“Oh, what does it matter?”
“It only matters like this: I ain’t—I ain’t—” He got up in some agitation and went to one of the windows. After looking out for a second or two he turned half round toward me. “Ye ain’t thinking me any better than I am, Slim, are you?”
“I’m not thinking whether you’re better or worse, Lovey. I just like you.”
“And I’ve took an awful fancy to you, Slim. Seems as if you was my whole family. But—but you’re not, sonny. I’ve—I’ve got a family. They’re dead to me and I’m dead to them; but they’re my family. Did ye know that, Slim?”
“I didn’t know it, and you needn’t tell me.”
“But if I was awful bad, sonny? If I was wuss than anythink that’d ever come into your ’ead?”
“We won’t talk about that. Perhaps there are things that I could tell you which would show that there’s not much difference between us.”
“I ’ope there is, Slim. And she was terr’ble aggravatin’; a drinkin’ woman, besides. I didn’t drink then—’ardly not at all. It was after I was acquitted I begun that. And my two gells—well, bein’ acquitted didn’t make no difference to them; they’d seen. Only, they didn’t swear that way in their hevidence. They swore she fell down the stairs she was found at the bottom of, her neck broken; and, bein’ a drinkin’ woman, the jury thought—But the two gells knew. And when I was let off they didn’t ’ave no more to do with me—so I come over ’ere—”
I rose and went to him, laying my hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t, Lovey. That’s enough. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done, we’ll stick it out together. The only thing is that we’ll have to give up the booze.”