“I knowed you’d feel thet way,” he mourned as if the fault were all in his telling. “I wisht I hadn’t ’a tole yer.”
“Never mind, Sam, you couldn’t help it, and I suppose I wouldn’t have known the difference myself if I hadn’t gone away. We mustn’t judge Buck harshly. He’ll see it the other way by and by.”
Sam straightened perceptibly. There was something in this speech that put him in the same class with Michael. He had never before had any qualms of conscience concerning gambling, but now he found himself almost unawares arrayed against it.
“I guess mebbe!” he said comfortingly, and then seeking to change the subject. “Say, is dat guy in dere goin’ along to de farm?”
“Who?”
“Why, dat ike you lef’ in de room. Is he goin’ down ’long when wees go?”
“Oh, Will French! No, Sam. He doesn’t know anything about it yet. I may tell him sometime, but he doesn’t need that. He is studying to be a lawyer. Perhaps some day if he gets interested he’ll help do what I want for the alley, and all the other alleys in the city; make better laws and see that they’re enforced.”
“Laws!” said Sam in a startled voice. “What laws!”
Laws were his natural enemies he thought.
“Laws for better tenement houses, more room and more windows, better air, cleaner streets, room for grass and flowers, pure milk and meat, and less crowding and dirt. Understand?”