Chapter II: Part 2

“It was a great life in the old days, a rough life but a man’s life.... I’m glad I made my pile in the old days.... Wouldnt have the same luck now.”

She looked up at him. “How modest you are to call it luck.”

Emile was standing outside the door of the private room. There was nothing more to serve. The redhaired girl from the cloakroom walked by with a big flounced cape on her arm. He smiled, tried to catch her eye. She sniffed and tossed her nose in the air. Wont look at me because I’m a waiter. When I make some money I’ll show ’em.

“Dis; tella Charlie two more bottle Moet and Chandon, Gout Americain,” came the old waiter’s hissing voice in his ear.

The moonfaced man was on his feet. “Ladies and Gentlemen....”

“Silence in the pigsty ...” piped up a voice.

“The big sow wants to talk,” said Olga under her breath.

“Ladies and gentlemen owing to the unfortunate absence of our star of Bethlehem and fulltime act....”

“Gilly dont blaspheme,” said the lady with the tiara.

“Ladies and gentlemen, unaccustomed as I am....”

“Gilly you’re drunk.”

“... Whether the tide ... I mean whether the waters be with us or against us...”

Somebody yanked at his coat-tails and the moonfaced man sat down suddenly in his chair.

“It’s terrible,” said the lady in the tiara addressing herself to a man with a long face the color of tobacco who sat at the end of the table ... “It’s terrible, Colonel, the way Gilly gets blasphemous when he’s been drinking...”

The Colonel was meticulously rolling the tinfoil off a cigar. “Dear me, you dont say?” he drawled. Above the bristly gray mustache his face was expressionless. “There’s a most dreadful story about poor old Atkins, Elliott Atkins who used to be with Mansfield...”

“Indeed?” said the Colonel icily as he slit the end of the cigar with a small pearlhandled penknife.

“Say Chester did you hear that Mabie Evans was making a hit?”

“Honestly Olga I dont see how she does it. She has no figure...”

“Well he made a speech, drunk as a lord you understand, one night when they were barnstorming in Kansas...”

“She cant sing...”

“The poor fellow never did go very strong in the bright lights...”

“She hasnt the slightest particle of figure...”

“And made a sort of Bob Ingersoll speech...”

“The dear old feller.... Ah I knew him well out in Chicago in the old days...”

“You dont say.” The Colonel held a lighted match carefully to the end of his cigar...

“And there was a terrible flash of lightning and a ball of fire came in one window and went out the other.”

“Was he ... er ... killed?” The Colonel sent a blue puff of smoke towards the ceiling.

“What, did you say Bob Ingersoll had been struck by lightning?” cried Olga shrilly. “Serve him right the horrid atheist.”

“No not exactly, but it scared him into a realization of the important things of life and now he’s joined the Methodist church.”

“Funny how many actors get to be ministers.”

“Cant get an audience any other way,” creaked the man with the diamond stud.

The two waiters hovered outside the door listening to the racket inside. “Tas de sacrés cochons ... sporca madonna!” hissed the old waiter. Emile shrugged his shoulders. “That brunette girl make eyes at you all night...” He brought his face near Emile’s and winked. “Sure, maybe you pick up somethin good.”

“I dont want any of them or their dirty diseases either.”

The old waiter slapped his thigh. “No young men nowadays.... When I was young man I take heap o chances.”

“They dont even look at you ...” said Emile through clenched teeth. “An animated dress suit that’s all.”

“Wait a minute, you learn by and by.”

The door opened. They bowed respectfully towards the diamond stud. Somebody had drawn a pair of woman’s legs on his shirtfront. There was a bright flush on each of his cheeks. The lower lid of one eye sagged, giving his weasle face a quizzical lobsided look.

“Wazzahell, Marco wazzahell?” he was muttering. “We aint got a thing to drink.... Bring the Atlantic Ozz-shen and two quarts.”

“De suite monsieur....” The old waiter bowed. “Emile tell Auguste, immediatement et bien frappé.”

As Emile went down the corridor he could hear singing.

O would the Atlantic were all champagne
Bright bi-i-i....

The moonface and the bottlenose were coming back from the lavatory reeling arm in arm among the palms in the hall.

“These damn fools make me sick.”

“Yessir these aint the champagne suppers we used to have in Frisco in the ole days.”

“Ah those were great days those.”

“By the way,” the moonfaced man steadied himself against the wall, “Holyoke ole fella, did you shee that very nobby little article on the rubber trade I got into the morning papers.... That’ll make the investors nibble ... like lil mishe.”

“Whash you know about rubber?... The stuff aint no good.”

“You wait an shee, Holyoke ole fella or you looshing opportunity of your life.... Drunk or sober I can smell money ... on the wind.”

“Why aint you got any then?” The bottlenosed man’s beefred face went purple; he doubled up letting out great hoots of laughter.

“Because I always let my friends in on my tips,” said the other man soberly. “Hay boy where’s zis here private dinin room?”

“Par ici monsieur.”

A red accordionpleated dress swirled past them, a little oval face framed by brown flat curls, pearly teeth in an open-mouthed laugh.

“Fifi Waters,” everyone shouted. “Why my darlin lil Fifi, come to my arms.”

She was lifted onto a chair where she stood jiggling from one foot to the other, champagne dripping out of a tipped glass.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Happy New Year.”

“Many returns of the day....”

A fair young man who had followed her in was reeling intricately round the table singing:

O we went to the animals’ fair
And the birds and the beasts were there
And the big baboon
By the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair.

“Hoopla,” cried Fifi Waters and mussed the gray hair of the man with the diamond stud. “Hoopla.” She jumped down with a kick, pranced round the room, kicking high with her skirts fluffed up round her knees.

“Oh la la ze French high kicker!”

