Joe retired down the side street. Occasionally he strolled past the huddling pair on the grating, surveying them out of the corner of his eye with pride in the effect. Pennies and nickels fell at their feet. In fact they were too successful, the ring of the coins on the flagstones reached the sharp ears of the blind woman who sold matches at the door of the Fifth Avenue Theatre adjoining. She came out in a rage, furiously tapping; a fearsome figure with her big bonnet, her blue glasses, her voluminous petticoats. Lashing out with her stick, she drove the boys away with frightful curses.
“Gawd! what langwidge from a woman!” said Pat, a little awestruck, when they collected their forces, down near Sixth Avenue.
However, they had already taken seventy cents. Joe took the money, but laid out a part of it on a big feed of frankfurters, bolivars, and sarsaparilla on Sixth. They filled their pockets with cigarettes. They felt fine.
They drifted up-town again. Later they found themselves outside a big new theatre by Fortieth street, called the Empire. They loitered on the pavement just out of reach of the carriage man, watching the four-wheelers and the hansoms trundle up and discharge their passengers. There was one or two of these here horseless carriages among them, which came drifting up to the curb as quietly as boats, the driver perched up behind, steering with a handle. From all the vehicles ladies descended, pointing a satin slipper to the ground. They wore velvet cloaks, red, green or white, and no hats, which was strange, since they were not poor women. The men wore big black capes; they had hats, tall ones, and it was the boys’ chief interest to get a vantage point where they could see the men press their hats against their hips as they walked through the lobby, and smash them flat. A remarkable sight, which caused them to laugh uproariously.
The stream of arrivals at the theatre door had about ceased, when two Johnnies came along through Fortieth street, and paused, grinning at the three boys. Joe was familiar with that grin. Young fellows who fancied themselves, like to sass a street boy, and if you answered them back smart, but not smart enough to put them out of face, very often there was a dime in it, or a quarter if the fellow had an edge on. But these two were not the real thing, Joe perceived; counter-jumpers. One of them had two blue admission checks in his hand, and he said to his friend: “Let’s give ’em to the little fellers.”
Joe, with a meek expression, instantly effaced himself. The other two, not deceived by this maneuver, watched him anxiously. Joe strolled off to the gallery door of the Empire, from which the two Johnnies must have just issued. Presently Pat and Tony approached, each nipping a blue ticket between his fingers. They stopped to consult in whispers. They crossed the street, and stood kicking a hydrant and looking at Joe. Joe looked up and down the street. Suddenly the two set off towards Sixth avenue on the run. Joe was not to be drawn off. They came back on his side of the street, each one trying to persuade the other to go first. Then they decided to rush the theatre door together. Joe was not confused by these tactics. He had picked out his victim from the beginning. Tony Lipper was the smaller of the two. Joe snatched the check out of Tony’s hand, and started up the stone stairway with Pat beside him. As soon as Tony was eliminated, Pat sucked up to Joe.
“That dirty little guinney hadn’t oughta go into a swell house like this. His pants is tore.”
They found themselves sitting towards the top of a steep bank of seats looking almost straight down into an illuminated well; the stage. The curtain was up. Joe had been to the London and the Thalia, but never to a swell up-town t’eayter. At first he was confused by the play, which was not like a play; it was just ordinary talking. He wondered if it was a custom up-town for the actors to sit around on the stage and talk before the play began. But from the close attention accorded by the audience he judged that this must be the play; a newer, tonier kind of play, he guessed, and applied his mind to it.
Well, the stage represented a room in a very fine house, such a room as Joe had never been in; but he accepted that room; an instinct told him it was the thing. A party was going on; the people were of the sort that Joe had seen entering the theatre. There was a sour-faced woman in a brown silk dress who was making a fuss. She said she was going home because there was another woman in the house that she didn’t like, and the others were all trying to smooth her down. Why the hell didn’t they let her go, thought Joe.
There was a lot of talk about this other woman, and Joe’s curiosity was excited about her. Then she came in, and the audience clapped; a little thing with a proud nose. She put all the other women in the shade. She wasn’t so pretty neither, but there was something about her . . . she just walked in and took the place. Joe was struck by her flashing glance, which could make out anything she wanted, without giving her away. Gee! she’s smart! he thought. She knows how to work ’em! She was wearing the prettiest white dress he had ever seen.