In a moment he saw the message the women of the underworld,
patrons of O’Toole’s, had been trying
to convey to him. Polk Street Mary was the sweetheart
of Andy Brown. Now in the silent court room the
voice of a woman arose broken with sobs. To the
listening crowd in the packed little room came the
story of the tragedy in the darkened house before
which stood the policeman idly swinging his night stick—the
story of a girl from an Illinois village procured
and sold to the broker’s son —of
the desperate struggle in the little room between the
eager lustful man and the frightened brave-hearted
girl—of the blow with the chair in the
hands of the girl that brought death to the man—of
the women of the house trembling on the stairs and
the body hastily pitched into the passageway.
“They told me they would get Andy off when this
blew over,” wailed the woman.
* * * *
*
McGregor went out of the court room into the street.
The glow of victory was on him and he strode along
with his heart beating high. His way led over
a bridge into the North Side and in his wanderings
he passed the apple warehouse where he had made his
start in the city and where he had fought with the
German. When night came he walked in North Clark
Street and heard the newsboys shouting of his victory.
Before him danced a new vision, a vision of himself
as a big figure in the city. Within himself he
felt the power to stand forth among men, to outwit
them and outfight them, to get for himself power and
place in the world.
The miner’s son was half drunk with the new
sense of achievement that swept in on him. Out
of Clark Street he went and walked east along a residence
street to the lake. By the lake he saw a street
of great houses surrounded by gardens and the thought
came that at some time he might have such a house
of his own. The disorderly clatter of modern
life seemed very far away. When he came to the
lake he stood in the darkness thinking of the useless
rowdy of the mining town suddenly become a great lawyer
in the city and the blood ran swiftly through his
body. “I am to be one of the victors, one
of the few who emerge,” he whispered to himself
and with a jump of the heart thought also of Margaret
Ormsby looking at him with her fine questioning eyes
as he stood before the men in the court room and by
the force of his personality pushed his way through
a fog of lies to victory and truth.
