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Maggie, A Girl of the Streets · Maggie, A Girl of the Streets

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  Maggie, A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane. Chapter one, A
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  very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of rum Alley.
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  He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's Row, who were circling
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  madly about the heap and pelting at him. His infantile countenance was livid with
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  fury. His small body was writhing in the delivery of great crimson oaths.
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  Run, Jimmy, run, Dalgatch's, screamed a retreating rum Alley child.
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  Na responded Jimmy with a valiant roar. There's me mix, can't make me
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  run howls. The renewed wrath went up from Devil's Row, throats tattered.
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  Gammons on the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. On their
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  small, convulse faces, there shone the grins of true assassins. As they
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  charged. They threw stones and cursed in shrill chorus. The little champion of
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  rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the other side. His coat had been torn to
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  shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had bruises on
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  twenty parts of his body and blood was dripping from a cut in his head.
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  His weighing features wore a look of a tiny, insane demon. On
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  the ground, children from Devil's Throw closed in on their antagonist. He crooked
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  his left arm defensively about his head and fought with cursing fury. The little
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  boys ran to and fro, dodging hurling stones and swearing in barbaric trebles from
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  a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amid squat ignorant stables.
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  There leaned a curious woman. Some laborers unloading a scowl at a dock
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  at the river paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of
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  a passive tugboat hung lazily to a railing and watched over on the island.
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  A worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a gray, ominous building
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  and crawled slowly along the river's bank. As stone had smashed into Jimmy's mouth,
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  blood was bubbling over his chin and down upon his ragged shirt. Tears
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  made furrows on his dirt stone cheeks. His thin legs had begun to tremble
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  and turn weak, causing his small body to reel His roaring curses of the
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  first part of the fight had changed to a blasphemous chatter. In the yells
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  of the whirling mob of Devil's throw children, there were notes of joy like
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  songs of triumph savagery. The little boys seemed to leer gloatingly at the blood
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  upon the other child's face. Down the avenue came boastfully sauntering a lad of
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  sixteen years, although the chronic sneer of an ideal manhood already sat upon his
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  lips. His hat was tipped with an air of challenge over his eye.
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  Between his teeth, a cigar stump was tilted at the angle of defiance.
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  He walked with a certain swing of the shoulders which to pull the timid He
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  glanced over into the vacant lot in which the little raving boys from Devil's Row
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  seethed about. The shrieking and tearful child from rum our Ge. He murmured
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  with interest a scrap g He strode over to the cursing circle, swinging his
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  shoulders in a manner which denoted that he held victory in his fists. He
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  approached at the back of one of the most deeply engaged of the Devil's Throw
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  children. Ah, what the hell, he said, and smote the deeply
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  engaged one on the back of the head. The little boy fell to the
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  ground and gave a horse tremendous howl. He scrambled to his feet, and,
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  perceiving evidently the size of his assailant, ran quickly off, shouting alarms.
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  The entire Devil's Throw party followed him. They came to a stand a
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  short distance away and yelled taunting oaths at the boy with the chronic sneer.
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  The latter momentari paid no attention to them. What the hell, Jimmy,
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  he asked of the small champion. Jimmy wiped his blood wet features with his
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  sleeve. Well, it was dis way, Pete, seeing I was going
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  to lick that Riley kid, and they all pitched on me. Some rum
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  Alley children now came forward. The party stood for a moment, exchanging vainglorious
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  remarks with Devil's row. A few stones were thrown at long distances, and
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  words of challenge passed between small warriors. Then the rum Alley contingent turned slowly
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  in the direction of their home street. They began to give each to each
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  distorted versions of the fight. Causes of retreat, in particular cases were magnified.
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  Flows dalt in the fight were enlarge to Catapulchian power, and Stone's throne
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  were alleged to have hurtled with infinite accuracy. Fellow grew strong again, and
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  the little boys began to swear with great spirit. Ah we blokes can lick
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  the how damn, roe, said a child. Swaggering Little Jimmy was striving
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  to stanch the flow of blood from his cut lips. Scowling, he turned
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  upon the speaker. Ah where the hell wi ya when I was doing all
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  the fighting, he demanded, Use kids makes me tired? Ah going,
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  replied the other. Argumentedly, Jimmy replied with heavy contempt. Ah, youse
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  can't fight Blue Billy, I can lick you with one hand. Ah gone,
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  replied Billy again. Ah, said Jimmy threateningly, Ah, said the
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  other in the same tone at each other. Clinched and rolled over on the
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  cobble. Stones kicked the dang gaps out of him, yelled Pete, the
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  lad with the chronics near in tones of delight. The small combatants pounded and
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  kicked, scratched and tore. They began to weep, and their curses struggled
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  in their throats with sobs. The other little boys clasped their hands and wriggled
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  their legs in excitement. They formed a bobbing circle about the pair. A
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  tiny spectator was suddenly agitated. Cheese it, Jimmy, cheese it. Here
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  comes your farda, he yelled. The circle of little boys instantly parted.
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  They drew away and waited in ecstatic all for that which was about to happen.
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  The two little boys, fighting in the modes of four thousand years ago,
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  did not hear the warning. Up the avenue. There plodded slowly a
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  man with sullen eyes. He was carrying a dinner pail and smoking an applewood
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  pipe. As he neared the spot where the little boys strove, he regarded
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  them listlessly. But suddenly he roared an oath and advanced upon the rolling fighters.
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  Here you, jim get up now while I bult your life out,
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  you dann disorderly brat. He began to kick into the chaotic mass on the
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  ground. The boy Billy felt a heavy boot stroke his head. He made
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  a furious effort and disentangled himself from Jimmy. He tottered away, damning.
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  Jimmy arose painfully from the ground, and, confronting his father, began to
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  curse him. His parent kicked him. Come home now, he cried,
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  and stopped. Ye jawing oroh lame the everlasting head of They departed. The
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  man paced placidly, along with the apple wood emblem of serenity between his teeth.
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  The boy followed a dozen feet in the rear. He swore luridly,
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  for he felt that it was degradation for one who aimed to be some vague
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  soldier or a man of blood with a sort of sublime license to be taken
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  home by a father. End of chapter one, Chapter two. Eventually they
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  entered into a dark region where from a careening building a dozen gruesome doorways gave
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  up loads of babies to the street and the gutter. A wind of early
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  autumn raised yellow dust from cobbles and swelled it against an hundred windows. Long.
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  Streamers of garments fluttered from fire escapes in all unhandy places. There were
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  buckets, brooms, rags, and bottles. In the street. Infants played
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  or fought with other infants, or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles.
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  Formidable women with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings,
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  or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons in curious postures of submission to something,
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  sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came
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  forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity.
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  Stamping about in its bowels, A small, ragged girl dragged a red
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  bawling infant along the crowded ways. He was hanging back baby like, bracing
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  his wrinkle bare legs. The little girl cried out, Ah, Tommy,
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  come on, there's Jimmy and fada. Don't be a pulling me back.
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  She jerked the baby's arm impatiently. He fell on his face, roaring with
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  a second dirk. She pulled him to his feet, and they went on.
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  With the obstinacy of his order, he protested against being dragged in a
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  chosen direction. He made heroic endeavors to keep on his leaves, denounce his
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  sister, and consume a bit of orange peeling, which he chewed between the
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  times of his infantile orations. As the sullen eyed man followed by the blood
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  covered boy drew near. The little girl burst into reproachful cries. Ah,
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  Jimmy, he's been fighting again, and swelled disdainfully. Ah what the hell
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  mag see? The little girl upbraided him. He's always fighting, Jimmy,
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  and you knows it's put mother out when you've come home half dead, ain't
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  it light? We'll all get a pounding. She began to weep. The
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  babe threw back his head and roared at his prospects. Ah what the hell,
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  cried Jimmy, shut up, I'll smack him out. See. As
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  his sister continued her lamentations, he suddenly swore and struck her. The little
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  girl reeled and, recovering herself, burst into tears and quaveringly cursed him.
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  As she slowly retreated, her brother advanced stealing her cups. The father heard
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  and turned about. Stop that, jim dear, leave your sister alone on
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  the street. It's like I can never eat, and he sensing too a
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  damn wooden head. The urchin raised his voice in defiance to his parent and
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  continued his attacks. The bay bull tremendously protesting with great violence during his sister's
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  hasty maneuvers, he was dragged by the arm. Finally, the procession plunged
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  into one of the gruesome doorways. They crawled up dark stairways and along cold,
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  gloomy halls. At last, the father pushed open a door and they
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  entered a lighted room in which a large woman was rampant. She stopped in
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  a career from receiving stove to a pan covered table. As the father and
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  children filed in, she peered at them, Ah, what you been fighting?
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  Again? By good? She threw herself upon Jimmy. The urchin tried
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  to dart behind the others, and in the scuffle the babe Tommy was knocked
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  down. He protested with his usual vehemence because they had bruised his tender shins
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  against a table league. The mother's massive shoulders teaved with anger. Grasping the
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  urchin by the neck and shoulders, she shook him until he rattled. She
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  dragged him to an unholy sink and soaking a rag in watar, began to
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  scrub his lacerated face with it. Jimmy screamed in pain and tried to twist
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  his shoulders out of the clasp of the huge arms. The babe sat on
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  the floor watching the scene, his face in contortions like that of a woman
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  at a tragedy. The father, with a newly laden pipe in his mouth,
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  crouched on a backless chair near the stove. Jimmy's cries annoyed him,
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  turned about and bellowed at his wife. Let the damn kid alone for a
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  minute, will you marry? You're always pounding him When I come nights.
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  I can't get no rest because you're always pounding a kid. Let up,
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  dear, don't be always pounding a kid. The woman's operations on the urchin
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  instantly increased in violence. At last, she tossed him to a corner,
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  where he limply lay, cursing and weeping. The wife put her immense hands
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  on her hips, and with a chief tan like stride, approached her husband.
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  Ho she said, with a great grunt of contempt, and what in
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  the devil are you sticking your nose for? The babe crawled under the table
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  and turning, peered out cautiously. The ragged girl retreated, and the urchin
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  in the corner drew his legs carefully beneath him. The man puffed his pipe
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  calmly and put his great muttered boots on the back part of the stove.
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  Go to help, He murmured tranquility. The woman screamed and shook her fists
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  before her husband's eyes. The rough yellow of her face and neck flared suddenly
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  crimson, she began to howl. He puffed impertinently at his pipe for a
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  time, but finally arose and began to look out at the window into the
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  darkened chaos of back yards. You've been drinking, mary, he said.
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  You'd better let up on the bot old woman, or you'll get done.
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  You're a liar. I ain't had a drop, she roared in reply.
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  They had a lurid altercation in which they damned each other's souls with frequence.
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  The babe was staring out from under the table, his small face working in
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  his excitement. The ragged girl went stealthily over to the corner where the urchin
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  lay A has hurted much. Jimmy, she whispered timidly. Not a damn
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  bit, see, growled the little boy. Will I wash the blood?
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  Nah? Will I? When I catched that riley kid, I'll break his
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  face, that's right. See. He turned his face to the wall as
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  if resolved to grianly bide his time in the quarrel between husband and wife.
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  The woman was victor. The man grabbed his hat and rushed from the room,
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  apparently determined upon a vengeful drunk. She followed to the door and thundered
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  at him as he made his way down stairs. She returned and stirred up
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  the room until her children were bobbing about like bubbles. Get out the way.
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  She persistently bawled, waving feet with their disheveled shoes near the heads of
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  her children. She shrouded herself, puffing and starting in a cloud of steam
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  at the stove, and eventually extracted a frying pan full of potatoes that hissed.
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  She flourished it. Come to your suppers now, she cried with sudden
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  exasperation. Hurry up now, or I'll help you. The children scrambled hastily
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  with prodigious clatter. They arranged themselves at table. The babe sat with his
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  feet dangling high from a precarious infant chair and gorged his small stomach Jimmy forced
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  with feverish rapidity the grease envelope pieces between his wounded lips. Maggie, with
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  side glances of fear of interruption ate like a small pursued tigress. The mother
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  sat blinking at them. She delivered reproaches, swallowed potatoes, and drunk from
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  a yellow brown bottle. After a time, her mood changed, and she
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  wept as she carried little Tommy into another room and laid him to sleep,
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  with his fists doubled in an old quilt of pladed red and green grandure.
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  Then she came and moaned by the stove. She rocked to and fro upon
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  a chair, shedding tears and crooning miserably to the two children about their poor
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  mother and near father. Damn is soul. The little girl plodded between the
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  table and the chair with a dishpan on it. She tottered on her small
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  legs beneath burdens of dishes. Jimmy sat nursing his various wounds. He cast
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  furtive glances at his mother. His practiced eye perceived her gradually emerge from a
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  muddled mist of sentiment, until her brain burned in drunken heat. He sat
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  breathless. Maggie broke her plate. The mother started to her feet, as
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  if propelled Good God. She howled her eyes glittered on her child with sudden
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  hatred. The fervent red of her face turned almost to purple. The little
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  boy ran to the halls, shrieking like a monk in an earthquake. He
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  floundered about in darkness until he found the stairs. He stumbled, panic stricken,
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  to the next floor. An old woman opened a door, a light
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  behind her threw a flare on the urchin's quivering face. Ah, God,
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  child, what is it this time? Is your father beaten? Your mother?
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  Oh? Are you mad? A bit nafara endo? Chapter two,
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  Chapter three. Jimmy and the old woman listened long in the hall above the
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  muffled roar of conversation, the dismal wailings of babies at night, the thumping
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  of feet in unseen corridors and rooms, mingled with the sound of varied horse
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  shoutings in the street, and the rattling of wheels over cobbles. They heard
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  the screams of the child and the roars of the mother die away to a
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  feeble moaning and a subdued bass muttering. The old woman was a gnarled and
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  leathery personage who could don at will an expression of great virtue. She possessed
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  a small music box capable of one tune, and a collection of God bless
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  yous pitched in as sordid keys of Fervency. Each day she took a position
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  upon the stones of Fifth Avenue, where she crooked her legs under her and
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  crouched movable and hideous like an idol. She received daily a small sum and
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  pennies. It was contributed, for the most part by persons who did not
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  make their homes in that vicinity. Once, when a lady had dropped her
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  purse on the sidewalk, the gnarled woman had grabbed it and smuggled it with
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  great dexterity beneath her cloak. When she was arrested, she had cursed the
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  lady into a partial swoon, and with her aged limbs twisted from rheumatism,
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  had almost kicked the stomach out of a huge policeman, whose conduct upon that
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  occasion she referred to when she said the police, damn'em. Ey, Jimmy,
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  it's cursed shame. She said, go now like a dear and buy
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  me a can. And if your mutter raises hell all night, you can
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  sleep here. Jimmy took a tendered tin pail and seven pennies and departed.
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  He passed into the side door of a saloon and went to the bar.
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  Straining up on his toes, he raised the pail and pennies as highs as
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  her arms would him. He saw two hands thrust down and take them directly.
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  The same hands let down the filled pail, and he left. In
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  front of the gruesome doorway, he met a lurching figure. It was his
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  father, swaying about on uncertain legs. Gimme the can, see said the
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  man threateningly. Ah, come off, I got this can for that old
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  woman, and it'd be dirt to swipe it. See, cried Jimmy.
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  The father wrenched the paler from the urchin. He grasped it in both hands
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  and lifted it to his mouth. He glued his lips to the under edge
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  and tilted his head. His hairy throat swelled until it seemed to grow near
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  his chin. There was a tremendous gulping movement, and the beer was gone.
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  The man caught his breath and laughed. He hid his son on the
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  head with the empty pail. As it rolled clanging into the street. Jimmy
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  began to scream and kick repeatedly at his father's shins. Look at the dirt.
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  What you've done me? He yelled. The old woman'll be raisin the
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  hell. He retreated to the middle of the street, but the man did
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  not pursue. He staggered toward the door. Oh club, hell, out
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  of you. When I catch you, he shouted, and disappeared. During
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  the evening, he had been standing against the bar, drinking whiskies and declaring
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  to wellcomers confidentially, my home, regular livin' hell. Damn this place,
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  regular hell? Why do I come and drin whisky? Here? This way?
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  Because home, regular livin' hell. Jimmy waited a long time in the
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  street, and then crept wearily up through the building. He passed with great
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  caution the door of the gnarled woman, and finally stopped outside his home and
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  listened. He could hear his mother moving heavily about among the furniture of the
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  room. She was chanting in a mournful voice, occasionally interjecting bursts of volcanic
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  arrays at the father, who Jimmy judged had sunk down on the floor or
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  in a corner. Why the blazer, don't you try to keep jim from
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  fightin' I'll break her jaw, She suddenly bellowed. The man mumbled with drunken
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  indifference. Ah, what the hell, what's odds? What makes kick because
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  he tears his clothes? You damn fool, cried the woman in supreme wrath.
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  The husband seemed to become aroused. Good hell, you, thundered fiercely
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  in reply. There was a crash against the door, and something broke into
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  a clattering fragments. Jimmy partially suppressed the howl and darted down the stairway below,
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  he paused and listened. He heard howls and curses, groans and shrieks,
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  confusingly in chorus, as if a battle were raging. Withal was the
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  crash of splintering furniture. The eyes of the urchin and glared in fear that
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  one of them would discover him. Curious faces appeared in doorways, and whispered
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  comments passed to and fro all Joston's Raisin hal again. Jimmy stood until the
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  noises ceased, and the other inhabitants of the tenement had all yawned and shut
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  their doors. Then he crawled upstairs with the caution of an invader of a
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  panther den. Sounds of labored breathing came through the broken door panels. He
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  pushed the door open and entered, quaking. A glow from the fire threw
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  red hues over the bare floor, the cracked and soiled plastering, and the
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  overturned and broken furniture, and the middle of the floor. Lay his mother
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  asleep in one corner of the room. His father's limp body hung across the
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  seat of a chair. The Urchin stole forward. He began to shiver in
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  dread of a weakening his parents. His mother's great chest was heaving painfully.
