McGregor turned to the bartender who stood waiting
before him. He thought that the superintendent
intended to try to patronise him by buying him a drink
and he did not like the thought. “What will
you have? I’ll take a cigar for mine,”
he said quickly, defeating the superintendent’s
plan by being the first to speak. When the bartender
brought the cigars McGregor paid for them and walked
out at the door. He felt like one playing a game.
“If Frank meant to bully me into submission
this man also means something.”
On the sidewalk before the saloon McGregor stopped.
“Look here,” he said, turning and facing
the superintendent, “I’m after Frank’s
place. I’m going to learn the business
as fast as I can. I won’t put it up to
you to fire him. When I get ready for the place
he won’t be there.”
A light flashed into the eyes of the little man.
He held the cigar McGregor had paid for as though
about to throw it into the street. “How
far do you think you can go with your big fists?”
he asked, his voice rising.
McGregor smiled. He thought he had earned another
victory and lighting his cigar held the burning match
before the little man. “Brains are intended
to help fists,” he said, “I’ve got
both.”
The superintendent looked at the burning match and
at the cigar between his fingers. “If I
don’t which will you use on me?” he asked.
McGregor threw the match into the street. “Aw!
don’t bother asking,” he said, holding
out another match.
McGregor and the superintendent walked along the street.
“I would like to fire you but I won’t.
Some day you’ll run that warehouse like a clock,”
said the superintendent.
McGregor sat in the street-car and thought of his
day. It had been he felt a day of two battles.
First the direct brutal battle of fists in the passageway
and then this other battle with the superintendent.
He thought he had won both fights. Of the fight
with the tall German he thought little. He had
expected to win that. The other was different.
The superintendent he felt had wanted to patronise
him, patting him on the back and buying him drinks.
Instead he had patronised the superintendent.
A battle had gone on in the brains of the two men and
he had won. He had met a new kind of man, one
who did not live by the raw strength of his muscles
and he had given a good account of himself. The
conviction that he had, besides a good pair of fists,
a good brain swept in on him glorifying him.
He thought of the sentence, “Brains are intended
to help fists,” and wondered how he had happened
to think of it.
The street in which McGregor lived in Chicago was
called Wycliff Place, after a family of that name
that had once owned the land thereabout. The
street was complete in its hideousness. Nothing
more unlovely could be imagined. Given a free
hand an indiscriminate lot of badly trained carpenters
and bricklayers had builded houses beside the cobblestone
road that touched the fantastic in their unsightliness
and inconvenience.
