Social problems -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
About midnight came Lawyer Norwood and Dr. Service. Both of these
men had protested against the street-speaking at this time; but of
course, when it came to comrades in trouble, they could not resist
the appeal to their sympathies. Such is the difficulty of entirely
respectable and decorous “parlour” Socialists, in their dealings
with the wayward children of the movement, the “impossibilists” and
“direct actionists” and other sowers of proletarian wild oats. Dr.
Service produced a wad of bills and bailed out all the prisoners,
and delivered himself of impressive indignation to the
police-sergeant, while waiting for an ambulance to carry “Wild Bill”
to the hospital. Jimmie Higgins, who had always hitherto shouted
with the “wild” ones, realized suddenly how pleasant it is to have a
friend who wears black broadcloth, and carries himself like the
drum-major of a band, and is reputed to be worth a couple of hundred
thousand dollars.
Jimmie went home; and there was Lizzie, pacing the floor and
wringing her hands in anxiety--for there had been no way to get word
to her what had happened. She flung herself into his arms, and then
recoiled in fright when, she discovered that he was wet. He told her
the story; and would you believe it--Lizzie, being a woman, and only
in the A-B-C stage of revolutionary education, actually did not know
that it was a glorious and heroic adventure to be arrested! She
thought it a disgrace, and tried to persuade him to keep the
dreadful secret from the neighbourhood! And when she found that he
was not through yet, but had to go to court in the morning and be
tried, she wept copiously, and woke up Jimmie Junior, and started
him to bawling. She was only to be pacified when Jimmie Senior
agreed to take off his wet clothes at once, and drink a cup or two
of boiling hot tea, and let himself be covered up with blankets, so
that he might not die of pneumonia before he could get to court.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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