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  Jimmy paused and looked down at her. Her face was inflamed and swollen from
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  drinking. Her yellow brows shaded eyely that had brown blue. Her tangled hair
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  tossed in waves over her forehead. Her mouth was set in the same lines
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  of vindictive hatred that it had perhaps borne during the fight. Her bare red
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  arms were thrown out above her head in positions of exhaustion, something mayhap like
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  those of a sated villain. The Urchin bended over his mother. He was
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  fearful lest she should open her eyes, and the dread within him was so
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  strong that he could not prepare to stare, but hung as if fascinated over
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  the woman's grim face. Suddenly her eyes opened. The urchin found himself looking
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  straight into that expression, which, it would seem, had the power to
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  change his blood to salt. He howled piercingly and fell backward. The woman
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  floundered for a moment, tossed her arms about her head as if in combat,
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  and again began to snore. Jimmy crawled back in the shadows and waited.
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  A noise in the next room had followed his cry. At the discovery
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  that his mother was awake, he groveled in the gloom. The eyes from
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  out his drawn face riveted upon the intervening door. He heard it creak,
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  and then the sound of a small voice came to him. Jimmy, Jimmy,
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  are you stare? It whispered The urchin started. The thin white face
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  of his sister looked at him from the doorway of the other room. She
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  crept to him across the floor. The father had not moved, but lay
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  in the same deathlike sleep. The mother writhed in uneasy slumber, her chest
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  wheezing as if she were in the agonies of strangulation. Out at the window.
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  A florid moon was peering over dark roofs, and in the distance the
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  waters of a river glimmered pallidly. The small frame of the ragged girl was
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  quivering. Her features were haggard from weeping, and her eyes gleamed from fear.
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  She grasped the urchin's arm in her little trembling hands, and they huddled
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  in a corner. The eyes of both were drawn by some force to stare
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  at the woman's face. Before they thought she needed only to awaken all fiends
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  would come from below. They crouched until the ghost mists of dawn appeared at
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  the window, drawing close to the panes and looking in at the prostrate,
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  heaving body of the mother. End of chapter three, Chapter four, the
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  babe Tommy died. He went away in a white, insignificant coffin. His
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  small VAXen had clutching a flower that the girl Maggie, had stolen from an
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  Italian. She and Jimmy lived the inexperienced fibers of the boy's eyes Mohadon.
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  At an early age he became a young man of fledder. He lived some
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  ready as without laboring. During that time Hissnia, became chronic, studied human
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  nature and the gutter, and found it no worse than he thought he had
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  reason to believe it. He never conceived a respect for the world, because
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  he had begun with no idels that it had smashed. He clad his soul
• 30:14
  in armor by means of happening hilariously in at a mission church, where a
• 30:18
  man composed his sermons of use while they got warm at the stove, he
• 30:23
  told his hearers just where he calculated they stood with the Lord. Many of
• 30:29
  the sinners were impatient over the pictured depths of their degradation. They were waiting
• 30:34
  for soup tickets. A reader of words of wind demons might have been able
• 30:40
  to see the portions of dialog passed to and fro between the exeter and his
• 30:44
  hearers. You are damned, said the preacher, and the reader of sounds
• 30:49
  might have seen the reply go forth from the ragged people, where's our soup?
• 30:55
  Jimmy and a companion sat in the rare seat and commented upon the things
• 30:59
  that didn't concern them, with all the freedom of English gentlemen. When they
• 31:03
  grew thirsty and went out, their minds confused the speaker with Christ momentarily,
• 31:10
  Jimmy was sullen with thoughts of a hopeless altitude where grew fruit. His companions
• 31:15
  said that if he should ever meet God, he would ask for a million
• 31:19
  dollars and a bottle of beer. Jimmy's occupation for a long time was to
• 31:25
  stand on street corners and watch the world go by, dreaming blood red dreams
• 31:30
  at the passing of pretty women. He menaced mankind at the intersections of streets.
• 31:37
  On the corners. He was in life and off life. The world
• 31:41
  was going on, and he was there to perceive it. He maintained a
• 31:45
  belligerent attitude toward all welderss men. To him, fine raiment was allied to
• 31:52
  weakness, and all good coats covered faint hearts. He and his order were
• 31:56
  kings to a certain extent over the men of untarnished clothes, because these latter
• 32:02
  dreaded, perhaps to be either killed or laughed at. Above all things,
• 32:08
  he despised of the Christians and Ciphers, with the chrysanthemums of aristocracy in their
• 32:15
  button holes. He considered himself above both of these classes. He was afraid
• 32:21
  of neither the devil nor the leader of society. When he had a dollar
• 32:25
  in his pocket. His satisfaction with existence was the greatest thing in the world,
• 32:31
  so eventually he felt obliged to work. His father died, and his
• 32:37
  mother's years were divided up into periods of thirty days. He became a truck
• 32:44
  driver. He was given the charge of a painstaking pair of horses in a
• 32:49
  large, rattling truck. He invaded the turmoil and tumbled of the downtown streets,
• 32:55
  and learned to breathe malick dictory defiance. At the police, hees occasionally
• 33:00
  used to climb up, drag him from his perch, and beat him.
• 33:05
  In the lower part of the city, he daily involved himself in hideous tangles.
• 33:09
  If he and his team chanced to be in the rear, he preserved
• 33:13
  a demeanor of serenity, crossing his legs and bursting forth into yells. When
• 33:17
  foot passengers took dangerous dives beneath the noises of his champing horses, he smoked
• 33:24
  his pipe calmly, for he knew that his pay was marching on. If
• 33:30
  in the front and the key truck of chaos, he entered terrifically into the
• 33:35
  quarrel that was raging to and fro among the drivers on their high seats,
• 33:38
  and sometimes roared oaths and violently got himself arrested. After a time, his
• 33:46
  sneer grew so that it turned its glare upon all things. He became so
• 33:51
  sharp that he believed in nothing. To him. The police were always actuated
• 33:54
  by malignant impulses. The rest of the world was composed for the moist part
• 34:00
  of despicable creatures were all trying to take advantage of him, and with whom
• 34:05
  in defense he was obliged to quarrel on all possible occasions. He himself occupied
• 34:10
  a downtrodden position that had a private but distinct element of grandeur in his isolation.
• 34:16
  The most complete cases of aggravated idiocy were, to his mind, rampant
• 34:22
  upon the front platforms of all the street cars. At first his tongues stroyed
• 34:27
  with these beings, but he eventually was superior. He became immute, like
• 34:30
  an African cow in him grew a majestic contempt for these strings of street cars
• 34:37
  that followed him like intent bugs. He fell into the habit when starting on
• 34:42
  a long journey of fixing his eye on high and distant object, commanding his
• 34:46
  horses to begin and then going into a sort of trance of observation. Multitude
• 34:52
  of drivers might howl in his rear, and his passengers might lood him with
• 34:57
  oppribrium, but he would not awaken an less Some blue policemen turned red and
• 35:01
  began to frenziedly tear bridles and beat the soft noises of the responsible horses.
• 35:08
  When he paused to contemplate the attitude of the police toward himself and his fellows,
• 35:14
  he believed that they were the only men in the city who had no
• 35:16
  rights when driving about. He felt that he was held liable by the police
• 35:22
  for anything that might occur in the streets, and was the common prey of
• 35:25
  all energetic officials. In revenge, he resolved never to move out of the
• 35:30
  way of anything until formed of with circumstances or a much larger man than himself
• 35:36
  forced into it. Foot passengers were mere pestering flies with an insane disregard for
• 35:42
  their legs and his convenience. He could not conceive their maniacal desires to cross
• 35:46
  the streets. Their madness smote him with eternal amazement. He was continually storming
• 35:53
  at them from his throne. He sat aloft and denounced their frantic leaps,
• 35:58
  plunges, dives, and straddles when they were thrust at or parry the noises
• 36:04
  of his champing horses, making them swing their heads and move their feet,
• 36:07
  disturbing a solid, dreamy repose. He swore at the men as fools,
• 36:13
  for he himself could perceive that providence had caused it clearly to be written that
• 36:19
  he and his team had the unlineable right to stand in the proper part of
• 36:23
  the sun chariot, and if they so minded, obstruct its mission or take
• 36:29
  a wheel off. And perhaps if the guard driver had ungovernable desire to step
• 36:36
  down, put up his flame colored fists and manfully dispute the right of way,
• 36:39
  he would have probably been immediately opposed by a scowling mortal with two sets
• 36:45
  of very hard knuckles. It is possible, perhaps that this young man would
• 36:51
  have derided in the next wide alley the approach of a flying ferryboat. Yet
• 36:55
  he achieved a respect for a fire engine. As one charged toward his truck,
• 37:00
  he would fearfully drive upon a sidewalk, threatening untold people with annihilation.
• 37:07
  When an engine was striking a mass of block trucks, splitting it into fragments
• 37:12
  as a blow annihilator cake of ice. Jimmy's team could usually be observed high
• 37:16
  and safe, with whole wheels on the sidewalk. The fearful coming of the
• 37:22
  engine could break up the most intricate muddle of the heavy vehicles at which the
• 37:25
  police had been swearing for the half of an hour. A fire engine was
• 37:31
  enshrined in his heart as an appalling thing that he loved with a distant,
• 37:36
  dog like devotion. They had been known to overturn street cars. Those leaping
• 37:42
  horses striking sparks from the cobbles in the forward lunge were creatures to be in
• 37:46
  the feebly admired. The clang of the gong pierced his breast like a noise
• 37:52
  of remembered war. When Jimmy was a little boy, he began to be
• 37:57
  arrested before he reached it great age. He had a fair record. He
• 38:02
  developed to a great tendency to climb down from his truck and fight with other
• 38:07
  drivers. He had been in quite a number of miscellaneous fights and in some
• 38:13
  general barum rouse that had become knowinged to the police. Once he had been
• 38:17
  arrested for assaulting a chinaman two women in different parts of the city entirely annoying
• 38:23
  to each other, caused him considerable annoyance by breaking forth simultaneously at fateful intervals
• 38:30
  into veilings about marriage and support and infants. Nevertheless, he had on a
• 38:37
  certain Stylit evening said wonderingly and quite reverently, de moon looks like hell,
• 38:45
  don't it? End of chapter four, Chapter five, the girl Maggie blossomed
• 38:54
  in a mud puddle. She grew to be a most rare and wonderful production
• 38:59
  of a tenement district, a pretty girl. None of the dirt of rum
• 39:04
  Alley seemed to be in her veins. The philosophers upstairs, downstairs, and
• 39:08
  on the same floor puzzled over it. When a child playing and fighting with
• 39:15
  gammons in the street dirt disguised her, attired in tatters and grime, she
• 39:20
  went unseen. There came a time, however, when the young men of
• 39:25
  the vicinity said, dat Johnson Goyle is a pretty good looker. About this
• 39:31
  period, her brother remarked to her, mag I'll tell you it is.
• 39:36
  See. You've either got to go to hell or go to work. Whereupon
• 39:42
  she went to work, having the feminine aversion of going to hell. By
• 39:47
  chance, she got a position in an establishment where they made collars and cuffs.
• 39:52
  She received a stool and a machine in a room where sat twenty girls
• 39:58
  of various shades of yellow discance. She perched on the stool and treddled at
• 40:02
  her machine all day, turning out collars, the name of whose brand could
• 40:07
  be noted for its irrelevancy to anything in connection with collars. At night,
• 40:14
  she returned home to her mother. Jimmy grew large enough to take the vague
• 40:17
  position of head of the family. As incumbent of that office, he stumbled
• 40:22
  upstairs late at night, as his father had done before him. He reeled
• 40:28
  about the room, swearing at his relations, or went to sleep on the
• 40:31
  floor. The mother had gradually arisen to that degree of fame that she could
• 40:37
  bandy words with her acquaintances among the police justices. Court officials called her by
• 40:45
  her first name. When she appeared they pursued a course which had been theirs
• 40:49
  for months. They invariably grinned and cried out, hello, Mary, you
• 40:54
  here again. Her gray head wagged in many a court. She always besieged
• 41:00
  a bench with voluble excuses, explanations, apologies, and prayers. Her flaming
• 41:07
  face and rolling eyes were a sort of familiar sight on the island. She
• 41:12
  measured time by means of spreeze, and was eternally swollen and disheveled. One
• 41:19
  day, the young man Pete, who as a lad had smitten the Devil's
• 41:23
  row urchin in the back of the head and put to flight the antagonists of
• 41:29
  his friend Jimmy, strutted upon the scene. He met Jimmy one day on
• 41:32
  the street, promised to take him to a boxing match in Williamsburg, and
• 41:37
  called for him. In the evening. Maggie observed Pete. He sat on
• 41:43
  a table in the Johnson home and dangled his checked legs with an enticing nonchalance.
• 41:49
  His hair was curled down over his forehead in an oiled bang. His
• 41:53
  rather pug nose seemed to revolt from contact with a bristling mustache of short wirelike
• 42:00
  hairs. His blue double breasted coat edged with black braid, buttoned close to
• 42:06
  a red puff tie, and his patent leather shoes looked like murder fitted weapons.
• 42:13
  His mannerism stamped him as a man who had a correct sense of his
• 42:17
  personal superiority. There was valor and contempt for circumstances. In the glance of
• 42:23
  his eye, he waved his hands like a man of the world who dismisses
• 42:29
  religion and philosophy and says fudge. He had certainly seen everything, and with
• 42:35
  each curl of his lip he declared that it amounted to nothing. Maggie thought
• 42:40
  he must be a very elegant and graceful bartender. He was telling tales to
• 42:45
  Jimmy. Maggie watched him furtively with half closed eyes lit with a vague interest.
• 42:52
  Hully, gee, it makes me tired, he said. Most every
• 42:57
  day some farmer comes in and tries to run the shop. See, but
• 43:01
  they gets trowed right out. I joked them right out in the street before
• 43:06
  they knows where they is. See sure, said Jimmy. There was a
• 43:13
  mug come into place the other day with an idea he was going to own
• 43:15
  the place. Holly, gee, he was going to own the place.
• 43:22
  I see. He had a still on and I didn't want to give him
• 43:23
  no stuff, So I says, get the hell out of here and don't
• 43:28
  make no trouble. I says like that, See, get the hell out
• 43:31
  of here and don't make no trouble. Like that, get the hell out
• 43:36
  of here, I says. See. Jimmy nodded understandingly over his features,
• 43:42
  played an eager desire to state the amount of his valor in a similar crisis,
• 43:45
  but the narrator proceeded, Well, the blokey, he says, to
• 43:52
  hell with it. I ain't looking for no scrap, he says. See.
• 43:55
  But he says, I'm spectable citizen, and I want to drink and
• 44:00
  pretty damn soon too. See the hell I says like that. The hell
• 44:07
  I says, see, don't make no trouble. I says like that,
• 44:12
  don't make no trouble. See. Then the mug he squared off and said
• 44:16
  he was fine as silk with his dukes. See, and he wanted to
• 44:20
  drink damn quick. That's what he said. See sure, repeated Jimmy.
• 44:27
  Pete continued, say, I just jumped the bar, and the way I
• 44:30
  plunked that bloke he was great. See that's right in the jaw see hully.
• 44:37
  Gee, he trode a spittoon, true to front. Windy say,
• 44:40
  I thought I'd dropped dead. But the boss he comes in after, and
• 44:45
  he says, Pete is done. Jest right, You've got to keep order
• 44:50
  and it's all right. See, it's all right, he says. That's
• 44:53
  what he said. The two held a technical discussion. That bloke was a
• 44:59
  dandy, said eat in conclusion, But he hadn't aught, have made no
• 45:02
  trouble. That's what I says to them. Don't come in here and make
• 45:07
  no trouble. I says like that, don't make no trouble. See as
• 45:13
  Jimmy and his friend exchanged tales descriptive of their prowess, Maggie leaned back in
• 45:19
  the shadow. Her eyes dwelt wonderingly and rather wistfully upon Pete's face. The
• 45:25
  broken furniture, grimy walls, in general disorder and dirt of her home of
• 45:30
  a sudden appeared before her and began to take a potential aspect. Pete's aristocratic
• 45:37
  person looked as if it might soil. She looked keenly at him, occasionally
• 45:43
  wondering if he was feeling contempt, but Pete seemed to be enveloped in reminiscence.
• 45:47
  Hully Gee said he those mugs can't FaZe me. They knows I can
• 45:52
  wipe up the street with any tree at them. When he said, ah,
• 45:58
  what the hell, his voice was burdened with disdain for the inevitable and
• 46:02
  contempt for anything that fate might compel him to endure. Maggie perceived that here
• 46:08
  was the bow ideal of a man. Her dim thoughts were often searching for
• 46:13
  far away lands, where as God says, the little hills sing together in
• 46:17
  the morning under the trees of her dream gardens, there had always walked the
• 46:22
  lover. End of chapter five, Chapter six, Pete took note of Maggie.
• 46:30
  Say Meg, I'm stuck on your shape. It's out of sight,
• 46:35
  he said parenthetically, with an affable grin, as he became aware that she
• 46:40
  was listening closely. He grew still more eloquent in his descriptions of various happenings
• 46:45
  in his career. It appeared that he was invincible in fights. Why,
• 46:52
  he said, referring to a man with whom he had had a misunderstanding,
• 46:57
  Dat mug scrapped like a damn dago. That's right, he was dead,
• 47:00
  easy see, he taught he was a scrapper. But he found out different.
