Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; College graduates -- Fiction; Gangsters -- Fiction
"Strong?" exclaimed Jimmy. "Why, if I drank half what you do I'd be in
the Washingtonian Home in a week."
She looked at him quizzically for a moment, as she had looked at him
often since he had gone to work for Feinheimer.
"You're a funny guy," she said. "I can't quite figure you out. What
are you doing here anyway?"
"I never claimed to be much of a waiter," said Jimmy, "but I didn't know
I was so rotten that a regular customer of the place couldn't tell what
I was trying to do."
"Oh, go on," she cried; "I don't mean that. These other hash-slingers
around here look the part. Aside from that, about the only thing they
know how to do is roll a souse; but you're different."
"Yes," said Jimmy, "I am different. My abilities are limited. All I
can do is wait on table, while they have two accomplishments."
"Oh, you don't have to tell me," said the girl. "I wasn't rubbering. I
was just sort of interested in you."
"Thanks," said Jimmy.
She went on with her breakfast while Jimmy set up an adjoining table.
Presently when he came to fill her water-glass she looked up at him
again.
"I like you, kid," she said. "You're not fresh. You know what I am as
well as the rest of them, but you wait on me just the same as you would
on"--she hesitated and there was a little catch in her voice as she
finished her sentence--"just the same as you would on a decent girl."
Jimmy looked at her in surprise. It was the first indication that he
had ever had from an habitue of Feinheimer's that there might lurk
within their breasts any of the finer characteristics whose outward
indices are pride and shame. He was momentarily at a loss as to what to
say, and as he hesitated the girl's gaze went past him and she
exclaimed:
"Look who's here!"
Jimmy turned to look at the newcomer, and saw the Lizard directly behind
him.
"Howdy, bo," said his benefactor. "I thought I'd come in and give you
the once-over. And here's Little Eva with a plate of ham and at four
o'clock in the afternoon."
The Lizard dropped into a chair at the table with the girl, and after
Jimmy had taken his order and departed for the kitchen Little Eva jerked
her thumb toward his retreating figure.
"Friend of yours?" she asked.
"He might have a worse friend," replied the Lizard non-committally.
"What's his graft?" asked the girl.
"He ain't got none except being on the square. It's funny," the Lizard
philosophized, "but here's me with a bank roll that would choke a horse,
and you probably with a stocking full of dough, and I'll bet all the
money I ever had or ever expect to have if one of us could change places
with that poor simp we'd do it."
"He is a square guy, isn't he?" said the girl. "You can almost tell it
by looking at him. How did you come to know him?"
"Oh, that's a long story," said the Lizard. "We room at the same place,
but I knew him before that."
"On Indiana near Eighteenth?" asked the girl.
"How the hell did you know?" he queried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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