“Come on, you fellers—come on—the drunk’s gonter dive—come on—he’s cryin’!”
There was a splash. A surge of green filth and mud spread and dyed the water. A row of expectant heads leaned over the rail. “Say—he ain’t come up.” They waited.
The policeman strolled leisurely down in response to their repeated cries. “Who ain’t come up? What, him—the drunk?” The officer leaned lethargically over the rail. “What’m I gonter do? Why, leave ’m. He ain’t got no folks gonter sit up nights waitin’ fer ’m. Now you young ones go along home to your suppers,” he indulgently commanded, “and you little fellers, if you want crabs, be ’round here early. By to-morrow this place will be fairly swarmin’ with them.”
[6] Copyright, 1915, by Mitchell Kennerley.
LIFE[7]
By BEN HECHT
From The Little Review
The sun was shining in the dirty street.
Old women with shapeless bodies waddled along on their way to market.
Bearded old men who looked like the fathers of Jerusalem walked flatfooted, nodding back and forth.
“The tread of the processional surviving in Halsted Street,” thought Moisse, the young dramatist who was moving with the crowd.