• 47:07
  Holy Gee, He walked to and fro in the small room, which
• 47:12
  seemed then to grow even smaller and unfit to hold his dignity. The attribute
• 47:17
  of a supreme warrior. That swing of the shoulders that had frozen the timid
• 47:22
  when he was but a lad, had increased with his growth in education at
• 47:27
  the ratio of ten to one. It, combined with the sneer upon his
• 47:30
  mouth, told mankind that there was nothing in space which could appall him.
• 47:37
  Maggie marveled at him and surrounded him with greatness. She vaguely tried to calculate
• 47:42
  the altitude of the pinnacle from which he must have looked down upon her.
• 47:46
  I met a chump to utter day way up into city. He said,
• 47:52
  I was goin to see a friend of mine. When I was across in
• 47:55
  the street, a chump runned plump into me. And then he turns round
• 47:59
  and says, you're insolent ruffian. He says, like dat, oh G,
• 48:05
  I says, oh G, go to Helen, get off to Ert.
• 48:08
  I says like dat, see go to Helen, get off to Ert
• 48:14
  like that den do blokie. He got wild. He says I was a
• 48:17
  contemptible scoundrel or something like dat. And he says I was doomed to everlessen
• 48:23
  petition and all like d G. I says, G to hell, I
• 48:28
  am, I says to hell, I am like dat, and then I
• 48:32
  slugged him. See with Jimmy and his company. Pete departed in a sort
• 48:37
  of a blaze of glory from the Johnson home. Maggie, leaning from the
• 48:43
  window, watched him as he walked down the street. Here was a formidable
• 48:47
  man who disdained the strength of a world full of fists. Here was one
• 48:52
  who had contempt for brass clothed power, one whose knuckles could defiantly ring against
• 48:58
  the granite of law. He was a knight. The two men went from
• 49:02
  under the glimmering street lamp and passed into shadows. Turning, Maggie contemplated the
• 49:08
  dark, dust stained walls and the scant and crude furniture of her home.
• 49:14
  A clock in a splintered and battered oblong box of varnished wood she suddenly regarded
• 49:20
  as an abomination. She noted that it ticked raspingly. The almost vanished flowers
• 49:25
  in the carpet pattern she conceived to be newly hideous. Some faint attempts she
• 49:31
  had made with blue ribbon to freshen the appearance of a dingy curtain she now
• 49:37
  saw to be piteous. She wondered what Pete dined on. She reflected upon
• 49:44
  the collar and cuff factory. It began to appear to her mind as a
• 49:47
  dreary place of endless grinding. Pete's elegant occupation brought him, no doubt into
• 49:53
  contact with people who had money and manners. It was probable that he had
• 49:59
  a large area quaintance of pretty girls. He must have great sums of money
• 50:02
  to spend. To her, the earth was composed of hardships and insults.
• 50:08
  She felt instant admiration for a man who openly defied it. She thought that
• 50:14
  if the grim angel of death should clutch his heart, Pete would shrug his
• 50:17
  shoulders and say, oh, everything goes. She anticipated that he would come
• 50:23
  again shortly. She spent some of her week's pay in the purchase of flowered
• 50:29
  creton for a lambricin. She made it with infinite care and hung it to
• 50:32
  the slightly careening mantle over the stove in the kitchen. She studied it with
• 50:38
  painful anxiety from different points in the room. She wanted it to look well
• 50:44
  on Sunday night, when perhaps Jimmy's friend would come. On Sunday night,
• 50:49
  However, Pete did not appear afterward, the girl looked at it with a
• 50:53
  sense of humiliation. She was now convinced that Pete was superior to admiration for
• 50:59
  life amberkins. A few evenings later, Pete entered with fascinating innovations in his
• 51:06
  apparel. As she had seen him twice and he had different suits on each
• 51:09
  time, Maggie had a dim impression that his wardrobe was prodigiously extensive. Say
• 51:16
  Meg, he said, put on your best duds Friday night and I'll take
• 51:21
  you as to the show. See. He spent a few moments in flourishing
• 51:25
  his clothes, and then vanished, without having glanced at the lamberkin over the
• 51:31
  eternal collars and cuffs in the factory. Meggie spent the most of three days
• 51:37
  in making imaginary sketches of Pete and his daily environment. She imagined some half
• 51:43
  dozen women in love with him, and thought he must lean dangerously toward an
• 51:47
  indefinite one, whom she pictured with great charms of person, but with an
• 51:52
  altogether contemptible disposition. She thought he must live in a blare of pleasure.
• 51:59
  He had friends and people who were afraid of him. She saw the golden
• 52:02
  glitter of the place where Pete was to take her an entertainment of many hues
• 52:07
  and many melodies, where she was afraid she might appear small and mouse colored.
• 52:14
  Her mother drank whiskey all Friday morning, with lurid face and tossing hair.
• 52:20
  She cursed and destroyed furniture all Friday afternoon. When Maggie came home at
• 52:24
  half past six, her mother lay asleep amidst the wreck of chairs and a
• 52:29
  table. Fragments of various household utensils were scattered about the floor. She had
• 52:35
  vented some phase of drunken fury upon the lambricin it lay in a bedraggled heap
• 52:40
  in the corner. Ha she snorted, sitting up suddenly, Where to hell,
• 52:46
  ya, bin? Why to hell? Don't ye come home earlier?
• 52:51
  Bin? Loafin' round the streets? You're gettin to be a regular devil.
• 52:55
  When Pete arrived, Maggie, in a worn black dress, was waiting for
• 53:00
  him in the midst of a floor strewn with wreckage. The curtain at the
• 53:05
  window had been pulled by a heavy hand and hung by one tack, dangling
• 53:08
  to and fro in the draft through the cracks at the sash, The knots
• 53:14
  of blue ribbons appeared like violated flowers. The fire in the stove had gone
• 53:19
  out. The displaced lids and open doors showed heaps of sullen, gray ashes.
• 53:24
  The remnants of a meal, ghastly like dead flesh, lay in a
• 53:29
  corner. Maggie's red mother stretched on the floor, blasphemed and gave her daughter
• 53:35
  a bad name. End of chapter six. Chapter seven. An orchestra of
• 53:46
  yellow silk women and bald headed men on an elevated stage near the center of
• 53:52
  a great, green hued hall played a popular waltz. The place was crowded
• 53:58
  with people grouped about little ta A battalion of waiters slid among the throng,
• 54:04
  carrying trays of beer glasses and making change from the inexhaustible vaults of their trouser
• 54:09
  pockets. Little boys in the costumes of French chefs paraded up and down the
• 54:15
  irregular aisles, vending fancy cakes. There was a low rumble of conversation and
• 54:21
  a subdued clinking of glasses. Clouds of tobacco smoke rolled and wavered high in
• 54:27
  air about the dull gilt of the chandeliers. The vast crowd had an air
• 54:32
  throughout of having just quitted labor. Men with calloused hands and attired in garments
• 54:38
  that showed the wear of an endless trudge for a living, smoked their pipes
• 54:44
  contentedly, and spent five, ten or perhaps fifteen cents for a beer.
• 54:50
  There was a mere sprinkling of kid gloved men who smoked cigars purchased elsewhere.
• 54:55
  The great body of the crowd was composed of people who showed their all day.
• 55:00
  They strove with their hands. Quiet Germans with maybe their wives and two
• 55:05
  or three children, sat listening to the music with the expression of happy cows.
• 55:10
  An occasional party of sailors from a warship, their faces pictures of sturdy
• 55:15
  health, spent the earlier hours of the evening at the small round tables.
• 55:21
  Very infrequent tipsy men swollen with the value of their opinions, engaged their companions
• 55:27
  in earnest and confidential conversation in the balcony. And here and there below shown
• 55:32
  the impassive faces of women. The nationalities of the bowery beamed upon the stage
• 55:38
  from all directions. Pete aggressively walked up a side aisle and took seats with
• 55:45
  Maggie at a table beneath the balcony two beers leaning back, He regarded with
• 55:50
  eyes of superiority the scene before them. This attitude affected Maggie strongly. A
• 55:55
  man who could regard such a sight with indifference be accustomed to very great things.
• 56:02
  It was obvious that Pete had been to this place many times before and
• 56:07
  was very familiar with it. A knowledge of this fact made Maggie feel little
• 56:12
  and new. He was extremely gracious and attentive. He displayed the consideration of
• 56:16
  a cultured gentleman who knew what was due. Say, what the hell bring
• 56:22
  the lady a big glass? What the hell uses that pony? Don't be
• 56:25
  fresh now? Said the waiter with some warmth, as he departed. Eh,
• 56:30
  get off the cart, said Pete, after the other's retreating form.
• 56:35
  Maggie perceived that Pete brought forth all his elegance and all his knowledge of high
• 56:39
  class customs for her benefit. Her heart warmed as she reflected upon his condescension.
• 56:45
  The orchestra of yellow silk women and bald headed men gave vent to a
• 56:50
  few bars of anticipatory music, and a girl in a pink dress with short
• 56:55
  skirts galloped upon the stage. She smiled upon the throng, as if in
• 57:00
  acknowledgment of a warm welcome, and began to walk to and fro, making
• 57:05
  profuse gesticulations and singing in brazen soprano tones a song, the words of which
• 57:10
  were inaudible. When she broke into the swift, rattling measures of a chorus,
• 57:16
  some half tipsy men near the stage joined in the rollicking refrain, and
• 57:21
  glasses were pounded rhythmically upon the tables. People leaned forward to watch her and
• 57:27
  to try to catch the words of the song. When she vanished, there
• 57:30
  were long rollings of applause. Obedient to more anticipatory bars. She reappeared amidst
• 57:37
  the half suppressed cheering of the tipsy men. The orchestra plunged into dance music,
• 57:43
  and the laces of the dancer fluttered and flew in the glare of gas
• 57:47
  jets. She divulged the fact that she was attired in some half dozen skirts.
• 57:53
  It was patent that any one of them would have proved adequate for the
• 57:57
  purpose for which skirts are intended. An occasional man bent forward, intent upon
• 58:02
  the pink stockings. Maggie wondered at the splendor of the costume, and lost
• 58:07
  herself in calculations of the cost of the silks and laces. The dancer's smile
• 58:13
  of stereotyped enthusiasm was turned for ten minutes upon the faces of her audience.
• 58:20
  In the finale, she fell into some of those grotesque attitudes which were at
• 58:24
  the time popular among the dancers in the theater's uptown, giving to the bow
• 58:30
  Republic the fantasies of the aristocratic theater going public at reduced rates, say Pete,
• 58:37
  said Maggie, leaning forward. This is great, sure, said Pete,
• 58:43
  with proper complaisance. A ventriloquist followed the dancer. He held two fantastic
• 58:49
  dolls on his knees. He made them sing mournful ditties and say funny things
• 58:53
  about geography and Ireland. Do those little men talk, asked Maggie, Na
• 59:00
  said Pete, it's some damn fake. See two girls on the bills as
• 59:06
  sisters came forth and sang a duet that is heard occasionally at concerts given under
• 59:10
  church auspices. They supplemented it with a dance, which, of course can
• 59:15
  never be seen at concerts given under church auspices. After the duetist had retired,
• 59:22
  a woman of debatable age sang a negro melody. The chorus necessitated some
• 59:28
  grotesque waddlings, supposed to be an imitation of a plantation darkie. Under the
• 59:32
  influence probably of music and the moon. The audience was just enthusiastic enough over
• 59:38
  it to have her return and sing a sorrowful lay whose lines told of a
• 59:44
  mother's love, and a sweetheart who waited, and a young man who was
• 59:47
  lost at sea under the most harrowing circumstances. From the faces of a score
• 59:52
  or so in the crowd, the self contained look faded. Many heads were
• 59:58
  bent forward with eagerness and sympathy. As the last distressing sentiment of the piece
• 1:00:04
  was brought forth, it was greeted by that kind of applause which rings as
• 1:00:07
  sincere. As a final effort, the singer rendered some verses which described a
• 1:00:13
  vision of Britain being annihilated by America and Ireland bursting her bonds. A carefully
• 1:00:20
  prepared crisis was reached in the last line of the verse, where the singer
• 1:00:24
  threw out her arms and cried the star spangled banner. Instantly, a great
• 1:00:30
  cheer swelled from the throats of the assemblage of the masses. There was a
• 1:00:35
  heavy rumble of booted feet thumping the floor. Eyes gleamed with sudden fire,
• 1:00:40
  and calloused hands waved frantically in the air. After a few moments rest,
• 1:00:45
  the orchestra played crashingly, and a small fat man burst out upon the stage.
• 1:00:51
  He began to roar a song and stamp back and forth before the footlights,
• 1:00:55
  wildly, waving a glossy silk hat and throwing leers or smiles broadcast.
• 1:01:01
  He made his face into fantastic grimaces until he looked like a pictured devil on
• 1:01:07
  a Japanese kite. The crowd laughed gleefully. His short, fat legs were
• 1:01:13
  never still a moment. He shouted and roared and bobbed his shock of red
• 1:01:17
  wig until the audience broke out in excited applause. Pete did not pay much
• 1:01:22
  attention to the progress of events upon the stage. He was drinking beer and
• 1:01:27
  watching Maggie. Her cheeks were blushing with excitement and her eyes were glistening.
• 1:01:32
  She drew deep breaths of pleasure. No thoughts of the atmosphere of the collar
• 1:01:37
  and cuff factory came to her. When the orchestra crashed finally, they jostled
• 1:01:43
  their way to the sidewalk with the crowd. Pete took Maggie's arm and pushed
• 1:01:47
  away for her, offering to fight with a man or two. They reached
• 1:01:52
  Maggie's home at a late hour and stood for a moment in front of the
• 1:01:55
  gruesome doorway. Say, Meg said, Pete, give us a kiss for
• 1:02:00
  taking it to the show will Yer. Maggie laughed as if startled, and
• 1:02:05
  drew away from him. Nah, Pete, she said, that wasn't in
• 1:02:08
  it. Ah, what the hell? Urged Pete. The girl retreated nervously.
• 1:02:15
  Ah, what the hell, repeated he. Maggie darted into the hall
• 1:02:20
  and up the stairs. She turned and smiled at him, then disappeared.
• 1:02:24
  Pete walked slowly down the street. He had something of an astonished expression upon
• 1:02:30
  his features. He paused under a lamp post and breathed a low breath of
• 1:02:36
  surprise. God, he said, I wonder if I've been played for a
• 1:02:40
  duffer. End of chapter seven. Chapter eight, As thoughts of Pete came
• 1:02:50
  to Maggie's mind, she began to have an intense dislike for all of her
• 1:02:53
  dresses. What the hell? Ails ye? What makes it be? Always
• 1:02:59
  fix it and fussin good god, her mother would frequently roar at her.
• 1:03:05
  She began to note with more interest the well dressed women she met on the
• 1:03:09
  avenues. She envied elegance and soft palms. She craved those adornments of person
• 1:03:16
  which she saw every day on the street, conceiving them to be allies of
• 1:03:22
  vast importance to women. Studying faces, she thought, many of the women
• 1:03:28
  and girls she chanced to meet smiled with serenity, as though forever cherished and
• 1:03:35
  watched over by those they loved. The air in the collar and cough establishment
• 1:03:39
  strangled her. She knew she was gradually and surely shriveling. In the hot,
• 1:03:45
  stuffy room, the begrimed windows rattled incessantly from the passing of elevated trains.
• 1:03:52
  The place was filled with a whirl of noises and odors. She wondered
• 1:03:59
  as she regards some of the grizzled women in the room, mere mechanical contrivances,
• 1:04:03
  sewing seams and grinding out, with heads bended over their work, tales
• 1:04:09
  of imagined or real girlhood happiness, past drunks, the baby at home,
• 1:04:15
  and unpaid wages. She speculated how long her youth would endure. She began
• 1:04:21
  to see the bloom upon her cheeks as valuable. She imagined herself in an
• 1:04:28
  exasperating future as a scrawny woman with an eternal grievance. Too. She thought
• 1:04:34
  Pete to be a very fastidious person concerning the appearance of women. She felt
• 1:04:41
  she would love to see somebody entangle their fingers in the oily beard of the
• 1:04:45
  fat foreigner who owned the establishment. He was a detestable creature. He wore
• 1:04:50
  white socks with low shoes. He sat all day delivering orations in the depths
• 1:04:59
  of a cushioned chair. His pocketbook deprived them of the power of retort.
• 1:05:04
  What didn't you all do? Seem like? Pay five dollars a week?
• 1:05:08
  Four play no pay Tom. Maggie was anxious for a friend to whom she
• 1:05:15
  could talk about Pete. She would have liked to discuss his admirable mannerisms with
• 1:05:20
  a reliable, mutual friend. At home, she found her mother often drunk
• 1:05:26
  and always raving. It seems that the world had treated this woman very badly,
• 1:05:32
  and she took a deep revenge upon such portions of it as came within
• 1:05:36
  her reach. She broke furniture as if she were at last getting her rights.
• 1:05:43
  She swelled with virtuous indignation as she carried the lighter articles of household use
• 1:05:48
  one by one under the shadows of the three gilt balls, where Hebrews chained
• 1:05:54
  them with chains of interest. Jimmy came when he was obliged to by circumstances
• 1:05:59
  of her which he had no control. His well trained legs brought him staggering
• 1:06:03
  home and put him to bed some nights when he would rather have gone elsewhere.
