U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [572]
went to their towncar amid the cheers of the crowd. Thousands of ruined investors, at least so the news-papers said, who had lost their life savings sat crying over the home editions at the thought of how Mr. Insul had suffered. The bankers were happy, the bankers
had moved in on the properties.
In an odor of sanctity the deposed monarch of
superpower, the officeboy who made good, enjoys
his declining years spending the pension of twenty-one thousand a year that the directors of his old com-panies dutiful y restored to him. After fifty years of work, he said, my job is gone.
-532-MARY FRENCH
Mary French had to stay late at the office and couldn't get to the hal until the meeting was almost over. There were no seats left so she stood in the back. So many people were standing in front of her that she couldn't see Don, she could only hear his ringing harsh voice and feel the tense attention in the silence during his pauses. When a roar of applause answered his last words and the hal fil ed suddenly with voices and the scrape and shuffle of feet she ran out ahead of the crowd and up the al ey to the back door. Don was just coming out of the black sheetiron door talking over his shoulder as he came to two of the miners'
delegates. He stopped a second to hold the door open for them with a long arm. His face had the flushed smile, there was the shine in his eye he often had after speaking, the look, Mary used to tel herself, of a man who had just come from a date with his best girl. It was some time be-fore Don saw her in the group that gathered round him in the al ey. Without looking at her he swept her along with the men he was talking to and walked them fast towards the corner of the street. Eyes looked after them as they went from the groups of furworkers and garmentworkers that dotted the pavement in front of the hal . Mary tingled with the feeling of warm ownership in the looks of the workers as their eyes fol owed Don Stevens down the street.
It wasn't until they were seated in a smal lunchroom under the el that Don turned to Mary and squeezed her hand. "Tired?" She nodded. "Aren't you, Don?" He laughed and drawled, "No, I'm not tired. I'm hungry."
" Comrade French, I thought we'd detailed you to see that Comrade Stevens ate regular," said Rudy Goldfarb with a flash of teeth out of a dark Italianlooking face.
-533-"He won't ever eat anything when he's going to speak," Mary said.
"I make up for it afterwards," said Don. "Say, Mary, I hope you have some change. I don't think I've got a cent on me." Mary nodded, smiling. "Mother came across again," she whispered.
"Money," broke in Steve Mestrovich. "We got to have money or else we're licked." "The truck got off today," said Mary. "That's why I was so late getting to the meet-ing." Mestrovich passed the grimed bulk of his hand across his puttycolored face that had a sharply turnedup nose peppered with black pores. "If cossack don't git him."
" Eddy Spel man's a smart kid. He gets through like a shadow. I don't know how he does it."
"You don't know what them clothes means to women and kids and. . . listen, Miss French, don't hold back nothin' because too raggedy. Ain't nothin' so ragged like what our little kids got on their backs."
"Eddy's taking five cases of condensed milk. We'l have more as soon as he comes back."
"Say, Mary," said Don suddenly, looking up from his plate of soup, "how about cal ing up Sylvia? I forgot to ask how much we col ected at the meeting." Young Gold-farb got to his feet. "I'l cal . You look tired, Comrade French. . . . Anybody got a nickel?"
"Here, I got nickel," said Mestrovich. He threw back his head and laughed. "Damn funny.
. . miner with nickel. Down our way miner got nickel put in frame send Meester Carnegie Museum. . . . very rare." He got up roaring laughter and put on his black longvisored miner's cap. "Goodnight, comrade, I walk Brooklyn. Reliefcom-mittee nine o'clock. . . . right, Miss French?" As he strode out of the lunchroom the heavy tread of his black boots made the sugarbowls jingle on the tables. "Oh, Lord,"