Again today, at a certain street, on the ragged boundaries of the
city, Lawrence Holcombe stopped the trolley car and got off. Holcombe
was a handsome, prosperous business man of forty; a man of high social
standing and connections. His comfortable suburban residence was some
five miles farther out on the car line from the street where so often
of late he had dropped off the outgoing car. The conductor winked at a
regular passenger, and nodded his head archly in the direction of
Holcombe's hurrying figure.
"Getting to be a regular thing," commented the conductor.
Holcombe picked his way gingerly down a roughly graded side street
infested with ragged urchins and impeded by abandoned tinware. He
stopped at a small cottage fenced in with a patch of stony ground with
a few stunted shade-trees growing about it. A stout, middle-aged woman
was washing clothes in a tub at one side of the door. She looked
around, and smiled a smile of fat recognition.
"Good avening, Mr. Holcombe, is it yerself ag'in? Ye'll find Katie
inside, sir."
"Did you speak to her for me?" asked Holcombe, in a low voice; "did
you try to help me gain her consent as you promised to do?"
"Sure, and I did that. But, sir, ye know gyurls will be gyurls. The
more ye coax 'em the wilfuller they gets. 'Tis yer own pleadin'
that'll get her if anything will. An' I hopes ye may, for I tells her
she'll never get a betther offer than yours, sir. 'Tis a good girl she
is, and a tidy hand for anything from the kitchen to the parlour, and
she's never a fault except, maybe, a bit too much likin' for dances
and ruffles and ribbons, but that's natural to her age and good looks
if I do say it meself, bein' her mither, Mr. Holcombe. Ye can spake
ag'in to Katie, sir, and maybe this time ye'll have luck unless Danny
Conlan, the wild gossoon, has been at it ag'in overpersuadin' her
ag'inst ye."
Holcombe turned slightly pale, and his lips closed tightly for a
moment.
"I've heard of this fellow Conlan before. Why does he interfere? Why
does he stand in the way? Is there anything between him and Katie?
Does Katie care for him?"
Mrs. Flynn gave a sigh, like a puff of a locomotive, and a flap upon
the washboard with a sodden garment that sent Holcombe, well splashed,
six feet away.
"Ask me no questions about what's in a gyurl's heart and I'll tell ye
no lies. Her own mither can't tell any more than yerself, Mr.
Holcombe."
Holcombe stepped inside the cottage. Katie Flynn, with rolled-up
sleeves, was ironing a dress of flounced muslin. Criticism of
Holcombe's deviation from his own sphere to this star of lower orbit
must have waned at the sight of the girl. Her beauty was of the most
solvent and convincing sort. Dusky Irish eyes, one great braid of
jetty, shining hair, a crimson mouth, dimpling and shaping itself to
every mood of its owner, a figure strong and graceful, seemingly full
of imperishable life and action--Katie Flynn was one to be sought
after and striven for.
Holcombe went and stood by her side as she ironed, and watched the
lithe play of muscles rolling beneath the satiny skin of her rounded
forearms.
"Katie," he said, his voice concealing a certain anxiety beneath a
wooing tenderness, "I have come for my answer. It isn't necessary to
repeat what we have talked over so often, but you know how anxious I
am to have you. You know my circumstances and position, and that you
will have every comfort and every privilege that you could ask for.
Say 'Yes,' Katie, and I'll be the luckiest man in this town today."
Kate set her iron down with a metallic click, and leaned her elbows
upon the ironing board. Her great blue-black eyes went, in their Irish
way, from sparkling fun to thoughtful melancholy.
"Oh, Mr. Holcombe, I don't know what to say. I know you'd be kind to
me, and give me the best home I could ever expect. I'd like to say
'yes'--indeed I would. I'd about decided to tell you so, but there's
Danny--he objects so."
Danny again! Holcombe strode up and down the room impatiently
frowning.
"Who is this fellow Conlan, Katie?" he asked. "Every time I nearly get
your consent he comes between us. Does he want you to live always in
this cottage for the convenience of his mightiness? Why do you listen
to him?"
"He wants me," said Katie, in the voice of a small, spoiled child.
"Well, I want you too," said Holcombe, masterfully. "If I could see
this wonderful Mr. Conlan, of the persuasive tongue, I'd argue the
matter with him."
"He's been the champion middleweight fighter of this town," said
Katie, a bit mischievously.
"Oh, has he! Well, that doesn't frighten me, Katie. In fact, I am not
sure but what I'd tackle him a few rounds myself, with you for the
prize; although I'm somewhat rusty with the gloves."
"Whist! there he comes now," exclaimed Katie, her eyes widening a
little with apprehension.
Holcombe looked out the door and saw a young man coming up from the
gate. He walked with an easy swagger. His face was smooth and
truculent, but not bad. He wore a cap pulled down to one eye. He
walked inside the house and stopped at the door of the room in which
stood his rival and the bone of contention.
