“Surely. Even when he is ever so mean and humble, he is asserting to our souls ... to all in us that feels and understands ... that he is one of those high up ... who have made us feel and understand.”
“Fanny, you’re crazy. I’ll kill the little beggar!”
“You won’t dispose of him that way, you silly boy. It’s not he....”
“God damn him.”
“Jim, you have no mind and you have no heart. You don’t learn at all, Jim. Why instead of swearing at Abe Mangel don’t you see him straight? God hasn’t damned him. God’s damned us perhaps ... by spreading him and the likes of him all over the world: or blessed us. I don’t know, Jim. But he’s not damned.”
“O look here, Fanny. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Even Susan don’t, either, half the time. None of us. But we like you fine just the same. Now, it ain’t because Mangel’s a Jew that I can’t go him. You’re wrong there, Fanny. I know lots of Jews. Lots of my pals is Jews. Mark Pfennig’s one, for instance. All the gamblers ... half the gunmen ... the best of the bulls ... the sharpest of the lawyers....”
“But Mangel’s different——?”
“Yes! His doddering old big-nosed face bowing into the room. His softy grey hands weaving inside each other. His flat feet that don’t make a squeak.”
“Is he square?”
“O he’s square, all right.... So far. He’s shrewd. He can be hard and smart, believe me! It ain’t that, Fanny.”