Adam pulled the door open. He grasped Max Blake’s arm and pushed him into the hall; then he slammed the door.

Joan limped toward him with the cup of coffee, managing, as always, not to spill any. The coffee was too strong and too bitter for Adam’s taste, but it was hot and it helped.

“You ask me,” the toothless man named Harold said, “it served him right.”

“What’s that?” Adam said.

“. . . wouldn’t of dared to come down to school. It was him started the whole thing off again! Him and that Green kid. I say that was plain asking for it.”

“It’s sure funny,” Joan said. “Mr. McDaniel looked to me like a right sensible man. Why’d he want to go and do a thing like that, I couldn’t even begin to guess. I thought—”

“A thing like what?”

“Don’t you know?”

Adam saw the look of amazement and said quickly, “I was up pretty late last night, working on some papers.”

“You mean you ain’t heard about it?”

Harold had put down his newspaper, the Farragut Express, and was also staring. “The nigras is back in school,” he said. “Right now. All but a couple.”

Joan took a bite from her chocolate doughnut.

“Mr. McDaniel, over to the Messenger, gone up to Simon’s Hill,” she said, “and walked ’em all down, right through the streets this morning. Then he got into a fight with”—she hesitated—“with some folks, and he’s in the hospital. Hurt pretty bad, I hear. Some busted ribs and a lot of what they call internal injuries. What’d Viola tell you, Harold, about what else?”

“Well, I guess he might lose one of his eyes.”

“Such a smart man!”

“Sure would hate to be that smart,” Harold said. “Look where you land!”

“Who was it?” Adam asked suddenly. “I mean, that he got into the fight with?”

“Can’t say for sure,” Joan said, winking. “Old Ollie managed to arrest three—Ted Manning and two others, I forget. He claimed there was at least fifteen, but they got away. Ted and them said they never touched Mr. McDaniel and they can’t remember who did, either, or even who else was there.”

“What about McDaniel, though? He should remember.”

“Yeah, but he ain’t conscious yet,” Harold said. “What they did was, they put him under dope right away. But he ought to be coming out of it any time, that’s what Viola said.” The toothless man chuckled. “I expect there’s a few people kind of worried along about now. You suppose that might be right, young fella?”

Adam put down a fifty-cent piece and started for the door.

It opened before he could reach it.

Bart Carey, Phil Dongen and Lorenzo Niesen came inside.

“There he is,” Niesen said, in a high-angry voice. “Right there.”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Carey said and walked up to Adam.

He held out the newspaper he had been carrying. “I guess you seen this,” he said. “There was a shipment sent to Higgins’ Drugstore and some others.”