“Stop that, now,” he said calmly. “Take your daughter out of here and go home, or I’ll lock you both up. We don’t want any fighting in here. D’ye hear? Keep your daughter off the streets hereafter, then she won’t get into trouble. Don’t let her run around with such young toughs as this.” Almerting winced. “Then there won’t anything happen to her. We’ll do whatever punishing’s to be done.”
“Aw, what’s eatin’ him!” commented Almerting dourly, now that he felt himself reasonably safe from a personal encounter. “What have I done? He locked her out, didn’t he? I was just keepin’ her company till morning.”
“Yes, we know all about that,” said the sergeant, “and about you, too. You shut up, or you’ll go down-town to Special Sessions. I want no guff out o’ you.” Still he ordered the butcher angrily to be gone.
Old Rogaum heard nothing. He had his daughter. He was taking her home. She was not dead—not even morally injured in so far as he could learn. He was a compound of wondrous feelings. What to do was beyond him.
At the corner near the butcher shop they encountered the wakeful Maguire, still idling, as they passed. He was pleased to see that Rogaum had his Theresa once more. It raised him to a high, moralizing height.
“Don’t lock her out any more,” he called significantly. “That’s what brought the other girl to your door, you know!”
“Vot iss dot?” said Rogaum.
“I say the other girl was locked out. That’s why she committed suicide.”
“Ach, I know,” said the husky German under his breath, but he had no intention of locking her out. He did not know what he would do until they were in the presence of his crying wife, who fell upon Theresa, weeping. Then he decided to be reasonably lenient.
“She vass like you,” said the old mother to the wandering Theresa, ignorant of the seeming lesson brought to their very door. “She vass loog like you.”