Chapter III
“My grandfather, he, at the age of eighty-three,One day in May was taken ill and died,And after he was dead, the will, of course, was read,By a lawyer, as we all stood by his side.”Popular Song.
“My grandfather, he, at the age of eighty-three,One day in May was taken ill and died,And after he was dead, the will, of course, was read,By a lawyer, as we all stood by his side.”Popular Song.
“My grandfather, he, at the age of eighty-three,One day in May was taken ill and died,And after he was dead, the will, of course, was read,By a lawyer, as we all stood by his side.”
“My grandfather, he, at the age of eighty-three,
One day in May was taken ill and died,
And after he was dead, the will, of course, was read,
By a lawyer, as we all stood by his side.”
Popular Song.
Popular Song.
LARRY MURPHY awoke and sat up in bed; the sun was streaming in through the one small window of Mrs. McGonagle’s third story room, and the peal of the bell sounded solemnly in his ears. Through the window could be seen the church tower, pointing like a gigantic finger heavenward; the hands of the clock were slowly lifting as though to screen its face from the glare of the sun. Larry stretched himself lazily.
“Solemn High Mass,” yawned he.
A second young man lay upon a cot opposite, propped up with a pillow and reading a pink sporting paper. He glanced up.
“That’s the one,” remarked he, “that the property holders come together at, ain’t it? Ye kin see every plug hat in the parish on Second Street at half past ten on Sunday morning; but I’ll bet five cases to one that the collection ain’t no heavier than it is at the one what the dump-cart drivers goes to.”
Young Murphy grinned. “Ye’d better not say too much about that when yer on the street,” advised he. “Some o’ the Turks around here’s dead sore on youse since youse led the march at the ‘Sons o’ Derry’s Ball,’ an’ they’ll cop youse a sly one when yer not next.”
“Don’t lose any sleep over that,” said the other. “Somebody’ll get hurt if they run up against me, and that’s no dream. I don’t have to ask no gang o’ Mocaraws if I kin go to a ball; ain’t that right?”
Murphy nodded the subject aside.
“Anything new?” he inquired, looking at the paper which his friend had thrown upon the bare floor.
“Nothin’ much, ’cept that Jack Slattery got the life lammed out o’ him in his twenty round job with McCook’s ‘Pidgeon.’ There’s a good t’ing gone wrong! I know the time when Slattery went right down theline and give ’em all a go; but drink got the best o’ him, and now he’s willin’ to take dimes for a hard job agin a big man, where he used to stan’ pat for dollars to put out a dub.”
“Rum’s a tough game to go up against,” commented Larry. “Say,” after a pause, “how’s yer trip South comin’ up?”
“Big. Me manager’s got me go’s at New Orleans, Galveston an’ half a dozen other burgs; an’ if I holds up me end, he’ll stack me against the champion fer as many plunks as youse kin hold in yer hat. That’ll be a great graft; eh, Larry? I’ll be a main squeeze meself then, and sportin’ guys’ll come out from under their hats as soon as they gits their eyes on me!” And Jimmie Larkin twisted himself around on his elbow and waved one thick, hairy arm delightedly.
“But, talkin’ about fight,” resumed he, “puts me in mind o’ the mix up at the club last night. Mart Kelly didn’t do a t’ing but open up Hogan wit’ a jack.”
Murphy sneered. “Kelly’s gittin’ to be a reg’lar slugger,” said he. “What was the matter?”
“Oh, he was a-shootin’ off his mouth like he alwaysdoes. He said his old man was the best councilman the ward ever had; Hogan was about half drunk, and he said he was a stiff, and had trun down the party. Then they clinched and Kelly started to hammer him.”
All was now quiet in the street except for the rattle of an occasional wagon, and the faint wheeze of a broken accordion being played down the alley. A barb of yellow sunlight shot through the window and fell upon a bright lithograph of the Virgin which was tacked upon the wall near Larry’s bed. He had bought this years before and he had always kept it because he thought it looked like his dead mother. Across the room was a large photograph of Larkin in ring costume, as he had appeared just previous to his desperate battle with the champion of the sixth ward; and under this again was pasted a policy slip with three numbers underscored, commemorative of the day that same gentleman had struck the “Hard Luck Row,” at Levitsky’s policy shop, and gotten his name down upon the books of the tenth police district as a “drunk and disorderly.”
“I wonder,” said Larry, his eyes dwelling soberlyupon the Jewish face of the Virgin, “how the old one is?”
