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252 An extra outburst of rage breaks on the head of the Commissar of Banks. He has touched them directly in their vital center—their pocket-nerve. They yell, and hoot, and would tear him limb from limb. A white flannelled gentleman, red-faced with fury, breaks thru the Czech guards, brandishing a revolver, grabs the commissar by his arms, and stalks on beside him, howling like an Indian.

One by one the commissars are shoved along this corridor of scowling faces, derisive and hate-contorted. Their own faces by contrast are strangely serene and calm. Some are pallid, but on the whole they are dauntless, almost debonair. They are alert, terribly interested in everything. These men have tasted life. They have run its gamut, from prisondungeons to high affairs of state. So many adventures have been theirs. What new surprise lies before them around the turning? The most thrilling of all, perhaps the final one. If so, let it come. Death has little terror for them. Long ago when they gave themselves to the Revolution, that matter was disposed of. Then they put all they had, their lives included, into its keeping.

They were conscripts of the Revolution. When it called—they came. Where it sent them—they went. What it exacted—they performed, obedient, unquestioning. Under the Czar, the Revolution had called them to the task of agitators. Under the Soviet it drafted them to the post of commissars. At the call of the Revolution they had yielded up leisure,