“Shut up, you pore ign’rant mutt, and listen to what I’m tellin’ yeh! . . . Look at the dirty way our folks live. What do folks call us? gutter-snipes; street ayrabs, and such all. Well, them folks are no better’n we are, on’y they got money, see? Well, I guess they’s more money to be got the same way. . . . This is a free country and I’m as good as anybody. . . . You don’t git money by wuykin’ your heart out, neither. It ain’t wuykman as gits rich. It’s the smart guys. They wuyk the boobs and suckers. . . . When you git older you begin sizin’ things up. I’m near sixteen now. Well, I’m a smart feller. I’m gonna live soft too, and have a servant that I can boot around. . . .” “They didn’t boot their servants.” “Shut up! They could if they wanted to.” “Where you gonna git it?” “I’ll git it all right. I allus gits what I wants. . . . I know what I want now. I want a whole lot of money. . . . First-off I got to make a good appearance. I’ll git me a nobby suit and a haircut . . .” “Chrrrist!” said Pat, grinning derisively. Inside the theatre he knew he was safe. “Shut up, you mutt!” said Joe, without heat. “A mutt you was born, and a mutt you’ll die!” IV East Broadway was the Fifth Avenue of the East Side. A wide street lined, not with tall tenements like the other streets, but with moderate sized brick houses with steep roofs and big chimneys. Nothing grand about them, but solid looking. One family to a house. In these houses lived the smart guys who lived directly off the poor boobs of the East Side: that is to say: doctors, lawyers, politicians, rabbis and prosperous storekeepers. Many of these guys were able to buy up the up-town blokes several times over, it was said, but they made out they lived simple and bragged about being East-Siders; it was good for business. They were smart guys all right, but Joe had no intention of stopping at East Broadway. He was on his way to report to a lawyer who had hired him to secure evidence against a man, whose wife wanted to get a divorce. Having extended the scope of his operations, Joe had been able to procure himself a whole suit with long pants; also new shoes and a cap. He wore a white celluloid collar which he cleaned with a rag every morning. But he was already dissatisfied with the effect; his suit was beginning to look crummy, because he had no way of getting it cleaned and pressed. He wanted two suits.