Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton Read Free Book Online

not a Talian, are you?’ asked Jenny, with the same slow, indolent, ingenuous, blue-eyed seriousness as before.
    ‘Me? No. I suppose I’m an American – strickly speaking. American father an’ Irish mother.’
    ‘You don’t speak like an American,’ was Jenny’s comment.
    ‘No. I came over here when I was five, you see. Don’t remember nothing about it. Don’t remember my father even – not properly.’ His difficulty with his negatives betrayed that he was flustered, as it always did.
    ‘Don’t you really?’ asked the dark one.
    ‘No,’ said Bob, and then added, with even greater self-consciousness: ‘He was an American “Cop.”’
    ‘My word!’ said the dark one, inclined to titter, and the news did not seem to have made a great impression upon either of the ladies. He was not wounded, however. Quite impossible for them, after all! Impossible for them to know of a clear and shining ideal – of a tall, sturdy figure in a trim uniform – a figure that swung a baton, and helped little children across roads, and was good, and strong, and authoritative, and kind, and brave, and his father. It was asking too much.
    Jenny, however, suddenly and surprisingly, caught on to the idea.
    ‘Like what you see on the films,’ she said.
    ‘That’s right,’ he said, and his eyes spoke his gratitude for her thoughtfulness and sympathy.
    ‘I wonder you don’t go on the films, waiter,’ said the dark one.
    ‘ Me? –’ He realized that his duties, articulate in the noise of coins and tumblers being banged on tables, were calling him. ‘I must go. There’re three tables waiting.’ He left them.
    Ella, as she served him, was ironic and reserved.
    ‘I’m surprised at you , Bob,’ said Ella.
    ‘Surprised at me? What’s up?’
    But she preferred mystery. ‘I’m surprised at you , Bob,’ she reaffirmed, and left him.
    He now worked for ten minutes unremittingly. The time was twenty to ten, and the place was still filling up. He had made four and ninepence already. He looked over in the direction of his new acquaintances and observed that the dark one had vanished. The other was sitting alone, staring absently, but at the same time inconsolably, in front of her. The combined unconsciousness, unhappiness, and harmlessness of her bearing, awoke his sympathy. He could not resist going over.
    ‘Well,’ he said. ‘How’s the Gin and Pep?’
    She withdrew from dreams with a smile.
    ‘Oh – very nice, thanks. I’m feelin’ much better already.’
    ‘Doing its work?’
    ‘That’s right. I’m very glad you recommended it.’
    He smiled, drummed on his tray with his fingers, looked about him, and wondered how he could excuse himself.
    ‘Don’t know what’s the matter with me ,’ she said. ‘I’m always gettin’ these funny attacks.’
    You would hardly credit, to listen to her, that she was a dreadfully wicked young woman.
    ‘Ah – that’s because you don’t get enough exercise,’ he said and smiled again.
    ‘Exercise? Physical jerks in the morning, I suppose you mean?’
    ‘Well. Don’t know about that. But you ought to go in for good long walks or something.’
    She looked along the bar, with a little smile to herself.
    ‘Get enough walking,’ she said. ‘One way and another.’
    There was a pause.
    ‘Oh well –’ he began.
    ‘An’ I guess I’ve got to do some more to-night,’ she said –
    ‘Oh – how’s that?’
    ‘How’s that?’ She smiled again. ‘You ask my landlady. She’ll tell you “How’s that.”’
    ‘What – short with the rent?’
    ‘You bet.’
    ‘That’s bad,’ said Bob, and there was a silence.
    She smiled sadly at him. The sorrows of her existence descended upon them both, drawing them closer, flowing through each of them – as though they had joined hands affectionately.
    ‘Well – grumbling won’t help,’ she said . . . and both of them looked sideways at different objects. . . .
    ‘S’pose I shouldn’t have come in here drinking,’