100%: The Story of a Patriot | Page 6

bone in your body! I'll tear
your finger-nails out; I'll tear the eyes out of your head, if I have to!
You tell me who helped you make that bomb!"
Peter broke out in a storm of agonized protest; he had never heard of
any bomb, he didn't know what the man was talking about; he writhed
and twisted and doubled himself over backward, trying to evade the
frightful pain of that pressure on his finger.
"You're lying!" insisted Guffey. "I know you're lying. You're one of
that crowd."
"What crowd? Ouch! I dunno what you mean!"
"You're one of them Reds, aint you?"
"Reds? What are Reds?"
"You want to tell me you don't know what a Red is? Aint you been
giving out them circulars on the street?"
"I never seen the circular!" repeated Peter. "I never seen a word in it; I
dunno what it is."
"You try to stuff me with that?"
"Some woman gimme that circular on the street! Ouch! Stop! Jesus! I
tell you I never looked at the circular!"
"You dare go on lying?" shouted the man, with fresh access of rage.

"And when I seen you with them Reds? I know about your plots, I'm
going to get it out of you." He grabbed Peter's wrist and began to twist
it, and Peter half turned over in the effort to save himself, and shrieked
again, in more piercing tones, "I dunno! I dunno!"
"What's them fellows done for you that you protect them?" demanded
the other. "What good'll it do you if we hang you and let them escape?"
But Peter only screamed and wept the louder.
"They'll have time to get out of town," persisted the other. "If you
speak quick we can nab them all, and then I'll let you go. You
understand, we won't do a thing to you, if you'll come thru and tell us
who put you up to this. We know it wasn't you that planned it; it's the
big fellows we want."
He began to wheedle and coax Peter; but then, when Peter answered
again with his provoking "I dunno," he would give another twist to
Peter's wrist, and Peter would yell, almost incoherent with terror and
pain--but still declaring that he could tell nothing, he knew nothing
about any bomb.
So at last Guffey wearied of this futile inquisition; or perhaps it
occurred to him that this was too public a place for the prosecution of a
"third degree"--there might be some one listening outside the door. He
stopped twisting Peter's wrist, and tilted back Peter's head so that
Peter's frightened eyes were staring into his.
"Now, young fellow," he said, "look here. I got no time for you just
now, but you're going to jail, you're my prisoner, and make up your
mind to it, sooner or later I'm going to get it out of you. It may take a
day, or it may take a month, but you're going to tell me about this bomb
plot, and who printed this here circular opposed to Preparedness, and
all about these Reds you work with. I'm telling you now--so you think
it over; and meantime, you hold your mouth, don't say a word to a
living soul, or if you do I'll tear your tongue out of your throat."
Then, paying no attention to Peter's wailings, he took him by the back

of the collar and marched him down the hall again, and turned him over
to one of the policemen. "Take this man to the city jail," he said, "and
put him in the hole, and keep him there until I come, and don't let him
speak a word to anybody. If he tries it, mash his mouth for him." So the
policeman took poor sobbing Peter by the arm and marched him out of
the building.

Section 5

The police had got the crowds driven back by now, and had ropes
across the street to hold them, and inside the roped space were several
ambulances and a couple of patrol-wagons. Peter was shoved into one
of these latter, and a policeman sat by his side, and the bell clanged,
and the patrol-wagon forced its way slowly thru the struggling crowd.
Half an hour later they arrived at the huge stone jail, and Peter was
marched inside. There were no formalities, they did not enter Peter on
the books, or take his name or his finger prints; some higher power had
spoken, and Peter's fate was already determined. He was taken into an
elevator, and down into a basement, and then down a flight of stone
steps into a deeper basement, and there was an iron door with a tiny slit
an inch wide and six inches long near the top. This was