“Look out for the Pony Ballet.”

Her slender legs, shiny black silk stockings tapering to red rosetted slippers flashed in the men’s faces.

“She’s a mad thing,” cried the lady in the tiara.

Hoopla. Holyoke was swaying in the doorway with his top hat tilted over the glowing bulb of his nose. She let out a whoop and kicked it off.

“It’s a goal,” everyone cried.

“For crissake you kicked me in the eye.”

She stared at him a second with round eyes and then burst into tears on the broad shirtfront of the diamond stud. “I wont be insulted like that,” she sobbed.

“Rub the other eye.”

“Get a bandage someone.”

“Goddam it she may have put his eye out.”

“Call a cab there waiter.”

“Where’s a doctor?”

“That’s hell to pay ole fella.”

A handkerchief full of tears and blood pressed to his eye the bottlenosed man stumbled out. The men and women crowded through the door after him; last went the blond young man, reeling and singing:

An the big baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair.

Fifi Waters was sobbing with her head on the table.

“Dont cry Fifi,” said the Colonel who was still sitting where he had sat all the evening. “Here’s something I rather fancy might do you good.” He pushed a glass of champagne towards her down the table.

She sniffled and began drinking it in little sips. “Hullo Roger, how’s the boy?”

“The boy’s quite well thank you.... Rather bored, dont you know? An evening with such infernal bounders....”

“I’m hungry.”

“There doesnt seem to be anything left to eat.”

“I didnt know you’d be here or I’d have come earlier, honest.”

“Would you indeed?... Now that’s very nice.”

The long ash dropped from the Colonel’s cigar; he got to his feet. “Now Fifi, I’ll call a cab and we’ll go for a ride in the Park....”

She drank down her champagne and nodded brightly. “Dear me it’s four o’clock....” “You have the proper wraps haven’t you?”

She nodded again.

“Splendid Fifi ... I say you are in form.” The Colonel’s cigarcolored face was unraveling in smiles. “Well, come along.”

She looked about her in a dazed way. “Didnt I come with somebody?”

“Quite unnecessary!”

In the hall they came upon the fair young man quietly vomiting into a firebucket under an artificial palm.

“Oh let’s leave him,” she said wrinkling up her nose.

“Quite unnecessary,” said the Colonel.

Emile brought their wraps. The redhaired girl had gone home.

“Look here, boy.” The Colonel waved his cane. “Call me a cab please.... Be sure the horse is decent and the driver is sober.”

“De suite monsieur.”

The sky beyond roofs and chimneys was the blue of a sapphire. The Colonel took three or four deep sniffs of the dawnsmelling air and threw his cigar into the gutter. “Suppose we have a bit of breakfast at Cleremont. I haven’t had anything fit to eat all night. That beastly sweet champagne, ugh!”

Fifi giggled. After the Colonel had examined the horse’s fetlocks and patted his head, they climbed into the cab. The Colonel fitted in Fifi carefully under his arm and they drove off. Emile stood a second in the door of the restaurant uncrumpling a five dollar bill. He was tired and his insteps ached.

When Emile came out of the back door of the restaurant he found Congo waiting for him sitting on the doorstep. Congo’s skin had a green chilly look under the frayed turned up coatcollar.

“This is my friend,” Emile said to Marco. “Came over on the same boat.”

“You havent a bottle of fine under your coat have you? Sapristi I’ve seen some chickens not half bad come out of this place.”

“But what’s the matter?”

“Lost my job that’s all.... I wont have to take any more off that guy. Come over and drink a coffee.”

They ordered coffee and doughnuts in a lunchwagon on a vacant lot.

“Eh bien you like it this sacred pig of a country?” asked Marco.

“Why not? I like it anywhere. It’s all the same, in France you are paid badly and live well; here you are paid well and live badly.”

“Questo paese e completamente soto sopra.”

“I think I’ll go to sea again....”

“Say why de hell doan yous guys loin English?” said the man with a cauliflower face who slapped the three mugs of coffee down on the counter.

“If we talk Engleesh,” snapped Marco “maybe you no lika what we say.”

“Why did they fire you?”

“Merde. I dont know. I had an argument with the old camel who runs the place.... He lived next door to the stables; as well as washing the carriages he made me scrub the floors in his house.... His wife, she had a face like this.” Congo sucked in his lips and tried to look crosseyed.

Marco laughed. “Santissima Maria putana!”

“How did you talk to them?”

“They pointed to things; then I nodded my head and said Awright. I went there at eight and worked till six and they gave me every day more filthy things to do.... Last night they tell me to clean out the toilet in the bathroom. I shook my head.... That’s woman’s work.... She got very angry and started screeching. Then I began to learn Angleesh.... Go awright to ’ell, I says to her.... Then the old man comes and chases me out into a street with a carriage whip and says he wont pay me my week.... While we were arguing he got a policeman, and when I try to explain to the policeman that the old man owed me ten dollars for the week, he says Beat it you lousy wop, and cracks me on the coco with his nightstick.... Merde alors...”

Marco was red in the face. “He call you lousy wop?”

Congo nodded his mouth full of doughnut.

“Notten but shanty Irish himself,” muttered Marco in English. “I’m fed up with this rotten town....

“It’s the same all over the world, the police beating us up, rich people cheating us out of their starvation wages, and who’s fault?... Dio cane! Your fault, my fault, Emile’s fault....”

“We didn’t make the world.... They did or maybe God did.”

“God’s on their side, like a policeman.... When the day comes we’ll kill God.... I am an anarchist.”

Congo hummed “les bourgeois à la lanterne nom de dieu.”

“Are you one of us?”

Congo shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not a catholic or a protestant; I haven’t any money and I haven’t any work. Look at that.” Congo pointed with a dirty finger to a long rip on his trouserknee. “That’s anarchist.... Hell I’m going out to Senegal and get to be a nigger.”

