Chapter 12
XXIII. It had become a fascinating game, and Peter would never have tired of it but for the fact that he had to stay all day in the house with little Jenny. A honeymoon is all right for a few weeks, but no man can stand it forever. Little Jenny, apparently never tired of being kissed, and never seemed satisfied that Peter thoroughly loved her. The man got through
with his love-making after a while, but a woman, it appeared, never knew how to drop the subject. She was always looking before and after and figuring consequences and responsibilities, her duty and her reputation and all the rest of it. Which, of course, was a war. Jenny was unhappy because she was deceiving Sadie. She wanted to tell Sadie, and yet somehow it was easier to go on concealing than admit that one had concealed. Peter didn't see why
Sadie had to be told at all. He didn't see why things couldn't stay just as they were, and why he and his sweetheart couldn't have some fun now and then, instead of always being sentimental, always having agonies over the class war to say nothing of the World War and the prospects of America being involved in it. This did not mean that Peter was hard and feelingless. No, when Peter clasped trembling Little Jenny in his arms, he was very deeply
moved. He had a real sense of what a gentle and good little soul she was. He would have been glad to help her. But what could he do about it? The situation was such that he could not plead with her. He could not try to change her. He had to give himself up to all her crazy whims and pretend to agree with her. Little Jenny was by her weakness marked for destruction, and what good would it do for him to go to destruction along with her?
Peter understood clearly that there were two kinds of people in the world, those who eat and those who are eaten, and it was his intention to stay among the former group. Peter had come in his twenty years of life to a definite understanding of the things called ideas and causes and religions. They were bait to catch suckers, and there is a continual competition between the suckers, who of course don't want to be caught, and those people of superior
wits who want to catch them, and therefore are continually inventing new and more plausible and alluring kinds of bait. Peter had by now heard enough of the jargon of the comrades to realize that theirs was an especially effective kind, and here was poor Little Jenny stuck fast on the hook, and what could Peter do about it? Yet this was Peter's first love, and when he was deeply thrilled he understood the truth of Guffy's saying that a man in
love wants to tell the truth. Peter would have the impulse to say to her, Oh drop all that preaching and give yourself a rest, let's you and me enjoy life a bit. Yes, it would be all he could do to keep from saying this, despite the fact that he knew it would ruin everything. Once Little Jenny appeared in a new silk dress, brought to her by one of the rich ladies whose heart was touched by her dowdy appearance. It was of soft grey
silk, cheap silk, but fresh and new, and Peter had never had anything so fine in his arms before. It matched Jenny's grey eyes, and its freshness gave her a pink glow. Or was it that Peter admired her and loved her more, and so brought the blood to her cheeks? Peter had an impulse to take her out and show her off, and he pressed his face into the soft folds of the dress and whispered, Say kid, some day you and me gotta cut all this hard
luck business for a bit. He felt Little Jenny stiffen and draw away from him, so quickly he had to set to work to patch up the damage. I want you to get well, he pleaded, you're so good to everybody, you treat everybody well but yourself. It had been something in his tone rather than his actual words that had frightened the girl. Oh, Peter, she cried, what does it matter about me or about any other one person, when millions of young men
are being shot to fragments and millions of women and children are starving to death? So there they were, fighting the war again. Peter had to take up her burden, be a hero and a martyr and a red. That same afternoon, as fate willed it, three wobblies out of a job came to call, and oh, how tired Peter was of these wandering agitators, insufferable grouches. Peter would want to say, Oh, cut it out, what you call your cause is nothing
but your scheme to work with your tongues instead of with a pick and shovel. And this would start an imaginary quarrel in Peter's mind. He would hear one of the fellows demanding, How much pick and shovel work you ever done? And another saying, Looks to me like you've been finding the easy jobs wherever you go. The fact that this was true did not make Peter's irritation any less, did not make it easier for him to meet with comrade Smith and brother
Jones and fellow worker Brown just out of jail and listen to their hard luck stories and watch them take from the table food that Peter wanted and, the bitterest pill of all, let them think that they were fooling him with their patter. The time came when Peter wasn't able to stand it any longer. Shut up in the house all day, he was becoming as irritable as a chained dog. Unless he could get out in the world again he would surely
give himself away. He pleaded that the doctors had warned him that his health would not stand in door life. He must get some fresh air. So he got away by himself and after that he found things much easier. He could spend a little of his money, he could find a quiet corner in a restaurant and get himself a beefsteak and eat all he wanted of it without feeling the eyes of any comrades resting upon him reprovingly. Peter had lived in a jail and
in an orphan asylum and in the home of shoemaker Smithers but nowhere had he fared so meagerly as in the home of the Todd sisters who were contributing nearly everything they owned to the Gouber defense and to the Clarion, the socialist paper of American city. Chapter 124 Peter went to see Andrews, the lawyer, and asked for a job. He wanted to be active in the case, he said, so he was set to work in
the offices of the defense committee where he heard people talking about the case all day and he could pick up no end of valuable tips. He made himself agreeable and gained friends. Before long he was intimate with one of the best witnesses of the defense and discovered that this man had once been named as correspondent in a divorce case. Peter found out the name of the woman and Guffey set to work to bring her to American city.
