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By Root 10591 0

in his throat. The time they sat in the tree! Helen said she could fix things up for him with Lucy. He wanted to say go ahead, but something stopped him, and he told her never mind. He could have kicked himself in the tail all the way around the block for it, but that was what he said and he didn’t know why. And it was all on account of that punk, Danny O’Neill. Well, things would turn out all right in the end. Lucy liked him, and it ht do her good if she did a little worrying because he acted like he didn’t like her. She would come around to him. After all he was STUDS LONIGAN. He tried to keep Helen talking about Lucy, and he sat there, as if he wasn’t interested, spitting tobacco juice like sixty. He told Helen that Lucy was all right, but he didn’t think he was interested in girls any more. Helen said “YEAH!” Silence. Studs tried to explain that he really wasn’t, and he got himself all mixed up. Helen didn’t answer him. They sat in silence.

“But say, didn’t any of the guys find out about that place?” he said.

He looked at her.

She glanced away.

“I don’t like to always be talking about those things. Guys always start to talk about them with me, and then, well, they get fresh and start asking me, or scratching the palm of my hand,” she said.

She talked to him as if she was talking to Andy Le Gare or somebody else.

Silence. Then she asked him was he going to school. He lied that he wasn’t. He guessed he couldn’t talk to Helen as he used to. They looked at each other, realizing that they were changed. They looked at each other.

She said he ought to go to high school, because he would be a football star. He said he didn’t know.

They sat. He got up, and she said she had to go in and take a bath. He said he’d come in and wait, as long as nobody was home. She gave him a dirty look and said he hadn’t better.

She walked out to the front with him. He limped, just like he had seen Barlowe limping. She asked him what was wrong. He said he’d sprained a muscle or something, sliding in an indoor game.

He left her, and walked down toward Fifty-eighth. He thought of Lucy, and Iris, and Helen, and... then Lucy. He pretended that he was with Lucy over in the park in their tree, with the wind in his hair, and her sitting, swinging her legs, himself watching her, kissing her, her telling him he was a great guy, and she liked him, and was sorry for what had happened, themselves sitting there all afternoon with no one near them, and the air so cool in their hair. And maybe she’d see it was all right for them to... well, it might make them understand each other better.

He thought he heard her calling him, and he started his limping again. He turned sharply. There was no one behind him. He dropped his head and walked along. He tried to make himself feel good by telling himself how tough he was.

Lucy, I love you.

VI

“What’ll we do?” asked Tommy Doyle.

“I don’t know,” answered Benny Taite.

“Uh!” muttered Davey Cohen.

“I’m pretty tired of sockin’ Jew babies, or we might scout a few,” said Red Kelly.

“Me, too,” said Davey.

“Well, what I’d like is a glass of beer,” said Tommy.

“You always do,” said Davey, as he sniped a butt from the curb-edge.

The gang of them were in front of the Fifty-eighth Street elevated station.

“Ope!” laughed Studs Lonigan, pointing to Vinc Curley and Phil Rolfe, who came along Fifty-eighth Street from Calumet.

As they approached, Weary Reilley commanded:

“Commere!”

“Say, goofy, you got any dough?” Studs asked.

“Yeh,” said Vinc Curley like an absent-minded dunce.

“Let me see it,” said Kenny Kilarney.

Vinc said he had made a mistake. He didn’t have any money. They ragged him. Weary sneered, grabbed Vinc’s arm, and told the guys to frisk him. Studs grabbed Phil, and the gang got six bits out of the two of them. They ran, the victims ran after them, bawling, but they were ditched in an alley.

The group ganged into Joseph’s Ice Cream Parlor at Fifty-fifth and Prairie and had sodas. The bill was more than their six bits, and they didn’t see why they should pay anyway. They figured out how they would