“You look like one already,” laughed Emile.

“That’s why they call me Congo.”

“But that’s all silly,” went on Emile. “People are all the same. It’s only that some people get ahead and others dont.... That’s why I came to New York.”

“Dio cane I think that too twentyfive years ago.... When you’re old like me you know better. Doesnt the shame of it get you sometimes? Here” ... he tapped with his knuckles on his stiff shirtfront.... “I feel it hot and like choking me here.... Then I say to myself Courage our day is coming, our day of blood.”

“I say to myself,” said Emile “When you have some money old kid.”

“Listen, before I leave Torino when I go last time to see the mama I go to a meetin of comrades.... A fellow from Capua got up to speak ... a very handsome man, tall and very thin.... He said that there would be no more force when after the revolution nobody lived off another man’s work.... Police, governments, armies, presidents, kings ... all that is force. Force is not real; it is illusion. The working man makes all that himself because he believes it. The day that we stop believing in money and property it will be like a dream when we wake up. We will not need bombs or barricades.... Religion, politics, democracy all that is to keep us asleep.... Everybody must go round telling people: Wake up!”

“When you go down into the street I’ll be with you,” said Congo.

“You know that man I tell about?... That man Errico Malatesta, in Italy greatest man after Garibaldi.... He give his whole life in jail and exile, in Egypt, in England, in South America, everywhere.... If I could be a man like that, I dont care what they do; they can string me up, shoot me ... I dont care ... I am very happy.”

“But he must be crazy a feller like that,” said Emile slowly. “He must be crazy.”

Marco gulped down the last of his coffee. “Wait a minute. You are too young. You will understand.... One by one they make us understand.... And remember what I say.... Maybe I’m too old, maybe I’m dead, but it will come when the working people awake from slavery.... You will walk out in the street and the police will run away, you will go into a bank and there will be money poured out on the floor and you wont stoop to pick it up, no more good.... All over the world we are preparing. There are comrades even in China.... Your Commune in France was the beginning ... socialism failed. It’s for the anarchists to strike the next blow.... If we fail there will be others....”

Congo yawned, “I am sleepy as a dog.”

Outside the lemoncolored dawn was drenching the empty streets, dripping from cornices, from the rails of fire escapes, from the rims of ashcans, shattering the blocks of shadow between buildings. The streetlights were out. At a corner they looked up Broadway that was narrow and scorched as if a fire had gutted it.

“I never see the dawn,” said Marco, his voice rattling in his throat, “that I dont say to myself perhaps ... perhaps today.” He cleared his throat and spat against the base of a lamppost; then he moved away from them with his waddling step, taking hard short sniffs of the cool air.

“Is that true, Congo, about shipping again?”

“Why not? Got to see the world a bit...”

“I’ll miss you.... I’ll have to find another room.”

“You’ll find another friend to bunk with.”

“But if you do that you’ll stay a sailor all your life.”

“What does it matter? When you are rich and married I’ll come and visit you.”

They were walking down Sixth Avenue. An L train roared above their heads leaving a humming rattle to fade among the girders after it had passed.

“Why dont you get another job and stay on a while?”

Congo produced two bent cigarettes out of the breast pocket of his coat, handed one to Emile, struck a match on the seat of his trousers, and let the smoke out slowly through his nose. “I’m fed up with it here I tell you....” He brought his flat hand up across his Adam’s apple, “up to here.... Maybe I’ll go home an visit the little girls of Bordeaux.... At least they are not all made of whalebone.... I’ll engage myself as a volunteer in the navy and wear a red pompom.... The girls like that. That’s the only life.... Get drunk and raise cain payday and see the extreme orient.”

“And die of the syph in a hospital at thirty....”

“What’s it matter?... Your body renews itself every seven years.”

The steps of their rooming house smelled of cabbage and stale beer. They stumbled up yawning.

“Waiting’s a rotton tiring job.... Makes the soles of your feet ache.... Look it’s going to be a fine day; I can see the sun on the watertank opposite.”

Congo pulled off his shoes and socks and trousers and curled up in bed like a cat.

“Those dirty shades let in all the light,” muttered Emile as he stretched himself on the outer edge of the bed. He lay tossing uneasily on the rumpled sheets. Congo’s breathing beside him was low and regular. If I was only like that, thought Emile, never worrying about a thing.... But it’s not that way you get along in the world. My God it’s stupid.... Marco’s gaga the old fool.

And he lay on his back looking up at the rusty stains on the ceiling, shuddering every time an elevated train shook the room. Sacred name of God I must save up my money. When he turned over the knob on the bedstead rattled and he remembered Marco’s hissing husky voice: I never see the dawn that I dont say to myself perhaps.

* * * * *

“If you’ll excuse me just a moment Mr. Olafson,” said the houseagent. “While you and the madam are deciding about the apartment...” They stood side by side in the empty room, looking out the window at the slatecolored Hudson and the warships at anchor and a schooner tacking upstream.

Suddenly she turned to him with glistening eyes; “O Billy, just think of it.”

He took hold of her shoulders and drew her to him slowly. “You can smell the sea, almost.”

“Just think Billy that we are going to live here, on Riverside Drive. I’ll have to have a day at home ... Mrs. William C. Olafson, 218 Riverside Drive.... I wonder if it is all right to put the address on our visiting cards.” She took his hand and led him through the empty cleanswept rooms that no one had ever lived in. He was a big shambling man with eyes of a washed out blue deepset in a white infantile head.

“It’s a lot of money Bertha.”

“We can afford it now, of course we can. We must live up to our income.... Your position demands it.... And think how happy we’ll be.”

