And I thought, also,
of I who was thus compelled to dismiss the dreams of the utopians,
the visions of the poets, the king-thoughts of the king-thinkers, in
a discussion with this ripened product of the New York City inferno.
To him I must talk in the elemental terms of life and death, of food
and water, of brutality and cruelty.
"I give you your choice," he went on. "Give in now, an' you won't be
hurt, none of you."
"And if we don't?" I dared airily.
"You'll be sorry you was ever born. You ain't a mush-head, you've
got a girl there that's stuck on you. It's about time you think of
her. You ain't altogether a mutt. You get my drive?"
Ay, I did get it; and somehow, across my brain flashed a vision of
all I had ever read and heard of the siege of the Legations at
Peking, and of the plans of the white men for their womenkind in the
event of the yellow hordes breaking through the last lines of
defence. Ay, and the old steward got it; for I saw his black eyes
glint murderously in their narrow, tilted slits. He knew the drift
of the gangster's meaning.
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