• 1:06:10
  Swaggering Pete loomed like a golden sun to Maggie. He took her to
• 1:06:15
  a diamond museum, where rows of meek freaks astonished her. She contemplated their
• 1:06:20
  deformities with awe, and bought them a sort of chosen tribe. Pete,
• 1:06:28
  raking his brains for amusement, discovered the Central Park Menagerie in the Museum of
• 1:06:32
  Arts. Sunday afternoons would sometimes find them At these places. Pete did not
• 1:06:39
  appear to be particularly interested in what he saw. He stood around, looking
• 1:06:44
  heavy, while Maggie giggled in glee. Once at the menagerie, he went
• 1:06:49
  into a trance of admiration before the spectacle of a very small monkey threatening to
• 1:06:56
  thrash a cage full because one of them had pulled out tail, and he
• 1:07:00
  had not wheeled about quickly enough to discover who did it. Ever after,
• 1:07:04
  Pete knew that monkey by sight and winked at him, trying to induce him
• 1:07:10
  to fight with other and larger monkeys at the museum. Maggie said, this
• 1:07:16
  is a sight. Oh hell, said Pete. Wait till next summer,
• 1:07:21
  and I'll think us to a picnic. While the girl wandered in the vaulted
• 1:07:28
  rooms, Pete occupied himself in returning Stoney's stare for a stony stare, the
• 1:07:33
  appalling scrutiny of the watch talks of the treasures. Occasionally he would remark in
• 1:07:40
  loud tones, did ja's got glass eyes? And sentences of the sort.
• 1:07:46
  When he tired of this amusement, he would go to the mummies and moralize
• 1:07:50
  over them. Usually he submitted with silent dignity to all which he had to
• 1:07:55
  go through, but at times he was goaded into comment, what the hell?
• 1:08:01
  He demanded, once, look at all these little chugs, a hundred
• 1:08:06
  jugs in a row, ten rolls in a case, in about a thousand
• 1:08:11
  cases. What the blazer's use is? Then, Evenings during the week,
• 1:08:17
  he took her to see place in which the brain clutching heroine was rescued from
• 1:08:23
  the palatial home of her guardian, who was cruelly after her bonds by the
• 1:08:28
  hero with the beautiful sentiments. The latter spent most of his time out at
• 1:08:32
  soak in pale green snowstorms, busy with a nickel plated revolver, rescuing aged
• 1:08:40
  strangers from villains. Maggie lost herself in sympathy with the wanderers, swooning in
• 1:08:46
  snowstorms beneath happy huge church windows and a choir within singing joy to the world.
• 1:08:55
  To Maggie and the rest of the audience, this was transcendental realism,
• 1:09:00
  joy always within, and they, like the actor, inevitably without viewing it,
• 1:09:08
  they hugged themselves in ecstatic pity of their imagined or real condition. The
• 1:09:15
  girl thought the arrogance and granite heartedness of the magnate of the play was very
• 1:09:19
  accurately drawn. She echoed the maledictions that the occupants of the gallery showered on
• 1:09:26
  this individual when his lines compelled him to expose his extreme selfishness. Shady persons
• 1:09:32
  in the audience revolted from the pictured villainy of the drama with untiring zeal.
• 1:09:39
  They hissed vice and applauded virtue. Unmistakably bad men evinced an apparently sincere admiration
• 1:09:47
  for virtue. The loud gallery was overwhelmingly with the unfortunate and the oppressed.
• 1:09:55
  They encouraged the struggling hero with cries and jeered the villain, hooting and calling
• 1:10:00
  attention to his whiskers. When anybody died in the pale green snowstorms, the
• 1:10:05
  gallery mourned. They sought out the painted misery and hugged it, as akin
• 1:10:14
  in the hero's erratic march from poverty in the first act to wealth and triumph
• 1:10:18
  in the final one, in which he forgives all the enemies that he has
• 1:10:21
  left, He was assisted by the gallery, which applauded his generous and noble
• 1:10:28
  sentiments and confounded the speeches of his opponents by making irrelevant but very sharp remarks.
• 1:10:35
  Those actors who were cursed with the villainy parts were confronted at every turn
• 1:10:41
  by the gallery. If one of them rendered lines containing the most subtle distinctions
• 1:10:45
  between right and wrong, the gallery was immediately aware if the actor meant wickedness,
• 1:10:51
  and denounced him Accordingly, the last act was a triumph for the hero
• 1:10:58
  poor and of the mass, as the representative of the audience over the villain
• 1:11:02
  and the rich man, his pockets stuffed with bonds and his heart packed with
• 1:11:08
  tyrannical purposes. Imperturbable amid suffering, Maggie always departed with raised spirits from the
• 1:11:15
  showing places of the melodrama. She rejoiced at the way in which the poor
• 1:11:20
  and virtuous eventually surmounted the wealthy and wicked. The theater made her think.
• 1:11:28
  She wondered if the culture and refinement she had seen imitated, perhaps grotesquely,
• 1:11:32
  by the heroine on the stage, could be acquired by a girl who lived
• 1:11:38
  in a tenement house and worked in a shirt factory. End of chapter eight,
• 1:11:49
  Chapter nine, a group of urchins were intent upon the side door of
• 1:11:56
  a saloon. Expectancy gleamed from their eyes. They were twisting their fingers in
• 1:12:00
  excitement. Here she comes, yelled one of them. Suddenly, a group
• 1:12:05
  of urchins burst instantly asunder, and its individual fragments were spread in a wide,
• 1:12:12
  respectable half circle about the point of interest. The saloon door opened with
• 1:12:16
  a crash, and the figure of a woman appeared upon the threshold. Her
• 1:12:20
  gray hair fell and knotted masses about her shoulders. Her face was crimsoned and
• 1:12:26
  wet with perspiration. Her eyes had a rolling glare. Not a damn cent
• 1:12:31
  more of me money, will ye's ever get? Not a damn cent.
• 1:12:35
  I spent me money here for three years, and now ye's tell me ye'll
• 1:12:41
  sell me no more? Stuff fell widgya Johnny mockerel disturbance, disturbance, be
• 1:12:47
  damned the hell widgya Johnny. The door received a kick of exasperation from within,
• 1:12:55
  and the woman lurched heavily out on the sidewalk. The gammons and the
• 1:13:00
  half circle became violently agitated. They began to dance about and hoot and yell
• 1:13:05
  and jeer wide dirty grins spread over each face. The woman made a furious
• 1:13:13
  dash at a particularly outrageous cluster of little boys. They laughed delightedly and scampered
• 1:13:18
  off a short distance, calling out over their shoulders to her. She stood
• 1:13:24
  tottering on the curbstone and thundered at them, Yeah, Devil's kids, she
• 1:13:29
  howled, shaking red fists. The little boys whooped in glee as she started
• 1:13:34
  up the street. They fell in behind and marched uproariously. Occasionally she wheeled
• 1:13:41
  about and made charges on them. They ran nimbly out of reach and taunted
• 1:13:45
  her in the frame of a gruesome doorway. She stood for a moment,
• 1:13:49
  cursing them. Her hair straggled, giving her crimson features a look of insanity.
• 1:13:56
  Her great fists quivered as she shook them madly in the air. The
• 1:14:00
  urchins made terrific noises until she turned and disappeared. Then they filed quietly in
• 1:14:06
  the way they had come. The woman floundered about in the lower hall of
• 1:14:12
  the tenement house, and finally stumbled up the stairs. On an upper hall.
• 1:14:17
  A door was open, and a collection of heads peered curiously out,
• 1:14:21
  watching her with a wrathful snort. The woman confronted the door, but it
• 1:14:27
  was slammed hastily in her face, and the key was turned. She stood
• 1:14:30
  for a few minutes, delivering a frenzied challenge at the panels. Come out
• 1:14:35
  into hall, Mary Murphy, damn you, it gives wan a row.
• 1:14:40
  Come on, you, overgrown Terria. Come on. She began to kick
• 1:14:45
  the door with her great feet. She shrilly defied the universe to appear in
• 1:14:49
  due battle her cursing troubles brought heads from all doors save the ones she threatened.
• 1:14:56
  Her eyes glared in every direction. The air was full of her tossing
• 1:15:00
  fists. Come on, the hell dimn gangay's come on, she roared at
• 1:15:06
  the spectators. An oath or two cat calls, jeers and bits of facetious
• 1:15:13
  advice were given in reply. Missiles clattered about her feet. What the hell's
• 1:15:18
  the matta widge, said a voice in the gathered gloom, and Jimmy came
• 1:15:24
  forward. He carried a tin dinner pail in his hand, and under his
• 1:15:28
  arm a brown truckman's apron done in a bundle. What the hell's wrong?
• 1:15:33
  He demanded, Come out, all yours, come out. His mother was
• 1:15:39
  howling, Come on, and I'll stamp for damn brains under my feet.
• 1:15:45
  Shut your face and come home, you damned old fool, roared Jimmy at
• 1:15:49
  her. She strided up to him and twirled her fingers in his face.
• 1:15:55
  Her eyes were darting flames of unreasoning rage, and her frame trembled with eagerness
• 1:16:00
  for a fight. The hell widges, and who the hell ayes? I
• 1:16:05
  ain't givin a snap of me fingers for yous, she bawled at him.
• 1:16:11
  She turned her huge back in tremendous disdain and climbed the stairs to the next
• 1:16:15
  floor. Jimmy followed, cursing blackly. At the top of the flight,
• 1:16:20
  he seized his mother's arm and started to drag her toward the door of their
• 1:16:25
  room. Come home, damn you, he gritted between his teeth. Take
• 1:16:30
  your hands off me, Take your hands off me, shrieked his mother.
• 1:16:36
  She raised her arm and whirled her great fist at her son's face. Jimmy
• 1:16:42
  dodged his head and the blow struck him in the back of the neck.
• 1:16:45
  Damn you, he gritted again. He threw out his left hand and writhed
• 1:16:51
  his fingers about her middle arm. The mother and the son began to sway
• 1:16:56
  and struggle like gladiators. Whoop, said the rum Alley tenement house. The
• 1:17:01
  hall filled with interested spectators. How old lady, that was a dandy tree
• 1:17:09
  to one on the red ah, stop your damn Scrappin'. The door of
• 1:17:14
  the Johnson home opened, and Maggie looked out. Jimmy made a supreme cursing
• 1:17:19
  effort and hurled his mother into the room. He quickly followed and closed the
• 1:17:24
  door. The rum Alley tenement swore disappointedly and retired. The mother slowly gathered
• 1:17:31
  herself up from the floor. Her eyes glittered menacingly upon her children here now,
• 1:17:39
  said Jimmy, We've had enough of this. Sit down, and don't
• 1:17:43
  make no trouble. He grasped her arm, and, twisting it, forced
• 1:17:47
  her into a creaking chair. Keep your hands off me, roared his mother
• 1:17:53
  again. Damn your old hide, yelled Jimmy madly. Maggie shrieked and ran
• 1:18:00
  into the other room. To her there came the sound of a storm of
• 1:18:03
  crashes and curses. There was a great final thump, and Jimmy's voice cried,
• 1:18:10
  dear, damn ye, stay still. Maggie opened the door now and
• 1:18:15
  went wearily out. Oh Jimmy, he was leaning against the wall and swearing.
• 1:18:21
  Blood stood upon bruises on his knotty forearms where they had scraped against the
• 1:18:27
  floor or the walls, and the scuffle. The mother lay screeching on the
• 1:18:30
  floor, the tears running down her furrowed face. Maggie, standing in the
• 1:18:35
  middle of the room, gazed about her. The usual upheaval of the tables
• 1:18:41
  and chairs had taken place. Crockery was strown, broadcast in fragments. The
• 1:18:45
  stove had been disturbed on its legs and now leaned idiotically to the side.
• 1:18:51
  A pail had been upset, and waters spread in all directions. The door
• 1:18:57
  opened and Pete appeared. He shrugged his shoulders. Oh God, he observed.
• 1:19:02
  He walked over to Maggie and whispered in her ear, Oh, what
• 1:19:06
  the hell, mag Come on, we'll have a hell of a time.
• 1:19:12
  The mother in the corner upreared her head and shook her tangled locks. Hell
• 1:19:16
  with him and you, she said, glowering at her daughter in the gloom.
• 1:19:21
  Her eyes seemed to burn. Balfley, you've gone to the devil,
• 1:19:26
  mag Johnson, you nosey is gone to the devil. You're a disgrace to
• 1:19:30
  your people. Damn you, and now get out and go on with that
• 1:19:35
  doe faced Jude of yours. Go to hell with him, Damn you,
• 1:19:41
  and good riddance. Go to hell and see how you likes it. Maggie
• 1:19:46
  gazed long at her mother. Go to Hell now and see how you likes
• 1:19:50
  it. Get out. I won't have such as using my house. Get
• 1:19:56
  out, do you hear? Damn you get out the The girl began to
• 1:20:00
  tremble. At this instant, Pete came forward. Oh what the hell,
• 1:20:04
  Magsie, whispered, he softly in her ear. This all blows over.
• 1:20:11
  See the old woman will be all right in the mornin. Come on out
• 1:20:15
  with me. We'll have a hell of a time. The woman on the
• 1:20:18
  floor cursed. Jimmy was intent upon his bruised forearms. The girl cast a
• 1:20:24
  glance about the room, filled with a chaotic, massive debris, and at
• 1:20:29
  the red writhing body of her mother. Go to Hell and good riddance,
• 1:20:34
  she went. End of chapter nine, Chapter ten. Jimmy had an idea.
• 1:20:48
  It wasn't common courtesy for a friend to come to one's home and ruin
• 1:20:53
  one's sister, but he was not sure how much Pete knew about the rules
• 1:20:57
  of politeness. The following night, he returned home from work at rather a
• 1:21:01
  late hour in the evening. In passing through the halls, he came upon
• 1:21:06
  the gnarled and leathery old woman who possessed the music box. She was grinning
• 1:21:12
  in the dim light that drifted through dust stained panes. She beckoned to him
• 1:21:16
  with a smudged forefinger. Ah Jimmy, what do'yest tink? I got on
• 1:21:21
  to last night? It was the funniest ting I ever saw. She cried,
• 1:21:28
  coming close to him and leering. She was trembling with eagerness to tell
• 1:21:31
  her tale. I was by me door last night when your sister and her
• 1:21:36
  Jude Feller came in late, oh very late, and she the deer,
• 1:21:42
  was a crying as if her heart would break. She was. It was
• 1:21:45
  the funniest ting I ever saw. And right out here by me door,
• 1:21:49
  she asked him did he love her? Did he? And she was a
• 1:21:54
  crying as if her heart would break? Poor ting and him. I could
• 1:21:58
  see by the way that he set that she had been asking often. He
• 1:22:02
  says. Oh hell yes, he says, says he. Oh hell yes.
• 1:22:09
  Storm clouds swept over Jimmy's face, but he turned from the leathery old
• 1:22:13
  woman and plodded on upstairs. Oh hell yes, called she after him.
• 1:22:19
  She laughed a laugh that was like a prophetic croak. Oh hell yes,
• 1:22:24
  he says, says he, Oh hell yes. There was no one in
• 1:22:30
  at home. The rooms showed that attempts had been made at tidying them.
• 1:22:33
  Parts of the wreckage of the day before had been repaired by an unskillful hand
• 1:22:39
  a chair or two, and the table stood uncertainly upon legs. The floor
• 1:22:44
  had been newly swept two the blue ribbons had been restored to the curtains,
• 1:22:49
  and the lambricin with its immense sheaves of yellow wheat and red roses of equal
• 1:22:54
  size, had been returned, in a worn and sorry state, to its
• 1:22:58
  position at the man to Maggie's jacket and hat were gone from the nail behind
• 1:23:02
  the door. Jimmy walked to the window and began to look through the blurred
• 1:23:08
  glass. It occurred to him to vaguely wonder for an instant if some of
• 1:23:13
  the women of his acquaintance had brothers. Suddenly, however, he began to
• 1:23:17
  swear. But he was me friend, I brought him here, That's the
• 1:23:23
  hell of it. He fumed about the room, his anger gradually rising to
• 1:23:28
  a furious pitch. I'll kill the jay, That's what I'll do. I'll
• 1:23:32
  kill the jay. He clutched his hat and sprang toward the door, but
• 1:23:38
  it opened, and his mother's great form blocked the passage. What the hell's
• 1:23:43
  the matter with ya, exclaimed she, coming into the rooms, Jimmy gave
• 1:23:47
  vent to a sardonic curse, and then laughed heavily. Well, Meggie's gone
• 1:23:53
  to the devil, that's what see, eh, said his mother. Meggie's
• 1:23:59
  gone to the devil? Are yes deaf? Roared Jimmy, impatiently, da
• 1:24:04
  hell, she has murmured. The mother astounded. Jimmy grunted, and then
• 1:24:10
  began to stare out at the window. His mother sat down in a chair,
• 1:24:14
  but a moment later sprang erect and delivered a maddened whirl of oaths.
• 1:24:18
  Her son turned to look at her as she reeled and swayed in the middle
• 1:24:23
  of the room, her fierce face convulsed with passion, her blutched arms raised
• 1:24:28
  high in imprecation. May God curse her forever, she shrieked. May she
• 1:24:33
  eat nothing but stones and a dirt in the street. May she sleep into
• 1:24:38
  gutter and never see the sun shine again? Did damn here now, said
• 1:24:43
  her son, Take a drop on yourself. The mother raised lamenting eyes to
• 1:24:48
  the ceiling. She's the devil's own child, Jimmy, she whispered. Ah,
• 1:24:55
  who would tink such a bad girl could grow up in our family?
