"Hello," he said. "Give them my congratulations. Say. You beat me to it in great shape. Too bad you ain't in politics. I'd like to have you on my staff. And say—Blackie has gone on a railroad journey for his health. Now you fellows ain't going to be nasty are you and make me pay that five thousand dollars bail? The club's got a new president. He's just been round to see me, says the boys are sorer than hell over the job you put up on them. I told him to keep the lid on. I says to him, 'Those two young gentlemen are my friends.' You are, ain't you?"
"Well," I said, "when I've got what I want, I quit fighting. Forgotten all about that case. The only thing which might remind me of it, would be the sight of Blackie's face."
"Fine," he replied. "That's cleaned up. And say—they're taking on some more men in the dock department to-morrow—room for any of your friends. And—don't forget to give my best wishes to the bride—and groom. I like a fellow that's a real sport."
An hour later a messenger boy arrived with a great bunch of white roses for the bride. On the card, the Old Man had scrawled: "Good luck." So peace was reëstablished.
VII
The morning after the wedding, Norman found me in the library reading what the newspapers had to say about it. "Eccentric Millionaire Weds Street Walker." "Prominent Socialist Leader, to avoid state prison, married a little girl he had seduced." When my friend, the protector of children, found that we had beaten the warrant, he had taken this way of venting his spleen.
"I'm glad," Norman said, as he glanced at the headlines, "that Nina doesn't read newspapers. These might bother her."
But he made me read them aloud as he drank his coffee. And all the while his look of amused contentment deepened.
"God! That sounds good," he commented. "I never knew just how to do it. I've spent many a sleepless night trying to think out some effective way of telling the 'best people' to go to hell—some way of spitting in the eyes of the smug citizens—so they wouldn't think it was a joke. Every time I get mad—really open up—and tell the gang what I think of them how the stench of their hypocrisies offends my nostrils, it adds to my reputation as a wit. I guess this will fix them! You know that thing of Heine's...."
He jumped up and pulled the "Memoirs" from the shelf and read me the passage where Heine tells of his boyish encounter with "Red Safchen," the hangman's little daughter. Although the good people of the village where he went to school tolerated the office of public executioner, they would have no dealing with the officer. His family was mercilessly ostracised. Heinrich took pity on the daughter and once in a sudden exaltation he kissed her. In these words he ends his account: "I kissed her not only because of my tender feeling for her, but in scorn of society and all its dark prejudices."