“Well, I’m not,” Blanche replied, determinedly. “He needed something to take the swelled head out of him, he did, and I’ll say it even ’f he is my own brother.”
“I only hope it’ll make all of you listen more to your ma,” said Mrs. Palmer. “There’s never no good in tryin’ to make money dishonest-like. It’s happy I’ll feel ’f Harry’ll only go to work now, an’ give up alla that fightin’ and bummin’ around like he does.”
“Well, Harry’s not down yet, I’m saying,” Philip interposed. “B’lieve me, he’ll fix the guys that did him dirty, and he’ll do a good job of it, too!”
“Yeh, and get into jail for doing it,” said Blanche, as she walked into her room.
“Don’t talk like you wished it on him,” Mabel called after her, irritably.
As Blanche changed to a kimono, she tried to feel sympathetic toward Harry, but she could not down her sneaking satisfaction at his misfortune. Somehow, it was difficult to engender affection toward this rough-neck, never-seeing, cocksure brother of hers. Of course, a man wasn’t a man unless he used his fists and his voice with a hard efficiency, but Harry carried his masculinity to an overbearing extreme, and never paid any attention to your side of the question, and seemed to have a meanness—a go-to-hell spirit—which could instantly be awakened by the slightest opposition. His dishonesty didn’t annoy her particularly, but she disliked the lame excuses that he always made for it. If he had been an out-and-out hold-up man, she would have respected him far more. Oh, well, he was her brother after all, and maybe this happening would make him more subdued and considerate. Funny, she and her family would be disgraced now, and yet, if he hadn’t been found out, they’d still be holding their heads high in the air. “Getting away with it”—that was all people ever seemed to care about.
She heard the voice of her father and brother, and went out to the living-room. They sat slumped down in chairs, with their hands in their pockets, and scowled down at the linoleum-covered floor.
“It gets my goat, that bastard on the Commish, Murvaney, tellin’ me ‘Y’r a dis-gra-ace to the ring, Mis-ter Palmer.’ Didn’t he wink his eye and give Callahan a clean bill when they had all that fuss about the welter champ fight? Sure he did! I’d like to have the coin they slipped him f’r that little stunt.”
“What’s the use uh beefin’—we’re in f’r it,” his father answered, dully.
“What did they do to Harry?” Blanche asked.