30
PARTISAN REVIEW
life when me own daughter would have come to this. Heavy is the
world on me poor old heart. But, Lizz, you're a good daughter,"
Mrs. O'Flaherty dolorously said.
"I'm your favorite, ain't I, Mother?" Lizz said, her decaying
teeth showing as she smiled. "I'm mama's favorite child, ain't I?" She
smiled again, and adjusted her rag under her fatty chin.
"If I was a man! Oh that I was a man! I'd fist him for doing
that to me daughter. Ah, but if Pa was alive, he'd get some of the
men that worked on the wagon with him, and they'd fist the devil,
they would!" Mrs. O'Flaherty said with melodramatic anger.
"I'll bet you anything that when my brother, AI, comes home,
he'll kill that Lorry Rol;>inson.Al has a temper, Mother, and he will
protect his sister's good name. AI will, Mother! Don't you worry, he
will!" Lizz said.
"Indeed, he won't! If he tries it, I'll take him over my knee and
spank him. My son, AI, he's a gentleman, as fine as the finest gentle-
man in the land. Why there wasn't a landlord in the old country
that was the gentleman my son Al is. You should see the suits he has.
They're falling out of his closet. Indeed he won't be fighting in the
street with a Protestant. A gentleman doesn't be fighting in the street.
You tell Jim to beat him up. I'll give Jim five dollars, five dollars, if
he'll break the bones in the body of that devil," Mrs. O'Flaherty said.
"My Jim won't either. My Jim is a gentleman. But I'll tell you
what, Mother. Jim will get some of the men on the express wagons.
They'll do it, Mother, and some of them are fighters. Oh, but they're
fighters. Many's the time my Jim has come home after fighting with
them, his face so swollen up that I had to send Bill out to the butcher
and come back with raw beefsteak to put on it. Those men are fight-
ers. My Jim will get them after him, and there won't be anything
left of Lorry Robinson when they get through with him," Lizz said.
"I'll give every one of them a quarter if they do. A quarter is a
lot of money. You can buy five bars of soap with it," Mrs. O'Flaherty
said.
"You won't have to, Mother. They'll do it for nothing if my
Jim tells them to. All of them are good, hard-working, decent men,
honorable men. They'll beat him up without asking a cent for it.
They'll defend a good girl's honor, because they're decent men,"
Lizz said.
"If they beat him within an inch of his life, Lizz, God will bless
them," Mrs. O'Flaherty said.
"Mother when you came down today and told me about it, I was
sick. And she used to be such a lovely girl. Around Blue Island Ave-
nue, why she was the talk of the neighborhood. Remember Mother
