Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

I won’t. Can’t a man who works hard all day have a little rest when he comes home? Why don’t you go out and play with the other kids on the sidewalk?”

The woman who was cooking came to the door.

“John,” she said, “I don’t like for Lizzie to play in the street. They learn too much there that ain’t good for ’em. She’s been in the house all day long. It seems that you might give up a little of your time to amuse her when you come home.”

“Let her go out and play like the rest of ’em if she wants to be amused,” said the red-haired, unshaven, untidy man, “and don’t bother me.”

“You’re on,” said Kid Mullaly. “Fifty dollars to $25 I take Annie to the dance. Put up.”

The Kid’s black eyes were snapping with the fire of the baited and challenged. He drew out his “roll” and slapped five tens upon the bar. The three or four young fellows who were thus “taken” more slowly produced their stake. The bartender, ex-officio stakeholder, took the money, laboriously wrapped it, recorded the bet with an inch-long pencil and stuffed the whole into a corner of the cash register.

“And, oh, what’ll be done to you’ll be a plenty,” said a bettor, with anticipatory glee.

“That’s my lookout,” said the “Kid,” sternly. “Fill ’em up all around, Mike.”

After the round Burke, the “Kid’s” sponge, sponge-holder, pal, Mentor and Grand Vizier, drew him out to the bootblack stand at the saloon corner where all the official and important matters of the Small Hours Social Club were settled. As Tony polished the light tan shoes of the club’s President and Secretary for the fifth time that day, Burke spake words of wisdom to his chief.

“Cut that blond out, ‘Kid,’ ” was his advice, “or there’ll be trouble. What do you want to throw down that girl of yours for? You’ll never find one that’ll freeze to you like Liz has. She’s worth a hallful of Annies.”

“I’m no Annie admirer!” said the “Kid,” dropping a cigarette ash on his polished toe, and wiping it off on Tony’s shoulder. “But I want to teach Liz a lesson. She thinks I belong to her. She’s been bragging that I daren’t speak to another girl. Liz is all right⁠—in some ways. She’s drinking a little too much lately. And she uses language that a lady oughtn’t.”

“You’re engaged, ain’t you?” asked Burke.

“Sure. We’ll get married next year, maybe.”

“I saw you make her drink her first glass of beer,” said Burke. “That was two years ago, when she used to came down to the corner of Chrystie bareheaded to meet you after supper. She was a quiet sort of a kid then, and couldn’t speak without blushing.”

“She’s a little spitfire, sometimes, now,” said the Kid. “I hate jealousy. That’s why I’m going to the dance with Annie. It’ll teach her some sense.”

“Well, you better look a little out,” were Burke’s last words. “If Liz was my girl and I was to sneak out to a dance coupled up with an Annie, I’d want a suit of chain armor on under my gladsome rags, all right.”

Through the land of the stork-vulture wandered Liz. Her black eyes searched the passing crowds fierily but vaguely. Now and then she hummed bars of foolish little songs. Between times she set her small, white teeth together, and spake crisp words that the east side has added to language.

Liz’s skirt was green silk. Her waist was a large brown-and-pink plaid, well-fitting and not without style. She wore a cluster ring of huge imitation rubies, and a locket that banged her knees at the bottom of a silver chain. Her shoes were run down over twisted high heels, and were strangers to polish. Her hat would scarcely have passed into a flour barrel.

The “Family Entrance” of the Blue Jay Café received her. At a table she sat, and punched the button with the air of milady ringing for her carriage. The waiter came with his large-chinned, low-voiced manner of respectful familiarity. Liz smoothed her silken skirt with a satisfied wriggle. She made the most of it. Here she could order and be waited upon. It was all that her world offered her of the prerogative of woman.

“Whiskey, Tommy,” she said as her sisters further uptown murmur, “Champagne, James.”

“Sure, Miss Lizzie. What’ll the chaser be?”

“Seltzer. And say, Tommy, has the Kid been around today?”

“Why, no, Miss Lizzie, I haven’t saw him today.”

Fluently came the “Miss Lizzie,” for the Kid was known to be one who required rigid upholdment of the dignity of his fiancée.

“I’m lookin’ for ’m,” said Liz, after the chaser had sputtered under her nose. “It’s got to me that he says he’ll take Annie Karlson to the dance. Let him. The pink-eyed white rat! I’m lookin’ for ’m. You know me, Tommy. Two years me and the Kid’s been engaged. Look at that ring. Five hundred, he said it cost. Let him take her to the dance. What’ll I do? I’ll cut his heart out. Another whiskey, Tommy.”

“I wouldn’t listen to no such reports, Miss Lizzie,” said the waiter smoothly, from the narrow opening above his chin. “Kid Mullaly’s not the guy to throw a lady like you down. Seltzer on the side?”

“Two years,” repeated Liz, softening a little to sentiment under the magic of the distiller’s art. “I always used to play out on the street of evenin’s ’cause there was nothin’ doin’ for me at home. For a long time I just sat on doorsteps and looked at the lights and the people goin’ by. And then the Kid came along one evenin’ and sized me up, and I was mashed on the spot for fair. The first drink he made me take I cried all night at home, and got a lickin’ for makin’ a noise. And now⁠—say, Tommy, you ever see this Annie Karlson? If it wasn’t for peroxide the chloroform limit would have put her out long ago. Oh, I’m lookin’