Section 45

 Peter was now in a state of utter funk. He knew that he would have to face McGivney, and he just couldn’t do it. All he wanted was Nell; and Nell, knowing that he would want her, had agreed to be in the park at half past eight. She had warned him not to talk to a soul until he had talked to her. Meantime she had gone home and renewed her Irish roses with French rouge¹, and restored her energy with coffee and cigarettes, and now she was waiting for him, smiling serenely², as fresh as any bird or flower in the park that summer morning. She asked him in even tones how things had gone, and when Peter began to stammer³ that he didn’t think he could face McGivney, she proceeded to build up his courage once more. She let him put his arms about her, even there in broad daylight; she whispered to him to get himself together, to be a man, and worthy⁴ of her.

What had he to be afraid of, anyway? They hadn’t a single thing on him, and there was no possible way they could get anything. His hands were clean all the way thru, and all he had to do was to stick it out; he must make up his mind in advance, that no matter what happened, he would never break down, he would never vary from the story he had rehearsed with her. She made him go over the story again; how on the previous evening, at the gathering⁵ in the I. W. W. headquarters, they had talked about killing⁶ Nelse Ackerman as a means of bringing the war to an end. And after the talk he had heard Joe Angell whisper to Jerry Rudd that he had the makings of a bomb already; he had a suit-case full of dynamite⁷ stored there in the closet, and he and Pat McCormick had been planning to pull off something that very night. Peter had gone out, but had watched outside, and had seen Angell, Henderson, Rudd and Gus come out. Peter had noticed that Angell’s pockets were stuffed, and had assumed that they were going to do their dynamiting⁸, so he had phoned to McGivney from the drug-store. By this phoning he had missed the crowd, and then he had been ashamed and afraid to tell McGivney, and had spent the night wandering in the park. But early in the morning he had found the note, and had understood that it must have been slipped into his pocket, and that the conspirators⁹ wanted him to come in on their scheme. That was all, except for three or four sentences or fragments of sentences which Peter had overheard between Joe Angell and Jerry Rudd. Nell made him learn these sentences by heart, and she insisted that he must not under any circumstances try to remember or be persuaded to remember anything further.

At last Peter was adjudged ready for the ordeal¹⁰, and went to Room 427 in the American House, and threw himself on the bed. He was so exhausted¹¹ that once or twice he dozed¹²; but then he would think of some new question that McGivney might ask him, and would start into wakefulness. At last he heard a key turn, and started up. There entered one of the detectives, a man named Hammett. “Hello, Gudge,” said he. “The boss wants you to get arrested.”

“Arrested!” exclaimed Peter. “Good Lord!” He had a sudden swift vision of himself shut up in a cell with those Reds, and forced to listen to “hard luck stories.”

“Well,” said Hammett, “we’re arresting all the Reds, and if we skip you, they’ll be suspicious. You better go somewhere right away and get caught.”

Peter saw the wisdom of this, and after a little thought he chose the home of Miriam Yankovitch. She was a real Red, and didn’t like him; but if he was arrested in her home, she would have to like him, and it would tend to make him “solid” with the “left wingers.” He gave the address to Hammett, and added, “You better come as soon as you can, because she may kick me out of the house.”

“That’s all right,” replied the other, with a laugh. “Tell her the police are after you, and ask her to hide you.”

So Peter hurried over to the Jewish quarter of the city, and knocked on a door in the top story of a tenement¹³ house. The door was opened by a stout¹⁴ woman with her sleeves rolled up and her arms covered with soap-suds. Yes, Miriam was in. She was out of a job just now, said Mrs. Yankovitch. They had fired her because she talked Socialism. Miriam entered the room, giving the unexpected visitor a cold stare that said as plain as words: “Jennie Todd!”

But this changed at once when Peter told her that he had been to I. W. W. headquarters and found the police in charge. They had made a raid, and claimed to have discovered some kind of plot; fortunately Peter had seen the crowd outside, and had got away. Miriam took him into an inside room and asked him a hundred questions which he could not answer. He knew nothing, except that he had been to a meeting at headquarters the night before, and this morning he had gone there to get a book, and had seen the crowd and run.

Half an hour later came a bang on the door, and Peter dived under the bed. The door was burst open, and he heard angry voices commanding, and vehement¹⁵ protests from Miriam and her mother. To judge from the sounds, the men began throwing the furniture this way and that; suddenly a hand came under the bed, and Peter was grabbed by the ankle, and hauled forth¹⁶ to confront four policemen in uniform.

It was an awkward situation, because apparently¹⁷ these policemen hadn’t been told that Peter was a spy; the boobs thought they were getting a real dynamiter¹⁸! One grabbed each of Peter’s wrists, and another kept him and Miriam covered with a revolver, while the fourth proceeded to go thru his pockets, looking for bombs. When they didn’t find any, they seemed vexed¹⁹, and shook him and hustled²⁰ him about, and made clear they would be glad of some pretext²¹ to batter²² in his head. Peter was careful not to give them such a pretext; he was frightened and humble²³, and kept declaring that he didn’t know anything, he hadn’t done any harm.

