Chapter 3 between rounds

The May moon shone brightly on the boarding house run by Mrs. Murphy.A search of the almanac reveals that the brightness of the moon also spreads over a vast area.Spring has put on its best clothes, and hay fever is going to be rampant soon.The park is full of new greenery and travelers from the west and south.Flowers are on display.Agents of summer resorts are touting customers; the weather and court sentences are becoming milder; accordions, fountains, and card games are everywhere. The windows of Mrs. Murphy's boarding house were all open.A group of tenants sat on the high stone steps at the door, their buttocks on round and flat straw, like German pancakes.

Mrs. McCaskey was leaning against a front window on the second floor, waiting for her husband to come home.The dinner on the table was getting cold.Its anger penetrated into Mrs. McCaskey's stomach. At nine o'clock, McCaskey finally arrived.With his coat over his arm and his pipe dangling from his mouth, he was carefully looking for a gap on the stone steps where the lodgers sat to accommodate his large feet, which were nine by four, and kept chattering for disturbing them. Apologize. When he opened the door, what he encountered was unexpected.Usually what he had to dodge was either the stove lid or the wooden pestle for pounding potatoes, but this time it was only words that flew over.

Mr. McCaskey deduced that the mild May light had softened the wife's heart. "I heard it all," began the words in place of the pots and pans. "You're so clumsy that you'll be sorry for stepping on the hem of a dude on the road, and your own wife is waiting for you at the window with her neck stretched out as long as a clothesline, even though you're on her neck Stepped on it, didn't even say 'I'm sorry'; you drank almost all your wages every Saturday night in Gallagher's shop, and left a little to buy food, and now you put it all in the cold to collect gas The accountant has come here twice again today."

"Girl!" said McCaskey, throwing his coat and hat on a chair, "you're making me lose my appetite by making such a noise. You're breaking down the foundations of society by being rude. Ladies stand in the way." , you walked among them, and it is a man's duty to excuse yourself. Can you stop facing the window with your pig face, and hurry up to make food?" Mrs. McCaskey rose slowly.There was something wrong with her behavior that put Mr. McCaskey on his guard.When the corner of her mouth suddenly sinks like the pointer of a barometer, it often heralds the coming of bowls and pans.

"Pig's face, you say?" said Mrs. McCaskey, throwing a saucepan full of bacon and turnips at her husband. Mr. McCaskey is a seasoned veteran.He knew what to serve after the first small course.On the table was a plate of roast pork with sorrel.He held it up in return, followed by a bread pudding in an earthenware dish.A hunk of Swiss cheese that the husband threw with great precision hit Mrs. McCaskey under the eye.When she responded appropriately with a pot full of hot, dark, half-smelling, half-smelling coffee, the battle was supposed to be over, according to the serving rules.

But Mr. McCaskey wasn't the sort of guy to eat fifty cents.Let those sleazy bohemians call coffee the end, if they will.Let them embarrass themselves.He is far more savvy.It is not that he has never seen a water bowl for washing his fingers after a meal.Although Murphy's boarding house did not have such gadgets, their substitutes were at hand.He triumphantly raised the enamel washbasin and sent it to his beloved friend's head.Mrs. McCaskey dodged the trick.She reached for the iron, intending to use it as a refreshing drink to end the tasty duel.At that moment, a loud wail from downstairs made her and McCaskey stop involuntarily, and there was a temporary truce.

Constable Cleary stood on the pavement at the corner of the house, straining his ears for the banging of household appliances. "John McCaskey and his wife are at it again," thought the policeman. "Should I go upstairs to persuade them? It's better not to go. They are a legitimate couple, and they don't usually have any entertainment. They won't quarrel for too long. Of course, if the quarrel continues, they will borrow someone else's bowl Only a lamp will do." At that moment, the shrill cry sounded downstairs, indicating that either something terrible had happened or the situation was critical. "That's probably meowing," said Policeman Cleary, hurrying away in the opposite direction.

The tenants sitting on the stone steps were commotioning.Mr. Toomey, an insurance broker by trade and a professional inquisitor, went into the house to inquire about the cause of the screaming.He came back to report that Mrs. Murphy's youngest son, Mike, was missing.Following the messenger came Mrs. Murphy herself—two hundred pounds of tears and hysteria, crying out for the missing thirty pounds of freckles and mischief.You say it's a spoiling way of describing it, and it's true; but Mr Toomey sat down beside Miss Milliner Purdy, and they shook hands in sympathy.Sister Walsh, the two old ladies who complained all day about the noise in the passage, immediately asked if anyone had been looking behind the clock base.

Major Gregg, who was sitting with his stout lady on the top step, got up and buttoned his coat. "Is the little one gone?" he cried. "I'll go all over the city looking for it." His wife, who had never allowed him to go out after dark, said in a baritone voice: "Go, Ludovic! See the mother so sad and helpless." He's heartless." "Give me thirty cents, my dear—give me sixty cents," said the major. "Lost children sometimes go a long way. I may have to take a car and have some money with me." Old man Danny, who lived in the back room on the fourth floor, was sitting on the bottom step of the stone steps, reading a newspaper by the light of the street lamp.He turned a page and went on to the report on the carpenters' strike.Mrs. Murphy squeezed her voice and called to the moon, "Oh, our Mike, my God, where is my little baby?"

