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Jimmie's education in farm-economics was not thorough enough to enable him to realize that John Cutter was as much of a slave as himself bound by a mortgage to Ashton Chalmers, President of the First National Bank of Leesville.
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.
It seemed that this was the moment, if ever in his life, to show the stuff he was made of. He clenched his hands, and everything in him turned to iron. "WHO IS THAT LADY?" he demanded. Lacey Granitch was so taken aback that he started visibly. "What do you mean?" "I mean is she your wife? Or is she some other man's wife?" "Why you damned " And the young lord of Leesville stopped, speechless.
There came a scream, exactly like the siren of Hook and Ladder Company Number One that used to go tearing about the streets in Leesville, U.S.A; a light flashed in one of the sheds, and everything disappeared in a burst of smoke, which spread itself in the air like a huge duster made from turkey feathers.
A woman speaker came to Leesville a shrewd little body with a sharp tongue, who had these disputes figured out, and gave them in dialogue, as in a play. Kaiser Bill says, "I want cotton" John Bull says, "You shan't have it." Uncle Sam says, "But he has a right to have it. Get out of the way, John Bull." But John Bull says, "I will hold up your ships and take them into my ports."
Especially just now in Local Leesville they must keep their heads, for they were beginning the most important move in their history, the establishment of a weekly paper. Nothing must get in the way of that! Yes, said Comrade Service, but they would have to determine the policy of the paper, would they not?
Of course, they covered their greed with a camouflage of sympathy for the Allies; but did anybody believe that old man Granitch loved the Russian government? Certainly nobody in Leesville did; they knew that he was "getting his", and their hearts hardened with a grim resolve to "get theirs". At first they thought they were succeeding.
Here was a bunch of average nice Leesville boys, employees of the shops near-by, "soda-jerkers" and "counter-jumpers", clerks who had deftly fitted shoes on to the feet of pretty ladies. Now they were submitting themselves to this deforming discipline, undergoing this devilish transmogrification.
Jimmie had the young lord of Leesville down, and might have walked on his face; but strange as it might seem, Jimmie took towards him an attitude of timid humility. Jimmie felt that he had betrayed him to a cruel and hideous vengeance; moreover, in spite of all his revolutionary fervours, Jimmie could not forget that he was talking to one of the masters of the world.
But now, of course, the war had come to obsess his mind, driving him to terror for the future of humanity, tempting him to martyrdoms and domestic irritations. It was at this critical period in Jimmie's life that there appeared in Leesville a vivid young person by the name of Evelyn Baskerville.
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