“Ain’t you no regard for a family man? I got a wife and kids dependent on me.”
“Well, do what Karl Marx did––let them starve or live on their own money while you prove that capital is as he said, ‘a vampire of dead labor sucking the life out of living labor.’ Or feed them on the wind you try to sell me.”
“Aw, have a heart! I talk too much, but I’m all right,” Jake pleaded.
Davidge relented a little. “If you’ll promise to give your mouth a holiday and your hands a little work I’ll keep you to the end of the month. And then, on your way!”
“All right, boss; much obliged,” said Jake, so relieved at his respite that he bustled away as if victorious, winking shrewdly at Mamise––who winked back, with some difficulty.
She waited till he was a short distance off, then she murmured, quickly:
“Don’t jump––but Nicky Easton is coming here in the next few days; I don’t know just when. He told Jake; Jake told me. What shall we do?”
Davidge took the blow with a smile:
“Our little guest is coming at last, eh? He promised to see you first. I’ll have Larrey keep close to you, and the first move he makes we’ll jump him. In the mean while I’ll put some new guards on the job and––well, that’s about all we can do but wait.”
“I mustn’t be seen speaking to you too friendly. Jake thinks I’m fooling you.”