“It’s good stuff,” said Tessie.
Susan, warmed, looked at Jim Statt and her warmth turned on him.
“Of course, that stiff’s too good to touch liquor! And he’s as healthy as a brickbat. All his virtue allows is pullin’ joints!”
Statt shrugged his shoulders. Then he smiled broadly, as if suddenly aware that Susan had flattered him. Mangel, holding his glass aloft, smacked his lips.... The eyes were gone from Fanny. They did not come back.
She drank her wine. She was relieved and brightened. She thought of a field: it expands as the cloud barring the sun sails by.... The eyes were gone.
She thought of her own place with these strange thick people. Who were they?—a Judge, a Police Lieutenant, a Gambling-house proprietor, three prostitutes, herself! She did not know who they were.
Mr. Mark argued with pointing forefinger:
“Of course we do good! Would the people feel secure if we didn’t have courts and judges?”
“You do no good. None of us knows how to do good, I tell you,” said Abe Mangel. “We are all in the Dark. I can argue as good as you. Couldn’t I say: I am a public benefactor? What do I live on? The luxury and the vice of the weak and the damn-fools. That’s what I trim. That’s what I get rid of. Ain’t it better to live on that than on the hard workers and the good folk? now I ask you! O bosh! I don’t make no such delusions for myself. We don’t know—none of us—how to do good.”
Statt sat stiffly in his chair. He listened, but as one might listen to the wind.... The philosophic argument wore down. Mangel and Mark were unable to support it. They drank wine and turned to their women....