“I bringed ‘er up deh way a dauter oughta
be bringed up an’ dis is how she served me!
She went teh deh devil deh first chance she got!
May Gawd forgive her.”
When arrested for drunkenness she used the story of
her daughter’s downfall with telling effect
upon the police justices. Finally one of them
said to her, peering down over his spectacles:
“Mary, the records of this and other courts show
that you are the mother of forty-two daughters who
have been ruined. The case is unparalleled in
the annals of this court, and this court thinks—”
The mother went through life shedding large tears
of sorrow. Her red face was a picture of agony.
Of course Jimmie publicly damned his sister that he
might appear on a higher social plane. But,
arguing with himself, stumbling about in ways that
he knew not, he, once, almost came to a conclusion
that his sister would have been more firmly good had
she better known why. However, he felt that he
could not hold such a view. He threw it hastily
aside.
In a hilarious hall there were twenty-eight tables
and twenty-eight women and a crowd of smoking men.
Valiant noise was made on a stage at the end of the
hall by an orchestra composed of men who looked as
if they had just happened in. Soiled waiters
ran to and fro, swooping down like hawks on the unwary
in the throng; clattering along the aisles with trays
covered with glasses; stumbling over women’s
skirts and charging two prices for everything but
beer, all with a swiftness that blurred the view of
the cocoanut palms and dusty monstrosities painted
upon the walls of the room. A bouncer, with
an immense load of business upon his hands, plunged
about in the crowd, dragging bashful strangers to
prominent chairs, ordering waiters here and there and
quarreling furiously with men who wanted to sing with
the orchestra.
The usual smoke cloud was present, but so dense that
heads and arms seemed entangled in it. The rumble
of conversation was replaced by a roar. Plenteous
oaths heaved through the air. The room rang with
the shrill voices of women bubbling o’er with
drink-laughter. The chief element in the music
of the orchestra was speed. The musicians played
in intent fury. A woman was singing and smiling
upon the stage, but no one took notice of her.
The rate at which the piano, cornet and violins were
going, seemed to impart wildness to the half-drunken
crowd. Beer glasses were emptied at a gulp and
conversation became a rapid chatter. The smoke
eddied and swirled like a shadowy river hurrying toward
some unseen falls. Pete and Maggie entered the
hall and took chairs at a table near the door.
The woman who was seated there made an attempt to
occupy Pete’s attention and, failing, went away.
Three weeks had passed since the girl had left home.
The air of spaniel-like dependence had been magnified
and showed its direct effect in the peculiar off-handedness
and ease of Pete’s ways toward her.