• 1:24:58
  Jimmy, me son, many the hour I've spent in talk with that girl
• 1:25:02
  and told her if she ever went on the streets, I'd see her damned.
• 1:25:05
  And after all her bringin' up and what I told her and talked with
• 1:25:10
  her, she goes to the bad like a duck to water. The tears
• 1:25:15
  rolled down her furrowed face, her hands trembled. And then when Dad Sadie
• 1:25:19
  McAllister next door to us, was sent to the devil by dad Feller that
• 1:25:24
  worked into soap factory, didn't I tell our Meg that if she ah,
• 1:25:29
  that's another story, interrupted the brother. Of course Dad Sadie was nice and
• 1:25:33
  all dat, But see it ain't the same as if well Maggie was different.
• 1:25:39
  See she was different. He was trying to formulate a theory that he
• 1:25:44
  had always unconsciously held that all sisters, excepting his own, could advisedly be
• 1:25:49
  ruined. He suddenly broke out again. I'll go tompell out of the mug.
• 1:25:56
  What did her to harm? I'll kill him. He thinks he can
• 1:26:00
  scrap, but when he gets me a chasin him, he'll find out where
• 1:26:02
  he's wrong. The damned duffer, I'll wipe up the street with him.
• 1:26:09
  In a fury, he plunged out of the doorway. As he vanished,
• 1:26:13
  the mother raised her head and lifted both hands, entreating May God curse her
• 1:26:17
  forever. She cried in the darkness of the hallway. Jimmy discerned a knot
• 1:26:24
  of women talking volubly when he strode by. They paid no attention to him.
• 1:26:30
  She allays was a bold thing. She heard one of them cry in
• 1:26:33
  an eager voice. There wasn't a feller come to the house, but she'd
• 1:26:38
  tried to mash him. My Annie says, do shameless ting tried to catch
• 1:26:42
  her feller, her own feller, when we used to know his fodder.
• 1:26:46
  I could have told you this two years ago, said a woman in a
• 1:26:50
  key of triumph. Yes, sir, it was over two years ago,
• 1:26:54
  did I says to my old man, I says, Dad, Johnson.
• 1:26:57
  Girl ain't straight. I says, oh, oh hell. He says,
• 1:27:00
  oh hell, that's all right. I says, But I know what I
• 1:27:04
  knows, I says, and it'll come out later. You wait and see,
• 1:27:09
  I says. You see. Anybody what had eyes could see that there
• 1:27:14
  was something wrong with dat girl. I didn't like her actions. On the
• 1:27:18
  street, Jimmy met a friend, What the hell, asked the latter,
• 1:27:25
  Jimmy explained, and I'll tump him till he can't stand. Oh what the
• 1:27:30
  hell, said the friend. What's de use? You'll get pulled in,
• 1:27:34
  everybody'll be onto it and ten plunks. Gee, Jimmy was determined. He
• 1:27:42
  thinks he can scrap, but he'll find out different, Gee, remonstrated the
• 1:27:46
  friend. What to hell? End of chapter ten, Chapter eleven. On
• 1:28:00
  a corner, a glass fronted building shed a yellow glare upon the pavements.
• 1:28:04
  The open mouth of a saloon called seductively to passengers to enter and annihilate sorrow
• 1:28:11
  or create rage. The interior of the place was papered in olive and bronze
• 1:28:15
  tints of imitation leather. A shining bar of counterfeit massiveness extended down the side
• 1:28:21
  of the room. Behind it, a great mahogany appearing sideboard reached the ceiling.
• 1:28:28
  Upon its shelves brested pyramids of shimmering glasses that were never disturbed. Mirrors
• 1:28:33
  set in the face of the sideboard multiplied them. Lemons, oranges, and
• 1:28:39
  paper napkins arranged with mathematical precision sat among the glasses. Many hued decanters of
• 1:28:45
  liquor perched at regular intervals. On the lower shelves, a nickel plated cash
• 1:28:50
  register occupied a position in the exact center of the general effect. The elementary
• 1:28:57
  senses of it all seemed to be otpulence and geometrical accuracy. Across from the
• 1:29:03
  bar, a smaller counter held a collection of plates upon which swarmed frayed fragments
• 1:29:09
  of crackers, slices of boiled ham, disheveled bits of cheese, and pickles
• 1:29:14
  swimming in vinegar. An odor of grasping, begrimed hands and munching mouths pervaded.
• 1:29:21
  Pete in a white jacket was behind the bar, bending expectantly toward a
• 1:29:26
  quiet stranger. A Bie said the man. Pete drew a foam topped glassful
• 1:29:31
  and set it dripping upon the bar. At this moment, the light bamboo
• 1:29:36
  doors at the entrance swung open and crashed against the siding. Jimmy and a
• 1:29:42
  companion entered. They swaggered unsteadily but belligerently toward the bar and looked at Pete
• 1:29:48
  with bleared and blinking eyes, Gin said Jimmy, Gin said the companion.
• 1:29:56
  Pete slid a bottle and two glasses along the bar. He bended his head
• 1:30:00
  sideways as he assiduously polished away with a napkin at the gleaming wood. He
• 1:30:06
  had a look of watchfulness upon his features. Jimmy and his companion kept their
• 1:30:12
  eyes upon the bar tender and conversed loudly in tones of contempt. He's a
• 1:30:17
  dandy masher, ain't he? By God? Laughed Jimmy. Oh, hell
• 1:30:23
  yes, said the companion, sneering widely. He's great he is. Get
• 1:30:28
  on to the mug on the bloke. That's enough to make a feller turn
• 1:30:30
  handsprings in his sleep. The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle
• 1:30:36
  further away and maintained an attitude of oblivion. Gee, ain't he hot stuff?
• 1:30:45
  Get on to his shape? Great god, hey, cried Jimmy in
• 1:30:48
  tones of command. Pete came along slowly with a sullen dropping of the under
• 1:30:55
  lip. Well, he growled, what's eaten? Ya's? Gin? Said
• 1:31:01
  Jimmy, Gin, said the companion. As Pete confronted them with the bottle
• 1:31:06
  and the glasses, they laughed in his face. Jimmy's companion, evidently overcome
• 1:31:13
  with merriment, pointed a grimy forefinger in Pete's direction, say Jimmy demanded.
• 1:31:19
  He what the hell is that behind de bar damn defos, replied Jimmy.
• 1:31:26
  They laughed loudly. Pete put down a bottle with a bang and turned a
• 1:31:30
  formidable face toward them. He disclosed his teeth and his shoulders heaved restlessly.
• 1:31:38
  You fellers can't guy me, he said. Drink your stuff and get out,
• 1:31:42
  and don't make no trouble. Instantly, the laughter faded from the faces
• 1:31:46
  of the two men, and expressions of offended dignity immediately came. Who da
• 1:31:53
  hell has said anything to you? Cried they in the same breath. The
• 1:31:58
  quiet stranger looked at the door calculatingly. Ah, come off, said Pete
• 1:32:03
  to the two men. Don't pick me up for no jay. Drink your
• 1:32:08
  rum and get out and don't make no trouble. Oh da hell airily,
• 1:32:12
  cried Jimmy. Oh da hell airily, repeated his companion. We goes when
• 1:32:17
  we get ready, see, continued Jimmy, Well, said Pete in a
• 1:32:24
  threatening voice. Don't make no trouble. Jimmy suddenly leaned forward with his head
• 1:32:30
  on one side. He snarled like a wild animal. Well what if we
• 1:32:34
  does, see, said he dark blood flushed into Pete's face, and he
• 1:32:40
  shot a lurid glance at Jimmy. Well, Den, we'll see who's the
• 1:32:45
  best man. You were me, he said. The quiet stranger moved modestly
• 1:32:49
  towards the door. Jimmy began to swell with valor. Don't pick me up
• 1:32:56
  for no tenderfoot. When you tackles me, you tackles one of the best
• 1:33:00
  men in the city. See, I'm a scrapper, I am Ain't that
• 1:33:03
  right, Billy Sure, Mike responded his companion in tones of conviction. Oh
• 1:33:11
  hell, said Pete, easily, go fall on yourself. The two men
• 1:33:15
  again began to laugh. What the hell is dat talking, cried the companion.
• 1:33:21
  Damned if I knows, replied Jimmy with exaggerated contempt. Pete made a
• 1:33:28
  furious gesture Get out o here now and don't make no trouble. See you'se
• 1:33:32
  fellers are looking for a scrap and it's damn likely you'll find one if he
• 1:33:36
  keeps on shooting off your mouths. I know You's see, I can lick
• 1:33:42
  better men than you's ever sign your lives. That's right. See, don't
• 1:33:46
  pick me up for no stuff, or you might be jolted out in the
• 1:33:49
  street before you knows where you is. When I comes from behind this bar,
• 1:33:55
  I Chrosy's boat in the street. See, oh, hell, cried
• 1:34:00
  the two men in chorus. The glare of a panther came into Pete's eyes.
• 1:34:05
  That's what I said, understand. He came through a passage at the
• 1:34:11
  end of the bar and swelled down upon the two men. They stepped promptly
• 1:34:15
  forward and crowded close to him. They bristled like three roosters. They moved
• 1:34:20
  their heads pugnaciously and kept their shoulders braced. The nervous muscles about each mouth
• 1:34:27
  twitched with a forced smile of mockery. Well what the hell you're goin to
• 1:34:31
  do? Gritted Jimmy. Pete stepped warily back, waving his hands before him
• 1:34:38
  to keep the men from coming too near. Well what the hell you're goin
• 1:34:43
  to do? Repeated Jimmy's ally. They kept close to him, taunting and
• 1:34:47
  leering. They strove to make him attempt the initial blow. Keep back,
• 1:34:53
  now, don't crowd me, ominously, said Pete again. They chorused in
• 1:34:58
  contempt. Oh he In a small tossing group, the three men edged for
• 1:35:03
  positions like frigates contemplating battle. Well, why to hell, Donia try to
• 1:35:10
  throw us out, cried Jimmy and his ally, with copious sneers. The
• 1:35:15
  bravery of bulldogs sat upon the faces of the men. Their clenched fists moved
• 1:35:19
  like eager weapons. The allied, too, jostled the bartender's elbows, glaring
• 1:35:26
  at him with feverish eyes and forcing him toward the wall. Suddenly, Pete
• 1:35:30
  swore redly. The flash of action gleamed from his eyes. He threw back
• 1:35:35
  his arm and aimed a tremendous, lightning like blow at Jimmy's face. His
• 1:35:40
  foot swung a step forward, and the weight of his body was behind his
• 1:35:44
  fist. Jimmy ducked his head bowery like, with the quickness of a cat.
• 1:35:49
  The fierce, answering blows of him and his ally crushed on Pete's bowed
• 1:35:54
  head. The quiet stranger vanished. The arms of the combatants whirled in the
• 1:36:00
  air like flails. The faces of the men, at first flushed to flame
• 1:36:03
  colored anger, now began to fade to the pallor of warriors in the blood
• 1:36:09
  and heat of a battle. Their lips curled back and stretched tightly over the
• 1:36:14
  gums in ghulike grins. Through their white gripped teeth struggled hoarse whisperings of oaths.
• 1:36:20
  Their eyes glittered with murderous fire. Each head was huddled between its owner's
• 1:36:26
  shoulders, and arms were swinging with marvelous rapidity. Feet scraped to and fro
• 1:36:31
  with a loud, scratching sound upon the sanded floor. Blows left crimson blotches
• 1:36:36
  upon pale skin. The curses of the first quarter minute of the fight died
• 1:36:42
  away. The breasts of the fighters came wheezingly from their lips, and the
• 1:36:46
  three chests were straining and heaving. Pete, at intervals gave vent to low,
• 1:36:51
  labored hisses that sounded like a desire to kill. Jimmy's ally gibbered at
• 1:36:57
  times like a wounded maniac. Jimmy was silent, fighting with the face of
• 1:37:01
  a sacrificial priest. The rage of fear shone in all their eyes, and
• 1:37:06
  their blood colored fists swirled. At a tottering moment, a blow from Pete's
• 1:37:12
  hand struck the Ally, and he crashed to the floor. He wriggled instantly
• 1:37:16
  to his feet and grasping the quiet stranger's beer glass, from the bar hurled
• 1:37:21
  it at Pete's head. High on the wall. It burst like a bomb,
• 1:37:26
  shivering fragments flying in all directions. Then missiles came to every man's hand.
• 1:37:32
  The place had heretofore appeared free of things to throw, but suddenly glass
• 1:37:38
  and bottles went singing through the air. They were thrown point blank at bobbing
• 1:37:42
  heads. The pyramid of shimmering glasses that had never been disturbed changed to cascades
• 1:37:48
  as heavy bottles were flung into them. Mirrors splintered into nothing. The three
• 1:37:55
  frothing creatures on the floor buried themselves in a frenzy for blood. Followed in
• 1:38:00
  the wake of missiles and fists, some unknown prayers, perhaps for death.
• 1:38:04
  The quiet stranger had sprawled very pyrotechnically out on the sidewalk. A laugh ran
• 1:38:11
  up and down the avenue for the half of a block. Dave Troda bloke
• 1:38:15
  into the street. People heard the sound of breaking glass and shuffling feet within
• 1:38:19
  the saloon, and came running. A small group bending down to look under
• 1:38:25
  the bamboo doors, watching the fall of glass, and three pairs of violent
• 1:38:29
  legs changed in a moment to a crowd. A policeman came charging down the
• 1:38:34
  sidewalk and bounced through the doors into the saloon. The crowd bended and surged
• 1:38:40
  in absorbing anxiety to see Jimmy caught first sight of the oncoming interruption on his
• 1:38:46
  feet. He had the same regard for a policeman that when on his truck
• 1:38:50
  he had for a fire engine. He howled and ran for the side door.
• 1:38:56
  The officer made a terrific advance, club in hand. One comprehensive sweep
• 1:39:01
  of the long nightstick threw the Ally to the floor and forced Pete to a
• 1:39:06
  corner. With his disengaged hand, he made a furious effort at Jimmy's coat
• 1:39:12
  tails. Then he regained his balance and paused, well, well, you
• 1:39:16
  are a pair of pictures. What in hell you've been up to? Jimmy,
• 1:39:21
  with his face drenched in blood, escaped up a side street, pursued
• 1:39:26
  a short distance by some of the more law loving or excited individuals of the
• 1:39:30
  crowd. Later, from a corner, safely dark, he saw the policeman,
• 1:39:35
  the Ally, and the bartender emerge from the saloon. Pete locked the
• 1:39:41
  doors and then followed up the avenue in the rear of the crowd, encompassed
• 1:39:45
  policeman and his charge. On first thoughts, Jimmy, with his heart throbbing
• 1:39:50
  at battle heat, started to go desperately to the rescue of his friend,
• 1:39:55
  but he halted. Ah, what a hell, he demanded of himself.
• 1:40:01
  End of chapter eleven. Chapter twelve. In a hall of irregular shape,
• 1:40:12
  said Pete and Maggie, drinking beer. A submissive orchestra dictated too by a
• 1:40:16
  spectacled man with frowsy hair on the dress suit industriously followed the buffs of his
• 1:40:21
  head and the waves of his baton. A ballad singer in a dress of
• 1:40:26
  flaming scarlet sang in the inevitable voice of brass. When she vanished, Min
• 1:40:31
  seated at the tables near the front, applauded loudly, pounding the polished wood
• 1:40:35
  with their bare glasses. She returned attired and less gown, and sang again.
• 1:40:42
  She received another enthusiastic encore. She reappeared in still less gown and danced.
• 1:40:47
  The deafening rumble of glasses and clapping of hands that followed her exit indicated
• 1:40:53
  an overwhelming desire to have her come on for the fourth time, but the
• 1:40:58
  curiosity of the audience was not gratified. Maggie was pale from her eyes had
• 1:41:02
  been plucked all look of self relions. She leaned with a dependent air towards
• 1:41:08
  her companion. She was timid, as if fearing his anger or displeasure.
• 1:41:13
  She seemed to besiege tendanness of him. Pete's air of distinguished waller had grown
• 1:41:17
  upon him until it threatened stupendeous dimensions. He was indefinitely gracious to the girl.
• 1:41:25
  It was apparent to her that his condescension was a marvel. He could
• 1:41:30
  appear to strut even while sitting still, and he showed that he was a
• 1:41:33
  lion of lordly characteristics by the air of which he spat, with Maggie gazing
• 1:41:40
  at him wonderingly. He took pride in commanding the waiters, who were,
• 1:41:43
  however indifferent or death Hai you get the rustle on is what the hell ya
• 1:41:48
  looking at? To my beards? Do you hear? He leaned back and
• 1:41:51
  critically regarded the person of a girl with a straw colored wig, who upon
• 1:41:57
  the stage was flinging her heels in some somewhat awkward imitation of a well known
• 1:42:01
  dancers. At times, maggitude Pete long confidential tales of her former home life,
• 1:42:08
  dwelling upon the escapades of the other members of the family and the difficulties
• 1:42:13
  she had to combat in order to obtain a degree of comfort. He responded
• 1:42:16
  in tones of philanthropy. He pressed her arm with an air of reassuring proprietorship.
• 1:42:21
  They with them jays, he said, denouncing the mother and brother.
• 1:42:27
  The sound of the music, which by the efforts of the frowsy headed leader,
• 1:42:30
  drifted to her ears, to the smoke field atmosphere, made the girl
• 1:42:33
  dream. She thought of her former rom alley environment and turned to regard Pete
• 1:42:39
  strong protecting fists. She thought of the collar and cuff manufactory, and the
• 1:42:44
  eternal moan of the proprietor what in hell do you think a five five dollars
• 1:42:48
  a week for play? No pie damp? She contemplated Pete's mansib doing eyes,
• 1:42:54
  and noted that wealth and prosperity were indicated by his clothes. She imagined
• 1:42:59
  the future tinted because of its distance from all that she previously had experienced.
