Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
It was a useless precaution. He had no intention of accosting her that
night. The official dispensers of Justice had taken small interest in
the charge against him. He had been promptly bailed out and knew the
papers would get lost in some pigeonhole. But although he was not
worrying about his arrest, he was more unhappy than he had been since
the first day he had spent in jail as a boy. Like most crooks he
believed in "luck." Apparently his luck had turned. There was only one
consolation. It had been a single-handed game. None of his followers
knew of his downfall. So he had set about planning a spectacular _coup_
which would restore his prestige if the story of his disgrace got out.
His vengeance, to be complete, should have included Longman, but the
scent was too faint. He did not know his adversary's name. But he knew
just where to put his finger on Yetta. He was a discreet young man, and
he wanted to be very sure there would be no slip-up. So this night he
trailed along behind her, safely hidden in the crowd. When he saw that
she had walked home along the accustomed streets, he smiled contentedly.
"It's a cinch," he told himself.
During the day an event had occurred in the Goldstein flat; a messenger
boy had come with a letter and a bundle of pamphlets for Yetta. Even the
postman is a rare visitor to such homes, and the arrival of a special
messenger is talked about by the whole street. Mr. Goldstein, whose
dispute with his niece had driven him out to find solace from his
troubles, had, more early than usual, returned to the flat. He had found
his wife very much excited over the bundle which reposed in state on the
kitchen table. He was not so befuddled but that he saw the tracts were
about Trade Unions. So when Yetta returned from her work she found a new
storm blowing. As a Tammany man and a pillar in the Temple of Things as
They Are--it is doubtful if he realized how important he and his kind
are in the maintenance of that imposing structure. Mr. Goldstein had to
oppose trade-unions and socialism. They seemed to him more subversive of
the order of Society than social settlements, dance-halls, or the
Religion of the Goyim. And he was sufficiently intoxicated to have
forgotten the mercenary caution which had in the morning kept him from
throwing out the chief brandy-winner of the household. All through her
supper Yetta had to listen to reproaches--which were not too delicately
worded. But they hardly bothered her. As soon as she could find a good
place to live she was going to leave. She was not afraid any more. And
when she had crammed sufficient food into herself, she picked up the
bigger of the two lamps and escaped to her room with the pamphlets and
the letter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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