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“Lads, I’m older than you. I’m older than you, and I’ve been through the mill. I’m a father with four kids, and they’re the world to me and my old woman. Boys, I’m talking to you like a father. Take care of your health, lads. Guard it. My boy Bill didn’t, and he’s paid the penalty. Dead... The dark angel hovered over my unhappy home like a thief in the night, and snatched him up. That’s why I’m drunk. That’s why I’m just a poor old bastard. I had to get drunk. I’m not a drinking man. I had to. When everything a man has falls from under him, he’s got to do something.”

“Ought to put him out of his misery,” the fellow with the close-cropped mustache said low and superciliously to a companion.

“It’s tough,” the lad in the blue suit said sympathetically. “Dad, you better grab a cab and go home,” the lad in working clothes said.

“Boys, I can get home,” Lonigan said, looking at them with shrewd suspicion. “I can take care of myself. Paddy Lonigan has always taken care of himself. He’s pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, and he’d still be on top but for fate. Fate and the international Jew bankers. Lads, my son died today. He’s dead. He was a regular fellow, like you boys are, chip off the old block, a man’s man, a fighter. All Lonigans are fighters, fighting hard, even when it’s a losing battle,” he drooled.

“Come on, Dad,” the fellow in working clothes said, taking his right arm, while Lonigan wiped tears away with his dirty left hand.

“You two boys make me think of my Bill,” he said as they supported him out of the saloon.

They put him in his Ford.

“Now where to?” the lad in working clothes asked, getting in the driver’s seat.

Lonigan mumbled an address, sank back in his seat.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I

“I can’t help it. I’ll never forgive her. I can’t help it,” Mrs. Lonigan said.

“But Mother!” Fran exclaimed.

“Mother, you know she loves Studs, and if he lives, she’ll make him a very good wife,” Loretta persuaded.

“That day he went downtown in the rain. I asked him not to, but he went to find work, because of her and her condition. And now he lies at death’s door.”

“But Mother, it could have happened to anybody. She and William loved each other. You know you were young once,” Fran said.

“Why, my own daughter saying such a thing,” Mrs. Lonigan exclaimed, looking at Fran outraged. “My own daughter. Well, I’ll have you know that I went to your father’s marriage bed a decent woman.”

“Oh, Mother, times have changed a little, and Studs and Catherine were... well, they were going to be married,” Fran said.

“Sin is always sin,” the mother said with a wrenched pride, and the two sisters exchanged helpless glances. “Oh, God, that I should have a grandchild born in sin. Well, I never want to see it. I won’t see it. I won’t. It will never darken my door.”

“Mother, it will be William’s child, and William is ours. Catherine is a decent girl. The only reason she did such a thing was because she loved him. You know, William is not blameless in this affair,” Fran said.

“You would say that about your poor brother while he lays at death’s door?” the mother said, frowning at her oldest daughter.

“Oh, Mother, now come. Please be sensible. We must be sensible, and we have to be fair to poor Catherine. When she left here, she was ready to break down, poor girl, and she’s facing a hard future. She loves Bill, and he was going to be her husband. We owe it to him to be fair to her,” Loretta said.

“And well she might feel sorry. Well she might. Disgracing herself and her hard-working mother and father, and my poor unhappy family. Disgracing us when we must bear this cross of sorrow. Well might she regret.”

“Mother, you simply must be sensible,” Fran said with controlled exasperation.

“Well she might, with the curse of God on her. I will not raise my little finger to hurt her. She’s in the hands of the Almighty and He has put His curse on her. The first time I met her, I could see that she was possessed by the devil. She never brought him good luck. He