"A crackpot," Bartlett whispered. He folded his arms across his chest and got ready to listen. "Let's hang around for a while. He may be funny."

Somebody in the crowd already thought he was funny, calling, "By what you're saying there, the whole government is nothing but traitors and fools. You've got to be a fool yourself, to believe that."

"I do not!" the speaker said. He was an overweight, balding fellow of about fifty-five, whose fringe of gray hair blew wildly in the fall breeze. His name was Anthony Dresser-so said a little sign Reggie needed a while to notice. "I do not. I tell you the plain, unvarnished truth, and nothing else but!'' His eyes, enormous behind thick spectacles, stared out at his small audience. "And you, my friends, you hug the viper to your bosom and think it is your friend. Congress is full of traitors, the War Department is full of traitors, the administration-"

Reggie stopped paying much attention to him about then. "And the moon is full of green cheese!" the heckler shouted, drawing a roar of laughter from the crowd.

Dresser sputtered and fumed, the thread of his speech, had it ever had one, now thoroughly lost. Reggie and Foster grinned at each other, enjoying his discomfiture. The speech surely would have been boring. This was anything but. "Not as easy to get up on the stump as the old boy thought, is it?" Foster said with a chuckle.

"You are all traitors to your country, for not listening to the plain and simple truth!" Dresser shouted furiously.

"And you're a maniac, and they ought to lock you up in the asylum and lose the key!" It wasn't the first heckler, but another man.

Dresser looked to be on the point of having a fit. Somebody reached up and tugged at his trousers. He leaned over, cupping a hand behind his ear. Then, with a fine scornful snort, he jumped down from his perch. "All right," he said. "All right! You show them then, if you think you know so much. I can tell you what you will show them-you will show them you do not have any notion of what to say or how to say it."