Suddenly the little fellow spread his hands. “Last night,” he said, “I went to heaven cheap—fifty cents entrance fee. I heard a man play on a fiddle; well, if the sweetest voice in heaven sang its best it couldn’t learn that feller much. I sat there and just pined away to hear the back door shut, or some other shabby kind of sound, just to show it was really I situated in the concert hall. But that’s not this,” he concluded, putting his hand on the wallet; “here’s your due.”
Jerry held it out to her. His face was red, and he made visible efforts to control its expression, which changed from conscious diplomacy to kindly eagerness.
“I seen a doctor in the town, a professor of blasts, kind of. He knows the ins and outs and conbinizations of paralysis pretty pat, and I told him I had a good friend laid up in a blast, and he said he’d charge maybe a hundred or maybe fifty dollars to come up on purpose to see him. So that’s your best way of layin’ out his money, Emma.”
“I was thinkin’ that would be good myself,” Emma answered with a quiver of gratitude on her lips.
“And I’m obliged to say that you could offer a little to Quarry, just to keep his tongue sweet. He’s got a fearful gainin’ way with his mouth, and them nutt and bolt hands will pick up and listen to all he has to say. They’ve been in schools, and are crazy for talkin’ and politics. The kind of foolishness men gets from schools is the worst kind.”
Jerry was angry.
“Ain’t he been talkin’ on me, maybe?” Emma asked.
“Perhaps so, perhaps no. He’s so mean you could buy him for a small price. He ain’t much of a luxury.”
As they talked they heard the dinner pails clanking as some of the men came down the homeward hill. Then an oar car sided under the window close by the house. In it were the workmen of the nutt and bolt factory—Quarry in their midst, his face ardently conceited and his gestures highly alcoholic.
Emma scanned him with a fierce contempt. “He wouldn’t be like that if he could stir around,” she exclaimed, pointing toward her own room door.