“They went an’ barred him from the ring indef’nitely, the skunks,” her father answered. “Thomas an’ Rainey only got three months, an’ there’s somethin’ rotten somewhere. ’F we find out they flimflammed us we’ll make ’em wish they hadn’t! A guy they call Carnavan come down an’ swore he’d listened to Rainey an’ me fix it all up in the Club on the night of the fight. I saw him hangin’ around that night, I saw him, but Rainey said he was a good friend uh his.”
“Those two guys’ll be in the hospital before the end uh the week,” said Harry. “Watch what I said.”
“Oh, what good will it do you ’f you beat them up?” asked Blanche. “I don’t want to rub it in, Harry, but you’ll get into worse trouble than this, ’f you don’t tone down.”
“Keep your mouth shut, that’s all I want from you,” Harry answered. “You’re too good to live, you are.”
“Well, I think it’s a darn shame, Harry,” said Mabel, putting an arm around his shoulders.
He squeezed her chin, and his scowl lessened a bit—he had a “soft spot” for Mabel. She knew that you couldn’t get along in this world without being as rotten as the next fellow was, and she appreciated his generosity and his manly qualities, and knew that he was usually the victim of bad luck and that he hardly ever received a “square deal.” Blanche, on the other hand, was a coward, always trying to preach at him, and she thought that she was better than he was, and she needed to be “taken down.”
“You’re the one in this fam’ly I’m strong for,” he said to Mabel. “You c’n have my las’ dime any time you want it!”
“Same here,” Mabel replied. “Blanche is gettin’ too stuck-up these days, an’ she thinks she knows it all.”
“Well, she’d better lay offa me,” he said, ominously.
“You just can’t stand it when any one tells you you’re wrong,” Blanche retorted.