The house agent came back down the hall rubbing his hands. “Well, well, well ... Ah I see that we’ve come to a favorable decision.... You are very wise too, not a finer location in the city of New York and in a few months you wont be able to get anything out this way for love or money....”

“Yes we’ll take it from the first of the month.”

“Very good.... You wont regret your decision, Mr. Olafson.”

“I’ll send you a check for the amount in the morning.”

“At your own convenience.... And what is your present address please....” The houseagent took out a notebook and moistened a stub of pencil with his tongue.

“You had better put Hotel Astor.” She stepped in front of her husband.

“Our things are stored just at the moment.”

Mr. Olafson turned red.

“And ... er ... we’d like the names of two references please in the city of New York.”

“I’m with Keating and Bradley, Sanitary Engineers, 43 Park Avenue...”

“He’s just been made assistant general manager,” added Mrs. Olafson.

When they got out on the Drive walking downtown against a tussling wind she cried out: “Darling I’m so happy.... It’s really going to be worth living now.”

“But why did you tell him we lived at the Astor?”

“I couldnt tell him we lived in the Bronx could I? He’d have thought we were Jews and wouldnt have rented us the apartment.”

“But you know I dont like that sort of thing.”

“Well we’ll just move down to the Astor for the rest of the week, if you’re feeling so truthful.... I’ve never in my life stopped in a big downtown hotel.”

“Oh Bertha it’s the principle of the thing.... I don’t like you to be like that.”

She turned and looked at him with twitching nostrils. “You’re so nambypamby, Billy.... I wish to heavens I’d married a man for a husband.”

He took her by the arm. “Let’s go up here,” he said gruffly with his face turned away.

They walked up a cross street between buildinglots. At a corner the rickety half of a weatherboarded farmhouse was still standing. There was half a room with blueflowered paper eaten by brown stains on the walls, a smoked fireplace, a shattered builtin cupboard, and an iron bedstead bent double.

* * * * *

Plates slip endlessly through Bud’s greasy fingers. Smell of swill and hot soapsuds. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack for the longnosed Jewish boy to wipe. Knees wet from spillings, grease creeping up his forearms, elbows cramped.

“Hell this aint no job for a white man.”

“I dont care so long as I eat,” said the Jewish boy above the rattle of dishes and the clatter and seething of the range where three sweating cooks fried eggs and ham and hamburger steak and browned potatoes and cornedbeef hash.

“Sure I et all right,” said Bud and ran his tongue round his teeth dislodging a sliver of salt meat that he mashed against his palate with his tongue. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack for the longnosed Jewish boy to wipe. There was a lull. The Jewish boy handed Bud a cigarette. They stood leaning against the sink.

“Aint no way to make money dishwashing.” The cigarette wabbled on the Jewish boy’s heavy lip as he spoke.

“Aint no job for a white man nohow,” said Bud. “Waitin’s better, they’s the tips.”

A man in a brown derby came in through the swinging door from the lunchroom. He was a bigjawed man with pigeyes and a long cigar sticking straight out of the middle of his mouth. Bud caught his eye and felt the cold glint twisting his bowels.

“Whosat?” he whispered.

“Dunno.... Customer I guess.”

“Dont he look to you like one o them detectives?”

“How de hell should I know? I aint never been in jail.” The Jewish boy turned red and stuck out his jaw.

The busboy set down a new pile of dirty dishes. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack. When the man in the brown derby passed back through the kitchen, Bud kept his eyes on his red greasy hands. What the hell even if he is a detective.... When Bud had finished the batch, he strolled to the door wiping his hands, took his coat and hat from the hook and slipped out the side door past the garbage cans out into the street. Fool to jump two hours pay. In an optician’s window the clock was at twentyfive past two. He walked down Broadway, past Lincoln Square, across Columbus Circle, further downtown towards the center of things where it’d be more crowded.

* * * * *

She lay with her knees doubled up to her chin, the nightgown pulled tight under her toes.

“Now straighten out and go to sleep dear.... Promise mother you’ll go to sleep.”

“Wont daddy come and kiss me good night?”

“He will when he comes in; he’s gone back down to the office and mother’s going to Mrs. Spingarn’s to play euchre.”

“When’ll daddy be home?”

“Ellie I said go to sleep.... I’ll leave the light.”

“Dont mummy, it makes shadows.... When’ll daddy be home?”

“When he gets good and ready.” She was turning down the gaslight. Shadows out of the corners joined wings and rushed together. “Good night Ellen.” The streak of light of the door narrowed behind mummy, slowly narrowed to a thread up and along the top. The knob clicked; the steps went away down the hall; the front door slammed. A clock ticked somewhere in the silent room; outside the apartment, outside the house, wheels and gallumping of hoofs, trailing voices; the roar grew. It was black except for the two strings of light that made an upside down L in the corner of the door.

Ellie wanted to stretch out her feet but she was afraid to. She didnt dare take her eyes from the upside down L in the corner of the door. If she closed her eyes the light would go out. Behind the bed, out of the windowcurtains, out of the closet, from under the table shadows nudged creakily towards her. She held on tight to her ankles, pressed her chin in between her knees. The pillow bulged with shadow, rummaging shadows were slipping into the bed. If she closed her eyes the light would go out.

Black spiraling roar outside was melting through the walls making the cuddled shadows throb. Her tongue clicked against her teeth like the ticking of the clock. Her arms and legs were stiff; her neck was stiff; she was going to yell. Yell above the roaring and the rattat outside, yell to make daddy hear, daddy come home. She drew in her breath and shrieked again. Make daddy come home. The roaring shadows staggered and danced, the shadows lurched round and round. Then she was crying, her eyes were full of safe warm tears, they were running over her cheeks and into her ears. She turned over and lay crying with her face in the pillow.

