Page:Minnie Flynn (1925).pdf/45

 passionate, for she feared that again passion would trick and betray her.

At two o'clock they were still sitting in the lower hallway of the tenement house. A damp chill enveloped them; no longer did the contact of bodies pressed close warm them. Minnie drew away from him. "I'm cold, Billy. You gotta go home."

"Aw, Minnie, the nights is so darn short."

"They won't be when we're married, Billy. You get over this kind of stuff awful quick. Nothin's very romantic when you're married, I guess."

Billy was sure it would be.

They rose, and pulled open the heavy squeaky door. The streets were almost deserted; intermittently the elevated roared past. The wind had died down but the sidewalks were littered with débris. Two doors from The Central, an ashcan had fallen over and they saw the slinking shadows of half-starved alley cats circling around it. From Sullivan's saloon came ribald cries and muffled drunken songs. Sometimes the swinging doors opened and figures sprawled out onto the sidewalk. A fight, the shrill police whistle, scurrying of feet, then silence.

"This ain't such a rotten neighborhood to live in," Minnie remarked after the fight in the saloon had been quelled. "There's always somethin' doin'. Imagine the people who have to live clear over in Jersey."

"Jersey ain't so bad," answered Billy, almost wistfully, "they got gardens over there. A fellow come into our shop the other day lookin' for a job. He says he's got a place in Jersey and wouldn't live in New York if you was to give him the Flatiron Building. Why, Minnie, he's got lettuce an' onions an' spuds in his back yard. He's gonna have two apple trees bearin' next year."