“I can’t say I’m glad for any feller to get burnt out,” he exclaimed warmly. “The Aurora bunch are acting mighty gay. Wher’s it goin’ to stop? Is it the Plaza or the Speedway next? How am I to know when I’m offending their notions? Clancy Roscoe had been runnin’ his saloon since ever Beacon started. I can’t see——”
“It was a brothel,” Burns spoke sharply. Then he laughed quietly. “See here, Abe,” he said in a conciliatory fashion, “I guess you hold a brief for Clancy and his Glory Hole because he’s in your line of business—as far as liquor’s concerned. You sort of feel it’s interference with lawful liberty, and maybe, that way you’re right. But there’s no right-minded boy to this city’ll feel that the Clan has done anything but a service to the credit of our burg. Clancy was warned. He showed me his written warning two weeks back and he was right up in the air. And his warning was straight and right. It said, ‘Clear out your women and run your liquor joint straight.’ It gave him two weeks. Well, he refused. And I got my notions of the feller who makes his pay out of that sort of thing. He banks with me and I can’t help it. But I’m glad his shanty’s gone, and there are some more I’d like to see treated the same.”
“Sounds like he was the Chief Light of the Aurora,” laughed Jubilee.
Burns nodded.
“Maybe it does, boy. But think back to the days when you were your mother’s kid and you’ll think like me. No, I guess there’s a worry back of that Clan, but not when they burn up joints like the ‘Glory Hole.’”
Doc Finch nodded over his cigar stump.
“I’m with you, Victor,” he said seriously.
“I’m sure you are, Doc.”
“Well, what of Max’s show?” Abe was still considering possibilities from a personal point of view. “What of the women there? Are things better there when you get right down to bedrock? Say, I want to laff. Ther’s vice to the square inch right around that dance hall ’ud pave hell a furlong a minute. But then, Max could buy half the city,” he finished up bitterly.
“I can’t stand for that,” the unsmiling face of Burt was suddenly transformed. He was grinning but in real earnest. “The Speedway’s the thing folks make it,” he said hotly. “It’s the only real joy spot in a city that’s forgot how to laff. You can help yourself to a portion of life there without a meal ticket. Ther’s light and laughter there if you don’t get around with a grouch. You can burn money there, or make a bunch, if you’re bright enough to beat the other feller. Ther’s women who’re foolish, and women who ain’t, and ther’s boys who’re a real imitation of men, and hogs disguised under a bank roll. If the Clan was to get after Max’s joint it ’ud be me for the coast and the first barge for the south. No, Abe, if ther’s any sort of method back of those guys in their white shirts and pointed sky-pieces you and Max can sit around without a worry. An’, anyway, this bum hotel couldn’t have claim to vice, even in the dreams of a bughouse inmate.”