"'Tis shame yez should take to yersilf, Sammy Durgan, if yez had the sinse to take annything--the loikes av yez, a big strong man! 'Tis years I've put up wid yez, whin another woman would not, but I'll put up wid yez no more! 'Tis the ind this night, Sammy Durgan, an' the Holy Mither be praised there's no children to blush fer the disgrace yez are!" "Maria," said Sammy Durgan craftily, for this had worked before, "do I drink?" Mrs. Durgan choked in her rage. "I do not," said Sammy Durgan soothingly. "And who but me lays the pay envelopes on your lap without so much as tearing 'em to count the insides of 'em? Listen here, Maria, listen----" "Is ut mocking me, yez are!" shrieked Mrs. Durgan. "'Tis little good the opening av 'em would do! Listen, is ut, to the smooth tongue av yez! I've listened till me fingers are bare to the bone wid the washtubs to kape a roof over me head. I'll listen no more, Sammy Durgan, moind thot!" "Maria," said Sammy Durgan, with a softness that was meant to turn away wrath, "Maria, open the door." "I will not," said Mrs. Durgan, with a truculent gasp. "Niver! Not while yez live, Sammy Durgan--fer yez funeral mabbe, but fer no less than thot, an' thin only fer the joy av bein' a widdy!" It sounded inevitable. There was a sort of cold uncompromise even in the fire of Mrs. Durgan's voice. Sammy Durgan rose heavily from the doorstep. "Some day," said Sammy Durgan sadly, "some day, Maria, you'll be sorry for this. You'll break your heart for it, Maria! You wait! 'Tis no fault of mine, the trouble. Everybody's against me--and now my wife. But you wait. Once in the life of every man he gets his chance. Mine ain't come yet. But you wait! It's the man who rises to an emergency that counts, and----" There was a gurgling sound from Mrs. Durgan's throat. Then the window slammed down--hard. Sammy Durgan stared, stared a little blankly as the lamp retreated from the window and the front of the house grew black. "I guess," said Sammy Durgan a little wistfully to himself, "I guess I'm fired all around for fair." He turned and walked slowly out to the street and headed downtown toward the railroad yards. And as he walked he communed with himself somewhat bitterly: "Any blamed little thing that comes up, that, if 'twere anybody else, nobody'd pay any attention to it, and everybody yells 'fire Sammy Durgan.' That's me----'fire Sammy Durgan.' And why? Because I never get a chance--that's why!" Sammy Durgan grew earnest in his soliloquy. "Some day," said he, as he reached the station platform, "I'll show 'em--I'll show Maria! It'll come, every man gets his chance. Give me the chance to rise to an emergency, that's all I ask--just give me that and I'll show 'em!"