* * * * *

The gaslamps tremble a while down the purplecold streets and then go out under the lurid dawn. Gus McNiel, the sleep still gumming his eyes, walks beside his wagon swinging a wire basket of milkbottles, stopping at doors, collecting the empties, climbing chilly stairs, remembering grades A and B and pints of cream and buttermilk, while the sky behind cornices, tanks, roofpeaks, chimneys becomes rosy and yellow. Hoarfrost glistens on doorsteps and curbs. The horse with dangling head lurches jerkily from door to door. There begin to be dark footprints on the frosty pavement. A heavy brewers’ dray rumbles down the street.

“Howdy Moike, a little chilled are ye?” shouts Gus McNiel at a cop threshing his arms on the corner of Eighth Avenue.

“Howdy Gus. Cows still milkin’?”

It’s broad daylight when he finally slaps the reins down on the gelding’s threadbare rump and starts back to the dairy, empties bouncing and jiggling in the cart behind him. At Ninth Avenue a train shoots overhead clattering downtown behind a little green engine that emits blobs of smoke white and dense as cottonwool to melt in the raw air between the stiff blackwindowed houses. The first rays of the sun pick out the gilt lettering of DANIEL McGILLYCUDDY’S WINES AND LIQUORS at the corner of Tenth Avenue. Gus McNiel’s tongue is dry and the dawn has a salty taste in his mouth. A can o beer’d be the makin of a guy a cold mornin like this. He takes a turn with the reins round the whip and jumps over the wheel. His numb feet sting when they hit the pavement. Stamping to get the blood back into his toes he shoves through the swinging doors.

“Well I’ll be damned if it aint the milkman bringin us a pint o cream for our coffee.” Gus spits into the newly polished cuspidor beside the bar.

“Boy, I got a thoist on me....”

“Been drinkin too much milk again, Gus, I’ll warrant,” roars the barkeep out of a square steak face.

The saloon smells of brasspolish and fresh sawdust. Through an open window a streak of ruddy sunlight caresses the rump of a naked lady who reclines calm as a hardboiled egg on a bed of spinach in a giltframed picture behind the bar.

“Well Gus what’s yer pleasure a foine cold mornin loike this?”

“I guess beer’ll do, Mac.”

The foam rises in the glass, trembles up, slops over. The barkeep cuts across the top with a wooden scoop, lets the foam settle a second, then puts the glass under the faintly wheezing spigot again. Gus is settling his heel comfortably against the brass rail.

“Well how’s the job?”

Gus gulps the glass of beer and makes a mark on his neck with his flat hand before wiping his mouth with it. “Full up to the neck wid it.... I tell yer what I’m goin to do, I’m goin to go out West, take up free land in North Dakota or somewhere an raise wheat.... I’m pretty handy round a farm.... This here livin in the city’s no good.”

“How’ll Nellie take that?”

“She wont cotton to it much at foist, loikes her comforts of home an all that she’s been used to, but I think she’ll loike it foine onct she’s out there an all. This aint no loife for her nor me neyther.”

“You’re right there. This town’s goin to hell.... Me and the misses’ll sell out here some day soon I guess. If we could buy a noice genteel restaurant uptown or a roadhouse, that’s what’d suit us. Got me eye on a little property out Bronxville way, within easy drivin distance.” He lifts a malletshaped fist meditatively to his chin. “I’m sick o bouncin these goddam drunks every night. Whade hell did I get outen the ring for xep to stop fightin? Jus last night two guys starts asluggin an I has to mix it up with both of em to clear the place out.... I’m sick o fighten every drunk on Tenth Avenoo.... Have somethin on the house?”

“Jez I’m afraid Nellie’ll smell it on me.”

“Oh, niver moind that. Nellie ought to be used to a bit o drinkin. Her ole man loikes it well enough.”

“But honest Mac I aint been slopped once since me weddinday.”

“I dont blame ye. She’s a real sweet girl Nellie is. Those little spitcurls o hers’d near drive a feller crazy.”

The second beer sends a foamy acrid flush to Gus’s fingertips. Laughing he slaps his thigh.

“She’s a pippin, that’s what she is Gus, so ladylike an all.”

“Well I reckon I’ll be gettin back to her.”

“You lucky young divil to be goin home to bed wid your wife when we’re all startin to go to work.”

Gus’s red face gets redder. His ears tingle. “Sometimes she’s abed yet.... So long Mac.” He stamps out into the street again.

The morning has grown bleak. Leaden clouds have settled down over the city. “Git up old skin an bones,” shouts Gus jerking at the gelding’s head. Eleventh Avenue is full of icy dust, of grinding rattle of wheels and scrape of hoofs on the cobblestones. Down the railroad tracks comes the clang of a locomotive bell and the clatter of shunting freightcars. Gus is in bed with his wife talking gently to her: Look here Nellie, you wouldn’t moind movin West would yez? I’ve filed application for free farmin land in the state o North Dakota, black soil land where we can make a pile o money in wheat; some fellers git rich in foive good crops.... Healthier for the kids anyway.... “Hello Moike!” There’s poor old Moike still on his beat. Cold work bein a cop. Better be a wheatfarmer an have a big farmhouse an barns an pigs an horses an cows an chickens.... Pretty curlyheaded Nellie feedin the chickens at the kitchen door....

“Hay dere for crissake....” a man is yelling at Gus from the curb. “Look out for de cars!”

A yelling mouth gaping under a visored cap, a green flag waving. “Godamighty I’m on the tracks.” He yanks the horse’s head round. A crash rips the wagon behind him. Cars, the gelding, a green flag, red houses whirl and crumble into blackness.

