A quick, pregnant pause was followed by excitement. They took Hugo by the hand, some of them applauded, one or two cheered, they shouldered near him, they asked questions and expressed doubts. It was broad daylight before they dispersed. Hugo walked to his house, listening to a long rhapsody from Skorvsky.

“We will make you a great man if you succeed,” Skorvsky said. “Good-night, comrade.”

“Good-night.” Hugo went into the hall and up to his bedroom. He sat on his bed. A dullness overcame him. He had never been patronized quite in the same way as he had that night; it exerted at once a corrosive and a lethargic influence. He undressed slowly, dropping his shoes on the floor. Splendid people they were, he thought. A smaller voice suggested to him that he did not really care to go to New Jersey for the prisoners. They would be hard to locate. There would be a sensation and a mystery again. Still, he had found a purpose.

His telephone rang. He reached automatically from the bed. The room was bright with sunshine, which meant that it was late in the day. His brain took reluctant hold on consciousness. “Hello?”

“Hello? Danner, my friend—”

“Oh, hello, Skorvsky—”

“May I come up? It is important.”

“Sure. I’m still in bed. But come on.”

Hugo was under the shower bath when his visitor arrived. He invited Skorvsky to share his breakfast, but was impatiently refused. “Things have happened since last night, Comrade Danner. For one, I saw the chief.”

“Chief?”

“You have not met him as yet. We conferred about your scheme. He—I regret to say—opposed it.”

Hugo nodded. “I’m not surprised. I’ll tell you what to do. You take me to him—and I’ll prove conclusively that it will be successful. Then, perhaps, he will agree to sanction it. Every time I think of those two poor devils—snatched from a mob—waiting there in the dark for the electric chair—it makes my blood boil.”

“Quite,” Skorvsky agreed. “But you do not understand. It is not that he doubts your ability—if you failed it would not be important. He fears you might accomplish it. I assured him you would. I have faith in you.”

“He’s afraid I would do it? That doesn’t make sense, Skorvsky.”

“It does, I regret to say.” His expressive face stirred with discomfort. “We were too hasty, too precipitate. I see his reason now. We cannot afford as a group to be branded as jail-breakers.”

“That’s—weak,” Hugo said.

Skorvsky cleared his throat. “There are other matters. Since Davidoff and Pletzky were jailed, the party has grown by leaps and bounds. Money has poured in—”

“Ah,” Hugo said softly, “money.”

Skorvsky raged. “Go ahead. Be sarcastic. To free those men would cost us a million dollars, perhaps.”

“Too bad.”