I had on my hat and had gathered up two or three more volumes in my green bag. I looked at the trim little house that had been my home for so long. The rent would be due next month. I looked at the other trim little houses around me. Was it actually possible that a man could starve in such a community? It seemed like a satanic joke. Why, every year this country was absorbing immigrants by the thousand. They did not go hungry. They waxed fat and prosperous. There was Pasquale, the bootblack, who was earning nearly as much as I ever did.
We were standing on the porch. I took Ruth in my arms and kissed her. She drew back with a modest protest that the neighbors might see. The word neighbors goaded me. I shook my fist at their trim little houses and voiced a passion that had slowly been gathering strength.
"Damn the neighbors!" I cried.
Ruth was startled. I don't often swear.
"Have they been talking about you?" she asked suddenly, her mouth hardening.
"I don't know. I don't care. But they hold you in ransom like bloody Moroccan pirates."
"How do they, Billy?"
"They won't let me work without taking it out of you and the boy."
Her head dropped for a second at mention of the boy, but it was soon lifted.
"Let's get away from them," she gasped. "Let's go where there are no neighbors."