"Can't you move these people on?" she demanded angrily of a stout officer who stood like the rest of us, looking on.
"It's a funeral," he said briefly.
"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.