III. Dollars

_All along the rails there were faces; in the portholes
there were faces. Leeward a stale smell came from the tubby
steamer that rode at anchor listed a little to one side
with the yellow quarantine flag drooping at the foremast._

_“I’d give a million dollars,” said the old man resting on
his oars, “to know what they come for.”_

_“Just for that pop,” said the young man who sat in the
stern. “Aint it the land of opportoonity?”_

_“One thing I do know,” said the old man. “When I was a boy
it was wild Irish came in the spring with the first run of
shad.... Now there aint no more shad, an them folks, Lord
knows where they come from.”_

_“It’s the land of opportoonity.”_

A leanfaced young man with steel eyes and a thin highbridged nose sat back in a swivel chair with his feet on his new mahogany-finish desk. His skin was sallow, his lips gently pouting. He wriggled in the swivel chair watching the little scratches his shoes were making on the veneer. Damn it I dont care. Then he sat up suddenly making the swivel shriek and banged on his knee with his clenched fist. “Results,” he shouted. Three months I’ve sat rubbing my tail on this swivel chair.... What’s the use of going through lawschool and being admitted to the bar if you cant find anybody to practice on? He frowned at the gold lettering through the groundglass door.

NIWDLAB EGROEG
WAL-TA-YENROTTA

Niwdlab, Welsh. He jumped to his feet. I’ve read that damn sign backwards every day for three months. I’m going crazy. I’ll go out and eat lunch.

He straightened his vest and brushed some flecks of dust off his shoes with a handkerchief, then, contracting his face into an expression of intense preoccupation, he hurried out of his office, trotted down the stairs and out onto Maiden Lane. In front of the chophouse he saw the headline on a pink extra; JAPS THROWN BACK FROM MUKDEN. He bought the paper and folded it under his arm as he went in through the swinging door. He took a table and pored over the bill of fare. Mustn’t be extravagant now. “Waiter you can bring me a New England boiled dinner, a slice of applepie and coffee.” The longnosed waiter wrote the order on his slip looking at it sideways with a careful frown.... That’s the lunch for a lawyer without any practice. Baldwin cleared his throat and unfolded the paper.... Ought to liven up the Russian bonds a bit. Veterans Visit President.... ANOTHER ACCIDENT ON ELEVENTH AVENUE TRACKS. Milkman seriously injured. Hello, that’d make a neat little damage suit.

Augustus McNiel, 253 W. 4th Street, who drives a milkwagon
for the Excelsior Dairy Co. was severely injured early this
morning when a freight train backing down the New York
Central tracks ...

He ought to sue the railroad. By gum I ought to get hold of that man and make him sue the railroad.... Not yet recovered consciousness.... Maybe he’s dead. Then his wife can sue them all the more.... I’ll go to the hospital this very afternoon.... Get in ahead of any of these shysters. He took a determined bite of bread and chewed it vigorously. Of course not; I’ll go to the house and see if there isn’t a wife or mother or something: Forgive me Mrs. McNiel if I intrude upon your deep affliction, but I am engaged in an investigation at this moment.... Yes, retained by prominent interests.... He drank up the last of the coffee and paid the bill.

Repeating 253 W. 4th Street over and over he boarded an uptown car on Broadway. Walking west along 4th he skirted Washington Square. The trees spread branches of brittle purple into a dovecolored sky; the largewindowed houses opposite glowed very pink, nonchalant, prosperous. The very place for a lawyer with a large conservative practice to make his residence. We’ll just see about that. He crossed Sixth Avenue and followed the street into the dingy West Side, where there was a smell of stables and the sidewalks were littered with scraps of garbage and crawling children. Imagine living down here among low Irish and foreigners, the scum of the universe. At 253 there were several unmarked bells. A woman with gingham sleeves rolled up on sausageshaped arms stuck a gray mophead out the window.

“Can you tell me if Augustus McNiel lives here?”

“Him that’s up there alayin in horspital. Sure he does.”

“That’s it. And has he any relatives living here?”

“An what would you be wantin wid ’em?”

“It’s a little matter of business.”

“Go up to the top floor an you’ll foind his wife there but most likely she cant see yez.... The poor thing’s powerful wrought up about her husband, an them only eighteen months married.”

The stairs were tracked with muddy footprints and sprinkled here and there with the spilling of ashcans. At the top he found a freshpainted darkgreen door and knocked.

“Who’s there?” came a girl’s voice that sent a little shiver through him. Must be young.

“Is Mrs. McNiel in?”

“Yes,” came the lilting girl’s voice again. “What is it?”

“It’s a matter of business about Mr. McNiel’s accident.”

“About the accident is it?” The door opened in little cautious jerks. She had a sharpcut pearlywhite nose and chin and a pile of wavy redbrown hair that lay in little flat curls round her high narrow forehead. Gray eyes sharp and suspicious looked him hard in the face.

“May I speak to you a minute about Mr. McNiel’s accident? There are certain legal points involved that I feel it my duty to make known to you.... By the way I hope he’s better.”

“Oh yes he’s come to.”

“May I come in? It’s a little long to explain.”

“I guess you can.” Her pouting lips flattened into a wry smile. “I guess you wont eat me.”

“No honestly I wont.” He laughed nervously in his throat.

She led the way into the darkened sitting room. “I’m not pulling up the shades so’s you wont see the pickle everythin’s in.”

“Allow me to introduce myself, Mrs. McNiel.... George Baldwin, 88 Maiden Lane.... You see I make a specialty of cases like this.... To put the whole matter in a nutshell.... Your husband was run down and nearly killed through the culpable or possibly criminal negligence of the employees of the New York Central Railroad. There is full and ample cause for a suit against the railroad. Now I have reason to believe that the Excelsior Dairy Company will bring suit for the losses incurred, horse and wagon etcetera....”

“You mean you think Gus is more likely to get damages himself?”

“Exactly.”

“How much do you think he could get?”

