"Because I'd like to have some soft music while I tell you the story of my life—see?"
"I don't believe you have to tell that."
"Yes, I do. I want you to know just what I am; then you'll see whether you can depend on me. I was brought up decent—that's the truth. I had my church an' Sunday-school like you had, an' perhaps more. The other sort of school I had to quit early, because my old man wasn't paid enough to keep me on, an' I had to go to work myself. I was under the age; but I swore I wasn't, so that was all right, an' after I'd tramped over the whole town, I got a job filin' letters an' addressin' circulars in a young broker's office. I was mighty little, but I was mighty good lookin'. I thought he took me for what I could do, but I found out he took me for my looks."
She spoke quite without emotion, and Dyker, in spite of himself, was interested.
"It cost that broker a lot to live," she continued; "so much that he couldn't afford to get married. When he'd got through with me, after a few years, an' the baby was dead in the hospital, my people were so damned respectable that I didn't dare go home to them. Wall Street had been plungin'; nobody'd buy stocks; I couldn't get a job there. Times was hard and I couldn't find a place anywhere else. It was up to me to starve to death, go into a home an' be marked for life, or get real money the best way I could."
She paused, and Wesley found himself interjecting an urging "Well?"
"Well, I got the money. My broker put me up in a flat. He stole the cash to do it, an' when the fly-cops got next, he blew out his brains. I was still high and dry, so I got a couple of girls to help me. Then I met Mike O'Malley's brother—the one that's dead now—an' he squared things for me so's I could open up the place you knew. He owned my joint an' was right an' regular. He saw to it I wasn't bothered, an' we paid for protection an' furnished an address when his brother needed one for voters. I never had no trouble 'till O'Malley's brother was dead an' you queered me with Mike himself."
"And is that all?"
"Yes, that's all. It's about what you'd learn from any other woman in my line of work. But I'll tell you one thing: I got my girls however I could—a lot of 'em because your friends brought 'em, an' everyone that was brought that way I paid for, fair an' square an' good an' heavy; I had to keep the women down because expenses was so high; but no man was ever cheated in my place, an' no man was ever robbed with my knowledge. I may have bad habits of my own, even for my sort of a life; but I always treat my customers on the level, an' I always see that my girls treat 'em on the level, too."
"What about the hangers-on?" asked Wesley.