“We’ll see about that, young fellow!” said the officer, as he snapped the handcuffs on Peter’s wrists. Then, while one of them remained on guard with the revolver, the other three proceeded to ransack²⁴ the place, pulling out the bureau-drawers and kicking the contents this way and that, grabbing every scrap²⁵ of writing they could find and jamming it into a couple of suit-cases. There were books with red bindings and terrifying titles, but no bombs, and no weapons more dangerous than a carving²⁶ knife and Miriam’s tongue. The girl stood there with her black eyes flashing lightnings, and told the police exactly what she thought of them. She didn’t know what had happened in the I. W. W. headquarters, but she knew that whatever it was, it was a frame-up, and she dared them to arrest her, and almost succeeded in her fierce purpose. However, the police contented²⁷ themselves with kicking over the washtub and its contents, and took their departure, leaving Mrs. Yankovitch screaming in the midst of a flood.

1 rouge   

n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红

参考例句：

• Women put rouge on their cheeks to make their faces pretty.女人往面颊上涂胭脂，使脸更漂亮。
• She didn't need any powder or lip rouge to make her pretty.她天生漂亮，不需要任何脂粉唇膏打扮自己。

2 serenely   

adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地

参考例句：

• The boat sailed serenely on towards the horizon.小船平稳地向着天水交接处驶去。
• It was a serenely beautiful night.那是一个宁静美丽的夜晚。

3 stammer   

n.结巴，口吃；v.结结巴巴地说

参考例句：

• He's got a bad stammer.他口吃非常严重。
• We must not try to play off the boy troubled with a stammer.我们不可以取笑这个有口吃病的男孩。

4 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

5 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

6 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

7 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

8 dynamiting   

v.（尤指用于采矿的）甘油炸药( dynamite的现在分词 )；会引起轰动的人[事物]；增重

参考例句：

• Somebody wildly suggested dynamiting it. 有人竟然轻率地主张炸开它。 来自辞典例句
• Hidden boulders have been removed by dynamiting. 暗礁都用炸药炸掉了。 来自辞典例句

9 conspirators   

n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The conspirators took no part in the fighting which ensued. 密谋者没有参加随后发生的战斗。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The French conspirators were forced to escape very hurriedly. 法国同谋者被迫匆促逃亡。 来自辞典例句

10 ordeal   

n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验

参考例句：

• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。
• Being lost in the wilderness for a week was an ordeal for me.在荒野里迷路一星期对我来说真是一场磨难。

11 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

12 dozed   

v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He boozed till daylight and dozed into the afternoon. 他喝了个通霄，昏沉沉地一直睡到下午。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• I dozed off during the soporific music. 我听到这催人入睡的音乐，便不知不觉打起盹儿来了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 tenement   

n.公寓；房屋

参考例句：

• They live in a tenement.他们住在廉价公寓里。
• She felt very smug in a tenement yard like this.就是在个这样的杂院里，她觉得很得意。

15 vehement   

adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的

参考例句：

• She made a vehement attack on the government's policies.她强烈谴责政府的政策。
• His proposal met with vehement opposition.他的倡导遭到了激烈的反对。

16 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

17 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

18 dynamiter   

n.炸药使用者（尤指革命者）

参考例句：

• The last dynamiter they sent to work with us, although a formidable technician, was very nervous. 上次他们派来和我们一起干的爆破手虽说是个很棒的专家，却很神经质。 来自辞典例句
• Her dad is a dynamiter. 她爸爸是一名爆破手。 来自互联网

19 vexed   

adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• The conference spent days discussing the vexed question of border controls. 会议花了几天的时间讨论边境关卡这个难题。
• He was vexed at his failure. 他因失败而懊恼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

20 hustled   

催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He grabbed her arm and hustled her out of the room. 他抓住她的胳膊把她推出房间。
• The secret service agents hustled the speaker out of the amphitheater. 特务机关的代理人把演讲者驱逐出竞技场。

21 pretext   

n.借口，托词

参考例句：

• He used his headache as a pretext for not going to school.他借口头疼而不去上学。
• He didn't attend that meeting under the pretext of sickness.他以生病为借口，没参加那个会议。

22 batter   

v.接连重击；磨损；n.牛奶面糊；击球员

参考例句：

• The batter skied to the center fielder.击球手打出一个高飞球到中外野手。
• Put a small quantity of sugar into the batter.在面糊里放少量的糖。

23 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

24 ransack   

v.彻底搜索，洗劫

参考例句：

• He began to ransack his mother's workbox for a piece of thread.他要找一根线,开始翻腾妈妈的针线盒。
• She ransack my apartment for the bankbook.她在我公寓里到处搜索寻找存折。

25 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

26 carving   

n.雕刻品，雕花

参考例句：

• All the furniture in the room had much carving.房间里所有的家具上都有许多雕刻。
• He acquired the craft of wood carving in his native town.他在老家学会了木雕手艺。

27 contented   

adj.满意的，安心的，知足的

参考例句：

• He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
• The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。