“Why that depends on how badly hurt he is, on the attitude of the court, and perhaps on the skill of the lawyer.... I think ten thousand dollars is a conservative figure.”

“And you dont ask no money down?”

“The lawyer’s fee is rarely paid until the case is brought to a successful termination.”

“An you’re a lawyer, honest? You look kinder young to be a lawyer.”

The gray eyes flashed in his. They both laughed. He felt a warm inexplicable flush go through him.

“I’m a lawyer all the same. I make a specialty of cases like these. Why only last Tuesday I got six thousand dollars for a client who was kicked by a relay horse riding on the loop.... Just at this moment as you may know there is considerable agitation for revoking altogether the franchise of the Eleventh Avenue tracks.... I think this is a most favorable moment.”

“Say do you always talk like that, or is it just business?”

He threw back his head and laughed.

“Poor old Gus, I always said he had a streak of luck in him.”

The wail of a child crept thinly through the partition into the room.

“What’s that?”

“It’s only the baby.... The little wretch dont do nothin but squall.”

“So you’ve got children Mrs. McNiel?” The thought chilled him somehow.

“Juss one ... what kin ye expect?”

“Is it the Emergency Hospital?”

“Yes I reckon they’ll let you see him as it’s a matter of business. He’s groanin somethin dreadful.”

“Now if I could get a few good witnesses.”

“Mike Doheny seen it all.... He’s on the force. He’s a good frien of Gus’s.”

“By gad we’ve got a case and a half.... Why they’ll settle out of court.... I’ll go right up to the hospital.”

A fresh volley of wails came from the other room.

“Oh, that brat,” she whispered, screwing up her face. “We could use the money all right Mr. Baldwin....”

“Well I must go.” He picked up his hat. “And I certainly will do my best in this case. May I come by and report progress to you from time to time?”

“I hope you will.”

When they shook hands at the door he couldn’t seem to let go her hand. She blushed.

“Well goodby and thank you very much for callin,” she said stiffly.

Baldwin staggered dizzily down the stairs. His head was full of blood. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life. Outside it had begun to snow. The snowflakes were cold furtive caresses to his hot cheeks.

The sky over the Park was mottled with little tiptailed clouds like a field of white chickens.

“Look Alice, lets us go down this little path.”

“But Ellen, my dad told me to come straight home from school.”

“Scarecat!”

“But Ellen those dreadful kidnappers....”

“I told you not to call me Ellen any more.”

“Well Elaine then, Elaine the lily maid of Astalot.”

Ellen had on her new Black Watch plaid dress. Alice wore glasses and had legs thin as hairpins.

“Scarecat!”

“They’re dreadful men sitting on that bench. Come along Elaine the fair, let’s go home.”

“I’m not scared of them. I could fly like Peter Pan if I wanted to.”

“Why dont you do it?”

“I dont want to just now.”

Alice began to whimper. “Oh Ellen I think you’re mean.... Come along home Elaine.”

“No I’m going for a walk in the Park.”

Ellen started down the steps. Alice stood a minute on the top step balancing first on one foot then on the other.

“Scaredy scaredy scarecat!” yelled Ellen.

Alice ran off blubbering. “I’m goin to tell your mommer.”

Ellen walked down the asphalt path among the shrubbery kicking her toes in the air.

Ellen in her new dress of Black Watch plaid mummy’d bought at Hearn’s walked down the asphalt path kicking her toes in the air. There was a silver thistle brooch on the shoulder of the new dress of Black Watch plaid mummy’d bought at Hearn’s. Elaine of Lammermoor was going to be married. The Betrothed. Wangnaan nainainai, went the bagpipes going through the rye. The man on the bench has a patch over his eye. A watching black patch. A black watching patch. The kidnapper of the Black Watch, among the rustling shrubs kidnappers keep their Black Watch. Ellen’s toes dont kick in the air. Ellen is terribly scared of the kidnapper of the Black Watch, big smelly man of the Black Watch with a patch over his eye. She’s scared to run. Her heavy feet scrape on the asphalt as she tries to run fast down the path. She’s scared to turn her head. The kidnapper of the Black Watch is right behind. When I get to the lamppost I’ll run as far as the nurse and the baby, when I get to the nurse and the baby I’ll run as far as the big tree, when I get to the big tree.... Oh I’m so tired.... I’ll run out onto Central Park West and down the street home. She was scared to turn round. She ran with a stitch in her side. She ran till her mouth tasted like pennies.

“What are you running for Ellie?” asked Gloria Drayton who was skipping rope outside the Norelands.

“Because I wanted to,” panted Ellen.

* * * * *

Winey afterglow stained the muslin curtains and filtered into the blue gloom of the room. They stood on either side of the table. Out of a pot of narcissus still wrapped in tissue paper starshaped flowers gleamed with dim phosphorescence, giving off a damp earthsmell enmeshed in indolent prickly perfume.

“It was nice of you to bring me these Mr. Baldwin. I’ll take them up to Gus at the hospital tomorrow.”

“For God’s sake dont call me that.”

“But I dont like the name of George.”

“I dont care, I like your name, Nellie.”

He stood looking at her; perfumed weights coiled about his arms. His hands dangled like empty gloves. Her eyes were black, dilating, her lips pouting towards him across the flowers. She jerked her hands up to cover her face. His arm was round her little thin shoulders.

“But honest Georgy, we’ve got to be careful. You mustn’t come here so often. I dont want all the old hens in the house to start talkin.”

“Dont worry about that.... We mustn’t worry about anything.”

“I’ve been actin’ like I was crazy this last week.... I’ve got to quit.”

“You dont think I’ve been acting naturally, do you? I swear to God Nellie I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m not that kind of a person.”

She showed her even teeth in a laugh. “Oh you kin never tell about men.”

