CHAPTER XXIX
STIGLER RUNS AMUCK
About this time Betty was taken sick, so that I used to go into the Élite Restaurant for my lunches. This was a place frequented by a number of business men. Stigler was in there one day when I got in, talking with some of the people who regularly dined there. If ours wasn't a dry town, I should have said that Stigler had been drinking; for, the minute he saw me, he flushed, and an ugly expression came into his face.
"There he is," he cried to his friends, pointing at me, and he spoke in a voice loud enough for me and everybody else in the place to hear. "There he is! A pretty little chap he is—oh, so nice that he is!—to stab his competitor in the back. D—d young whelp!" he said to his friends, but at me. "What do yer think of a feller that goes behind yer back to hurt yer character? I'd sooner a feller'd come out in the open and fight. D—d character assassin!"
His friends looked rather embarrassed. I sat down at the table, apparently not paying the least attention to him, but my head was in a whirl. Then I gave my order to Kitty. I suppose Kitty had another name, but everybody knew her as Kitty. She was a pretty little Irish girl, who had come to our town about five years ago, nobody knew from where. Old Collier, the big, fat, kindly old Frenchman who ran the place, at once had given her a job. He was too big-hearted to inquire why she came by herself and why her eyes showed signs of sleeplessness and weeping. He not only gave her a job, but, in a few weeks, had taken her into the family. She at first became known jokingly as Kitty Collier, and soon everybody thought of her by that name. She thought the whole universe revolved around genial old Pierre, who really regarded her as he would his own daughter.
When Kitty first came into the town Betty at once had become her friend; and in fact Betty had been quite severely criticized for making a friend of a girl whose character was unknown. Kitty thought a lot of Betty and, in consequence, of me also.
"I'll bring ye some nice steak," said Kitty with her pretty brogue, and unobtrusively patted my back. She sensed the unhappy position I was in.
When she came back, Stigler was saying in a loud voice: "There are some people—and their name ain't White, either—that ought to be ridden out o' town!"
Crash! Kitty had dropped her plate, and, to the surprise of every one—especially to me,—she walked over to where Stigler was sitting, gave his hair a vigorous pull, and said:
"Arrah, now, ye dir-rty blackguard, ye're not a gintleman yerself, an' ye doan't know one, if ye see one. Mr. Black, there, is too much of gintleman to sile his hands on the likes o' you, but I'm not!" and with that she gave him a resounding box on the ear.
Stigler jumped up with an oath, while old Pierre ran from behind the counter; Stigler, black with rage, Pierre almost crying with vexation.