"Well, I know it is. I don't expect you to interfere with that. It's
these idlers and curiosity mongers who block the way that I want moved
to clear a way for my carriage. And if you can't do it, I'll ask Mr.
McSheen to put a man on this beat who can. As it happens I am going
there now." Insolence could go no farther.
"Let that carriage come up here, will you?" said the officer without
changing his expression. "Drive up, lad," he beckoned to the coachman
who came as near as he could.
"To Mrs. McSheen's," said the lady in a voice evidently intended for the
officer to hear, "and next time, don't stand across the street staring
at what you have no business with, but keep your eyes open so that you
won't keep me waiting half an hour beckoning to you." She entered the
carriage and drove off, making a new attack on her glove to close it
over a pudgy wrist. I glanced at the coachman as she closed the door and
I saw an angry gleam flash in his eye. And when I turned to the officer
he was following the carriage with a look of hate. I suddenly felt drawn
to them both, and the old fight between the People and the Bourgeoisie
suddenly took shape before me, and I found where my sympathies lay. At
this moment the officer turned and I caught his eye and held it. It was
hard and angry at first, but as he gave me a keen second glance, he saw
something in my face and his eye softened.
"Who is Mr. McSheen?" I asked.
"The next mayor," he said briefly.
"Oh!" I took out my card under an impulse and scribbled my office
address on it and handed it to him. "If you have any trouble about this
let me know."
He took it and turning it slowly gazed at it, at first with a puzzled
look. Then as he saw the address his expression changed.
He opened his coat and put it carefully in his pocket.
"Thank you, sir," he said finally.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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