"You're after my girl again, are you?" he grumbled, huskily and
ominously. "I don't like it, do you see? I've told her so, and I tell
you so. She stays here. For ten cents I'd knock your block off. Do you
see?"
"Now Mr. Conlan," began Holcombe, striving to avoid the _argumentum ad
hominem_, "listen to reason. It is only fair to let Katie choose for
herself. Is it quite the square thing to try to prevent her from doing
what she prefers to do? If it had not been for your interference I
would have had her long ago."
"For five cents," pursued the unmoved Mr. Conlan, lowering his terms,
"I'd knock your block off."
Into Holcombe's eye there came the light of desperate resolve. He saw
but one way to clear the obstacle from his path.
"I am told," he said quietly and firmly, "that you are a fighter. Your
mind seems to dwell upon physical combat as the solution to all
questions. Now, Conlan, I'm no scrapper, but I'll fight you to a
finish any time within the next three minutes to see who gets the
girl. If I win she goes with me. If you win you have your way, and
I'll not trouble her again. Are you game?"
Danny Conlan's hard, blue eyes looked a sudden admiration.
"You're all right," he conceded with gruff candour. "I didn't think
you was that sort. You're all right. It's a dead fair sporting prop.,
and I'm your company. I'll stand by the results according to terms.
Come on, and I'll show you where it can be pulled off. You're all
right."
Katie tried to interfere, but Danny silenced her. He led Holcombe down
the hill to a deep gully that sheltered them from view. Night was just
closing in upon the twilight. They laid aside their coats and hats.
Here was a situation in the methodical existence of Lawrence Holcombe,
real estate and bond broker, representative business man of
unquestionable habits and social position! Fighting with a
professional tough in a gully in a squalid settlement for the daughter
of an Irish washerwoman!
The combat was a short one. If it had lasted longer, Holcombe would
have lost, for both his wind and his science had deteriorated from
long lack of training. Therefore, he forced the fighting from the
start. It is difficult to say to what he owed his victory over the
once champion middleweight. One thing in his favour was that Mr.
Conlan's nerve and judgment had been somewhat shattered by the effects
of a recent spree. Another must have been that Holcombe was stimulated
to supreme exertion by an absorbing incentive to win--a prompting more
powerful than the instinct of the gladiator, deeper than all the
motives of gallantry, and more important than the vital influence of
love itself. A third fortuitous adjunct was, without doubt, a chance
blow upon the projecting chin of the middleweight, under which that
warrior sank to the gully's grime and remained incapable, while
Holcombe stood above him and leisurely counted him out.
Danny got shakily to his feet, and proved to be a true sport.
"You're all right," he said. "But if we'd had it by rounds 'twould
have ended different. The girl goes with you, do you see? I'm on the
square."
They climbed back to the cottage.
"It's settled," announced Holcombe. "Mr. Conlan removes his
objections."
"That's straight," said Danny. "He's all right."
Holcombe had only a scratched and slightly reddened chin from a
vicious, glancing uppercut from Danny's left. Danny showed punishment.
One eye was nearly closed. His lip was bleeding.
Katie was a true woman. Such do not at once crown the victor in the
tourney for their favour. Pity comes first. The victor must wait for
his own. It will come to him. She flew to the vanquished champion and
comforted him, ministering to his bruises. Holcombe stood, serene and
smiling, without jealousy.
"Tomorrow," he said to Katie, with head erect and beaming eyes.
"Tomorrow, if you like," answered Katie.
Holcombe minced his precarious way up the ragged hill among the
obsolete tinware. His car came along aglitter with electric lights and
jammed with passengers. He jumped to the rear platform and stood
there. At his side he found Weatherly, a friend and neighbour, who had
also built a house in the suburbs, a few squares from his own.
"Hello, Holcombe," yelled Weatherly, above the crash of the car. "Been
looking over some real estate, out here? How're Mrs. Holcombe and the
young H's?"
"First rate," shouted Holcombe, "when I left home this morning. How's
the family with you?"
"Only so-so. Usual suburban troubles. Servants won't stay so far out;
tradesmen object to delivering goods in the country; cars break down,
etc. What's pleasing you so? Made a lucky deal today?"
Holcombe's face wore an ecstatic look. He was fingering a little
scratch on his chin with one hand. He leaned his head towards
Weatherly's ear.
"Say, Bob, do you remember that Irish girl, Katie Flynn, that was with
the Spaffords so long a time?"
"I've heard of her," said Weatherly. "They say she stayed a year with
them without a single day off. But I don't believe any fairy story
like that."
"'Twas a fact. Well, I engaged her today for a cook. She's going out
to the house tomorrow."
"Confound you for a lucky dog," shouted Weatherly, with envy in his
tones and his heart, "and you live four blocks further out than we
do!"