• 1:43:04
  As to the present, she perceived only wake reasons to be miserable. Her
• 1:43:09
  life was Pete's, and she considered him worthy of the charge. She would
• 1:43:13
  be disturbed by no particular apprehensions. So long as Pete adored her as he
• 1:43:17
  now said he did, she did not feel like a bad woman. To
• 1:43:21
  her knowledge, she had never seen any better. At times, men at
• 1:43:27
  other tables regarded the girl furtively. Pete, aware of it, nodded at
• 1:43:30
  her and grinned. He felt proud, mag You're a bloomin good looker,
• 1:43:34
  he remarked, studying her face through the haze. The man made Maggie fear,
• 1:43:40
  but she blushed at Pete's words as it became apparent to her that she
• 1:43:45
  was the upple of his eye. Gray headed men, wonderfully pathetic in the
• 1:43:48
  dissipation, stared at her through the clouds. Smooth cheeked boys, some of
• 1:43:55
  them with faces of stone and massive sin, not nearly so pathetic as the
• 1:43:59
  gray hair tried to find the girl's eyes in the smoke wreaths. Maggie considered
• 1:44:03
  she was not what they sought her. She confined her glances to Pete.
• 1:44:08
  On the stage, the orchestra played negro melodies. A worsearedile drummer pounded,
• 1:44:14
  wagged, clattered, and scratched on a dozen machines to make noise. Those
• 1:44:18
  glances of the men shot at Maggie from under half closed lids made her tremble.
• 1:44:24
  She thought them all to be worse men than Pete. Come, let's
• 1:44:27
  go, she said. As they went out, Maggie perceived two women seated
• 1:44:30
  at the table with some men. They were painted, and their cheeks had
• 1:44:35
  lost their roundness. As she passed them, the girl, with a shrinking
• 1:44:40
  movement, drew back her skirts. End of Chapter twelve, Chapter thirteen.
• 1:44:45
  Jimmy did not return home for a number of days after the fight with Pete
• 1:44:49
  in the saloon. When he did, he approached with extreme caution. He
• 1:44:56
  found his mother raving Maggie had not returned home. The parent continually wondered how
• 1:45:01
  her daughter could come to such a pass. She had never considered Maggie as
• 1:45:06
  a pearl dropped unstained into rum alley from heaven, but she could not conceive
• 1:45:12
  how it was possible for her daughter to fall so low as to bring disgrace
• 1:45:16
  upon her family. She was terrific in denunciation of the girl's wickedness. The
• 1:45:23
  fact that the neighbors talked of it maddened her. When women came in and
• 1:45:29
  in the course of their conversation casually asked, where's Maggie these days? The
• 1:45:34
  mother shook her fuzzy head at them and appalled them with curses, cunning hints,
• 1:45:41
  and inviting confidence. She rebuffed with violence and wid Aalda bringin' up she
• 1:45:45
  had? How could she moaningly? She asked of her son, wid Aalda
• 1:45:49
  talkin with her. I did, and to things. I told her to
• 1:45:53
  remember when a girl is bringed up to way I've bringed up Maggie. How
• 1:45:58
  can she go to the devil? Jimmy was transfixed by these questions. He
• 1:46:02
  could not conceive how, under the circumstances, his mother's daughter and his sister
• 1:46:09
  could have been so wicked. His mother took a drink from a squadgy bottle
• 1:46:13
  that sat on the table. She continued her lament. She had a bad
• 1:46:17
  heart, that girl, did, Jimmy, She was wicked to the heart,
• 1:46:21
  and we never noted it. Jimmy nodded, admitting the fact we lived
• 1:46:28
  into same house with her, and I brought her up, and we never
• 1:46:31
  knowed how bad she was. Jimmy nodded again. With a home like this
• 1:46:38
  and a mutter like me, she went to de bad, cried the mother,
• 1:46:43
  raising her eyes. One day, Jimmy came home, sat down in
• 1:46:46
  a chair, and began to wriggle about with a new and strange nervousness.
• 1:46:51
  At last he spoke, shamefacedly, well, look a here, disting queers
• 1:46:58
  us see we're queer, and maybe it'd be better if I think I can
• 1:47:03
  look her up. And maybe it'd be better if I fetched her home.
• 1:47:08
  And the mother started from her chair and broke forth into a storm of passionate
• 1:47:14
  anger. What let her come and sleep under the same roof with her mutter
• 1:47:18
  again? Oh yes, I will, won't I sure? Shame on yas,
• 1:47:24
  Jimmy Johnson, for saying such a thing to your own mutter, to
• 1:47:28
  your own mudd. Little did I think when ya's was a baby playing about
• 1:47:32
  my feet that you'd grow up to say such a ting to your mutter,
• 1:47:38
  your own mutter, I'd never talk. Sobs choked her and interrupted her reproaches.
• 1:47:45
  There ain't nothing to raise such hell about, said Jimmy. I only
• 1:47:48
  says it. But I'd be better if we keep this ting dark, see
• 1:47:54
  it queers us see? His mother laughed a laugh that seemed to ring through
• 1:47:59
  the city and be echoed and re echoed by countless other laughs. Oh yes,
• 1:48:04
  I will, won't I sure? Well, you must take me for
• 1:48:08
  a damned fool, said Jimmy, indignant at his mother for mocking him.
• 1:48:13
  I didn't say we'd make her into a little tin angel, no, nothing,
• 1:48:18
  but the way it is now, she can queer us, don't you
• 1:48:21
  see? I shall get tired of the life after a while, and then
• 1:48:26
  she'll be want to be coming home, won't she? The beast. I'll
• 1:48:30
  let her in, den, won't I. Well, I didn't mean none
• 1:48:33
  of this prodigal business anyway, explained Jimmy. It wasn't no prodigal daughter,
• 1:48:40
  you damn fools, said the mother. It was prodigal son anyhow, I
• 1:48:45
  know, dad, said Jimmy. For a long time, they sat in
• 1:48:49
  silence. The mother's eyes gloated on a scene her imagination could call before her.
• 1:48:56
  Her lips were set in a vindictive smile. I shall cry, won't
• 1:49:00
  she, and carry on and tell how Pete or some other fellow beats her.
• 1:49:04
  And she'll say, she sigh and all dead, and she ain't happy,
• 1:49:09
  she ain't and she wants to come home again. She does with grim
• 1:49:14
  humor. The mother imitated the possible wailing notes of the daughter's voice. Then
• 1:49:19
  I'll take her in, won't I debast? She'll cry her eyes out on
• 1:49:24
  the stones of the street before I'll dirty to place with her. She abused
• 1:49:29
  and ill treated her own mutter, her own mutter, what loved her,
• 1:49:32
  And she'll never get a nutter chance. De sid hell. Jimmy thought he
• 1:49:39
  had a great idea of women's frailty, but he could not understand why any
• 1:49:44
  of his kin should be victims. Damn her, he fervidly said. Again,
• 1:49:49
  he wondered vaguely if some of the women of his acquaintance had brothers.
• 1:49:54
  Nevertheless, his mind did not for an instant confuse himself with those brothers,
• 1:50:00
  nor his sister with theirs. After the mother had, with great difficulty suppressed
• 1:50:04
  the neighbors, she went among them and proclaimed her grief. May God forgive
• 1:50:11
  that girl was her continual cry to a tent of ears. She recited the
• 1:50:15
  whole length and breadth of her woes. I bring her up to wait.
• 1:50:20
  A daughter ought to be bringed up, And this is how she served me.
• 1:50:25
  She went to the devil the first chance she got, May God forgive
• 1:50:30
  her. When arrested for drunkenness, she used the story of her daughter's downfall,
• 1:50:36
  with telling effect upon the police justices. Finally, one of them said
• 1:50:42
  to her, peering down over his spectacles, Mary, the records of this
• 1:50:45
  and other courts show that you are the mother of forty two daughters who have
• 1:50:51
  been ruined. The cases unparalleled in the annals of this court. And this
• 1:50:57
  court thinks the mother through life shedding large tears of sorrow. Her red face
• 1:51:03
  was a picture of agony. Of course, Jimmy publicly damned his sister that
• 1:51:09
  he might appear on a higher social plane. But arguing with himself, stumbling
• 1:51:14
  about in ways that he knew not, he once almost came to a conclusion
• 1:51:19
  that his sister would have been more firmly good had she better known why.
• 1:51:26
  However, he felt that he could not hold such a view, he threw
• 1:51:30
  it hastily aside. End of Chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen. In a hilarious
• 1:51:39
  hall, there are twenty eight tables and twenty eight women, and a crowd
• 1:51:43
  of smoking men. Valient noise was made on his stage at the end of
• 1:51:47
  the hall by an orchestra composed of men who looked as if they had just
• 1:51:51
  happened in sword. Waiters ran to and fro, swooping down like hawks on
• 1:51:58
  the unwary in the throng, cladding along the owls with trays covered with glasses,
• 1:52:03
  stumbling over a woman's skirt, and charging two prices for everything but beer,
• 1:52:09
  all with a swiftness that blurred the view of the coconut palms and dusty
• 1:52:15
  monstrosities painted upon the walls of the room. A bouncer with an immense load
• 1:52:21
  of business upon his hands, plunged about in the crowd, dragging bashful strangers
• 1:52:27
  to prominent cheers, ordering waiters here and there, and quarreling furiously with men
• 1:52:32
  who wanted to sing with the orchestra. The usual smoke cloud was present,
• 1:52:39
  but so dense that heads and arms seemed entangled in it. The rumble of
• 1:52:45
  conversation was replaced by a roar, plenteous oath heaved through the air. The
• 1:52:51
  room rang with the shrill voices of women, bubbling over with drinkle laughter.
• 1:52:57
  The chief element of music of the orchestra was speed. The musicians played in
• 1:53:01
  intent fury. A woman was singing and smelling upon the stage, but no
• 1:53:08
  one took notice of her. The rate at which the piano, cornette and
• 1:53:12
  violence were going seemed to impart wildness to the half drunken crowd. Bier glasses
• 1:53:19
  were empty at a gulp, and conversation became a rapid chatter. The smoke
• 1:53:26
  ebbed and swirled like shadowy river hurrying towards some unseen falls. Pete and Maggie
• 1:53:31
  entered the hall and took chairs at the table near the door. The woman
• 1:53:36
  who was seated there made an attempt to occupy Pete's attention, and, failing,
• 1:53:43
  went away. Three weeks had passed since the girl had left home.
• 1:53:48
  The air of spangled like dependence had been magnified and showed its direct effect in
• 1:53:55
  the particular offhandedness and ease of Pete's ways toward her. She followed Pete's eyes
• 1:54:02
  with hers, anticipating with smiles gracious looks from him. A woman of brilliance
• 1:54:10
  and audacity, accompanied by a mere boy, came into the place and took
• 1:54:15
  seats near them. At once, Peter sprang to his feet, his face
• 1:54:20
  beaming with glad. Surprise. My god, there's Nelly, he cried.
• 1:54:25
  He went over to the table and held out an eager hand to the woman.
• 1:54:29
  Why hello, Peter, my boy, and how are you, she
• 1:54:31
  said, giving him her fingers. Maggie took instant note of the woman.
• 1:54:38
  She perceived that her black dress fitted her to perfection. Her linen collared and
• 1:54:44
  cuffs were spotless. Pan gloves were stretched over her well shaped hands. A
• 1:54:50
  hat of prevailing fashion perched jauntily upon her dark hair. She wore no jewelry
• 1:54:59
  and was painted with no apparent paint. She looked clear eyed through the stairs
• 1:55:05
  of the men. Sit down and call your lady friend over, she said
• 1:55:12
  cordially to Pete. At his beckoning, Maggie came and sat between Pete and
• 1:55:16
  the mere boy. I thought you were going away for good, began Pete
• 1:55:21
  once. When did you get back? How about them buffalo business turn out?
• 1:55:28
  The woman shrugged her shoulders. Well, he didn't have as many stamps
• 1:55:32
  as he tried to make out, so I shook him all. That's all.
• 1:55:38
  Well, I'm glad to see he's back in the city, said Pete
• 1:55:41
  with awkward gallantry. He and the woman entered into a long conversation, exchanging
• 1:55:47
  reminiscences of days together. Maggie sat still, unable to formulate an intelligent sentence
• 1:55:54
  upon the conversation, and painfully aware of it. She saw Pete's eyes sparkled
• 1:56:00
  as he gazed upon the handsome stranger. He listened smilingly to all she said.
• 1:56:06
  The woman was familiar with all his affairs, asked him about mutual friends,
• 1:56:12
  and knew the amount of his salary. She paid no attention to Maggie,
• 1:56:16
  looking toward her once or twice, and apparently seeing the war beyond.
• 1:56:23
  The mere boy was sulky in the beginning. He had welcomed with acclamations the
• 1:56:28
  additions, let's all have a drink. What do you take now? And
• 1:56:31
  you miss, what's your name? Have a drink? Mister, you know
• 1:56:36
  what I mean. He had shown a sprightly desire to do the talking for
• 1:56:42
  the company and tell all about his family. In a loud voice, he
• 1:56:46
  declaimed on various topics. He assumed a patronizing air toward Pete. As Maggie
• 1:56:54
  was silent, he paid no attention to her. He made a great show
• 1:56:58
  of lavishing wealth upon the woman of brilliance and audacity. Do keep still,
• 1:57:04
  Freddy, you give her like an ape, dear, said the woman to
• 1:57:09
  him. She turned away and devoted her attention to Pete. Well, have
• 1:57:14
  many a good time together, get eh sure, Mike said Pete, enthusiastic
• 1:57:19
  at once, say, whispered she leaning forward, Let's go over the billies
• 1:57:26
  and have a hell of a time. Well it's this way, see,
• 1:57:30
  said Pete. I got this lady from here, Oh the help of her
• 1:57:33
  argue the woman Pete appeared disturbed. All right, she said, nodding her
• 1:57:40
  head to him. All right for you, what'lls it? The next time
• 1:57:44
  you asked me to go any where's with you? Pete squirmed, say,
• 1:57:48
  he said, beseechingly, Come while me a mint, and I tell you
• 1:57:53
  why. The woman waved her hand. Oh that's all right. You needn't
• 1:57:58
  explain. You know, you wouldn't come merely because you wouldn't come. That's
• 1:58:03
  all there is of it. To Pete's visible distress, she turned to the
• 1:58:08
  mere boy, bringing him speedily from a terrific rage. He had been debating
• 1:58:15
  whether it would be the part of a man to pick a quaw with Pete,
• 1:58:18
  or would he be justified in striking him savagely with his beer glass without
• 1:58:24
  warning, But he recovered himself. When the woman turned to renew her smilings,
• 1:58:30
  he beamed upon her with an expression that was somewhat tipsy and inexpressibly tender.
• 1:58:38
  Say shake that bowery, jay requested he in a loud whisper. Freddy,
• 1:58:45
  you are so droll, she replied. Pete reached forward and touched the
• 1:58:50
  woman on the arm. Come out a minute while I tell ye why I
• 1:58:55
  can't go with you. Yo, do me dirt? Now? I never
• 1:58:58
  taught ye do me dirt? Now? Come on, will you? He
• 1:59:01
  spoke in tones of injury. Why I don't see why she should be interested
• 1:59:08
  in your explanations, said the woman, with a coldness that seemed to reduce
• 1:59:13
  Pete to a pulp. His eyes pleaded with her. Come out in a
• 1:59:18
  minute, Why as I tell you? The woman nodded slightly and magging in
• 1:59:23
  the mere boy excuse me. The mere boy interrupted his loving smile and turned
• 1:59:30
  a shriveling glare upon Pete. His boy's countenance flushed, and he spoke in
• 1:59:36
  a wine to the woman. Oh, I say, nellie, this isn't
• 1:59:41
  a square deal. You know you aren't going to leave me and go off
• 1:59:45
  with that duffer, are you? I should think why you, dear boy?
• 1:59:49
  Of course I'm not, cried the woman affectionately. She bended over and
• 1:59:55
  whispered in his ear. He smiled again, and settled in his chair as
• 2:00:00
  if resolved to wait patiently. As the woman walked down between the rows of
• 2:00:05
  tables, Pete was at her shoulder, talking earnestly, apparently in explanation.
• 2:00:13
  The woman waved her hands with steady airs of indifference. The doors swung behind
• 2:00:18
  them, leaving Maggie and the mere boy seated at the table. Maggie was
• 2:00:25
  dazed. She could dimly perceive that something stupendous had happened. She wondered why
• 2:00:31
  Pete saw fit to remonstrate with the woman, pleading for forgiveness with his eyes,
• 2:00:38
  she thought she noted an air of submission about her lenon Pete. She
• 2:00:43
  was astounded. The mere boy occupied himself with cocktails and a cigar. He
• 2:00:49
  was tranquility silent for half an hour. Then he bestirred himself and spoke well,
• 2:00:57
  he said, saying I knew this was the way it would be.
• 2:01:01
  There was another stillness. The mere boy seemed to be musing, she was
• 2:01:06
  pulling my leg. That's the whole amount of it, he said. Suddenly,
• 2:01:11
  it's a blooming shame the way that girl does. Why I spent over
• 2:01:15
  two dollars in drinks tonight and she goes off with that plug ugly who looks
• 2:01:19
  as if he's been hit in the face with a corn die. I call
• 2:01:24
  it rocky treatment for a fellow like me. Here, waiter, bring me
• 2:01:28
  a cocktail and make a damn strong. Maggie made no reply. She was
• 2:01:34
  watching the doors. It's a mean piece of business, complained the mere boy.
