Again the murmur of deprecation at the bland brutality of the assault. Caine leaned far forward, hoping to catch a glimpse of Caleb’s silhouetted face, and half expecting to see the downy-haired accusor tossed bodily from the window.
For an instant, Conover made no reply. His cigar had gone out and he was busy fumbling for a match. But when he did speak, it was with perfect, unaffected calm.
“Yes, Mr. Vroom,” he said, “My father was a convict. He may be one again, by this time, for anything I know. I’ve never set eyes on the old crook since the day they sentenced him to five years in the pen.”
He puffed at his cigar. Then rambled on, half to himself:
“I was ten years old then. It was my birthday, I remember. The old man had a job in the C. G. & X. coal yards. I came home early from school. Ma had promised me a birthday cake with candles for supper. She an’ dad had planned to have some measly little cel’bration for me, an’ take me a to variety show in the evenin’. I ran home all the way from school. When I got to the ten’ment, there was a crowd of gapin’ kids an’ women around our door. Just then out came a couple of cops with Dad between ’em; an’ Ma followed with her apron over her head, cryin’ to break her heart. I remember she still had one of those silly birthday candles gripped in her hand. She’d been puttin’ it onto the cake when the cops came. After that there wasn’t any talk of birthday sprees in the Conover flat. It was up to us to hustle. An’ we did. My mother went out washin’ an’ as a floor-scrubber. An’ I got a job as tally boy in the C. G. & X. yards. That was my start.”
He paused again, looked thoughtfully at his cigar ash and went on in a more business-like tone.
“Yes, Mr. Vroom, my father was a convict. Not much of one; but as much as his small chances allowed. He was only weigher at the coal scales. He ‘fixed’ the scales an’ took his rake-off. That was all. It went on for a couple years. We got the only square meals I’d ever ate, durin’ that time. Then he was sent up; an’—well, Ma wasn’t used to scrubbin’. She took pneumonia an’ died the year before Dad got out. He never came back to our neighborhood, an’ I haven’t seen him since. He may be dead or in jail or a mine owner, for all I know—or care. I’m sorry, for the sake of your arg’ment, he wasn’t more of a criminal, Mr. Vroom. Now, if he’d been indicted for misappropriation of the Orphan’s Home trust funds, like your wife’s brother was; an’ if his family had had the indictment quashed by payin’ the right parties $18,400—”
“You are out of order, Mr. Conover!” rebuked Standish, in answer to a look of frenzied protest from Vroom. “Your retort is—”
“Is dead-true; an’ I’ve the means of layin’ my hands on the proof,” finished Caleb. “I’d do it, too—just for the sake of punishin’ a cur—if the cur’s brother-in-law, Mr. Vroom, didn’t happen to be a clubmate of mine.”
“With a man like this on our rolls,” fumed an elderly Governor, “We shall lose our reputation for—”