A wooden table stood in the middle of the room, with a smoky-chimneyed lamp thereon, some newspapers, and half of a book that had been ripped savagely in two. A double shoemaker's bench stood next the window, a cooking stove and a cupboard opposite. Clothes hung on wall-hooks, hides lay on the floor.
Shays sat on one end of the bench, a grey-haired, grey-moustached, watery-eyed man, pegging a shoe vaguely. A black-haired little man with a thin black beard sat on the other end, stitching a shoe fiercely. A redlipped, red-cheeked, thick-nosed, thick-necked man with prominent eyes, sat tilted back in one of the wooden chairs, stating his mind deliberately.
Most of these phases of Muscadine Street might be found so arranged, on most mornings, by any visitor. Shays and the red-cheeked Coglan could not be depended on; but the men on the sidewalk, the women in the windows, the children in the street, the clamour and the smells would be there; also the grocer, the butcher, and Hicks, the stitcher of vehement stitches. If Coglan and Shays were there, Coglan would be found in the process of stating his mind.
Hicks' eyes were black, restless, and intense, his mouth a trifle on one side, his forehead high with a deep line down the middle. It was a painful line; when he smiled it seemed to point downward frowningly to the fact that the smile was onesided.
Coglan was Shays' associate in the pursuit of happiness. His value lay in this: that upon a certain amount of hard liquor purchased by Shays, and divided fairly and orderly between them, Shays became needy of help, and Coglan generally remained in good condition and able to take him home. Hicks was Shays' partner in the shop. His value lay in this: that he did twice as much work as Shays, and was satisfied with half the profits. Both men were valuable to Shays, and the shop supported the three.
The relations between them had grown settled with time. Nearly four years earlier Hicks had entered Shays' shop. There he learned to cobble footwear in some incredibly short time, and took his place in the apprehension of Muscadine Street. Hicks he called himself and nothing more. “Hicks” was a good enough name. It went some distance toward describing the brooding and restless little man, with his shaking, clawlike fingers, smouldering temper, and gift for fluent invective. Some said he was an anarchist. He denied it, and went into fiery definitions, at which the grocer and candy man shook their heads vaguely, and the butcher said, “Says he ain't, an' if he ain't, he ain't,” not as I see which seemed a conclusive piece of logic. At any rate he was Hicks.
The elderly Shays was a peaceful soul, a dusty mind, a ruined body. He was travelling through his life now at a pace that would be apt to bring him to the end of it at no distant date, enjoying himself, as he understood enjoyment, or as enjoyment was interpreted to him by the wise Coglan. Coglan maintained a solidly planted dislike of Hicks, whose attacks threatened his dominance, whose acrid contempt and unlimited vocabulary sometimes even threatened his complacence. Coglan's wisdom saw that the situation was preferable to searching for jobs, and that the situation depended on Hicks' acceptance of it. Hicks was a mystery to him, as well as to Shays, and something of a fear, but Coglan was not disturbed by the mystery. He could leave that alone and do very well. But Hicks was a poisoned needle. Hicks knew where to find Coglan's sensitive point and jab it. Coglan hated him solidly, but balancing his dislike against his interest and ease, Coglan wisely found that the latter were more solid still—beyond comparison solid.
All this could be learned by any visitor inquiring in Muscadine Street. The grocer underneath would add tersely that Shays was a soak, but good-hearted; that Hicks was a fool, and ought to set up shop for himself; that Coglan was a loafer, and had his bread buttered now about to suit him. Disapproval of each other was current in Muscadine Street. It was a part of their interest in life.
The same morning sunlight that slanted through Henry Champney's tall library and parlour widows was slanting through the small streaked window of Shays, the shoe-mender. Coglan was stating his mind.
“Jimmy Shays, yer a good man,” he was saying slowly; “an', Hicksy, yer an' industhrious man; but nayther of ye is a wise man; but Jimmy is the wisest man of ye two. For why? Ask that, an' I says this. For when Jimmy wants a bit of thinkin' done for him, he gets a sensible man to do it, an' a poor man, an' a workin' man like himself, an' a man that's a friend, and that stands by him in throuble. But what does ye do, Hicksy? Ye goes over the river. Ye goes up to Seton Avenue. Ye listens to a chin-waggin' preacher. An' what's his name? Aidee! He ain't a workin' man himself, but wears the clothes of the rich, an' ates his dinner wid the rich, an' says hard words of the friends of the poor. An' yer desaved, Hicksy.”