"That'll be all right," said Ginsburg crisply. It was his business to avoid the issue of a clash. "And it'll be all right your calling me a Jew. I am a Jew and I'm proud of it. And I'm wearing the same name I started out with too."
"Is that so?"
Except in the inspired pages of fiction city thugs are singularly barren of power to deliver really snappy, really witty retorts.
"Is that so, Jew?" He stared at Ginsburg and a derisive grin opened a gap in his broad dark face. "Oh, be chee! We ain't strangers—you and me ain't! We've met before—when we was kids. Down in Henry Street, it was. I put me mark on you oncet, and if I ever feel like it I'll do it again sometime."
Like a match under shavings the words kindled half-forgotten memories in the young detective's brain and now—for his part—recognition came flashing back out of the past.
"I thought so," he said, choosing to ignore the gangster and addressing Casane. "I thought from the first Gorman wasn't his right name. I've forgotten what his right name is, but it's nothing that sounds like Gorman. He's a wop. I went to the same school with him over on the East Side a good many years ago."
"Don't forget to tell him how the wop licked the Jew," broke in the prisoner. "Remember how the scrap started?"
He spat again and this time he did not miss. Ginsburg put up his gloved hand and wiped clean a face that with passion had turned a mottle of red-and-white blotches. His voice shook from the strain of his effort to control himself.
"I'll get you for that," he said quietly. "And I'll get you good. The day'll come when I'll walk you in broad daylight up to the big chief, and I'll have the goods on you too."
"Forget it," jeered the ruffian triumphantly. Before the eyes of his satellites he had—by his standards—acquitted himself right creditably. "You got nothin' on me now, Jew, and you never will have. Well, come on, you bulls, let's be goin' along. I wouldn't want the neither one of you for steady company. One of you is too polite and the other'n too meek for my tastes."