Dickie Lang regarded the two factions carefully, striving to count their ranks. Each was about evenly divided, she figured, with Big Jack's constituency slightly in the lead.
Blagg stepped forward and began to speak: "It's six straight for me and mine," he said. "Them's our terms. The boys can't see your new-fangled proposition at all."
"It's up to you," the girl replied coolly. "If that's the way you feel, you can get your money. But before you do, I'd advise you to talk it over at home. Don't forget that I'm fighting for you—not against you. It might be pretty nice to remember some time that you tried to help yourselves. Think it over before you get your checks."
As she finished speaking, Big Jack got slowly under way. Elbowing a path through the crowd he shuffled
closer, hitching at the straining suspender to which was entrusted the task of holding in place his two pairs of baggy canvas trousers. Shifting from one bowed knee to the other, he contemplated his great bare toes in silence while he drew in a deep breath which filled his huge lungs to the bursting point and caused the muscles of his neck to stand out in purpled knots.
Dickie waited, knowing full well that it was Big Jack's invariable preface for speech. When the big fisherman had secured enough compression to proceed, he boomed forth in a fog-horn voice:
"Me and my fellers has decided to stick. Youse fellers can count on us if you shoot square. We's willin' to take a chanct."
"Me and my fellers has decided to stick"
His sentences were interpolated with great gusts of surplus breath. As he finished speaking he lumbered away to rejoin his companions.