“We’ve got it where we live,” said the latter. “It was all serene till we heard o’ this, and if he’s goin’ to vote for Kelly, why we can’t stop him, that’s all; we can’t do nawthin’.”
“T’ell we can’t!” cried the enraged Murphy. “Say, look’et here, Goose; one hour after Tim Daily says ‘yea’ for Kelly he’ll be in St. Mary’s done up in splints! He’s played crooked with us people, ain’t that right? And we’ll git even if we have to t’ump him. Ah!”
They walked along for a time, in silence.
“Are ye goin’ to see the other lobster?” questioned Goose.
“Let’s go over to the Dutchman’s, hit a bracer and talk t’ings over, first. I’ve got cobwebs in me head an’ I want to brush ’em away. The motzer kin wait till daylight.”
The saloon was the only all-night establishment in the neighbourhood. It glittered with clusters of electric lamps and broad, gilt-framed mirrors; a marble-topped bar backed by pyramids of glasses and bottles stood upon one side.
They talked in a desultory way for some time, consuming much beer and many plates of sandwiches. Dawn stretched a grey hand through the window and dimmed the clusters of lights; and when they ranged along the bar for the last drink, the streets were filling with people hurrying toward their work.
Then they tramped off toward the spreading Hebrew settlement on North Second Street. Levitsky, the man whom they sought, while he claimed a voting place in the ward, really lived south of the line, in one of the row of houses that face the old market sheds. These teem with long-coated, huge-bearded Russian Jews, who drag their stock in trade upon the sidewalk each morning and prowl up and down before it watching for customers, and hoarsely shouting in a mixture of English and Yiddish.
Larry and his chum paused before a dirty bulk window heaped with odds and ends of merchandise; on a stand upon the sidewalk lay little stacks of Yiddish newspapers and pamphlets; a thin, yellow-faced man, in a round, high-crowned cap, and with a beard of patriarchal length, sat in the doorway twisting a cigarette out of some damp tobacco. He was a wise man in the Ghetto, learned in the law and a public reader of the scrolls; he knew the ways of Gentile youth when it was half drunken, for he drew his long coat about his gaunt frame as they approached, and raised his hand to prevent the expected plucking at his beard.
“Where’s Levitsky?” asked Larry.