“They call it th' shpo-r-rt av kings,” observed die Wop, loftily.
Old Jimmy snorted. “Sport of kings!” said he. “Sport of come-ons, rather. Them Sport-of-kings gezebos 'll go on, too, an' give you a lot of guff about racin' bein' healthy. But they ain't sayin' a word concernin' th' mothers an' youngones livin' in hot two-room tenements, an' jumpin' sideways for grub, while th' husbands and fathers is blowin' in their bank-rolls in th' bettin' ring, an' gettin' healthy. An' th' little jocks, too—mere kids! I've wondered th' Gerries didn't get after 'em. But I suppose th' Gerries know who to pass up, an' who to pinch, as well as th' oldest skipper on th' Force.”
“F'r all that,” contended the Wop, stubbornly, “thim la-a-ads that's mixed up wit' th' racin' game is good feltys.”
“Good fellows,” repeated old Jimmy with contempt. “I recollect seein' a picture once, a picture of a girl—a young wife, she is—lyin' with her head on an untouched dinner table—fallen asleep, poor thing! Th' clock in the picture is pointin' to midnight. There she's been waitin' with th' dinner she's cooked with her own little lovin' mitts, for that souse of a husband to come home. Under th' picture it says, 'For he's a jolly good fellow!'”
“Somebody'd ought to have put a head on him!” quoth Jew Yetta, whose sympathies were both active and militant.
“Say,” went on Jimmy, “that picture gets on my nerves. A week later I'm down be th' old Delmonico joint at Twenty-sixth an' Broadway. It's meb-by one o'clock in th' mornin'. As I'm goin' by th' Twenty-sixt' Street door, out floats a fleet of Willies, stewed to the gills, singin' in honor of a dude who's in th' middle, 'For he's a jolly good fellow.'
“'Who's that galoot?' I asks th' dub who's slammin' carriage doors at the curb. 'Is he a married man?'
“'He's married all right,” says th' door-slammin' dub.
“Wit that I tears into him. It's a good while ago, an' I could slug a little. Be th' time th' copper gets there, I've got that jolly good fellow lookin' like he'd been caught whistlin' Croppies Lie Down at Fiftieth Street an' Fift' Avenoo when th' Cathedral lets out.”
“Well, I'm not married,” remarked the Wop, snappishly;—“I'm not married; I niver was married; an' I niver will be married aloive.”