• 2:01:40
  He explained to her how amazing it was that anybody should treat him in
• 2:01:45
  such a manner. But I'll get squared with her. You bet she won't
• 2:01:49
  get far ahead of yours, truly, you know, he added, winking.
• 2:01:54
  I'll tell her planning that it was blooming mean business, and she won't
• 2:01:59
  come. It'llver with me with any of her. Now, Freddy DearS.
• 2:02:03
  She thinks my name is Freddy, you know, But of course it ain't.
• 2:02:06
  I always tell these people some name like that, because if they got
• 2:02:11
  into your right name, they might use it sometime. I understand. Oh,
• 2:02:15
  they don't fool me much. Maggie was paying no attention, being intent
• 2:02:21
  upon the doors. The mere Boy relapsed into a period of gloom, doing
• 2:02:27
  which he exterminated a number of cocktails with a determined air, as if relying
• 2:02:31
  defiantly to fate. He occasionally broke forth into sentences composed of infectives joined together
• 2:02:39
  in a long strength. The girl was still staring at the doors. After
• 2:02:45
  that time, the mere Boy began to see Cobwells just in front of his
• 2:02:47
  nose. He spurred himself into being agreeable and insist upon her having a Charlie
• 2:02:54
  rousse and a glass of beer. There's gone, he remarked, There's gone.
• 2:03:00
  He looked at her through the smoke. Weal, shay, little girl,
• 2:03:04
  we might as well make best of it. We ain't such bad looking
• 2:03:08
  girl, you know, not that bad. Can't come up the nail though,
• 2:03:12
  No, can't do it well, I should say nothing nail, fine
• 2:03:16
  looking girl, fair fire any fine? You look dawn bad alongside her,
• 2:03:24
  but by yourself ain't so bad? Have you do it anyhow? Nail gone?
• 2:03:29
  Only you left? Not bad though? Maggie stood up. I'm going
• 2:03:34
  home, she said. Then the red boys started, Eh, what home?
• 2:03:41
  He cried, Struck with amazement, I beg pardon did he say home?
• 2:03:46
  I am going home? She repeated, Great God, what a hell
• 2:03:50
  of a struck, demanded the mere boy for himself. Stupefied and in semi
• 2:03:56
  Komatosa state, he conducted her on board board an uptown car. Obstinacy paid
• 2:04:03
  her fare, leered kindly at her through the rear window, and fell off
• 2:04:09
  the steps. End of chapter fourteen. Chapter fifteen, a fulllorn woman went
• 2:04:16
  along a lighted avenue. The street was filled with people desperately bound on missions,
• 2:04:24
  and in this crowd darted at the elevated station stairs, and the horse
• 2:04:29
  cars were throng with owners of bundles. The pace of the forlorn woman was
• 2:04:33
  slow. She was apparently searching for someone. She lautered near the doors of
• 2:04:40
  saloons and watchmen emerge from them. She scanned furtively the faces in the rushing
• 2:04:45
  stream of pedestrians. Harrying men bent on catching some boat of train joisted her
• 2:04:53
  elbows, falling to notice her, their thoughts fixed on distant dinners. The
• 2:05:00
  forlorn woman had a peculiar face. Her smile was no smile, but when
• 2:05:05
  in repose, her features had a shadowy look that was like a sardonic grin,
• 2:05:11
  as if someone had sketched with a cruel forefingers indebtible lines about her mouth.
• 2:05:17
  Jimmy came strolling up the avenue. The woman encountered him with a grieve
• 2:05:23
  air. Oh, Jimmy, I've been looking all over for you, she
• 2:05:27
  began. Jimmy made an impatient gesture and quickeness pace. Oh don't bother him.
• 2:05:32
  A good God, he said, with a savness of a man whose
• 2:05:35
  life is pestered. The woman followed him along the sidewalking somewhat the manner of
• 2:05:41
  a supplin. But Jimmy, she said, ye's told me. Ye.
• 2:05:45
  Jimmy turned upon her fiercely, as if resolved to make a last stand to
• 2:05:49
  comfort and peace. Say, for God's sex had it? Don't follow me
• 2:05:55
  from one end of the city till the utter. Let I wish it?
• 2:05:59
  He me in minute, rest, can't she? He makes me tired?
• 2:06:02
  All's are tagging me. See, Ain't he's got no sin? Do ye'se
• 2:06:06
  one people to get onto me? Go chase yourself, for God's sakes.
• 2:06:13
  The woman stepped closer and laid her fingers on his arm. But look at
• 2:06:16
  here, Jimmy said, Oh, good hell. He darted into the front
• 2:06:21
  door of a convenient saloon, and a moment later came out into the shadows
• 2:06:27
  that surrounded the side door. On the brilliantly lighted avenue. He perceived the
• 2:06:31
  forlorn woman dodging about him like a scout. Jimmy laughed with an air relief
• 2:06:36
  and went away. When he arrived home, he found his mother clamoring.
• 2:06:42
  Maggie had returned. She stood shivering beneath the toring of her mother's wrath.
• 2:06:47
  Well, I'm damned, said Jimmy, in greeting his mother, partering about
• 2:06:54
  the room pouring a quivalent forefinger. Look at here, Jimmy, look at
• 2:06:59
  here. It's your sister. Boy, there's your sister. Look at her?
• 2:07:03
  Look at her, she screamed in scoffling laughter. The girl stood in
• 2:07:10
  the middle of the room. She asked about it, as if unable to
• 2:07:13
  find a place on the floor to put her feet. Ha ha below the
• 2:07:17
  mother. There she stands. Ain't she pretty? Look at her? Ain't
• 2:07:23
  she sweet? The beast? Look at her? Look at her? She
• 2:07:27
  lurched forward and put her red and seamed hands upon his daughter's face. She
• 2:07:31
  bent down and peered keenly up into the eyes of the girl. Oh,
• 2:07:36
  she just de seeming, ain't she ever? Was? Ain't she? She's
• 2:07:41
  a mother's purty darling. Lotta ain't she? Look at her? Jimmy,
• 2:07:45
  come here, for God's sake and look at her. The loud and tremendous
• 2:07:50
  sneering of the mother brought the deisings of the rum Alley tenement to their doors.
• 2:07:57
  Women came in the hallways, children scre hurried to and fro. What's
• 2:08:01
  up the Johnson's party? On the other deer nah, young Mag's come home?
• 2:08:09
  The hell you say? Through the open doors. Curious eyes stared in
• 2:08:13
  at Maggie. Children ventured into the room and oogered her, as if they
• 2:08:18
  formed the front row at a theater. Woman without bended toward each other and
• 2:08:26
  whispered, nodding their heads with airs of profound philosophy. A baby, overcome
• 2:08:31
  of curiosity concerning this object at which all were looking, slided forward and touched
• 2:08:37
  her dress cautiously, as if investigating their red hot stove. It's mother's voice
• 2:08:46
  rang out like a warning triumph. She rushed forward and grabbed her child,
• 2:08:50
  casting a terrible look of indignation at the girl. Maggie's mother paced to and
• 2:08:56
  fro, addressing the door for of eyespounding like a glib showman at a museum.
• 2:09:03
  Her voice rang through the building. There she stands, she cried,
• 2:09:07
  wheeling suddenly and pointing with dramatic finger. There she stands. Look at her?
• 2:09:13
  Ain't she a ditty? And she was so good as to come home
• 2:09:18
  to a mutter she was? Ain't she a beauty? Ain't she a ditty?
• 2:09:24
  For God's sakes? The jeering cries ended in another bust of sheer laughter.
• 2:09:31
  The girl seemed still waken Jimmy, he drew hastily back from her where
• 2:09:39
  Now you're a hell of a thing, ain't you, he said, his
• 2:09:43
  lips curling, and scorn radiant virtue sat upon his brow, and his repelling
• 2:09:48
  hands expressed horror of contamination. Maggie turned and went. The crowd at the
• 2:09:56
  door fell back precipitately. A baby falling down in front of the door wretched
• 2:10:03
  a scream like a wounded animal from his mother. Another woman sprang forward and
• 2:10:09
  picked it up with a shiverrous air, as if rescuing a human being from
• 2:10:16
  an ongoing express train. As the girl passed down through the hall, she
• 2:10:20
  went before open doors, framing more eyes, strangely microscopic, and sending broad
• 2:10:28
  beams of exquisited light into the darkness of her path. On the second floor,
• 2:10:33
  she met the gnard old woman who possessed the music box, So she
• 2:10:39
  cried, is ye back again? I y and it kicked He's out.
• 2:10:46
  Well, come on in and stay with me to night. I ain't got
• 2:10:52
  no more standing. From above, came in an e, singing babble of
• 2:10:58
  tongues, over all of which rang the mother's decisive laughter end of chapter fifteen.
• 2:11:07
  In chapter sixteen, Pete did not consider that he had ruined Maggie.
• 2:11:16
  If he had thought that her soul could never smile again, he would have
• 2:11:18
  believed the mother and brother, who were pyrotechnic over the affair, to be
• 2:11:22
  responsible for it. Besides, in his world, souls did not insist upon
• 2:11:28
  being able to smile. What the hell he felt a trifle entangled. It
• 2:11:33
  distressed him. Revelations and scenes might bring upon him the wrath of the owner
• 2:11:37
  of the saloon, who insisted upon respectability of an advanced type. What the
• 2:11:45
  hell did I want to raise such a smoke about it? For? Demanded
• 2:11:48
  he of himself. Disgusted with the attitude of the family, he saw no
• 2:11:52
  necessity for any one's losing their equilibrium merely because their sister or their daughter had
• 2:11:58
  stayed away from home. Searching about in his mind for possible reasons, for
• 2:12:03
  their conduct. He came upon the conclusion that Maggie's motives were correct, but
• 2:12:07
  that the two others wished to snare him. He felt pursued. The woman
• 2:12:13
  of brilliance and audacity, whom he had met in the hilarious hall, showed
• 2:12:18
  a disposition to ridicule him. A little pale thing with no spirit, she
• 2:12:24
  said, Did you note the expression of her eyes? There was something in
• 2:12:28
  them about pumpkin pie and virtue. That is a peculiar way. The left
• 2:12:33
  corner of her mouth has of twitching, isn't it, Dear, dear,
• 2:12:37
  my cloud compelling Pete? What are you coming to? Pete asserted at once
• 2:12:41
  that he never was very much interested in the girl. The woman interrupted him,
• 2:12:46
  laughing, Oh, it's not of the slightest consequence to me, my
• 2:12:50
  dear young man. You needn't draw maps for my benefit? Why should I
• 2:12:54
  be concerned about it? But Pete continued with his explanation. If he was
• 2:13:01
  laughed at for his tastes in women, he felt obliged to say that they
• 2:13:05
  were only temporary or indifferent ones. The morning, after Maggie had departed from
• 2:13:11
  home, Pete stood behind the bar. He was immaculate in white jacket and
• 2:13:16
  apron, and his hair was plastered over his braw with infinite correctness. No
• 2:13:22
  customers were in the place. Pete was twisting his napkined fist slowly in a
• 2:13:28
  beer glass, softly whistling to himself, and occasionally holding the object of his
• 2:13:33
  attention between his eyes and a few weak beams of sunlight that had found their
• 2:13:37
  way over the thick screens and into the shaded room. With lingering thoughts of
• 2:13:43
  the woman of brilliance and audacity, the bartender raised his head and stared through
• 2:13:48
  the varying cracks between the swaying bamboo doors. Suddenly, the whistling pucker faded
• 2:13:54
  from his lips. He saw Maggie walking slowly past. He gave a great
• 2:13:58
  start. Fearing for the previously mentioned eminent respectability of the place, he threw
• 2:14:05
  a swift, nervous glance about him, all at once, feeling guilty.
• 2:14:09
  No one was in the room. He went hastily over to the side door,
• 2:14:13
  opening it and looking out, he perceived Maggie standing as if undecided,
• 2:14:18
  on the corner. She was searching the place with her eyes. As she
• 2:14:24
  turned her face toward him, Pete beckoned to her hurriedly, intent upon returning
• 2:14:28
  with speed into a position behind the bar and to the atmosphere of respectability upon
• 2:14:33
  which the proprietor insisted. Maggie came to him, the anxious look disappearing from
• 2:14:39
  her face, and a smile wreathing her lips. Oh, Pete, she
• 2:14:43
  began brightly. The bar tender made a violent gesture of impatience. Oh my
• 2:14:48
  god, he cried, he vehemently. What the hell do you want to
• 2:14:52
  hang round here for? Do you want to get me into trouble? He
• 2:14:54
  demanded, with an air of injury. Astonishment swept over the girl's features.
• 2:15:00
  Why peteyes told me. Pete glanced profound irritation, his countenance reddened with the
• 2:15:07
  anger of a man whose respectability is being threatened. Say this makes me tired.
• 2:15:13
  See what the hell do you want to tag her on at? M
• 2:15:15
  me for? You get me into trouble with the old man and they'll be
• 2:15:18
  held to pay. If he sees a woman on here, he'll go crazy
• 2:15:22
  and I'll lose me job. See your brother coming here and raised hell,
• 2:15:26
  and the old man had to put up for it. And now I'm done,
• 2:15:30
  See I'm done. The girl's eyes stared into his face. Pete,
• 2:15:35
  don't you remember? Ah, Hell, interrupted Pete, anticipating The girl seemed
• 2:15:41
  to have a struggle with herself. She was apparently bewildered and could not find
• 2:15:45
  speech. Finally, she asked, in a low voice, but where can
• 2:15:50
  I go? The questioned exasperated Pete beyond the powers of endurance. It was
• 2:15:56
  a direct attempt to give him some responsibility and manner that did not concern him.
• 2:16:01
  In his indignation, he volunteered information. Oh go to Hell, cried
• 2:16:07
  he. He slammed the door furiously and returned with an air of relief to
• 2:16:11
  his respectability. Maggie went away. She wandered aimlessly for several blocks. She
• 2:16:20
  stopped once and asked aloud a question of herself. Who. A man who
• 2:16:26
  was passing near her shoulder humorously took the questioning word as intended for him,
• 2:16:31
  H what who? Nobody? I didn't say anything, he laughingly said,
• 2:16:37
  and continued his way. Soon the girl discovered that if she walked with such
• 2:16:43
  apparent aimlessness, some men looked at her with calculating eyes. She quickened her
• 2:16:48
  step frightened. As a protection, she adopted a demeanor of intentness, as
• 2:16:54
  if going somewhere After a time, she left rattling avenues and passed between rows
• 2:17:00
  of houses with sternness and stolidity stamped upon their features. She hung her head,
• 2:17:05
  for she felt their eyes grimly upon her. Suddenly she came upon a
• 2:17:11
  stout gentleman in a silk hat and a chaste black coat, whose indecorous row
• 2:17:16
  of buttons reached from his chin to his knees. The girl had heard of
• 2:17:20
  the grace of God, and she decided to approach this man. His beaming,
• 2:17:26
  chubby face was a picture of benevolence and kind heartedness. His eyes shone
• 2:17:31
  good will. But as the girl timidly accosted him, he gave a convulsive
• 2:17:37
  movement and saved his respectability by a vigorous side step. He did not risk
• 2:17:41
  it to save a soul, for how was he to know that there was
• 2:17:45
  a soul before him that needed saving. End of Chapter sixteen. Chapter seventeen.
• 2:18:01
  Upon a wet evening several months after the last chapter, two interminable rows
• 2:18:07
  of cars, pulled by slipping horses jangled along a prominent side street. A
• 2:18:11
  dozen calves with coat and shrouded drivers clattered to and fro. Electric lights whirring
• 2:18:18
  softly shed a blurred radiance. A flower dealer, his feet tapping impatiently his
• 2:18:24
  nose, and his wares glistening with rain drops, stood behind an array of
• 2:18:28
  roses and chrysanthemums. Two or three theaters emptied a crowd upon the storm swept
• 2:18:33
  pavements. Men pulled their hats over their eyebrows and raised their collars to their
• 2:18:39
  ears. Women shrugged impatient shoulders in their warm cloaks and stopped to arrange their
• 2:18:43
  skirts for a walk through the storm. People, having been comparatively silent for
• 2:18:50
  two hours, burst into a roar of conversation, their hearts still kindling from
• 2:18:54
  the glowings of the stage. The pavements became tossing seas of a mbrellas.
• 2:19:01
  Men stepped forth to hail cabs or cars, raising their fingers in varied forms
• 2:19:05
  of polite request or imperative demand. An endless procession went toward elevated stations.
• 2:19:11
  An atmosphere of pleasure and prosperity seemed to hang over the throng, born perhaps
• 2:19:18
  of good clothes and of having just emerged from a place of forgetfulness. In
• 2:19:24
  the mingled light and gloom of an adjacent park, A handful of wet wanderers,
• 2:19:28
  and attitudes of chronic dejection was scattered among the benches. A girl of
• 2:19:35
  the painted cohorts of the city went along the street. She threw changing glances
• 2:19:41
  at men who passed her, giving smiling invitations to men of rural or untaught
• 2:19:46
  pattern, and usually seeming sedately unconscious of the men with the Metropolitan seal upon
• 2:19:52
  their faces. Crossing glittering avenues, she went into the throng, Emerging from
• 2:19:56
  the places of forgetfulness, she hurried forward through the crowd, as if intent
• 2:20:03
  upon reaching a distant home, bending forward in her handsome cloak, daintily lifting
• 2:20:07
  her skirts and picking for her well shod feet the dryer spots upon the pavements.
