"My old man, well——" Moxey swallowed. It seemed to Al as if he would not go on, but finally it came out with a rush. "He pushes a cart—yes, sir—honest to God, he pushes a cart—I thought maybe I ought to tell you, Al."
"He does?" It was a shock to the Irish-American, which showed in his tone.
"Yes, sir, he does," Moxey answered defiantly, "and if you don't like it—why—well, I won't say nuthin' ugly to you, Al—you're only like the rest. S'long."
Al threw his arm around the other's shoulder. "Forget it, Moxey." Which was the only oath ever taken in this particular David and Jonathan affair.
Not long afterwards, Moxey proposed to Al attendance at a prizefight just across the State line, the Illinois laws being unfavorable to such exhibitions of manly skill or brutality, whichever it is. It was Al's first fight.
They boarded a special train, filled with coarse men bent upon coarse pleasure. But then, if they had been bent upon refined pleasure they wouldn't have been coarse or it wouldn't have been pleasure.
The prizefighting question illustrates well the gulf between the social and the individual conscience and demonstrates that the whole is sometimes considerably greater than the sum of its parts. Probably eight out of ten men in this country enjoy seeing two hearty young micks belt each other around a padded ring with padded gloves. But they hesitate to come out in the open and proclaim their enjoyment, for fear of writing themselves down brutes, and the deepest yearning of the American people at the present day is to be gentlemanly and ladylike.
So whenever sparring matches are proposed the community works itself up into a state of fake indignation. All the softer and sweeter elements telegraph the Governor and if that isn't enough, pray for him; and inasmuch as the Governor gets no immoral support on the other side from those who are afraid of jeopardizing their gentlemanliness, he yields, and appears in the newspapers as a strong man who dared beard the sports, whereas, he was really a frightened politician who didn't dare beard the Christian Endeavorers.
One of the most illuminating essays of the late and great William James concerned Chautauqua Lake. He spent a week at that beautiful camp, where sobriety and industry, intelligence and goodness, orderliness and ideality, prosperity and cheerfulness pervade the air.
There were popular lectures by popular lecturers, a chorus of seven hundred voices, kindergartens, secondary schools, every sort of refined athletics, and perpetually running soda fountains.