The job was to be done cleverly without the woman's even knowing that she was being used. She would have a little holiday and the spell of old love would reassert itself and Guffey would have a half dozen men to spring the trap and there would be a star witness of the Gouber defense cleaned down and out. There's always something you can get them on, said McGivney and cheerfully paid Peter Gudge five hundred dollars for the information he had
brought. Peter would have been wildly happy but just at this moment a dreadful calamity befell him. Jenny had been talking about marriage more and more and now she revealed to him a reason which made marriage imperative. She revealed it with downcast eyes, with blushes and trembling and Peter was so overcome with consternation that he could not play the part that was expected of him. Hitherto in these love crises he had caught Jenny in his arms
and comforted her but now for a moment he let her see his real emotions. Jenny promptly had a fit. What was the matter with him? Didn't he mean to marry her as he had promised? Surely he must realize now that they could no longer delay and Peter who was not familiar with the symptoms of hysterics lost his head completely and could think of nothing to do but rush out of the house and slam the door. The more he considered it the more clearly he realized
that he was in the devil of a predicament. As a servant of the Traction Trust he had taken it for granted that he was immune to all legal penalties and obligations but here he had a feeling was a trouble from which the powerful ones of the city would be unable to shield their agent. Were they able to arrange it so that one could marry a girl and then get out of it when one's job was done. Peter was so uneasy that he had to call up the office
of Guffey and get hold of McGivney. This was dangerous because the prosecution was tapping telephone wires and they feared the defense might be doing the same. But Peter took a chance. He told McGivney to come and meet him at the usual place and there they argued the matter out and Peter's worst fears were confirmed. When he put the proposition up to McGivney the rat-faced man guffawed in his face. He found it so funny that he did
not stop laughing until he saw that he was putting his spy into a rage. What's the joke? demanded Peter. If I'm ruined where'll you get any more information? But my God! said McGivney, what did you have to go and get that kind of a girl for? I had to take what I could answered Peter. Besides they're all alike. They get into trouble and you can't help it. Sure you can help it said McGivney. Why didn't you ask
long ago? Now if you've got yourself tied up with a marrying proposition it's your own lookout. You can't put it off on me. They argued back and forth. The rat-faced man was positive that there was no way Peter could pretend to marry Jenny and not have the marriage count. He might get himself into no end of trouble and certainly he would be ruined as a spy. What he must do was to pay the girl some money and send her somewhere to get fixed
up. McGivney would find out the name of a doctor to do the job. Yes, but what excuse can I give her? cried Peter. I mean why I don't marry her. Make something up said McGivney. Why not have a wife already? Then seeing Peter's look of dismay. Sure you can fix that. I'll get you one if you need her. But you won't have to take that trouble. Just tell your girl a hard luck story. You've got a wife. You thought you could get free from her but
now you find you can't. Your wife's got wind of what you're doing here and she's trying to blackmail you. Fix it up so your girl can't do anything on account of hurting the Goober defense. If she's really sincere about it she won't disgrace you. Maybe she won't even tell her sister. Peter hated to do anything like that. He had a vision of little Jenny lying on the sofa in hysterics as he left her. And he dreaded the long emotional scene
that would be necessary. However, it seemed that he must go through with it. There was no better way that he could think of. Also, he must be quick, because in a couple of hours Sadie would be coming home from work. And it might be too late. End of sections 23 and 24
