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“I see some at the mission every night,” Studs said.

“They’re ruining the neighborhood. That’s why Jim and I have been trying to convince the old lady to sell the building before it’s too late. Property values are going to pot here. You can tell it, when there’s a saloon on Fifty-eighth Street, and beer flats all around, and flats and buildings being made into rooming-houses. And down on Garfield Boulevard the other night, why a hustler even tried to pick me up,” Tommy lamented.

“If we had a pastor like Father Shannon, instead of Gilly, that mightn’t have happened. He wouldn’t be the kind to build a beautiful new church, and then let his parish go to the dogs. He’d have seen to it that the good parishioners stayed, and that the niggers were kept out. He’d have organized things like vigilance committees to prevent it,” Red said.

“That’s what my old man has been saying,” Studs said.

“It was the Jews who did it. And he would have settled those profiteering shonickers. It’s a lousy thing, if you ask me, Jews ruining a neighborhood just to make money like Judas did. It’s all greed all over again, the greed of the Jews,” Kelly said.

“Why don’t the Jews all go back to Jerusalem where they belong?” Tommy said.

“And why don’t you Irish go back and sleep with the pigs in the old country,” Barney said.

“Chu Chu, you can’t be serious for a minute,” Stan said to Keefe.

“Speaking seriously, something will have to be done pretty quick if the neighborhood is going to be saved,” Red said.

“It’s too late now,” said Tommy.

“What I want to know is this: Will the mission convert Doyle to work?” said Barney.

“No danger,” said Les.

“He worked all summer warming his fanny in the boat-house,” Red said.

“And don’t think I didn’t put in long hours,” Tommy boasted.

“Say, fellows, I got a letter from Shrimp,” said Red.

“That tb rat,” Barney said.

“He’s a good fellow,” Tommy said.

“Yeah, a snake in the grass. I had a job as sewer-pipe layer all fixed up a couple of years ago. And that louse queered it thinking he could get it. It was muscling in, and I lost it, and he just queered both of us,” Barney said.

They laughed, and Red said anyway, Shrimp didn’t like the Navy at all.

“I hope he falls overboard into the mouth of a shark,” Barney said.

“Say, by the way, did all you guys know that Rolfe has been converted, and is making his first communion Sunday?” Stan said.

“That’s the dope,” Studs said.

“It was your sister, Studs, who did it,” Red said.

“I suspect that guy. Him being a Catholic is too much for me. He’s full of so much B.S. that I doubt how much he means it,” Tommy said.

“If he gets your sister, Studs, he’s getting a damn fine, decent girl. My opinion is that she’s much too good for him,” Red said.

“All right, you guys, step on it! You’re going to church, not to an employment agency. You’re too late for the rosary now, anyway,” Barney said.

II

St. Patrick’s church was packed, and hushed. Father Shannon, a plump, bald-headed priest, emerged from the sacristy door on the right, pushed the back of his right hand to his mouth as he emitted a half-cough, genuflected, facing the altar, and proceeded to climb into the marble pulpit. He laid his beret beside him and faced the audience of young people, his soft, mushy, almost womanly face, half-distinct. He stretched his arms, and smoothed down his cassock. His bald head shone as it was caught in candle flickers. He emitted another cracked cough. In a quiet and confident voice, he said, while blessing himself:

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!”

He paused pregnantly, and dramatically. In a calm modulated voice, he exclaimed:

“My text for tonight’s sermon is: `Stand, therefore, having your loins girt in truth, and having on the breast-plate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.’ Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, sixth chapter, sixteenth verse.

“In the words, then, of the stern and austere Saint, Paul himself, I come and say unto you boys and girls