Kelly had darted into Riley’s; and the tittering, thoughtless crowd was growing greater.
“Is this the way yez talks till yez owld mother!” cried Mrs. Nolan. “May the cross av Christ darken the day yez wur born.”
A man laughed loudly: Dick turned with a snarl, caught him by the throat with one hand, the other drawn back for a blow. Bella screamed and Hogan ran across the street.
“Don’t hit him,” shouted the policeman; “don’t hit him, Dick!” He dragged the angry, shame-maddened youth away from his victim. “I don’t want to pull yez,” said he, “for I know just how it is. Go along home, now and take yez mother wid ye.”
The mother, frightened by her son’s sudden exhibition of fury submitted to being led away. And an hour afterward she was deep in a drunken sleep on a narrow settee in her kitchen. Bella sat upon the steps leading to the room above, and her brother was walking the floor, his head throbbing and a sickening feeling at his heart.
“It’s a bad t’ing to say,” said he suddenly, “but sometimes I wisht she was in her grave.”
“Dick!” cried his sister, frightened.
“I know! I know!” waving his hand impatiently, “yer goin’ to say that it ain’t right; an’ I know that as well as you.” He paced up and down in silence for a moment. “Look at what I could do for her,” he resumed, “if she’d on’y do what was right. I make big money, and I’d a-bought a house out o’ the Building Association long ago if it hadn’t been for that”—with a gesture toward the sleeping form. “She could live like a lady—like a lady! And I’d only ask her to do right.”
He took a clay pipe from the shelf over the door and struck a match upon the stove.
“How often has she promised to break it off?” demanded he staring at the flickering flame. “A hundred times if she’s done it once.” Here the match sputtered and went out, and he threw the pipe angrily from him, smashing it to fragments upon the floor. “It was jist like that, though,” he said. “She broke ’em all! She’ll do anyt’ing to get rum. Look at last week when I was invited to Gartenheim’s sister’s weddin’! When I got home from work I hadn’t a rag to put on me back; she’d lifted ’em, and soaked ’em all at Rosenbaum’s hock shop.”