The young man in the car turned toward the crowd which was blocking the way to the exit. “Get those men out of the way!” he yelled to the guards. “Drive them along--God damn them, they've got no business in here.” And so on, with a string of dynamic profanity, which stung both guards and policemen into action, and made them ply their clubs upon the crowd.
“Do you know who that is?” asked Jimmie's companion on the box. “That's Lacey Granitch.”
Jimmie started, experiencing a thrill to the soles of his ragged shoes. Lacey Granitch! In the four years that the little machinist had worked for the Empire, he had never caught a glimpse of the young lord of Leesville--something which may easily be believed, for the young lord considered Leesville “a hole of a town”, and honoured it with his presence only once or twice a year. But his spirit brooded over it; he was to Leesville a mythological figure, either of wonder and awe, or of horror, according to the temperament of the contemplator. One day “Wild Bill” had arisen in the local, and held aloft a page from the “magazine supplement” of one of the metropolitan “yellows”. There was an account of how Lacey Granitch had broken the hearts of seven chorus-girls by running away with an eighth. He fairly “ate 'em alive”, according to the account; in order to give an idea of the atmosphere in which the young hero abode, the whirl of delight which was his life, the artist of the Sunday supplement had woven round the border of the page a maze of feminine ankles and calves in a delirium of lingerie; while at the top was a supper-table with champagne-corks popping, and a lady clad in inadequate veils dancing amid the dishes.
This had happened while the local was in the midst of an acrimonious controversy over “Section Six”. Should the Socialist party bar from its membership those who advocated sabotage, violence and crime? Young Norwood was pleading for orderly methods of social reconstruction; and here stood “Wild Bill”, ripping to shreds the reputation of the young plutocrat of the Empire Shops. “That's what you geezers are sweating for! That's why you've got to be good, and not throw monkey-wrenches in the machinery--so the seven broken-hearted chorus-girls can drown their sorrows in champagne!”