to believe in revelations, in words of awful import spoken on special occasions, in strange languages or other unusual ways. The doctors might call it delirium, but how could they be sure? Things that were hidden from the wise were revealed to babes and sucklings. So Bunny got out his notebook and fountain-pen, and wrote down what Paul’s words sounded like, as near as he could guess. “Hliéba, mira, svobódy!” And when Gregor came in, an hour or so later, he was able to say this meant, “Bread, peace, freedom,” the slogan of the Bolsheviks when they took possession of Russia: and “Dayesh positziyu!”—that was a war-cry of the red army, commanding the enemy to give up the position. The other things Paul had been saying were phrases of the revolution, that he had heard first in Siberia, and then in Moscow. No, Paul was not trying to talk to his sister; he was telling the young workers of America what the young workers of Russia were doing!
XII
“Radio VXZ, the Angel City Evening Howler, Winitsky’s orchestra, in the main dining-room of the Admiralty Hotel, broadcasting by remote control.” And then presently “Radio QXJ, the Evening Roarer,” giving election returns—big figures now. “Republican Campaign Headquarters in New York, in a bulletin issued at 1 a.m., estimates that Calvin Coolidge has carried Massachusetts by 400,000 plurality—hooray for the Old Bay State! And New York by 900,000—three cheers for the Empire State—ray, ray, ray! And Illinois by—wait a minute there, somebody’s knocked my glasses off—they’re pulling the rough stuff in this studio. Behave yourselves, girls, don’t you know the world’s listening in on QXJ tonight? Illinois by 900,000. Whoopee! That noise you hear is the Chicago Comet yelping for his home state! It’s time we heard the Chicago Comet again—sing us a hot one, Teddy—that little warble about the street car comin’ along. You know what I mean?” A broad, jolly Negro voice answered, “Yessah, Ah knows! Yessah, hyar Ah goes!” Plunkety-plunk—
“Ah had someone befoah Ah had you
An’ Ah’ll have someone aftah you’s gone,
A street car or a sweetheart doan’ mattah to me,
There’ll be another one comin’ along!”
Six or seven years ago the people of the United States in their sovereign wisdom had passed a law forbidding the sale of alcoholic liquor for beverage purposes. But the advocates of law and order reserve to themselves the privilege of deciding which laws they