"When was the last time you saw him?" asked old man Danny, reading the report of the Building Guild. "Well," whined Mrs. Murphy, "maybe it was yesterday, maybe it was four hours ago. I can't remember. My youngest son Mike must have been lost. This morning—it might have been Wednesday—he Still playing on the sidewalk. I'm so busy I can't even remember the days. I've searched up and down the house and can't find him. Oh, God—" No matter how people curse, this big city is always silent, cold and huge.It is said to have a heart of stone and no mercy; its streets are compared to desolate forests and lava deserts.In fact, otherwise, delicious food can be found in the hard shell of lobster.This analogy may not be very appropriate.However, no one will be offended.We are not sure enough that we will not casually call someone a lobster.

The loss of a child elicits more sympathy than any disaster.Their little feet are so weak, and the world is so rough and rough. Major Gregg turned the corner hastily and stepped into Billy's shop. "Have a whiskey and soda," he said to the clerk. "Did you see a lost kid of six or so, bow-legged, dirty-faced, somewhere around here?" Mr Toomey sat on the stone steps and held Miss Purdy's hand. "To think of that dear little thing," said Miss Purdy, "off its mother's protection—perhaps under the hooves of a galloping horse—oh, how dreadful!" "Isn't it?" agreed Mr. Toomey, squeezing her hand. "Do you think I should go out and help find him?" "Perhaps you should," said Miss Purdy, "but, Mr. Toomey, you're so brave--so desperate--if something happens to your zeal, how can I--" Old man Danny followed the lines with his fingers and continued to read the arbitration agreement. Mr. and Mrs. McCaskey from the front room on the second floor went to the window to catch their breath.Mr. McCaskey crooked his forefinger to pick a turnip from the inside of his vest, and his wife rubbed her eyes, uncomfortable with the salt in the roast pork.They heard the commotion downstairs and stuck their heads out of the window. "Little Mike's gone," said Mrs. McCaskey in a low voice, "that sweet, mischievous, angelic little thing!" "Is the little fellow lost?" said Mr. McCaskey, leaning out of the window. "Well, that's too bad. The children should look at it differently. It'd be nice to have a different woman, because it's all right when they're gone." Mrs. McCaskey ignored the barbed remark, and took her husband by the arm. "John," she said emotionally, "Mrs. Murphy's baby is gone. The city is too big for kids to get lost. He's only six years old. John, if we had a baby six years ago, we'd have one now." big." "We never had one," said Mr. McCaskey, after he had considered the fact for a while. "But if we had been born, John, you think how much we must have suffered when our little Phelan got lost and disappeared in the town to-night." "You're talking nonsense," said Mr. McCaskey. "He should be called Pat, after my old papa in Cantery." "You bullshit!" said Mrs. McCaskey, without fire in her voice. "My brother is worth ten dozen mud-legged McCaskeys. The kid must have his name." She leaned out from the window sill to watch the commotion below. "John," said Mrs. McCaskey mildly, "I'm sorry I was so impatient with you." "As you say," said her husband, "pudding in a hurry, turnips in a hurry, and coffee in a hurry. You might call it a quick meal, for sure." Mrs. McCaskey put her arms around her husband's arm and took his rough hand. "Listen to poor Mrs. Murphy's cries," she said. "It's terrible for a little child to be lost in such a big city. If it were our little Phelan, John, my heart would break." Broken." Mr. McCaskey withdrew his hand uncomfortably.However, he put his hand on the shoulder of his wife beside him. "That's absurd," he said roughly, "but I'd be sad if our little--Pat got kidnapped or something. We never had a baby, though. Sometimes I'm too upset Yes, I was rough with you, Judy. Don't take it to heart." They leaned together and watched the sad tragedy unfold below. They sat like this for a long time.People flocked to and fro on the sidewalks, huddled together for news, spreading rumors and unfounded speculations.Mrs. Murphy plowed in and out of them like a mountain of flesh rattling with waterfalls of tears.Messengers come and go, busy all the time. There was a clamor of voices in front of the dormitory door, and the commotion broke out again. "What's the matter, Judy?" asked Mr. McCaskey. "Mrs. Murphy's voice," said Mrs. McCaskey, listening. "She said she found little Mike in the house, asleep behind a roll of oilcloth under the bed." Mr. McCaskey laughed. "Your Faerûn is like that," he cried sarcastically. "Pat wouldn't be playing tricks like that. If our unborn child gets lost, just call him Phelan and watch him hide under the bed like a mangy little dog." Mrs. McCaskey stood up slowly and walked towards the cupboard, the corners of her mouth drooping. Policeman Cleary paced back from the corner when the crowd dispersed.He strained his ears to listen to the McCaskey house and was startled: the banging of iron and china and the clang of thrown kitchen utensils seemed as loud as ever.Constable Cleary pulled out his watch. "Good boy!" he exclaimed. "John McCaskey and his wife have been at it for an hour and fifteen minutes by my watch. His wife weighs forty pounds more than he does. Hope he works harder." Policeman Cleary walked slowly around the corner. Old man Danny folded the newspaper and hurried up the stone steps, just as Mrs. Murphy was about to lock the door for the night.

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