Maggie | Page 9

repeated Jimmie.

Pete continued. "Say, I jes' jumped deh bar an' deh way I plunked dat
blokie was great. See? Dat's right! In deh jaw! See? Hully gee, he
t'rowed a spittoon true deh front windee. Say, I taut I'd drop dead. But
deh boss, he comes in after an' he says, 'Pete, yehs done jes' right!
Yeh've gota keep order an' it's all right.' See? 'It's all right,' he says.
Dat's what he said."
The two held a technical discussion.
"Dat bloke was a dandy," said Pete, in conclusion, "but he hadn' oughta
made no trouble. Dat's what I says teh dem: 'Don' come in here an'
make no trouble,' I says, like dat. 'Don' make no trouble.' See?"
As Jimmie and his friend exchanged tales descriptive of their prowess,
Maggie leaned back in the shadow. Her eyes dwelt wonderingly and
rather wistfully upon Pete's face. The broken furniture, grimey walls,
and general disorder and dirt of her home of a sudden appeared before
her and began to take a potential aspect. Pete's aristocratic person
looked as if it might soil. She looked keenly at him, occasionally,
wondering if he was feeling contempt. But Pete seemed to be
enveloped in reminiscence.
"Hully gee," said he, "dose mugs can't phase me. Dey knows I kin wipe
up deh street wid any t'ree of dem."
When he said, "Ah, what deh hell," his voice was burdened with
disdain for the inevitable and contempt for anything that fate might
compel him to endure.
Maggie perceived that here was the beau ideal of a man. Her dim
thoughts were often searching for far away lands where, as God says,
the little hills sing together in the morning. Under the trees of her
dream-gardens there had always walked a lover.
Chapter VI
Pete took note of Maggie.

"Say, Mag, I'm stuck on yer shape. It's outa sight," he said,
parenthetically, with an affable grin.
As he became aware that she was listening closely, he grew still more
eloquent in his descriptions of various happenings in his career. It
appeared that he was invincible in fights.
"Why," he said, referring to a man with whom he had had a
misunderstanding, "dat mug scrapped like a damn dago. Dat's right. He
was dead easy. See? He tau't he was a scrapper. But he foun' out
diff'ent! Hully gee."
He walked to and fro in the small room, which seemed then to grow
even smaller and unfit to hold his dignity, the attribute of a supreme
warrior. That swing of the shoulders that had frozen the timid when he
was but a lad had increased with his growth and education at the ratio
of ten to one. It, combined with the sneer upon his mouth, told mankind
that there was nothing in space which could appall him. Maggie
marvelled at him and surrounded him with greatness. She vaguely tried
to calculate the altitude of the pinnacle from which he must have
looked down upon her.
"I met a chump deh odder day way up in deh city," he said. "I was goin'
teh see a frien' of mine. When I was a-crossin' deh street deh chump
runned plump inteh me, an' den he turns aroun' an' says, 'Yer insolen'
ruffin,' he says, like dat. 'Oh, gee,' I says, 'oh, gee, go teh hell and git
off deh eart',' I says, like dat. See? 'Go teh hell an' git off deh eart',' like
dat. Den deh blokie he got wild. He says I was a contempt'ble scoun'el,
er somet'ing like dat, an' he says I was doom' teh everlastin' pe'dition
an' all like dat. 'Gee,' I says, 'gee! Deh hell I am,' I says. 'Deh hell I am,'
like dat. An' den I slugged 'im. See?"
With Jimmie in his company, Pete departed in a sort of a blaze of glory
from the Johnson home. Maggie, leaning from the window, watched
him as he walked down the street.
Here was a formidable man who disdained the strength of a world full
of fists. Here was one who had contempt for brass- clothed power; one

whose knuckles could defiantly ring against the granite of law. He was
a knight.
The two men went from under the glimmering street-lamp and passed
into shadows.
Turning, Maggie contemplated the dark, dust-stained walls, and the
scant and crude furniture of her home. A clock, in a splintered and
battered oblong box of varnished wood, she suddenly regarded as an
abomination. She noted that it ticked raspingly. The almost vanished
flowers in the carpet-pattern, she conceived to be newly hideous. Some
faint attempts she had made with blue ribbon, to freshen the appearance
of a dingy curtain, she now saw to be piteous.
She wondered what Pete dined on.
She reflected upon the collar and cuff factory.