Hugo shook his head slowly. "Waiter! A big T-bone, and some lyonnaise
potatoes, and some string beans and corn and a salad and ice cream.
Bring some pie and cheese for me--and a beer."
"Gosh!" Charlotte said.
Hugo watched her eat the food. He knew such pity as he had seldom felt.
Poor little kid! All alone, scared, going on the street because she
would starve otherwise. It made him feel strong and capable. Before the
meal was finished, she was talking furiously. Her pathetic life was
unravelled. "I come from Brooklyn ... old man took to drink, an' ma beat
it with a gent from Astoria ... never knew what happened to her.... I
kept house for the old man till he tried to get funny with me....
Burlesque ... on the road ... the leading man.... He flew the coop when
I told him, and then when it came, it was dead...." Another job ... the
manager ... Coney and her dismissal. "I just couldn't let 'em have it
when I didn't like 'em, mister. Guess I'm not tough like the other
girls. My mother was French and she brought me up kind of decent.
Well...." The little outward turning of her hands, the shrug of her
shoulders.
"Don't worry, Charlotte. I won't let them eat you. To-morrow I'll set
you up to a decent room and we'll go out and find some jobs here."
"You don't have to do that, mister. I'll make out. All I needed was a
square and another day."
Charlotte sighed and smoked a cigarette with her coffee. Then they went
out on the street and mixed with the throng. The voices of a score of
barkers wheedled them. Hugo began to feel gay. He took Charlotte to see
the strong man and watched his feats with a critical eye. He took her on
the roller coaster and became taut and laughing when she screamed and
held him. Then, laughing louder than before, they went through
Steeplechase. She fell in the rolling barrel and he carried her out.
They crossed over moving staircases and lost themselves in a maze, and
slid down polished chutes into fountains of light and excited screaming.
Always, afterwards, her hand found his arm, her great dark eyes looked
into his and laughed. Always they turned toward the other men and girls
with a proud and haughty expression that pointed to Hugo as her man, her
conquest. Later they danced. They drank more beer.
"Golly," she whispered, as she snuggled against him, "you sure strut a
mean fox trot."
"So do you, Charlotte."
"I been doin' it a lot, I guess."
The brazen crash of a finale. The table. A babble of voices, voices of
people snatching pleasure from Coney Island's gaudy barrel of cheap
amusements. Hugo liked it then. He liked the smell and touch of the
multitude and the incessant hysteria of its presence. After midnight the
music became more aggravating--muted, insinuating. Several of the
dancers were drunk. One of them tried to cut in. Hugo shook his head.
"Gee!" Charlotte said, "I was sure hopin' you wouldn't let him."
"Why--I never thought of it."
"Most fellows would. He's a tough."
It was an introduction to an unfamiliar world. The "tough" came to their
table and asked for a dance in thick accents. Charlotte paled and
accepted. Hugo refused. "Say, bo, I'm askin' for a dance. I got
concessions here. You can't refuse me, see? I guess you got me wrong."
"Beat it," Hugo said, "before I take a poke at you."
The intruder's answer was a swinging fist, which missed Hugo by a wide
margin. Hugo stood and dropped him with a single clean blow. The manager
came up, expostulated, ordered the tough's inert form from the floor,
started the music.
"You shouldn't ought to have done it, mister. He'll get his gang."
"The hell with his gang."
Charlotte sighed. "That's the first time anybody ever stuck up for me.
Jeest, mister, I've been wishin' an' wishin' for the day when somebody
would bruise his knuckles for me."