“But if it weren’t something extraordinary and exceptional you dont think I’d be running after you this way do you? I’ve never been in love with anybody but you Nellie.”

“That’s a good one.”

“But it’s true.... I’ve never gone in for that sort of thing. I’ve worked too hard getting through lawschool and all that to have time for girls.”

“Makin up for lost time I should say.”

“Oh Nellie dont talk like that.”

“But honestly Georgy I’ve got to cut this stuff out. What’ll we do when Gus comes out of the hospital? An I’m neglectin the kid an everythin.”

“Christ I dont care what happens.... Oh Nellie.” He pulled her face round. They clung to each other swaying, mouths furiously mingling.

“Look out we almost had the lamp over.”

“God you’re wonderful, Nellie.” Her head had dropped on his chest, he could feel the pungence of her tumbled hair all through him. It was dark. Snakes of light from the streetlamp wound greenly about them. Her eyes looked up into his frighteningly solemnly black.

“Look Nellie lets go in the other room,” he whispered in a tiny trembling voice.

“Baby’s in there.”

They stood apart with cold hands looking at each other. “Come here an help me. I’ll move the cradle in here.... Careful not to wake her or she’ll bawl her head off.” Her voice crackled huskily.

The baby was asleep, her little rubbery face tight closed, minute pink fists clenched on the coverlet.

“She looks happy,” he said with a forced titter.

“Keep quiet cant you.... Here take yer shoes off.... There’s been enough trampin o men’s shoes up here.... Georgy I wouldn’t do this, but I juss cant help....”

He fumbled for her in the dark. “You darling....” Clumsy he brooded over her, breathing crazily deep.

* * * * *

“Flatfoot you’re stringin us....”

“I aint, honest I’d swear by me muder’s grave it’s de trutt.... Latitude toityseven soutt by twelve west.... You go dere an see.... On dat island we made in de second officer’s boat when de _Elliot P. Simkins_ foundered der was four males and fortyseven females includin women an children. Waren’t it me dat tole de reporter guy all about it an it came out in all de Sunday papers?”

“But Flatfoot how the hell did they ever get you away from there?”

“Dey carried me off on a stretcher or I’m a cockeyed lyer. I’ll be a sonofabitch if I warnt founderin, goin down by de bows like de ole _Elliot P_.”

Heads tossed back on thick necks let out volleys of laughter, glasses were banged on the round ringmarked table, thighs resounded with slaps, elbows were poked into ribs.

“An how many guys was in de boat?”

“Six includin Mr. Dorkins de second officer.”

“Seven and four makes eleven.... Jez.... Four an three-elevenths broads per capita.... Some island.”

“When does the next ferry leave?”

“Better have another drink on that.... Hay Charlie fill ’em up.”

Emile pulled at Congo’s elbow. “Come outside a sec. J’ai que’quechose a te dire.” Congo’s eyes were wet, he staggered a little as he followed Emile into the outer bar. “O le p’tit mysterieux.”

“Look here, I’ve got to go call on a lady friend.”

“Oh that’s what’s eating you is it? I always said you was a wise guy Emile.”

“Look, here’s my address on a piece of paper in case you forget it: 945 West 22nd. You can come and sleep there if you’re not too pickled, and dont you bring any friends or women or anything. I’m in right with the landlady and I dont want to spoil it.... Tu comprends.”

“But I wanted you to come on a swell party.... Faut faire un peu la noce, nom de dieu!...”

“I got to work in the morning.”

“But I got eight months’ pay in my pocket....

“Anyway come round tomorrow at about six. I’ll wait for you.”

“Tu m’emmerdes tu sais avec tes manières;” Congo aimed a jet of saliva at the spittoon in the corner of the bar and turned back frowning into the inside room.

“Hay dere sit down Congo; Barney’s goin to sing de Bastard King of England.”

Emile jumped on a streetcar and rode uptown. At Eighteenth Street he got off and walked west to Eighth Avenue. Two doors from the corner was a small store. Over one window was CONFISERIE, over the other DELICATESSEN. In the middle of the glass door white enamel letters read Emile Rigaud, High Class Table Dainties. Emile went in. The bell jangled on the door. A dark stout woman with black hairs over the corners of her mouth was drowsing behind the counter. Emile took off his hat. “Bonsoir Madame Rigaud.” She looked up with a start, then showed two dimples in a profound smile.

“Tieng c’est comma ça qu’ong oublie ses ami-es,” she said in a booming Bordelais voice. “Here’s a week that I say to myself, Monsieur Loustec is forgetting his friends.”

“I never have any time any more.”

“Lots of work, lots of money, heing?” When she laughed her shoulders shook and the big breasts under the tight blue bodice.

Emile screwed up one eye. “Might be worse.... But I’m sick of waiting.... It’s so tiring; nobody regards a waiter.”

“You are a man of ambition, Monsieur Loustec.”

“Que voulez vous?” He blushed, and said timidly “My name’s Emile.”

Mme. Rigaud rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “That was my dead husband’s name. I’m used to that name.” She sighed heavily.

“And how’s business?”

“Comma ci comma ça.... Ham’s gone up again.”

“It’s the Chicago ring’s doing that.... A corner in pork, that’s the way to make money.”

Emile found Mme. Rigaud’s bulgy black eyes probing his. “I enjoyed your singing so last time.... I’ve thought of it often.... Music does one good dont it?” Mme. Rigaud’s dimples stretched and stretched as she smiled. “My poor husband had no ear.... That gave me a great deal of pain.”

“Couldn’t you sing me something this evening?”

“If you want me to, Emile?... But there is nobody to wait on customers.”

“I’ll run in when we hear the bell, if you will permit me.”

“Very well.... I’ve learned a new American song ... C’est chic vous savez.”