“I saw Rosie O’Hara stan’in’ in the door last night,” returned Jimmie, “an’ she said that he was as good as gone.”
“I’m sorry,” said Larry. Then catching the look which Larkin threw him, he added: “He never done nothin’ to me, sure; but when I was a kid an’ me father was a-livin’, he told me never to knock.”
The plaster ceiling was seamed with cracks, discolored by the soaking through of rain. Larkin, lying on his back, thoughtfully followed the longest of these with his eye; and when he had reached its termination, he said:
“If youse was in with yer gran’dad just now, Larry, ye’d come in for some o’ the gilt.”
Murphy turned about with a jerk that threatened to end the cot’s unity.
“I don’t want his coin; I wouldn’t make a play for it if I was flat on me uppers! I said that I was sorry for the old man, not that I would scoop his money after he was planted!”
“Keep yer shirt on,” said Larkin; “I was on’y sayin’, ye know.”
Mrs. McGonagle’s son, Goose, was seated upon an empty cracker box in front of Clancy’s grocery; his wagon was drawn up at the curb, and a small Italian was shining his russet leather shoes. His mother came up, panting and wheezing from her haste.
“Run intill the house!” she exclaimed breathlessly.
“All right; I’m gittin’ me leathers shined,” said her son.
“Faith yez shine kin wait, an’ somethin’ ilce can’t.” Mrs. McGonagle dropped upon a salt-fish barrel, regardless, in her excitement, of what effect the brine would have upon her church-going skirt. “Run” she continued, “an’ tell Larry Murphy that his poor owld gran’father’s at death’s door an’ wants till spake till him.”
Goose stared at her incredulously.
“G’way,” said he.
“Don’t sit there starin’ at me, all as wan as a County Down peat cutter, but go at wanst! Divil another step cud I stir iv the gates av Heaven wur stan’in’ open till me!”
Within a minute after hearing the above tidings McGonagle came charging up the crooked steps leading to their lodger’s room, like a drove of mavericks.
“Git into yer rags, Murphy,” cried he, “yer wanted.”
“Is it about Kelly an’ Hogan?” asked Larry. “I ain’t no witness. I didn’t see the scrap.”
“No, it’s yer gran’father; he’s a cashin’ in, an’ wants to see youse. Me mother jist told me.”
Larry was out on the floor like a shot, pulling on his clothes and talking incoherently.
“I kin hear the song they’ll sing,” said he. “They’ll pull me into rags; ain’t that right, Larkin? Where’s me collar buttons?”
“Look in yer other shirt,” Jimmie was also up, and dressing rapidly. Murphy found the missing articles and resumed:
“They’ll say I wus on’y waitin’ fer a chance to get next to the gilt.” The thought seemed to anger him and he glared at his friends. “But it ain’t so,” he cried, “so help me God, it ain’t! I don’t want the coin; I’ve got a job, ain’t I? And I’ve went up against it this far, alone, an’ I kin go the rest o’ the distance,too.” He turned to the others, an appeal in his voice. “Did I ever make a play? Speak out, did I?”
“Sure not,” said McGonagle.
“Yer raw there, Murphy,” said Larkin. “If youse hadn’t been afeared o’ what people’d say the old man’d shook yer hand long ago.”
Larry drew in the slack of his suspenders and closed the catch with a snap. He looked at Larkin in surprise; this was a thought that had never struck him.
“D’ye t’ink so?” was all he said.
“I cert’ny do. I often seen youse brush elbows with him on the street, and him turn and look after ye. He’d a-spoke to ye if youse had give him on’y half a chance, see?”
“Didn’t he have a chance when I was a kid? Didn’t he have a chance when me father died and the neighbours in the alley had to take up a collection to bury him? Did he do anyt’ing for me then? Not on yer life, he didn’t! He let ’em put me in a Home.”
“But, say, that wuz a dead long time ago, ain’t that right? If youse put a stick o’ wood in the stove it’ll burn hard at first, won’t it—but it’ll burn out at last, eh? The old one was leary on yer father then; but,say, take it from me, the blaze went down long ago, and it’s bin a kid game ever since; neither one o’ youse’d speak first.”
Larry buttoned up his square-cut sack coat and looked at his tie in the little glass near the stairway.
“That might be all right,” said he; “but look at the time he—” here he stopped short and then added: “I don’t want to knock. I promised that I wouldn’t and it’s too late to begin now.”