“_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.
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 the line 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 always does. 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 soberly upon 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.”