“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! 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.” Emil reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a newspaper clipping. “Ashton Chalmers went to a banquet at some bankers' convention the other day and made a speech to them. Read this.” Jimmie, walking along, read some words that Emil had underlined in pencil: “Whether we will or no, we have to recognize that the old order is dead. We face a new era, when labour is coming into its own. If we do not want to be left behind as derelicts, we shall have to get busy and do our part to bring in this new era, which otherwise will come with bloodshed and destruction.” “For the love of Mike!” said Jimmie. “It's just about knocked Leesville out,” said Emil. “You ought to have seen the papers that reported the speech! It was as if God in his Heaven had gone crazy, and the clergymen in the churches had to tell the news!” To the little machinist there flashed a sudden idea. He caught his friend by the arm. “Emil!” he exclaimed. “Do you remember that time when Ashton Chalmers and old Granitch came to our meeting at the Opera-house?” “Sure thing!” said Emil. “Maybe that done it!” “Nothing more likely.” “And it was me that sold him the tickets!” Jimmie was thrilled to the bottom of his shoes. Such is the reward that comes now and then to the soul of a propagandist; he struggles on amid ridicule and despair--and then suddenly, like a gleam of light, comes evidence that somewhere, somehow, he has reached another mind, he has made a real impression. Ashton Chalmers had listened to the Socialist orator, and he had gone away and read and investigated; he had realized the force of this great world movement for economic justice, he had broken the bonds and barriers of his class, and told the truth about what he saw coming. When Jimmie read the wonderful words which the bank president had spoken, he was nearer to an impulse to fight Germany than at any previous moment of his life! CHAPTER XVII JIMMIE HIGGINS WRESTLES WITH THE TEMPTER I