United States or Japan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Could he say, "Please give me my wife's leg, so that I can undress it and unsew the bandage and get the money that I was paid for keeping quiet about the surgical operation on Lacey Granitch, that was done in my house before it was blown to pieces by the explosion." Jimmie thought it all over while he took a couple more drinks, and finally settled it to himself: "Aw, hell!
Why should he be warm and dry and well-fed, while working-men of France lay out in the trenches in the rain? Jimmie went back and worked overtime without extra pay something that old man Granitch had never got out of him, you bet, nor old man Kumme either. For three whole days he stayed a militarist, forgetting his life-long training in rebellion.
That was, of course, too subtle for a man like Jimmie Higgins. But this much the little Socialist got that the heir of the Granitch fortune had been in truth a miserably unhappy mortal. And this was an extraordinary revelation to Jimmie, who had taken it for granted that the rich were the lucky ones of earth.
Piling up millions for old man Granitch, so that young Lacey can marry chorus-girls and divorce them or steal away another man's wife, as they say he's doing just now!" Then young Emil Forster spoke, explaining to Jimmie the inner significance of terrific world-events.
It was the first time literally the first in Jimmie's whole life that he had been led to think of the government as something else than an enemy and a slave-driver. "How did Granitch take it?" he asked. "Oh, awful! He threatened to quit, and let the government run his plant; but when he found the government was perfectly willing, he dropped his bluff. And look here here's something else."
She would get him a cup of hot coffee, and after he had drunk this, he would be himself again, and would chatter about the adventures of the night before. There was always something happening, a fellow starting a controversy, a drunken man, or perhaps a couple of thugs in the pay of old man Granitch, trying to break up the meeting.
It had made old man Granitch young again, people said; he worked twenty hours a day in his shirt-sleeves, and the increase in his profanity was appalling. Even Lacey Granitch, his dashing son, quitted the bright lights of Broadway and came home to help the old man keep his contracts.
Jimmie leaped to obey; partly because he had been in the habit of leaping to obey all his life but also partly because he was sorry for the beautiful wet lady, and because, if he stood and stared any longer, Lacey Granitch might recognize him.
They broke old Granitch down made him recognize the union and grant the basic eight-hour day." "My God!" exclaimed Jimmie. It was the thing for which he had stood up in the Empire yards and been cursed by young Lacey Granitch; it was the thing for which he had been sent to jail and devoured by lice! And now the government had helped the men to win their demand!
One of the first persons Jimmie saw was Lacey Granitch, and Lacey took him off to a corner of the park and said, "You haven't told anyone?" "No, Mr. Granitch," said Jimmie. "My name is Peterson," said Lacey. "Yes, Mr. Peterson," said Jimmie. It was a strange acquaintance between these two, chosen from the opposite poles of social life, and brought together in the democracy of pain.
Word Of The Day