Part 28 (1/2)
His eyes twinkle with ray The larger part of the plug swelling out his cheek, he flings to :
”Don't care for't Take back your choo, I'll keep entleh seas of social life,--are you on, entleman, I repeat, sir, whose canoe the mutations of all that is human have chucked on this here dry, thrice daue-spot of civilization,--say, kid, what t' hell aot”
”I'm sure I don't know, Red”
”Like hell you don't! It's your glad duds, kid Offerin' _me_ a ch-aw tob-b-bac-co! Christ, I'nificent occasion deserves a wetting, sir And, say, Aleck, it won't hurt your beauty to stretch them sleeves of yours a bit You look like a scarecrow in the of skinners, though!”
”Whom do you mean, Red?”
”Who I mean, you idjot! Who but that skunk of a Warden, the Honorable Captain Edward S Wright, if you please, sir Captain of rotten old punks, that's what he is You ask th' screws He's never smelt powder; why, he's been _here_ er, borned here, daine, you couldn't They can tell you all 'bout the Cap, though
Old Sandy didn' have a plugged nickel to his name when he co'lar gold ets a lousy five thousan' per year Got big fao to Europe every year, an' got a big pile in th' bank to boot, all on a scurvy five thousan' a year Good 'lar church member, too, damn his rotten soul to hell!”
”Is he as bad as all that, Red?”
”Is he? A hypocrite dyed in th' wool, that's what he is Plays the hureat deal t' say t' the papers why he didn't believe in the brutal way Iams was punished by that Homestead colonel--er--what's 'is name?”
”Colonel Streator, of the Tenth Pennsylvania”
”That's the cur He hung up Private Iams by the thumbs till th' poor boy was almost dead For nothin', too Suppose you remember, don't you? Iams had called for 'three cheers for the man who shot Frick,' an' they pretty near killed 'iiment with 'is head half shaved”
”It was a ”
”An' that das, an' all th' while th' lyin' murderer is doin' it himself Not a day but some poor con is 'cuffed up' in th' hole That's th' kind of humanitarian _he_ is! It et a bit excited, and forget that you, young sir, are attuned to the dulcet sylish But whenever that skunk of a Warden is the subject of conversation, sir, even my usually imperturbable serenity of spirit and tranquil stoicisrief' Watch y rags of yours I liked you better in th' striped duds They give you the hand-er that went out yesterday, an' charge you on th' books with a bran'
new suit See where Sandy gets his slice, eh? An' say, kid, how long are you here?”
”About eight ht Suppose they obey their own rules? Nit, sir You are aware, my precious lamb, that you are entitled to discard your polychromic vestments of zebra hue after a sojourn of six months in this benevolent dump I bet you that fresh fish at the loopin' o, _he_ won't be kept waitin' lance in the direction of the recent arrival He is a slendereye The expression of guilty cunning is repelling
”Who is that man?” I whisper to the assistant
”Like 'im, don't you? Permit me, sir, to introduce to you the handiwork of his Maker, a aycat, a yellow cur, a snivelling, fawning stool, a filthy, oozy sneak, a snake in the grass whose very presence, sir, is aher, of the honorable Pinkerton faher?” I ask, in astonishment ”The informer, who denounced Dempsey and Beatty?”
”The very saot those fellows railroaded here for seven years Deher and Davidson He was Master Workhts of Labor Why in hell didn't he get his own aycats; sent 'es and keep 'is on, see? S'pose you have oriented yourself, sir, concerning the developments in the culinary experiment?”
”Yes Croton oil is supposed to have been used to make the scabs sick with diarrhoea”
”Make 'em sick? Why, me bye, scores of 'ear terentlemen who delve deeply into the bowels of earth and man, sir, ascribed the sudden and phenoations to nature, the ant popularity of the houses of ill odor, sir, and the auto of a lot o'
lousy bums, sir, into filthy quarters, or to impurities of the liquid supply, or to--pardon my frankness, sir--to intestinal effeminacy, which, in flaccid excitability, persisted in ill-timed relaxation unseemly in well-mannered Christians Solorify with beauteous epic the heroic days of the modern Bull Run--an' I kin tell you, laddie, they run and kept runnin', top and bottom--or some lyric bard may put to Hudibrastic verse--watch me climbin' th' Parnassus, kid--the poetic feet, the nu days when Croton Oil was King
Yes, sirree; but for yours truly, me hand ain't in such pies; and entlemanly behavior t'
keep me snout out o' other people's biz”
”Dempsey may be innocent, Red”