Moloch: Or, This Gentile World Read Online Free Page B

frail body.… Either I am crazy or the world is crazy .”
    This mellifluous exordium was cut short by the approach of Officer Mulligan. That scion of the law grabbed Hari’s emaciated arm and squeezed it viciously.
    “What’s all the fuss?” he inquired savagely.
    “He’s a nut!” yelled someone.
    A swarm of Chinamen in blue and black silk vestments suddenly appeared and pressed close about Officer Mulligan. They seemed whimsically pleased over the prospect of an arrest.
    Officer Mulligan brandished his club. “Back up, you slit-faced buggers!”
    The sea of yellow faces remained calm and tranquil. No one budged.
    “Whaddayagotta say?” A still more vicious squeeze apprised Hari Das that Officer Mulligan was not jesting.
    “Wot wuz de eye dear? Doncha know yuh gotta have a permit ter make a speech? Wotderhell wuz yer squawkin’ about, hah? Gwan and deliver your messages.”
    The rudeness of Officer Mulligan was exasperating. It smacked of petty British officialdom.
    “I beg your pardon, Officer, if I have broken any of the statutes. You may well see, I am a stranger here.”
    Officer Mulligan gave indications of softening. The fiery young orator softened, too, at the thought of spending another three days in jail. He was not totally ignorant, as he pretended, of American institutions.
    Sensing Officer Mulligan’s leniency, Hari Das felt impelled to risk a final clause about “free speech.” He was immediately rebuffed.
    “Can that stuff,” bellowed Officer Mulligan.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “ Cut it , I said. Doncha un’erstand English?”
    “I ought to,” Hari replied with affected politeness. “I was educated at Oxford.” He allowed the full significance of this to sink into Officer Mulligan’s thick-micked skull. Then he continued, after the manner of a rajah settling an ancient score with Anglo-Saxon brigands. “It’s possible, Officer, that there are some Americanisms which I don’t understand. That’s my fault, I assure you. A few more weeks, I daresay, and I’ll understand your dialect.”
    “D-I-A-L-E-C-T?” Officer Mulligan handled the word as if it were a stick of dynamite. His brain became active, in its unatrophied area, and corroborative parallels of suspicion began to assemble like the parts of a Ford car under the nimble hands of a gang of mechanics. At the police station there was a West Indian Negro janitor. He had the same suave accent, the polished diction, and the copious jargon of the culprit confronting him. Ergo, this was a West Indian nigger! Still, officer Mulligan was perplexed by the long, straight, black hair, by the aquiline features, by the delicate, sensitive skull of his victim. It dawned on him as he scratched his head that perhaps his knowledge of ethnological differences was limited. Nevertheless, he had to be convinced.
    “Where do you come from?” he asked bluntly.
    “I am a Hindu,” Hari answered with dignity.
    “You’re not a nigger, then?”
    “Not precisely … the difference is a specious one.”
    “Hey, don’t try to high-hat me. Come down off yer perch, young fella, or I’ll lay this across yer backside, see?”
    Hari saw with some misgivings the emblem of the sanctity of the law. He had felt the weight of that emblem two weeks after his arrival in America. He had no desire to repeat the experience. In a few rapt words he made it clear to his inquisitor that he regarded himself beyond all question of a doubt as an insignificant, worshipful atom of society—”a little unused to the free and easy ways of America.”
    “That’s done. We won’t go into that,” said Officer Mulligan. “You’re in the United States now, remember ! Don’t go shootin’ off yer mouth too much….”
    Hari started to thank him for this gratuitous piece of advice.
    With high impatience Officer Mulligan raised a large, hairy paw and stuck it squarely in front of Hari’s face.
    “You’ve got the gift of gab all right, you black bastard. Now get this! I