Jinx grew sombre. “That’s d’ trouble with a li’l round black hippo like you. All give and no take. When you kid me I kin take it. When I kid you you can’t.”
“You don’ seem to be taken’ that so good,” said Bubber. “Don’ nobody git no madder’n you do.”
“No?—look at y’ now. ’Bout to bus’ open and spatter d’ whole bar room with ink.”
“I kin remember,” Bubber returned, “when you didn’ act like nobody’s long lost brother. Never will fo’get that night you got so mad you started slippin’ me in d’ dozens.”
This was approaching dangerous ground, this reference to their own reactions. To quarrel over subjects in general was bad enough; to quarrel over each other might be disastrous. It brought them closer to the truth about themselves, yet not quite close enough; it did not reach the actual sore, it only lifted off the scab.
“Well you oughter been slipped,” Jinx said. “Any bird can’t take kiddin’ no better’n that needs to be kidded and kidded hard.”
The customary comments accompanied this discourse:
“Tell ’em ’bout it!”
“That means fight in my home.”
“Grease us twice!”
“They jes’ foolin’. If they meant it they’d both be daid by now.”
“Me, I’m bettin’ on Long Boy. He’ll wrap hisself ’round Squatty and squeeze all th’ ambition out’n ’im.”
Bubber challenged, “Well—you better not slip me ag’in.”
“No?” said Jinx like a small boy who has been dared to knock off the chip. “No? Well—yo’ granddaddy was a mule—Now—what you got to say ’bout that?”
Bubber said nothing. Instead he moved toward Jinx with surprising ease and mysterious rapidity and suddenly Jinx doubled forward from the force of an almost invisible blow to the midriff. “What you go’n’ say ’bout that?” Bubber asked, looking belligerently up into Jinx’s astounded face.
Not quite certain whether this was serious or make-believe, Jinx reached mechanically forward and gathered Bubber’s neck and shoulders in an embrace usually reserved for pianos. Failing to twist himself free, Bubber began swinging away at the other’s kidneys, and in a moment the tussle removed from the atmosphere all suggestion of possible jest.
“Look a yeh!” somebody gasped.
“They ain’t roughin’ sho’ nuff, is they?”
“They ain’ playin’ hopscotch.”
“Well, ain’t this sump’m?”
But before either could damage the other, Pat, who was an excellent manager and always at the spot that needed him most, had heard the commotion from the next room and hurried to the scene. Pat was not bad with his hands himself, and it is significant that with apparent ease he managed quickly to separate them.
“What the hell you think this is?” he inquired, as for a moment they stood off from each other glaring.
“Jes’ git out d’ way, thass all,” said one.
“He been cryin’ fo’ it—now he gon’ git it,” vowed the other.
“Not here he ain’t,” Pat decided. “Look,” he pointed, “Y’all see that door? All right. I told y’ once before the nex’ time you wanted to settle sump’n I was go’n’ put you in the cellar and let the best man come up.” He strode to the door, unlocked and opened it, and pressed a button. “Come on, if you mean it—Come on.”
Neither was willing to admit that he did not mean it, and in another moment the gaping bystanders saw them disappear through the cellar door, which Pat promptly closed behind them.
“Well, what do y’ know ’bout that?”
“Ain’t this a dog?”
“Salty dog, I mean.”
“Damn if d’ worm ain’t turned.”
“Yea—but which a one is d’ worm?”
The bystanders crowded about the door, listening. Pat, grinning, kept his hand on the knob, his ear against the panel. The others pressed forward: a lean black boy as tall as Pat, with tight slick skin and wide, white, shifting eyes; a thin, short tan-skinned lad of twenty, with a sharp face half hidden by a voluminous, lopsided cap; a paunchy old brown fellow in shirt sleeves and suspenders, with puffed cheeks and rolling pop-eyes; a long, thin, senilely crouching grandad with the complexion of a mummy and a gloating, toothless grin; a parchment-covered gambler, a tea-colored card-shark, a khaki-skinned pickpocket easing one hand into a pompous racing-man’s pocket, a dozen others, all surging forward, all listening with arched brows or grins of relish. This was gonna be good, this was. Them two guys meant blood.
Most of these, hearing nothing, presently fell back commenting:
“Bet on the long boy!”
“Give you odds.”
“Don’ tell me—that jasper can fight.”
“Squatty’ll wear him down, though.”
“I knowed they’d ask f’ each other sooner or later—”
“Too bad now.”
“Thass the reason I never kid nobody—might have to make him take it, see?”
“Wonder if they’ll cut?”
“Can’t tell what a guy’ll do when he’s losin’.”
“Who’ll move pianers tomorrer?”
“Better git yo’ mop out, Pat.”
“Anybody sent for the ambulance?”
“Ain’ got a chance in the world—”
“Five bucks says he is—”
“Who—String-bean?”
“Put yo’ money wha’ yo’ mouth is—”
It seemed an endless time, but nobody’s eyes left the door for long. Stories suggested by the present affair began to be told, sudden gusts and flurries of laughter swept the room. Argument ensued over the nature of the quarrel—How had it begun? So—The hell it had—it was like this—Good thing: those two were a constant pain in the what’s-a-name with their continuous quarrel. Over a woman, hey? Huh—jes’ goes to show y’—
Pat was called away from his post by some duty in the pool room. He made sure the cellar door was locked and went about his business, promising to return in time for the rest of the fun.
Another long wait followed—Hear anything? Not a damn thing. Fools must’a gone down there and kilt each other. Remember the night Sam Tyler and Joe West got hooked up? Yea. Waitin’, they was, in the same hotel. The head waiter give Sam a check that should ’a’ been Joe’s, so Joe was sore to start with. Well the man ordered Washington pie, see? You know—that white stuff with whoop’ cream all over it. And Sam brought chocolate pie by mistake. So the fay man looked up at Sam, he did, and turned up his nose, like,
