Harvey J. O'Higgins

“ Byrne was muttering.
Mrs. Cregan ate, and the food helped to stop her tears. It was the strong coffee, at last, that brought her back her voice. "If it'd b'en him he'd 'a' gone an' got drunk," she said, wiping her cheeks with her napkin. "The men have the best of it. Us women have to take it all starin' sober." ”

“ I'd not be out on the street here, not knowin' where I'm goin' to, ner how I'm to live. It's thim that knows how to take care o' their own—givin' the women worrk, an' takin' the childer off to the farrms, an' all the like o' that. You Dogans——"
Mrs. Byrne glanced about her fearfully. "Stop yer talk, now. Stop yer talk. Stop it before someone hears yuh makin' a big fool o' yerself."
"I'll not stop it. What do I care who hears me? I'm goin' off from here fer good an' all. ”

“ It is impossible to tell much for a quarter. I give a full trance readin', with names, dates, and all questions answered——"
Mrs. Cregan "blessed" herself,—with the sign of the cross,—gasped, "God forgi' me!" and blundered out into the room. Mrs. Byrne cried: "What's wrong?" Mrs. Cregan did not hear. She stampeded to the door in the ponderous fright of a panic-stricken elephant. Her one thought was to find a place where she might get on her knees.... Cregan! It was himself! It was Dinny! Killed, maybe! She had blasphemed against the Church and Father Dumphy, and she must pray. ”

“ Mrs. Byrne replied, "an' they're to be treated as such. Sure, Cregan couldn't live without yuh. He'd have no buttons to his pants in a week."
"An' him!" Mrs. Cregan cried. "Iver since the Raypublicuns got licked; there's be'n no gettin' on with him at all. Thim Sunday papers 've toorned his head. He's all blather about his rights an' his wrongs. Th' other moornin', didn't I try to get on his bus from the wrong side o' the crossin', an' he bawls at me: 'Th' other side! Th' other side! Yuh're no better than any one ilse!' An' I had to chase through the mud after him! ”

“ No one'll see us. I been there meself many's the time, an' no one knows it."
III Mrs. Byrne entered the "reception rooms" of Madame Wampa, "clairvoyant, palmist, and card-reader," with the propitiatory smile of the woman who knows she is doing wrong but is prepared to argue that there is "no great harm into it." She was followed by Mrs. Cregan, as guiltily reverential as if she were an altar boy who had been persuaded to join in some mischievous trespass on the "sanctuary." Madame Wampa received them, professionally insolent in her indifference. Mrs. ”

“ He's talkin' like an anarchist! An' that's why he smashed me dish. He'll have no one say 'No' to 'im.... Ah, Mrs. Byrne, niver marry a man older than yersilf."
"Thank yuh," Mrs. Byrne replied with hoarse sarcasm. "I'm not likely to, at my age." She added, consolingly: "Cregan's young fer his years. Drivin' a Fift' Avenah bus is fine, preservin', outdoor work."
"It is that!" And Mrs. Cregan's tone remarked that the fact was the more to be deplored. "He'll be crankier an' crabbeder the older he grows." ”