THE EINHORNS
643
neighborhood cowboys with Jack Holt sideburns down to the jaw–
bone, collegiates, tin-horns and small-time racketeers and pugs, ex–
servicemen, home-evading husbands, hackies, truckers and bush–
league athletes. Whenever someone had a notion to work out on
me-and there were plenty of touchy characters here to catch your
eye in a misconstrued way-Dingbat flew around to protect me.
"This kid is a buddy of mine and he works for my bro. Monkey
with him and you'll get something broke on your head. What's
the matter, you tough or hungry!"
He was never anything but through and through earnest when
the subject was loyalty; his bony dukes were ready and
his
Cuban
heels dug down sharply; his furrowed chin was already feeling toward
fighting position on the shoulder of his starched white shirt; he
prepared to go into his stamping dance and start slugging.
But there weren't any fights over me.
If
there was one doctrine
of Grandma Lausch's that went home, it was the one of the soft
answer, though with her this was of tactical not merciful origin, the
dust-off for heathen, stupes and brute-heads. So I don't claim it was
a trained spirit turning aside wrath, or
integer vitae
(how could I?)
making the wolves respect me; but I didn't have any taste for the
perpetual danger sign, eye-narrowing, tricky Tybalt all coiled up
to sta1>-that whole code--and was without curiosity for what
it
was like to be hit, and so I refused ·all the bids to outface or be out–
faced.
On this I had Einhorn's views also, whose favorite example
was his sitting in the driver's seat of the Stutz as he sometimes did,
having been moved over to watch tennis matches or sandlot games–
and a coal heaver running up with a tire-tool because he had
honked once or twice for the Stutz to move and Dingbat wasn't
there to move it. "What could I do," said Einhorn,
"if
he asked me
no questions but started to swing or punch me in the face? With
my hands on the wheel, he'd think I was the driver. I'd have to talk
fast. Could I talk fast enough? What would make an impression on
an animal like that? Would I pretend to faint or play dead? Oh, my
God! Even before I was sick, and I was a pretty husky young fellow,
.I'd do anything possible before I started to trade punches with any
sonofabitch, muscle-minded ape or bad character looking for trouble.
This city
is
one place where a person who goes out for a peaceful
