"If she'd 'a' had a father to grow up under it would 'a' been different. He was one of the strongest men in the power-house, Jimmie. Mechanics make strong men, my boy, and that's why my heart's set on you, Jimmie, takin' up where he left off." "It's that job of hers, ma; it ain't no hang-out for her down there round the lights. She's gettin' too gay. I'll smash that ticket-speculator to gelatin if he don't show up or leave her alone!" "'Sh-h-h, Jimmie! He's her young man; she says he's a upright and honorable young man with intentions." "Where she hidin' him, then?" "He--he's bashful about comin', Jimmie. Last night on her knees right here by this bed she told me, Jimmie, with her eyes like saucers, that he's said everything but come right out and ask her." "What's the matter? Is he tongue-tied?" "A fine fellow, she says, Jimmie--up to date as a new dime, makin' from thirty to forty a week. Get that, Jimmie? Gawd--forty a week! On forty a week, Jimmie, what they could do for themselves and for you!" "I wanna look him over first. I knew a fellow in that game got forty a week and ninety days once, too." "Jimmie!" "There's a bunch of speculators used to hang round the Forty-second Street telegraph office, with one eye always on the cop and the other always open for rubes. They was all hunchbacks from dodging the law." "He ain't one of them kind, Jimmie." "Then why don't he have a roof over his head instead of doing sidewalk business?" "Ticket-speculatin' is like any other business, Essie says. Profit is profit, whether you make it on a sheet of music, a washboard, or a theayter ticket." "Then why don't he show his face round here, instead of runnin' her round night after night when she ought to be home sleepin'?" "Gawd, Jimmie! I don't know, except what she says. I just feel like I couldn't stand her not bringing him to-night--like--like I couldn't stand it, Jimmie." "Lay easy there, ma." "They're young, I guess, and gotta have life; but I lay here with it in front of me all night, long after she gets home and is sleepin' here next to me as light as a daisy. She's so little and pretty, Jimmie." "I wanna get my glims on him--" "What, Jimmie?" "I wanna see him." "Me, too, Jimmie. I wouldn't care much about anything else if I could see him once; and if he is big and strong like your father was--" "That gang don't come big and strong. They got big heads and little necks." "The kind of fellow that would know how to treat you when you got stubborn, and would put his hand on your shoulder and not try to drive you. If he was a man like that, Jimmie, the kind you and Essie needs, I--I'd stop fightin'; I'd fold my hands and say to God: 'Ready! Ready right this minute!'" "Ready for what, ma?" "Ready, Jimmie, my boy. Just hands folded and ready--that's all."