"Shoor! That certaintly lets you out. But there ain't no mention made o' woman not bein' on the job, is there?"
She covered the narrow width of the hall in a couple of strides, and beat her knuckles smartly against the panel of the opposite door.
By this time the baluster-railing, all the way up, was festooned with white-clad tenants, bending over, looking down.
"Martha," protested Sam Slawson, "you're in your nightgown! You can't go round like that! Everybody's lookin' at you!"
"Say, you—Mr. Langbein in there! Open the door. It's me! Mrs. Slawson! Let me in!" was Martha's only reply. Her keen ear, pressed against the panel, heard nothing in response but an oath, following another even more ungodly sound, and then the choking misery of a woman's convulsive sobs.
Mrs. Slawson set her shoulder against the door, braced herself for a mighty effort, and—
"Did you ever see the like of her?" muttered Sam, as, still busy fastening the garments he had hurriedly pulled on, he followed his wife into the Langbeins' flat, into the Langbeins' bedroom. There he saw her resolutely march up to the irate German, swing him suddenly about, and send him crashing, surprised, unresisting, to the opposite side of the room. For a second she stood regarding him scornfully.
"You poor, low-lived Dutchman, you!" she brought out with deliberation. "What d'you mean layin' your hand to a woman who hasn't the stren'th or the spirit to turn to, an' lick you back? Why don't you fight a fella your own size an' sect? That's fair play! A fine man you are! A fine neighbor you are! Just let me hear a peep out of you, an' I'll thrash you this minit to within a inch of your life. I don't need no law nor no policeman to keep the peace in any house where I live. I can keep the peace myself, if I have to lick every tenant in the place! I'm the law an' the policeman on my own account, an' if you budge from that floor till I tell you get up, I'll come over there an' set down on ye so hard, your wife won't know you from a pancake in the mornin'. I'll show you the power o' the press!"
Sam Slawson was no coward, but his face was pallid with consternation at Martha's hardihood. His mighty bulk, however, seeming to supplement hers, had its effect on the sobered German. He did not attempt to rise.
"As to you, you poor weak sister," said Mrs. Slawson, turning to the wife, "you've had your last lickin' so long as you live in this house. Believe me! I'm a hard-workin' woman, but I'm never too tired or too busy to come in an' take a round out of your old man, if he should ever dare lay finger to you again. I don't mind a friendly scrap oncet in a while with a neighbor. My muscles is good for more than your fat, beer-drinkin' Dutchman's any day. Let him up an' try 'em oncet, an' he'll see. Why don't you have some style about you an' land him one, where it'll do the most good, or else—leave him? But no, you wouldn't do that—I know you wouldn't! Some women has to cling to somethin', no matter if they have to support it themselves."