  When Red Garrity left the Green, he sauntered down a side street to a small tobacco store where he bought a package of cheap cigarettes. Outside the door he met Shrimp McGowan and the two lounged on a corner for half an hour or so before deciding to indulge in a soda. This also took some time and when it was finally over they strolled toward the section of town that was filled with factories and cheap dwellings in a languid search for Chick Conners. In the end it was Conners himself who did the finding. Speeding homeward from the Green, he overtook the two cronies dawdling along in front of a factory. His appearance met with slightly aggrieved inquiries. “Where you been all afternoon?” demanded Garrity. “Yes,” chimed in McGowan, “we’ve been looking all over town for you.” Conners sniffed. “You couldn’t have looked very hard,” he commented. “I just come from seeing the boy scouts on the Green.” Garrity hitched up a frayed suspender and sneered. “Boy scouts!” he repeated in a scornful tone. “You must be terrible hard up, Chick, to go hanging around that bunch of dubs.” Conners flushed a little. “Aw, I wasn’t hanging around ’em,” he protested. “I was just watching ’em do them stunts.” “Stunts! Do you call them loony kid games stunts? Taking off their clothes and then seeing which can put ’em on quickest! I ain’t very shy of time, but would you catch me wasting it on that rot? Nix!” Conners’ thin lips expanded in a grin. “If you wasn’t watching ’em yourself how’d you get wise to what they was doing?” he countered. Garrity took a long pull at the butt of a cigarette and flicked it into the street. Then he turned on Conners, chin thrust out aggressively. “I don’t need no lifetime, like some guys, to catch on to what’s doing,” he remarked. “A glance while I was passing along the Green was plenty. Besides, I seen enough of ’em long before I come to this slow burg—parading around in their cute little uniforms an’ peddling stamps an’ the like. New York’s full of ’em.” He pronounced it New Yoick. And as he swaggered there with legs wide apart, hands thrust deep into trousers’ pockets, shabby cap cocked on one side of an untidy mass of carroty hair, it was not hard to guess where he hailed from. Chick Conners eyed him with the admiring gaze of a satellite, beneath which was a touch of doubt and a little hint of protest. “Maybe that’s right when they’re all dolled up with their coats on an’ everything,” he said. “But they ain’t always like that. A guy was telling me they had darn good fun at their meetings, and in summer they go off to camp, and—” “Listen at him, Shrimp!” cut in Garrity with a loud laugh. “Don’t he talk up nice. You might think he was hankering to be a boy scout himself.” Conners flushed scarlet, hesitated, and then his shoulders squared. “Well, s’posing I was,” he retorted with a sort of uneasy defiance. “I don’t see what difference it makes to you.” Garrity bent suddenly toward him, chin thrust out, eyes angry and threatening. “You don’t, eh?” he snorted. “Well, let me tell you something, Conners. You go fooling around them boy scouts, and you’re all off with me. I don’t pal around with that kind of a softy. You’d look good in one of them play soldier suits, you would. Here comes one of ’em now. Ain’t he cute? Don’t forget to s’lute your brother scout, Chick.” With mouth still sneering, he stepped back beside McGowan who lounged against the wall. After a moment’s hesitation Conners ranged himself with the others, and with varying degrees of expression they watched the approach of the boy in khaki who had just swung the corner half a block away. He was about fifteen, younger and slighter than Red Garrity, but with a trim, erect carriage which was in marked contrast with the other’s slouch. On his left sleeve was a first class patrol leader’s badge. His clothes were neat and well brushed and his whole equipment immaculate. He walked briskly with an easy, springy stride, the corners of his lips curving in a reminiscent smile. Suddenly he saw them. The smile vanished; a look of surprise and uncertainty came into his face; he almost stopped. Then he came on again, but with lips pressed tightly together and much of the spring gone from his movements. Garrity watched his approach, a certain pleased expectancy in his hard blue eyes. Deliberately he kept silent until the scout was opposite him and beginning to think, perhaps, that he might pass without interruption. Then one hand shot out and gripped McBride’s arm. “What your hurry, Cutey?” drawled Garrity. “Afraid Poppa Scoutmaster will mark you late?” Micky tried to jerk away, but the muscular fingers dug into his arm with painful force. A deep flush flamed into his face and his eyes narrowed. “Let go,” he demanded curtly. Garrity grinned irritatingly. “Ain’t he got pretty pink cheeks?” he drawled insultingly. “They’re smooth an’ soft just like a girl’s.” With a sudden motion he brought up his free hand, callous and none too clean, with blackened, broken nails, and rubbed it roughly over one side of McBride’s face. Shrimp McGowan tittered. Conners’ eyes widened with a look of silent protest. A second later there was a loud smack as Micky’s open palm struck Garrity’s cheek with a force that left a momentary imprint of his fingers on the tanned and freckled skin. The next instant the scout was sprawling in the gutter. “You fresh Ike!” snarled Garrity furiously. “I’ll tan the hide off you for that. Get up!” Dizzily McBride tried to scramble to his feet. He had struck the curb with considerable force and his head whirled. But he had not the least intention of giving in to the bully without a fight. He had scarcely risen to his knees when Garrity knocked him down again. Micky rolled over a couple of times and managed to gain his feet without interference. He was conscious that Conners had caught the red-haired fellow by an elbow and was protesting in a shrill, uneven voice, while McGowan stared uneasily up and down the street. But all he actually saw was the sneering face of his opponent as he staggered forward, clenched fists raised in a position he thought was scientific. Suddenly there came a whirlwind forward rush which easily broke through the boy’s unsteady guard. Garrity had no science. His was merely the superiority of bull strength and a total disregard for the principles of fair fighting. McBride, still shaky from that knock against the curb, managed to partly parry a blow at his chest. Then came a smothering clinch and a blow on the face which turned the boy limp and sent him to the ground again. Garrity stepped back, his breath coming a little unevenly. For a moment he stood motionless, eyes fixed on the limp figure at his feet. McBride’s hat was gone, his coat was torn and muddied. There was a smear of grime across one cheek and a cut from which the blood oozed slowly. As Red stared at the white face and the sprawling body, so much slimmer and smaller than his own, a curious, unwonted sense of shame swept over him. An instant later the scout’s eyes opened and he looked dazedly at the fellow standing over him. “You—you coward!” he muttered. “You beastly coward!” Garrity gave a loud, raucous laugh which somehow held no note of mirth in it. “Talk’s cheap,” he sneered, hitching up his suspender. “I guess you won’t get fresh again with me.” He turned and swaggered off. “Come ahead, fellows,” he said over one shoulder. “This poor prune’s finished. Let’s be getting down town.” McGowan slouched along beside him. Chick Conners took a step or two after them and then stopped short. “I ain’t coming,” he stated briefly. Garrity turned his head and for a moment stared steadily into the other fellow’s face. What he saw there brought a faint flush into his freckled cheeks and set his forehead in a scowl. “You ain’t?” he repeated harshly. “All right. Only don’t you come belly-aching around me to-morrow or any other time. I’m through with you.” Without waiting for a reply, he went on his way with Shrimp, his lips pursed in a strident whistle. At the corner, however, he glanced back for an instant. McBride was on his feet and Conners stood beside him. Indeed, one ragged sleeve encircled the khaki shoulders supportingly and their heads were close together. Garrity’s lips curled in a sneer, but the flush in his face deepened, and in his heart there was a queer, dull, comprehensive pang such as he had never known before. |
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