Comrade Yetta. Edwards Albert

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СКАЧАТЬ not push his urgings too far. He was sorry she would not come, but he hoped Miss Goldstein could find a partner for his friend. Would she come now on that errand?

      "I'm sorry to run away with your cousin, Miss Rayefsky," he said, signalling Rachel to get up. "And I sure hope I'll have the pleasure of meeting you again."

      He bowed very low, made a gallant flourish with his hat, and taking Rachel by the arm, started off gayly. But he turned back after a few steps.

      "I'm not going to be discouraged," he said with his very best smile, "because you won't go with me to-night. I like your looks and want to get acquainted with you. I'll see you again."

      Once more he flourished his hat, and rejoined Rachel.

      Yetta sat still on the park bench for a long time after they had gone. She tried to make some sense out of Life. But it was all very perplexing. What did Rachel's story mean? In a vague way she had heard of the women who are called "bad." She knew their more blatant hall-marks. Rachel's cheeks were painted; she had spoken of herself as "bad." But the term did not mean anything to Yetta which could include a girl like her cousin who "wanted to be good." She understood that Rachel was unhappy, bitter, and very much ashamed, but she could not think of her as sinful or vicious. She tried – but entirely in vain – to imagine what sort of life Rachel was leading. She tried to picture in what sort of acts her "badness" consisted. She had heard somewhere of "selling love," but she had no idea how it was done. It was very perplexing for her – indeed it has perplexed older and wiser heads – to discover that "bad" people may after all be good.

      But it was hard for her to keep her mind on this problem of ethics. It was very much easier to think of Harry Klein. She had never talked to so courteous and well dressed a gentleman. The dream of the curly-haired debater was wiped from her mind – Harry Klein was much better looking.

      A queer question shot into her mind. Did a girl have to be "bad" to have such enchanting friends? No. That could not be. He had wanted to be friends with her. She knew she was not bad.

      He had said he wanted to be her friend! The blood raced through her veins at the thought. She went over again in her mind all her arguments with Rachel. The only possible way to escape from the sweat-shop was to marry. Of course she could not hope to win so debonair a gentleman as Harry Klein. But rescue – if it were to come at all – must come in some such way. It was her only hope.

      CHAPTER V

      HARRY KLEIN

      When they were out of hearing, Harry Klein tightened his grip on Rachel's arm.

      "Say, Kid, that cousin of yours is a peach. Why didn't you put me on before?"

      "Oh, Jake," Rachel pleaded, "leave her alone. She ain't got no chance. She's only a kid. She ain't got no father or mother. Oh, Jake, please. Promise me you'll leave her alone. There are lots of other girls. She's only a kid. Please – "

      "Oh, shut your face," he growled; "you make me tired."

      And he began to whistle a light-hearted ditty. Rachel might just as well have gone to Jake Goldfogle and have asked him, for the same reasons, not to drive her cousin so hard. She might just as well have asked you or me to pay a decent price for our clothes. Harry Klein, just like Mr. Goldfogle – just like you and me – needed the money.

      "Where's 'Blow Away'?" he asked, interrupting his whistling.

      "He's asleep," Rachel said.

      "Well – we'll wake him up."

      They turned down a side street.

      "Jake," Rachel began again, "I'll find you some other girl – I'll do anything for you. Oh, Jake, please."

      "Shut up," he growled. "Tell your troubles to a policeman."

      They went up three flights of dirty stairs to a door which Rachel opened with a latch-key. It gave on a long hall. Turning to the left, they entered a parlor fitted out with cheap plush furniture. The windows were closed, the air heavy with the scent of stale beer and cigarette smoke – all the varied stenches of a debauch.

      "Wake him up," Jake ordered.

      Rachel turned down the hall and opened a bedroom door. The air was even worse than in the parlor. A thin-chested youth of twenty-eight or so was asleep, lying across the bed on his face. The butt of a pistol stuck out of his hip pocket. His coat and vest and shirt were on the back of a chair, his shoes on the floor.

      "Charlie," Rachel called.

      There was no response. She approached the bed cautiously and gave a pull at his foot, jumping back out of reach as soon as she had touched him. There were a couple of angry grunts.

      "Charlie," she called again.

      He sat up with a roar of profanity.

      "How many times have I told you to leave me alone when I'm sleeping? I'll break your dirty face for you."

      "Jake's in the front room," she interrupted him. "Wants to see you."

      "Jake?" He lowered the hand he had raised to strike her. "What in Hell does he want?"

      "How do I know?"

      "You never know nothing," he growled sourly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He shuffled down the hall in his stocking feet. When the great ones of the earth are waiting, you cannot stop to put on shoes.

      "Hello, Blow Away," Jake said. "I've got something to say to you. Your bundle" – he indicated Rachel – "steered me up to a honey bunch this afternoon, named Yetta Rayefsky. The little doll took my eye. See? She's Ray's cousin. I just want you to explain to her – as a favor to me – that she mustn't butt in. The less talking she does with her mouth the better it'll be. You'd better impress it on her, so she won't forget? See?"

      Charlie – alias Blow Away – saw. And Rachel saw. She cowered down in a corner and promised not to warn Yetta – if only they would not beat her. But it was a basic belief of these two gentlemen that "a beating is never wasted on a woman."… It was from this time that Rachel began to kill herself with "booze." She did not like to remember how she had betrayed Yetta. And drink helped her to forget.

      There were few things which Jake, or Harry Klein – it does not matter what name we use for him, for a hundred aliases were on the back of his portrait in the Rogues' Gallery – there were not many things which he enjoyed more than seeing some one cower before him. The servility with which "Blow Away" had obeyed his orders, the wild terror and passionate pleadings of Rachel, had tickled the nerves of his perverted being, and he smacked his lips as he went downstairs and out into the twilight of the open streets.

      He was the recognized leader of the principal East Side "gang" – a varied assortment of toughs, "strong-arm men," pickpockets, "panhandlers," and pimps. It must not be supposed, however, that these various professions were sharply differentiated. There is a hoary tradition which says that once upon a time the under world of New York City was divided into rigid classes and cliques, when a "dip" looked down on a beggar, and highway robbers had a professional pride which kept them from associating with panders. But in the year of grace 1903 – when Jake's crooked trail ran across Yetta's path – such delicate distinctions, if they ever had existed, were entirely lost. Many a man who claimed to be a prize-fighter sometimes "stuck up a drunk." The "flyest" pickpocket did not disdain the income to be derived from the sale of "phony" jewellery. It was no longer possible to distinguish a "yeggman" from a "flopper," and even bank robbers wrote "begging letters." And of all "easy money," СКАЧАТЬ