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Well, the child had reckoned better than she knew! He retraced his steps slowly, resting upon many hospitable doorsteps that afternoon. The noise of the city confused him, the stone pavements hurt his ankles, he was hungry and faint. He did not know what to do or where to go. Only one shelter lay open to him. Should he go back to Storch?
He sensed its departure, too, and the fact that Storch was flinging himself upon the pile of rags which served as his bed. His sleep was broken by a harried idea that he was attempting to catch a steamer which forever eluded him, trotting aimlessly up and down a gangplank which led nowhere, picking up a litter that spilled continually from a suitcase in his hand.
Rags are well enough to wrap discontent in ... but one should have a different make-up for achievement... What was the matter last night?" "Oh, a bit of panic, I guess," Fred returned, nonchalantly. "But I'm all right this morning." Storch rubbed his hands in satisfaction, and he smiled continually.
"Being arrested and jailed is losing its novelty. I'll stick around awhile longer until a pet job or two is accomplished... I'm particularly anxious to see Hilmer winged... What's your plan?" "Plan?... I have no plan. I can't imagine what you're talking about. I know one thing, though ... I'm going to leave this place at once." Storch smiled evilly.
His musings were answered by the suggestive pressure of Storch's hand on his. "There's a skirt on the Rialto, anyway," Storch was saying, with disdain. Fred kept his gaze fixed upon the candy-shop window. He was afraid to look up. Could it be that Ginger was passing before him, perhaps for the last time? He caught the vague reflection of a feminine form in the plate-glass window.
And his audience had done then, and was doing now, what it always did treated him with the scorn men feel for any and all who play down to them. Already Storch was sneering with the contempt of a man too sure of his power. He would not have risked the details of his plan otherwise.
One night a member said, significantly: "Everybody's been picked but Hilmer... What's the matter, Storch, are you saving that plum for yourself?" Storch rubbed his hands together, flashing a look at Fred. "No... There's an option on Hilmer!" he cried, gleefully. Fred tried to ignore the implication, but all night the suggestion burned itself into his brain.
Fred managed to reply, coolly, "Not the slightest ... but I have been thinking in terms of one." Storch smiled evilly. "That would have been absurd in any case. There are always a score or so of bystanders who ..." "Yes, of course, of course. Just so!" Fred interrupted. Storch laid his pipe aside and drained a half-filled glass of red wine standing beside his plate.
Storch, Stubner, and Cellarius fled to Wittenberg, while Munzer roamed about elsewhere in Germany. Carlstadt went on with his innovations without allying himself outwardly with these refugees. But the connection of his aims with theirs could not be mistaken, and as time went on, became more and more apparent.
He was weak and tremulous and utterly miserable. Yet he felt compelled to go forward. He must escape from Storch! He must! The docks, usually full of bustle, were silent and almost deserted. Fred questioned a man loafing upon a pile of lumber. It appeared that a strike of stevedores was the cause of this outward sign of inactivity.
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