• 2:20:13
  The restless doors of saloons, clashing to and fro, disclosed, animated
• 2:20:18
  rows of men before bars and hurrying bar keepers. A concert hall gave to
• 2:20:24
  the street faint sounds of swift, machine like music, as if a group
• 2:20:28
  of phantom musicians were hastening. A tall young man, smoking a cigarette with
• 2:20:35
  a sublime air, strolled near the girl. He had on evening dress,
• 2:20:41
  a mustache, a chrysanthemum, and a look of anui, all of which
• 2:20:45
  he kept carefully under his eye. Seeing the girl walk on as if such
• 2:20:50
  a young man as he was not in existence, he looked back, transfixed
• 2:20:54
  with interest. He stared glassily for a moment, but gave a slight convulsive
• 2:21:00
  start when he discerned that she was neither new Parisian nor theatrical. He wheeled
• 2:21:05
  about hastily and turned his stare into the air like a sailor with a searchlight.
• 2:21:11
  A stout gentleman with pompous and philanthropic whiskers went stolidly by the broad of
• 2:21:18
  his back, sneering at the girl. A belated man in business clothes and
• 2:21:22
  in haste to catch a car, bounced against her shoulder. Either Mary,
• 2:21:26
  I beg your pardon. Brace up, old girl. He grasped her arm
• 2:21:31
  to steady her, and then was away, running down the middle of the
• 2:21:35
  street. The girl walked on out of the realm of restaurants and saloons.
• 2:21:41
  She passed more glittering avenues and went into darker blocks than those who were the
• 2:21:46
  crowd traveled. A young man in light overcoat and derby hat received a glance
• 2:21:52
  shot keenly from the eyes of the girl. He stopped and looked at her,
• 2:21:56
  thrusting his hands in his pockets and making a mocking smile, curled his
• 2:22:01
  lips. Come now, old lady, he said, you don't mean to
• 2:22:03
  tell me that you sized me up for a farmer. A laboring man marched
• 2:22:09
  along with bundles under his arms. To her remarks, he replied, it's
• 2:22:13
  a fine evening, ain't it. She smiled squarely into the face of a
• 2:22:18
  boy who was hurrying by, with his hands buried in his overcoat, his
• 2:22:22
  blonde locks bobbing on his youthful temples, and a cheery smile of unconcern upon
• 2:22:28
  his lips. He turned his head and smiled back at her, waving his
• 2:22:31
  hands, and not this eve, some other eve. A drunken man reeling
• 2:22:39
  in her pathway began to roar at her. I ain't got no money,
• 2:22:43
  damn bow luck, ain't got no more money. The girl went into gloomy
• 2:22:48
  districts near the river, where the tall factories shut in the street, and
• 2:22:52
  only occasional broad beams of light fell across the pavements from saloons. In front
• 2:22:58
  of one of these places, from whence came the sound of a violin vigorously
• 2:23:01
  scraped the patter of feet on boards and the ring of loud laughter. There
• 2:23:05
  stood a man with blotched features. Ah, there, said the girl.
• 2:23:13
  I've got a date, said the man. Further on in the darkness she
• 2:23:18
  met a ragged being with shifting, bloodshot eyes and grimy hands. What the
• 2:23:24
  hell think I'm a millionaire? She went into the blackness of the final block.
• 2:23:30
  The shutters of the tall buildings were closed, like grim lips. These
• 2:23:33
  structures seemed to have eyes that looked over her, beyond her, at other
• 2:23:39
  things afar off. The lights of the avenues glittered as if from an impossible
• 2:23:43
  distance. Street car bells jingled with a sound of merriment. When almost to
• 2:23:50
  the river, the girl saw a great figure. On going forward, she
• 2:23:54
  perceived it to be a huge, fat man in torn and greasy garments.
• 2:23:58
  His gray hair straggled down over his forehead, His small, bleared eyes,
• 2:24:05
  a sparkling from amidst the great rolls of red fat, swept eagerly over the
• 2:24:09
  girl's upturned face. He laughed, his brown, disordered teeth gleaming under a
• 2:24:16
  gray grizzled mustache from which beard drops dripped. His whole body gently quivered and
• 2:24:22
  shook, like that of a dead jellyfish. Chuckling and leering, he followed
• 2:24:26
  the girl of the Crimson legions at their feet. The river appeared a deathly
• 2:24:33
  black hue, as some hidden factory sent up a yellow glare that lit for
• 2:24:37
  a moment, the waters lapping oilily against timbers. The varied sounds of life,
• 2:24:43
  made joyous by distance and seeming unapproachableness, came faintly and died away to
• 2:24:50
  a silence. End of chapter seventeen. Chapter eighteen, In a partitioned off
• 2:25:05
  section of a saloon sat a man with a half dozen women, gleefully laughing
• 2:25:09
  hovering about him. The man had arrived at that stage of drunkenness where affection
• 2:25:15
  has felt for the universe. I am good feller, girls, he said,
• 2:25:20
  convincingly, I'm damn good feller. Anybody treats me, aright? I
• 2:25:22
  always treats some rightsy. The women nodded their heads approvingly to be sure.
• 2:25:28
  They cried out in a hearty chorus, You're the kind of a man we
• 2:25:33
  like. Pete, you're out of sight. An't you going to buy this
• 2:25:35
  time? Dear? Anything is wants damn it, said the man, in
• 2:25:41
  an abandonment of good will. His countenance shone with the true spirit of benevolence.
• 2:25:46
  He was in the proper mode of missionaries. He would have fraternized with
• 2:25:50
  obscure hottentots. And above all, he was overwhelmed in tenderness for his friends,
• 2:25:56
  who were all illustrious and nittingya's wants. Damn it, repeated he,
• 2:26:01
  waving his hands with beneficent recklessness. I'm good feller girls, and if and
• 2:26:07
  if anybody treats me right, I hear called he through an open door to
• 2:26:13
  a waiter, Bring girls drinks. Damn it? What only as I have
• 2:26:18
  girls antingya's wants? Damn it. The waiter glanced in with the disgusted look
• 2:26:24
  of the man who serves intox against for the man who takes too much of
• 2:26:28
  them. He nodded his head shortly at the order from each individual and went,
• 2:26:33
  damn it, said the man. We're having hell of a time.
• 2:26:37
  I like your girls. Damned if I ounce, you're a right sort.
• 2:26:39
  See, he spoke at length and with feeling, concerning the excellencies of his
• 2:26:45
  assembled friends. Don't try to pull men's leg, but have hell of a
• 2:26:48
  time. That's right, that's sweat to do. Now. If I sought
• 2:26:54
  yeas trying to work me for drinks. Wouldn't by damn thing. But you're
• 2:26:58
  right, damn it. His nose had a cheer. Feller, and I
• 2:27:03
  and I stays by you till I spend a lot cent. That's right.
• 2:27:07
  I'm good, feller, and I knows when anybody traced me. Right.
• 2:27:13
  Between the times of the arrival and departure of the waiter, the man discoursed
• 2:27:16
  to the women on the tender regard he felt for all living things. He
• 2:27:22
  laid stress upon the purity of his motives in all dealings with men in the
• 2:27:26
  world, and spoke of the fervor of his friendship for those who were amiable.
• 2:27:31
  Tears welled slowly from his eyes. His voice quavered when he spoke to
• 2:27:35
  them. Once, when the waiter was about to depart with an empty tray,
• 2:27:39
  the man drew a coin from his pocket and held it forth. Here,
• 2:27:43
  said he quite magnificently. Here's quarter. The waiter kept his hands on
• 2:27:48
  his tray. I don't want your money, he said. The other put
• 2:27:54
  forth a coin with tearful insistence. Here, damn it, he cried,
• 2:27:58
  take it. You're damn good fella, and I want you to take it.
• 2:28:03
  Come, come now, said the waiter, with the sullen air of
• 2:28:05
  a man was forced into giving advice. But your mun in your pocket,
• 2:28:11
  you're loaded, and it only makes a damn fool yourself. As the latter
• 2:28:16
  passed out of the door, the man turned pathetically to the women. You
• 2:28:20
  don't know. I'm damn good fella, cried he dismally. Never you mind,
• 2:28:24
  pete, dear, said a woman of brilliance and audacity, laying her
• 2:28:28
  hand with great affection upon his arm. Never you mind, old boy,
• 2:28:33
  We'll stay by you, dear. That's right, cried the man, his
• 2:28:39
  face lighting up at the soothing tones of the woman's voice. That's right,
• 2:28:43
  I'm damn good feller. And when anyone treats me right, I treat zamurai,
• 2:28:48
  she sure, cried the woman. And we're not going back on you,
• 2:28:52
  old man. The man turned appealing eyes to the woman of brilliance and
• 2:28:56
  audacity. He felt that if he could be convicted of a contemptible action,
• 2:29:01
  he would die. Shay, Now, dammit, I always treat your square,
• 2:29:07
  didn't I? I always been a good fella? Well, yes,
• 2:29:09
  s ain't I now sure you have? Pete, assented the woman. She
• 2:29:13
  delivered an oration to her companions. Yes, sir, that's a fact.
• 2:29:18
  Pete's a square fella, he is. He never goes back on her friend.
• 2:29:22
  He's the right kind. And we stay by him, don't we?
• 2:29:26
  Girls? Sure, they exclaimed, looking lovingly at him. They raised their
• 2:29:31
  glasses and drank his health girls, said the man, beseechingly. I always
• 2:29:35
  treat you, are right, didn't I? I'm a good feller, ain't
• 2:29:39
  I? Girlsh sure again, they chorused, well, said he. Finally,
• 2:29:45
  let's have a nuzzer drinks. Then that's right, hailed a woman.
• 2:29:48
  That's right. You're no bloomin' jay. You spend your money like a man.
• 2:29:54
  That's right. Man pounded the table with his quivering fists. Yes,
• 2:29:58
  sir, he cried, with deep earnestness, as if someone disputed him.
• 2:30:03
  I'm damn good feller, and when anyone treats me right, I always treat.
• 2:30:07
  Let's have another drink. He began to beat the wood with his glass.
• 2:30:13
  Shay howled, he growling, suddenly impatient. As the waiter did not
• 2:30:16
  then come, the man swelled with wrath. Shay howled he again. The
• 2:30:22
  waiter appeared at the door. Bringish drinks, said the man. The waiter
• 2:30:28
  disappeared with the orders that feller. Damned fool, cried the man. Hear
• 2:30:33
  and sell me. I'm gentlemen can't stand be and sew. I'm gonna lick
• 2:30:37
  him when it comes. No, no, cried the woman, crowding about
• 2:30:41
  and trying to subdue him. He's all right, he didn't mean anything.
• 2:30:43
  Let it go. He's a good fellow. Danny and sell me, asked
• 2:30:48
  the man earnestly. No, said they, of course he didn't. He's
• 2:30:54
  all right. Sure he didn't sell me, demanded the man, with deepingnxiety
• 2:31:00
  in his voice. No, no, we know him. He's a good
• 2:31:03
  fellow. He didn't mean anything, well, John, said the man resolutely.
• 2:31:09
  I'm a girl. Apologize. When the waiter came, the man struggled
• 2:31:13
  to the middle of the floor. Girls said, you have seled me.
• 2:31:18
  I say, damn lie, I apologize, all right, said the waiter.
• 2:31:26
  The man sat down. He felt a sleepy but strong desire to straighten
• 2:31:31
  things out and have a perfect understanding with everybody. Now I always treat your
• 2:31:37
  square, didn I You likes me, dounias. Now I'm a good feller,
• 2:31:41
  sure, said the woman of brilliance and audacity. You know as I'm
• 2:31:46
  stuck on yous. Don't yes now sure, she repeated carelessly. Overwhelmed by
• 2:31:54
  a spasm of drunken adoration, he drew two or three bills from his pocket,
• 2:31:58
  and, with a trembling fingers of an offering priest, laid them on
• 2:32:01
  the table before the woman his nose damages. Can have all I got because
• 2:32:07
  I'm stuck on yours. And now, Damniti, I'm stuck on yours now
• 2:32:13
  by drinks. Dammit, we're having halvertime. When anyone traced me a right,
• 2:32:18
  damn it. Now we're having halever time. Shortly he went to sleep,
• 2:32:24
  with his swollen face fallen forward on his chest. The women drank and
• 2:32:28
  laughed, not heeding the slumbering man in the corner. Finally, he lurched
• 2:32:33
  forward and fell, groaning to the floor. The women screamed in disgust and
• 2:32:39
  drew back their skirts. Come on, cried one, staring up angrily.
• 2:32:41
  Let's get out of here. The woman of brilliance and audacity stayed behind,
• 2:32:46
  taking up the bills and stuffing them into a deep, irregularly shaped pocket.
• 2:32:52
  A guttural snore from the recumbent man caused her to turn and look down at
• 2:32:56
  him. She laughed, What a damn fool, she said, and went
• 2:33:01
  Smoke from the lamps settled heavily down in a little compartment, obscuring the way
• 2:33:07
  out. The smell of oil, stifling in its intensity, pervaded the air.
• 2:33:11
  The wine from an overturned glass dripped softly down upon the blotches on the
• 2:33:16
  man's neck. End of chapter eighteen, Chapter nineteen. In a room,
• 2:33:28
  a woman sat at a table, eating like a fat monk. In a
• 2:33:31
  picture, A soiled, unshaven man pushed open the door and entered. Well,
• 2:33:39
  said he, Mag's dead, What said the woman, her mouth filled
• 2:33:45
  with bread. Mag's dead, repeated the man. The head she is,
• 2:33:52
  said the woman. She continued her meal. When she finished her coffee,
• 2:33:56
  she began to weep. I can remember when her two feet was no bigger
• 2:34:03
  than your tomb, and she weared worsted boots, moaned she. Well,
• 2:34:07
  what a dat, said the man. I can remember when she weared worsted
• 2:34:13
  boots, she cried. The neighbors began to gather in the hall, staring
• 2:34:20
  in at the weeping woman, as if watching the contortions of a dying dog.
• 2:34:24
  A dozen women entered and lamented with her. Under their busy hands.
• 2:34:30
  The rooms took on that appalling appearance of neatness and order with which death is
• 2:34:35
  greeted. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman in a black gown rushed
• 2:34:41
  in with outstretched arms. Ah, poor Mary, she cried, and tenderly
• 2:34:48
  embraced the moaning one. Ah, what terrible affliction is? This? Continued
• 2:34:54
  she, her vocabulary was derived from mission churches. Me, poor men,
• 2:35:00
  how I fear for yous? Ah? What a terrible affection As a disobedient
• 2:35:05
  child. Her good motherly face was wet with tears. She trembled in eagerness
• 2:35:11
  to express her sympathy. The mourner sat with bowed head, rocking her body
• 2:35:18
  heavily to and fro, and crying out in a high strained voice that sounded
• 2:35:22
  like a dirge on some forlorn pipe. I can remember when she weared worsted
• 2:35:28
  boots, and her two feet was no bigger than your tomb. And she
• 2:35:31
  weared worsted boots, Miss Smith, she cried, raising her streaming eyes.
• 2:35:39
  Ah, your poor Mary, sobbed the woman in black with low, coddling
• 2:35:45
  cries. She sank on her knees by the mourner's chair and put her arms
• 2:35:48
  about her. The other women began to groan in different keys. Your poor
• 2:35:54
  misguided child is gone now, Mary, and let us hope it's for the
• 2:35:58
  best. Ye've forgive her now, Mary, won't. She's dear all her
• 2:36:03
  disobedience, all her tankless behavior to her mother, and all her badness.
• 2:36:09
  She's gone where her terrible sins will be judged. The woman in black raised
• 2:36:15
  her face and paused. The inevitable sunlight came streaming in at the windows and
• 2:36:20
  shed a ghastly cheerfulness upon the faded hues of the room. Two or three
• 2:36:26
  of the spectators were sniffling, and one was loudly weeping. The mourner arose
• 2:36:33
  and staggered into the other room. In a moment, she emerged with a
• 2:36:37
  pair of faded baby shoes held in the hollow of her hand. I can
• 2:36:41
  remember when she used to wear them, cried she. The women burst anew
• 2:36:48
  into cries, as if they had all been stabbed. The morner turned to
• 2:36:52
  the soiled and unshaven man. Jimmy boy, go get your sister. Go
• 2:36:56
  get your sister, and we'll put the boots on her feet. They won't
• 2:37:01
  fit her now, you damn fool, said the man. Go get your
• 2:37:05
  sister, Jimmy, shrieked the woman, confronting him fiercely. The man swore
• 2:37:11
  sullenly. He went over to a corner and slowly began to put on his
• 2:37:16
  coat. He took his hat and went out with a dragging, reluctant step.
• 2:37:22
  The woman in black came forward and again besought the mourner. You forgive
• 2:37:26
  her Mary, You forgive your bad, bad child. Her life was a
• 2:37:33
  curser, her days were black, and you'll forgive your bad girl. She's
• 2:37:37
  gone where her sins will be judged. She's gone where her sins will be
• 2:37:41
  judged, cried the other women, like a choir at a funeral. The
• 2:37:46
  Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, said the woman in black,
• 2:37:50
  raising her eyes to the sunbeams. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes
• 2:37:56
  away, responded the others. You'll forgive Mary, pleaded the woman in black.
• 2:38:03
  The mourner essayed to speak, but her voice gave way. She shook
• 2:38:07
  her great shoulders frantically in an agony of grief. Hot tears seemed to scald
• 2:38:13
  her quivering face. Finally, her voice came and arose like a scream of
• 2:38:20
  pain. Oh yes, I'll forgive her. I'll forgive her. End of
• 2:38:28
  Maggie, A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane