SSS 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 PS3529 
 ARID: 
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UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HIL 
 
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HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
A 
 
 STAR BOOK , 
 
 HAUNCH, PAUNCH 
 AND JOWL. 
 
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 cee ee ee re ne na a re ce es morn ee rn ee ern re og rrr ne ne rr rn ren rer 
 
 BY 
 SAMUEL ORNITZ 
 
 GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. 
 
 GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK 
 
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Copyright, 1923, by 
 Bont AND LIVERIGHT, INC. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FIRST PERIOD 
 
 Nine Years Old: Fourteenth Leader of Our Gang, 
 Seminary Student and Animal of Unreasonable 
 Smell; Can Read the Dialect Christ Spoke But Not 
 a Gentleman. The Last Lullaby. 
 
 SECOND PERIOD : : catty we A ah ae 
 
 Twelve Years Old. Melamud Mordecai. Cheder. 
 Gang Pals and Bookish Boys. Civil War. War 
 with the Gentiles. An Army Marches Under a 
 Tin Roof. The Hingkidike Shammos (Limping 
 Beadle). Allen Street Mysteries. Rabbi Zucker 
 Denounces the Brothels. Bar Mitzvah (Confirma- 
 tion). : 
 
 THIRD PERIOD . . . : : A . 65 
 
 Girl-Crazy. Good-bye, School Cinch. City Col- 
 lege. Over the River. Police Court. Shyster’s 
 Runner. Jews Are Not Jews: They Are American 
 Jews, German Jews, English, Galician, Lithuanian, 
 and so on, Geographically, Jews. Gretel, My First 
 Love. Die Unie (The Union). Philip Discovers 
 the Road to Wealth Is Paved With the Backs of 
 Workers and the Secret of the German Jews’ Suc- 
 cess. A Little Genealogy: Grandfather Was a 
 Horse Thief. 
 
 C7] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FOURTH PERIOD : : : te s - 107 
 
 Eighteen. I Madly Love Esther; Yet I Still Need 
 Gretel. A Singing Waiter in a Chinatown 
 Dance Hall. ‘‘Piano’’ O’Brien. ‘‘Sweet Rosie 
 O’Grady,’’ Latinized and Palistrinated, Becomes 
 a Solemn Mass Cantata. The Art of Appropri- 
 ating Melodies. America’s New Music: African 
 Rhythm with Semitic Coloring. The Marriage, 
 Death and Burial of Davie Solomon. The Talkers’ 
 Café. Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) Picnic 
 and Riot. Big Jim Hallorhan. Boy Campaigners 
 and Voters. 
 
 FIFTH PERIOD . : ; : : . +p Low 
 
 Lawyer, Politician, Professional Jew. Mother, My 
 Respect-Saving Screen, Says I Am the Goat’s 
 Child. Lips That Melt in Mine and the Spirit That 
 Scorns Me. Sedatives for the Hysterical Race. 
 Are Jews Paranoiacs and Neurasthenics? Inbreed- 
 ing and Intermarriage. Strikes: Wherein Gunmen 
 Serve the Sacred Cause of Capital and the Holy 
 War of Labor. How Philip Beats the German 
 Jews. Big Jim Rewards Me With the Brooklyn 
 Bridge Pickpocket Privilege. How Martyrs Die. 
 Ambition Is My Undying Desire. 
 
 SIXTH PERIOD . : ‘ . . 245 
 
 The Jewish Four Hundred: Philip Horns In and 
 Picks a Prize Moron: Pedigree’s the Thing. Chris- 
 tian Science, Ethical Culture, New Thought and 
 Unitarian Churches Harbor Israel’s Spiritual 
 Changelings. They say Esther Married for Money. 
 
 [8] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Blackmail Boost Up to the High Place. Judge 
 of the Superior Criminal Court. 
 
 SEVENTH PERIOD : : : . : . 285 
 
 Exeunt Philip . Ancestors to Lap Dogs. My 
 Political Career Stifled by a Still Scandal. Margot 
 of the Movies. Haunch-Paunch-and-Jowl. Finis: 
 What’s It All About? Wauart! 
 
 [9] 
 
Fee 88 
 M75 
 
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 note 
 
 fanny 
 i 
 
FIRST PERIOD 
 
 All men... who have done anything of 
 excellence ... ought... to describe their 
 life with their own hand. 
 
 BENVENUTO CELLINI. 
 
a 
 
 f 4 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH 
 AND JOWL 
 
 FIRST PERIOD 
 I 
 
 I begin my history. I want to tell everything. 
 Everything: so that even if I tell pathological lies the 
 truth will shine out like grains of gold in the upturned 
 muck. ...I grope for first definite memories. 
 
 Early childhood is a mist world: fantastic and fear- 
 ful, glamorous and grotesque. One is not really born 
 into life until one breaks through this fine-webbed 
 
 cocoon of vagueness. ... I am nine; that stands out 
 fully and firmly blocked. . . . Ramshackle New York 
 during the sprawling awkward age of its growth... . 
 
 A keen December evening. Gas lamps burning orange 
 beacons upon the blue sea of a wintry night. I am re- 
 turning from cheder (Hebrew School). 
 
 I close the door behind me. The kerosene lamp with 
 its sooty chimney and ragged wick smokes more than 
 ever. It stands high on a shelf and its uncertain light 
 makes a foggy etching of our kitchen ... blurred 
 charcoal figures of mother and father and Uncle Philip 
 seated close by the cook-stove drinking tea... and 
 of the furnishings, exaggerated silhouettes. . 
 
 Throwing my books on a chair I snatch up the huge 
 slab of bread and the apple mother laid out for me 
 and without a word start for the street. I am ina 
 hurry to join the Ludlow Street Gang. Just yesterday 
 
 [13] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 I was admitted to its glorious ranks as the fourteenth 
 leader. I was not Leader the Fourteenth, but of the 
 whole gang fourteenth in prowess and importance. 
 However, I had only thirteen superiors. Being the 
 lowest step in the ladder I was most frequently trod 
 upon; but it was sweet suffering, the travail of a 
 hero. . . . When I became a Ludlow Streeter I swept 
 away the last rag of swaddling clothes and life became 
 real....So I hurry away, silently, detachedly, as 
 a man of importance. ... But Uncle Philip’s voice 
 halts me. Meanwhile, I am busy munching the apple. 
 Here is Uncle Philip lecturing like a Rabbi on a fast 
 day. He intimidates: not he, but his way of speaking 
 Yiddish. It is not just Yiddish—guttural, jargonish, 
 haphazard; but an arresting, rhythmical, logical lan- 
 guage. ... Yiddish, the lingo of greenhorns, was held 
 in contempt by the Ludlow Streeters who felt mightily 
 their Americanism. Yet even the gang fought shy of 
 making fun of the green Uncle Philip for he had a 
 way of accompanying his Yiddish with gestures that 
 left smarting memories. 
 
 ““Nu, yeshiva bochar (seminary student), what 
 says one? So, like a wanton puff,—in and out. A grab 
 and gone. Fertig! (Done). And now what of your 
 social duties, your filial respects! What are you aim- 
 ing tobe? Amanformen? Ora drayman, companion 
 of horses? Really, what says one?”’ 
 
 “‘Tahke, what says one?’’ interrupts kindly, chiding 
 mamma. 
 
 My mouth is chockful of bread and apple and I 
 nearly choke with indignation when she calls me by my 
 hateful love name—‘‘Ziegelle’’ (little goat). 
 
 Papa looks on in his brooding way, hunched in his 
 
 [14] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 chair, as always too tired and spent to talk. His eyes 
 light gratefully on the young and vigorous Philip, 
 family mentor, whom he idealizes and loves so 
 much ... just as though he were not his brother-in- 
 law. Philip, he says, is his star of hope showing the 
 way out of the wilderness—the sweatshop. 
 
 ‘‘Remember,’’ quoth Philip in his best manner of 
 Talmudical harangue, ‘‘gone are the diaper days. This 
 day you are nine.’’. . . Follows a solemn pause... . 
 ““Tomorrow begins your tenth year ‘4 
 
 ‘<The tenth year. Long years to you, Ziegelle.’’ 
 
 Ziegelle! ziegelle! Eternally, the little goat. The 
 curse of my life. The Ludlow Streeters know me by 
 no other name. They greet me with ‘‘maa, maa’’ and 
 tug my chin as though pulling a beard.... A love 
 name indeed! Other children did not have to put up 
 with an insulting diminutive, a la Russe. They were 
 called, say poppale (little father) or zadelle (little 
 grandfather), or hertzalle (little heart), but I, only 
 I was marked for scorn as the little goat. Wherefore? 
 
 Philip rose and placed his glass on the table. We 
 did not boast saucers at that time. With a gallant bow 
 he took mother’s glass. Father continues to gnaw a 
 lump of sugar and draw tea from his glass with a com- 
 placent hiss. .. . As Philip moves between the lamp 
 and the table shadows dance on the wall, shadows that 
 take the shape of goats cavorting at my discomfiture. 
 And I want to throw things at them. 
 
 ‘‘Meyer,’’ says Philip, raising an impressive finger, 
 ‘‘remember that learning without breeding is like a 
 kugel (pudding) without gribbenes (rendered chicken 
 fat). Itis food without flavor: so with a man, a fellow 
 without favor.’’ 
 
 [15] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘‘Gee,’’ I plead in English, ‘‘I ain’t got time for 
 everything.’’ 
 
 A quick reproving gesture menaces me to silence. 
 
 ‘‘Speak to me momme loschen (mother tongue) not 
 that nasty gibberish of the streets.’’ 
 
 Again he humiliates me—he—the greenhorn. He 
 knows I am not speaking genteel American. ) 
 
 I make a plea .. . in Yiddish . . . and because my 
 phrasing is facile, mother smiles proudly and even 
 Uncle Philip’s stern demeanor softens. 
 
 ‘¢ All day I have been in English school, and then in 
 cheder all evening, and I want to play with the boys 
 a little bit. And it was hard in cheder today, for I had 
 to read a page of Targum and Rashi without even one 
 mistake. 
 
 Mother beams... . ‘‘Nicht schlecht (not bad), nu 
 what say you, Philip? And only nine.’’ 
 
 ‘“‘But your studies are not done,’’ says Philip. ‘“‘A 
 lesson in manners is never out of place. Remember, 
 Meyer, no matter how wealthy, no matter how learned, 
 you will be as nothing if not a gentleman.’’ The last 
 word he enunciates sharply in English. 
 
 ‘What is that—that a gentleman?”’ I ask. 
 
 ‘‘A gentleman. Ah! <A gentleman—hem—is a per- 
 son whom you cannot exactly describe—hum—but 
 whom you know to be a gentleman the second you set 
 eyes on him.’’. . . He looks at me steadily, expect- 
 antly, but my face is blank with ignorance. 
 
 ‘<Then, Uncle Philip, I won’t know what it is a— 
 gentleman—till I see one.”’ 
 
 ‘‘Not until then, Meyer.”’ 
 
 ‘‘All right,’’ I offer conciliatingly, ‘‘I will be on 
 
 [16 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the watch out for one.’’... But Philip seems dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 *‘So, Meyer,’’ he muses, ‘‘so, you can read the old 
 F'rench-Hebrew text of Rashi and Aramic Targum, the 
 dialect that Christ spoke, but you know not a gentle- 
 man—so.”’ 
 
 ‘‘Christ spoke it,’? I whisper in a cautious echo, 
 reluctant to utter the forbidden name. 
 
 Mother flutters in alarm. Father stirs uneasily. 
 
 ‘‘Brother,’’ she says, ‘‘mention not the unspeak- 
 able one.’’ 
 
 ‘Bah, unmentionable, why, why keep the boy igno- 
 rant——’’ | 
 
 “‘T am not ignorant, Uncle Philip, although you can’t 
 expect me to know a gentleman when I never even 
 saw one.’’ 
 
 ‘‘And then,’’ demands Philip with apparent dis- 
 pleasure, ‘‘am I not a gentleman?’’ 
 
 ‘“No, you are my Uncle Philip.’’ 
 
 ‘*So it is,’’? mutters Philip, ‘‘because I am your 
 ancle.’’ , 
 
 He takes a small notebook from his pocket and hold- 
 ing it up says, ‘‘Observe, Meyer, this booklet, it is 
 entirely given over to your affairs.’’ He turns to the 
 first leaf and reads, ‘‘Notes upon the education of my 
 nephew, Meyer Hirsch.’’ Then, using his knee as a 
 rest, writes and reads aloud at the same time. ‘‘Item 
 one: Family Pride.’’ 
 
 [17] 
 
It 
 
 The gang is at the corner huddled about a wood fire 
 in a grocer’s milk can with large holes cut out for vents. 
 It is a compact circle seated shoulder to shoulder on 
 assorted boxes. I long, passionately, to be part of it 
 and hear the grave and grim pow-wow of the chieftains, 
 and share the pungent promise of potatoes baking in 
 the embers. ... I hover, hopefully, and scrape my 
 feet, and place a suppliant hand on the shoulder of the 
 humblest of the gathering, the thirteenth leader, but he 
 puts it off with a quick shrug... a terrible feeling 
 of being left out in the cold ... and I become angry, 
 and a daring idea is born. . . . I pull Hymie, the twelfth 
 leader, from his place. ... Words are not needed; 
 the challenge speaks volumes. ... Ascrap! Partisan 
 cries—‘‘Give it to him, Hymie’’; ‘‘Use your left’’; 
 “‘Come on, nannie-goat, butt him in the kischkes 
 {guts).’? ... The surprise attack gives me an edge 
 on him, and soon Hymie is persuaded to relinquish his 
 place at the fire and the twelfth leadership. And the 
 thirteenth leader by inaction and silence abdicates 
 his right. Thus I dispose of two enemies by first van- 
 quishing the stronger. ... My first victory ... my 
 first seat at the fire ...andI tingle with joy.... 
 And then came the potatoes. What if they were 
 charred. A feast of feasts. ... I thrill to the talk of 
 war, war on the nearest clan, the Essex Street Guer- 
 rillas. . . . Says Boolkie, in manner and tone cryptic, 
 as fitting a first leader, ‘‘Don’t take none of their guff. 
 We’ll give them what for any time they wants it.’’ . 
 The fire is now a mellow glow of embers. ... A sud- 
 
 [18 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 den alarm! A lookout shrilly warns: ‘‘A shammos! 
 A shammos!’’ (Synagogue beadle. In the secret lingo 
 of the gang shammos was the warning that a policeman 
 was coming). Whereupon, the indomitable clan of 
 Ludlow Streeters scatters in all directions. 
 
 I fly to the cellar of our house, where works and lives 
 Berel, a fixer of harness. Berel smiles at my head- 
 long, breathless entry. He sits before his bench mend- 
 ing reins. Lutz, the shicker goy (drunken Gentile), 
 seated on a box, is laboriously sewing up a rent in his 
 pants. He is the local Shabbos (Sabbath) fire lighter 
 and lodges with Berel. These two and Yoshke the 
 Golitzianer (Galician), a peddler, sleep in this small 
 cellar workroom. Yoshke is already asleep on a couch 
 with a sagging belly. Lutz beds on the floor and Berel 
 boasts a cot. 
 
 I like Berel. He doesn’t talk to me: he talks with 
 me. He is a teller of tales, tales of the forests and 
 fields of his sunny and verdant Bessarabia. And he is 
 a wit, but always kindly. For instance, as now, he 
 never neglects to greet me as a grown-up, not ironi- 
 cally, but caressingly, ‘‘What make you, (How are 
 you) Reb (Mr.) Meyer?’’ 
 
 ‘‘Ollaright, a pretty thanks to you for asking, Reb 
 Berel.’’ 
 
 ‘‘Is it from a bear you are running, or has your 
 shadow tripped you in the dark alley?’’ 
 
 ‘*Oh, no, I have not a fear of such things. I just 
 escaped from a policeman.’’ I confide proudly. 
 
 He whistles and smacks his lips in awesome tribute 
 to my daredeviltry. ‘‘Sit you down here, sit on this 
 saddle, my adventurous friend, you must be tired.’’ 
 
 I watch Berel sewing thongs of leather. . . . ‘‘Those 
 
 [19 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 reins you are fixing, I guess must be for a little pony.”’ 
 
 ““No, Meyer, they are for a goat.’’ 
 
 A goat, . . . the very mention of my bearded nemesis 
 is enough to spoil this glorious night. 
 
 “‘T guess you know all about horses, don’t you, 
 Berel?’’ 
 
 ‘Yes, something.’’ 
 
 ‘Do you know all about goats, too?”’ 
 
 ‘‘Yes, when I was a boy I used to take care of herds 
 of goats.’’ 
 
 ‘‘T™hen tell me, Berel, be so good, what’s the matter 
 nobody likes a goat and everybody makes fun of them.’’ 
 
 ‘‘Wirst place, nothing bothers a goat and that makes 
 people angry. A goat manages to get along where any 
 other creature would perish. Stubble, twigs, anything 
 is food and nourishment for him. He is a sidestepper, 
 can walk a narrow ledge or a fence, if need be. He is 
 for himself; unfeeling, and befriends no one. An unlik- 
 able, ugly thing with a most unreasonable smell. And 
 I have noticed that a goat is the only thing ridicule 
 ean’t kill.’ 
 
 Surely a pleasing portrait of my namesake, and it 
 made me despondent. . . . Lutz, done with his stitch- 
 ing, stares vacantly at the lamp. Berel is busy with an 
 awl. Suddenly, Yoshke shrieks in his sleep, one word 
 piteous, imploring, ‘‘Mommale’’ (little mother). 
 
 Berel putters away and Lutz stares, unblinkingly, 
 and the silence is of a tomb. 
 
 ‘““Mommale, mommale,’’ hums Berel under his 
 breath, ‘‘scheine mommale,’’ in the minor tones of a 
 Yom Kippur chant. (Little mother, little mother, 
 lovely little mother). 
 
 [ 20 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 I watch Yoshke in shocked surprise: here is a 
 bearded man crying in his sleep for his mother. 
 
 ‘Poor Yoshke,’’ says Berel with a sigh. ‘‘Yoshke 
 was hurt today, Yoshke who is as gentle asalamb.... 
 A policeman felled him to the ground.’’ 
 
 **A policeman! Yes? What for?’’ 
 
 ‘*Yoshke had no more than taken his place with his 
 pushcart on Hester Street when the policeman came 
 around to collect the graft, a quarter a day from each 
 peddler. Yoshke begged the policeman to wait a little 
 while until he could get money from customers, ex- 
 plaining that he had spent his last cent on a stock of 
 potatoes. The policeman’s answer was to club him 
 to the gutter.’’ 
 
 Yoshke stirred fitfully. 
 
 ‘‘He’s got no one, Yoshke, and he’s as gentle as a 
 lamb, and I’m thinking it’s not a world for lambs.”’ . . 
 
 And he smiled at me, sadly, sagely, ‘‘I think, Meyer, 
 I think a goat has a got a better chance in this world.’’ 
 
 [21] 
 
Til 
 
 Uncle Philip is asleep on the sofa in the kitchen and 
 mother dozes by the stove against my return. 
 
 ‘<So late, Meyer, so late and tomorrow you must be 
 up early for school.’’ 
 
 ‘¢Aw, it ain’t so late,’’ I remark with the diffidence 
 of a twelfth leader. 
 
 In the smoky glow of the expiring lamp, mother’s 
 beckoning arms become monstrous shadows on the 
 whitewashed walls. I watch the shadows, wondering 
 if they will turn into goats. ... Mother whispers, 
 ‘‘Come to me, child, mine, come now and sit here,’’ 
 drawing me to her lap, which act I resist as offensive 
 to a person of my years and station. I pull away, 
 reminding mamma, sharply, ‘‘Say, I ain’t a baby no 
 more.’’... Ridiculous. ... What would Boolkie think 
 of such a performance? His twelfth leader—a lap 
 baby. . . . Mother smiles . . . a coughlike sob in her 
 voice ... and tears glisten on her fine long lashes. 
 ‘*Mewn ben yochtd (my only son), always, you will be my 
 baby, always.’’ . . . 1 am drawn tenderly to her bosom 
 and her face nestles on my head... . I am annoyed: 
 mother’s hair tickles my forehead. ... ‘‘Mein teir 
 giegelle (my beloved little goat).’’... I become rigid 
 with resentment. 
 
 ‘‘Mamma, I don’t want you to call me ziegelle no 
 more. I’ve got a regular name, haven’t I?’’ 
 
 “Don’t you like your pet name?’’ 
 
 ‘‘No. Everybody makes fun of me. Don’t call me 
 that any more.’’ 
 
 [22] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘‘Only tonight, this night only,’’ she whispers sooth- 
 ingly, ‘‘I will call you ztegelle: this night of your birth 
 and nevermore.’’ And she cries, which amazes me; 
 embraces me, and bespatters my face with kisses. 
 Quite a fuss over nothing, I think, and a nice climax to 
 a heroic evening. 
 
 “‘Oh, mein teir (my darling), you should not dislike 
 the goat—a goat saved your life.’’ 
 
 ‘‘Saved my life?’’ 
 
 ‘*You may say it, mein hertz (my heart) saved your 
 life! A goat was your wet nurse.”’ 
 
 What ascandal.... The gang must never know... . 
 And I swear mother to secrecy. But I beg for the 
 story. 
 
 ‘‘But ten days before you were born, papa was called 
 to the military ... toserve the Tsar .. . and he made 
 up his mind to run away to America, and I would not 
 let father go alone. ... Three days out from Ham- 
 burg . . . in the bowels of a sailing vessel . . . while 
 it seemed we were tumbling into a pit inthe deep... 
 you were born. . .. Worry and seasickness and 
 fright. . . . [had no milk for my baby . . . and there 
 was no milk on board. And we wept over you as for 
 the dead and lighted candles as for the dead. . . . Until 
 there happened a miracle.... A miracle.... The 
 seamen’s pet, a she-goat with udders plump with milk, 
 escaped from her quarters and came wandering in the 
 
 steerage. . . . And the she-goat suckled my baby and 
 he lived to see the promised land. . . . And so here you 
 are, mein giegelle....” 
 
 And mother gathered me to her bosom in a transport 
 of joy and gently rocked me to sleep, singing, tremu- 
 
 [ 23 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 lously, a lullaby, a lullaby oft sung but now crooned for 
 the last time— 
 
 ‘“‘Onter der viegelle 
 Shtait em weisse ziegelle, 
 Ooh, ooh, ooh, i 
 (Under the little crib stands a little white kid.) 
 
 [ 24% 
 
SECOND PERIOD 
 
 Neither to him nor his brothers or sisters 
 was religion real, 
 
 Henry Apams 
 
SECOND PERIOD 
 I 
 
 Three years ... bad times ... hunger years.... 
 Yet the great rush continues like a stampede. Droves 
 of hungry and hounded and despairing people from 
 Fastern and Southern Europe crowd into a new Ghetto 
 of tenements and sweatshops. 
 
 Every little home is congested with its quota of 
 boarders, the men who left wives and children behind 
 to seek their fortune in the Land of Gold. 
 
 Grocers, butchers, peddlers and buttonhole-makers 
 turn bankers and steamship ticket agents overnight. 
 Everybody is saving to buy a shif carte (ship ticket) 
 for wife or child or brother or sweetheart. 
 
 And all these newcomers, men, women, boys and 
 girls are immediately drafted into the needle industries 
 to become, as Uncle Philip says, slaves to the German 
 Jews, masters of the wearing apparel enterprises. 
 
 Night after night Philip is engrossed in his books, 
 passionate as a lover, untiring as an alchemist seeking, 
 seeking the secret of—gold. And every day, as our 
 poverty deepens, he swears that soon, soon, to be sure, 
 he will deliver us from bondage; that he is on the verge 
 of discovering the secret of the German Jews’ riches. 
 And, to me it has now become as unlikely and chimeri- 
 cal as the daily legend I con in cheder—the imminent 
 delivery of Israel from exile and his return to the Land 
 of Milk and Honey. ... Mother, I daresay, discour- 
 aged by the utter lack of tisch gelt (table money), 
 
 [27] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 is openly dubious, but father’s hope does not wane. 
 There is nothing else left, he says, but to hope. He is 
 a broken man, silent and withdrawn from the world, 
 and apparently life is sustained in him by the oxygen 
 of Philip’s airy promises. 
 
 There is little work. Labor is too plentiful. The 
 manufacturers know it and squeeze the contractors, 
 who in turn squeeze that dry thing, a day’s wage. And 
 labor knows only one thing—one must live, and accepts 
 anything. But Philip is always busy .. . libraries, 
 lectures, exploring the city, listening to every kind of 
 person. ... When there is work in the clothing 
 factory, the short seasonal, body-destroying rush, he 
 sits at his sewing machine, alongside of father, twelve 
 hours, fourteen hours, and thinks nothing of a twenty- 
 hour stint. ... But always returning hungrily to his 
 books . . . books that make him despair and ery out im 
 anguish. I have seen him clutch volumes to his breast 
 and groan: ‘‘Oh, how ignorant [am....’’ A mad- 
 ness is over him: a madness of envy and lust .. . and 
 how he hates the German Jews, they who look down 
 upon Russian Jews as an animal, apart; they who are 
 proud, powerful and rich. . . . And daily Philip warns 
 me... ‘‘Meyer, Meyer, remember a laborer is lost, 
 adog. Never bealaborer. Let others labor for you—. 
 there’s the trick—that’s brain work, that’s clever- 
 ness——’’... And father repeats solemnly as though 
 pointing to himself as a horrible example: ‘‘Don’t be 
 a workman—anything else—but don’t be a dog of a 
 workman. ...’’ But mother is wishing me an evil 
 fate. Just because I am doing well in cheder she has 
 a fervent ambition in my behalf—wants me to be a 
 Rabbi. But, thank goodness, Philip laughs at the 
 
 [ 28 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 idea. ... Father and Philip are operators and father 
 has a distinct curvature after years of bending over a 
 sewing machine, guiding seams in poor light, but Philip 
 holds himself erect, declaring that he will not bend his 
 back to man, let alone a machine. ... He growls and 
 curses at the meanness of our living :—two little dark 
 rooms in a rear house, smelly kerosene lamps, water 
 from the yard pump and toilets in the backyard ... 
 no better than roaches . . . worrying over the slender 
 wherewithal, sleeping on a verminous couch... not 
 even enough crockery or eating things. Two’soup plates 
 must do for the four of us. Mother has it that respec- 
 tability requires that the family must eat together. So 
 mother and father eat out of one plate and Philip and 
 I share the other. Mother is always slower than father, 
 a little trick on her part so that father may get a little 
 more of the stew. But Philip and I have regulated 
 our spoon operations to ensure equal division... . 
 ‘‘Meyer,’’ he says, ‘‘you have the appetite of a bear 
 but I have the eye of ahawk. Don’t cheat.’’ 
 
 [ 29 ] 
 
II 
 
 It is a good thing I don’t have to rely upon the home 
 supply to satisfy my hunger or it would not be satis- 
 fied. During these days of unemployment our dining 
 is almost an empty form. But the gang knows how to 
 supplement the scanty home provender. Wares on 
 pushearts, stands, and in shops yield to nimble fingers, 
 and magically disappear in capacious pockets. .. . 
 Chunks of black bread, potatoes, smoked fish, fruit in 
 season, and a variety of other eatables diversify the 
 day’s forage. ...Iamthecoverguy. In other words, 
 I distract the owner and screen the thief. My ways 
 are modest, my talk quiet, respectful, aye, pious, and 
 thus I beguile the storekeeper whilst my accomplice 
 lifts and loads. ... Even in the beginning, when I 
 started to play the game of life, I found it was better 
 and safer to use my wits and let the other fellow do the 
 manual or risky share of the job—the dirty work. 
 
 We boys lived several kinds of lives, traveling from 
 planet to planet. First there was the queer relation- 
 ship of American street gamins to our old-world par- 
 ents. Indeed, an ocean separated us. And distance 
 does not encourage confidings and communings, but 
 creates misunderstanding and leads to contempt and 
 intolerance. Many of us were transient, impatient 
 aliens in our parents’ homes. Then there was that 
 strict, rarefied public school world. The manners and 
 clothes, speech and point of view of our teachers ex- 
 torted our respect and reflected upon the shabbiness, 
 foreignness and crudities of our folks and homes. 
 
 [ 30 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Again, there was the harsh and cruel cheder life with 
 its atmosphere of superstition, dread and punishment. 
 And then came our street existence, our sweet, lawless, 
 personal, high-colored life, our vent to the disciplines, 
 crampings and confinements of our other worlds. 
 
 In our cheder on Thursday mornings we boys got a 
 foretaste of the Day of Judgment. On hot summer 
 days Hymie Rubin and Sam Rakowsky, who did not 
 take readily to the intricacies of ancient tongues, came 
 to cheder dressed in overcoats, and storm hats with 
 earlaps. Archie Wotin, known in later gang history 
 as Archie the Cannon, arrived with the seat of his 
 knickerbockers lined with tin sheeting and his stockings 
 stuffed with excelsior. Their outer works were pre- 
 pared for hostilities. 
 
 Woe oa the lad who made more than three mistakes 
 in translating the weekly portion of the Law! A sewing 
 machine strap, lively and venomous as an infuriated 
 snake, fell mercilessly over the offending boy, awrithe 
 in the righteous grasp of Melamud (teacher) Mor- 
 
 decai.... HEarlaps, overcoats, tin sheeting and excel- 
 sior were hardly enough. The well-oiled thong’s sting 
 was true and terrible. ... It was not that Melamud 
 
 Mordecai was brutal but that parents and pupils were 
 pitiless. A melamud who spared the strap was soon 
 mad and ruined. Parents, paying him the princely 
 retainer of one dollar a month per child, required him 
 to be their rigorous disciplinary officer. And, as al- 
 ways, cruelty begets cruelty. The boys lost no chance 
 to plague, pester and persecute the melamud. The un- 
 fortunate pedagogue, old and resourceless, could rely 
 only upon his strap, while his ingenious charges, in 
 retaliation, devised many forms of torture. 
 [31] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 I think the Creator fashioned Mordecai to amuse his 
 pupils. His stature and design were the funniest in 
 the world. I never saw such bowlegs as he had: he 
 seemed to walk on his ankles with much swaying and 
 rolling, and because of this deformity he was no taller 
 than a child. His long white beard was all out of pro- 
 portion to his height. He looked like a comical dwarf 
 or gnome shown in our school story books. And his 
 face was an old parchment with thousands of marks, 
 the wrinkle-records of his trials, and his eyes were like 
 inky smudges on the parchment. ... To us there was 
 nothing funnier than the picture of old Mordecai, the 
 hobbling, swaying dwarf, pursuing an agile boy who 
 leaps under and over benches. The strap smites the 
 bench or boy and our laughter roars out as raucous 
 applause. ... And this woebegone, misshapen crea- 
 ture has a wife—die Rebbitzan (the title given to a 
 melamud’s, or Rabbi’s, wife), a frail, timorous figure in 
 colorless calico. No matter how much we torment her 
 husband, she never fails to call us kinderlach teire 
 (little children, dears) and give us her blessings, com- 
 ing and going. . . . A pious woman, her head is never 
 uncovered. A black sheitel (wig) or a black lace head- 
 dress, makes of her bloodless, shrunken face a bleached 
 death mask. She stands, a picture of sorrow and 
 humility, her head nodding and body rocking as though 
 in prayer before the last Temple Wall in Jerusa- 
 lem. . . . The melamud never looks at his wife, not so 
 much as a sidelong glance does he bestow, nor does he 
 ever speak to her, directly. He speaks to her in gener- 
 alities addressed to no one in particular. A devout 
 pair, devoted, perhaps, who knows? but obeying fan- 
 
 [ 32 ] 
 
See ee ee eee eee 
 
 HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 tastically the rabbinical dictum that a pure, pious man 
 shall not look upon any woman—not even his wife. 
 
 The Grodno Synagogue, named after the Russ- 
 Lithuanian city from which its members emigrated, 
 was over Witkinsky’s livery stable on Hester Street. 
 It was not a pretentious place: pine benches with 
 blotchy coats of paint, a central service platform balus- 
 traded, and a torah cabinet (the ornate sanctum of the 
 hand-inscribed scrolls of the Law) between the win- 
 dows of the East Wall—the point nearest Palestine. 
 The walls were decorated with crude legends of the 
 zodiac. In the rear, facing the backyard, was a small 
 section partitioned off for the women’s devotions, and 
 in this cubby hole of a place Melamud Mordecai held 
 his school. ... Seated at the head of a long pine 
 table, Mordecai assigns us to our places, the wicked 
 signaled out for honorary positions nearest himself, 
 within convenient reach of his weapon of offense, the 
 long oil-slimy sewing machine strap. 
 
 On this hot summer day we were nearly suffocated 
 by the incense of smoldering candle wicks and ripe 
 manure. The place abounded in cheap yahrzeit (death 
 anniversary) candles and lamps and the backyard was 
 heaped with manure. The pupils, of all ages and 
 degrees, are gathered around the table. The tots, no 
 more than four or five years old, drone and buzz, inter- 
 ~minably, aleph, beth, gimel (a, b, c) backwards and 
 forwards, break ranks and reassemble the scattered 
 alphabet under the melamud’s little pointer. Mean- 
 while, the advanced scholars attest devotion to their 
 studies by rehearsing their tasks in the loudest possible 
 sing-song. ... Soon the minor pupils are dismissed. 
 In the classroom they are like titmice, barely audible 
 
 [33 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 and awe-stricken, but no sooner do they get out on the 
 staircase than they begin to squeal and scamper. The 
 melamud rushes out and they retreat, before his bran- 
 dished strap to take up a hooting and howling on the 
 dung-piles in the backyard. ... And then we are 
 taken over the hurdles and hazards set up by Rashi, 
 that Middle Age scholar and wine merchant, whose 
 interpretations of the Bible are written in Hebrew 
 entwined with Old French. 
 
 [34] 
 
III 
 
 At last we are free. It is the riot of a jail delivery. 
 And now for the real business of life. We follow a pre- 
 arranged roundabout way back to Ludlow Street. We 
 dare not pass Essex Street. Civil war has begun— 
 over differences never quite specified or identified—be- 
 tween the two principal Jewish gangs, the Ludlow 
 Streeters and the Essex Guerrillas. The first battle is 
 expected tonight. We hurry—hot for the adventure. 
 Nearing home, we see a glow in the sky—promise of a 
 big fire. Hastening, hilarious lads join us. The clan 
 is gathering. A great bonfire burns in the cobbled 
 square at Ludlow and Canal Streets. And boys are 
 careening in all directions, their forms seeming to leap 
 skyward with the flames. Barrels, boxes, plundered 
 wooden signs, canvas signs, cellar doors, chicken coops, 
 a broken pushcart, lumber, abandoned mattresses and 
 couches, paint cans, beer kegs and the countless clutter 
 of city streets form a huge blazing pyramid—a fiery 
 challenge and defiance. ... Scouts, breathing hard, 
 excited, scutter through a network of arms, legs and 
 loot to report to Boolkie. I take my place next to 
 Boolkie, as self-appointed adviser, strategist—any- 
 thing—except fighter. In time I have made this posi- 
 tion for myself, always playing the part that involves 
 no personal danger and by sheer push, assertion and 
 brass have become ex-officio everything. I no longer 
 fight for petty leadership. I am a sort of prime minis- 
 ter of our gang state, and Boolkie kneads pliantly 
 under my flattery. ... The fire snaps, cackles, hisses 
 
 [ 35 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 and flares a polyphonic accompaniment to the warriors’ 
 cries, alarms and rampaging. ... An uproar that 
 thrills. ... The enemy is sighted. A block away at 
 Canal and Hssex Streets a battalion of boys suddenly 
 flings into view and as quickly vanishes before a fusil- 
 lade of brickbats. . . . Our scouts apprehend Guerrilla 
 outposts at Ludlow and Hester Streets. Volleys are 
 exchanged. But Boolkie and I are unmoved even when 
 enemy forces are reported forming at a third point, 
 Canal and Orchard Streets. . . . Whence will the real 
 attack come to capture this little square which we have 
 denied to them for their baseball and ‘‘pussy-cat’’ 
 games? ...Shimshin (Samson the strong), leader of 
 the Guerrillas, brags he will seize the square to- 
 night. .. . Now there are flurries of fighting at the 
 three points of contact. The Guerrillas are prodigal 
 with their bottles, and they seem to be exploding every- 
 where. ...It is time to start our maneuvres.... I 
 loose the pets of our forces, the gaming hawks, who 
 spread. like opening wings towards Essex Street via 
 Canal Street, wheel and turn at the corner, hooting like 
 maddened night birds on the blood scent. .. . They 
 are pushing into Essex Street proper. ... Our plan 
 is to distract the Guerrillas from Hester and Ludlow 
 Streets, where lies hidden in hallways and cellars the 
 main body of our effectives. ... Our hawks hover, 
 and swoop and begin to meet with greater resistance. 
 We have irritated a sore spot in bringing the fight right 
 into the enemy’s home territory. . . . He calls in his 
 men to repulse the stiff assault.... Now Hester 
 Street is deserted. ... The enemy cheers. Our pets 
 are being squeezed out of Essex Street. But by this 
 time Boolkie has unleashed his hidden cohorts and in 
 [ 36 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 person leads an unopposed charge upon the Guerrillas’ 
 rear, and routs them to their cellars and roofs. 
 
 Our victorious gang parades the length of Essex 
 Street shouting insults and jeers. Seeing that victory 
 is complete and the fighting and danger over, I pop up 
 at Boolkie’s side ready to demand and share the fruits 
 of the other fellows’ fighting. The boys begin to tear 
 down the wooden signs fronting the stores. The shop- 
 keepers plead with the vandals. It was then that I first 
 seized upon a plan that suggested to me the policy that 
 I followed throughout my career,—to make every situ- 
 ation return a profit. So I approach Jake Weingrad, 
 who has a woolen remnants store. He is wringing his 
 hands in impotent rage as the boys are pulling down 
 the long wooden sign under his show-window. 
 
 ‘Where are the police?’’ he cries in vain. Where 
 are they, indeed. They have learnt well the wisdom 
 of not being around when two gangs are embattled. 
 
 I take Mr. Weingrad aside, and throw out a hint that 
 a little payment will protect his sign. He cries out in 
 anguish, ‘‘Protection money!’’ and therewith coined a 
 name that became in the Hast Side a synonym for 
 extortion. 
 
 ‘Only twenty-five cents,’’ I whisper, ‘‘and a new 
 sion costs much more. ...’’ Heis actually agape at 
 my audaciousness, but a ripping noise of wood and 
 nails coming apart arouses him to a practical con- 
 clusion. 
 
 I tell Boolkie, and he applauds the idea. The sign 
 destroyers now work under my orders, and I go among 
 the storekeepers and soon return to Boolkie with the 
 astounding sum of four dollars. 
 
 ‘‘Protection money,’’ I cry, unconsciously echoing 
 
 [37] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Weingrad. ‘‘Protection money’’ is reiterated many 
 times by the jubilant gangsters. 
 
 And in this way began the blackmail of small store- 
 keepers that Boolkie and I later developed into a fine 
 business, and in time this petty but wholesale extortion 
 became one of the main income sources of gangsters. 
 
 [ 38 ] 
 
IV 
 
 It was an early summer night, pleasantly warm, this 
 night of civil war. 
 
 Then came the quiet that we call quiet in the city,— 
 only an occasional rattle of an empty wagon and 
 the clatter of hoofs, a moment’s hush like a fevered 
 sleeper’s sigh, the rattle and jangle of car horses’ bells 
 to the slipping and grating of their iron shoes on the 
 cobblestones of their bumpy treadmill; a cry, a greet- 
 ing, now there is laughter, the saloon’s ribald guffaw, 
 doors shutting like the sounds of a slazey drum; cats 
 sputtering and spitting over the garbage heaps in the 
 gutter ... the city’s bedtime quiet. ... But stilled 
 are the cymbals of strife, the crashing and splintering 
 of bottles thrown by the warring boys, and their 
 strident battle cries... . 
 
 Now Boolkie and a little group of congenials are at 
 the corner playing a deft and delicate game—picking 
 one another’s pockets. Peace hath its pastimes... 
 And I sit on the stoop of our house in a glow of pleasure 
 over the four quarters that I have held out of the 
 reckoning of collected tribute and which are hidden in 
 my shoes. Ho, I put it over on them, all right. They 
 battled, they were in danger, they did the footwork and 
 handwork, but it was I who did a quick bit of head- 
 work. The headwork! That’s the stuff! ... And 
 how I fooled them with a little fumbling with my shoe 
 laces while I shoved the coins into my shoes. And I 
 was a hero, everybody said I was a smart guy and liked 
 me because I got them a big boodle for a blowout 
 
 [39] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 of wurst and candy. I too feasted on spicy wurst and 
 hard candies—at their expense, but I had also money, 
 more money than I had ever had. 
 
 Snatches of conversation drift through my reverie. 
 Davie Solomon and Avrum Toledo are seated on the 
 lowest step. I suppose they greeted me, but I was too 
 engrossed in egotistical self-caressing to notice them. 
 
 My cronies at the corner break out in a jeering 
 chorus to a jerky stamping of feet, ‘‘Hippity-hop, 
 hippity-hop, look out, look out, here comes the cop.’’ 
 And along came Reb Mendel Gerditsky, unconcerned, 
 dignified, lamely strutting, conscious of his office of 
 general factotum of the Grodno Synagogue, arch 
 enemy of all boys, whom he keeps in order during 
 prayers by applying his famous corkscrew pinch on 
 cheek, arm, thigh or any other part of squirming dis- 
 turbers. And his victims dubbed him der hingkerdiker 
 shammos (the limping beadle), always ridiculing him 
 in the street by calling public attention to his limp, 
 caused by one foot being shorter than the other. He 
 wears his famous frock coat, its skirts flapping about 
 his knees like windless sails. Neither the summer’s 
 sweat, nor the winter’s snow could divest him of his 
 official garb, which he carries with the pomp and 
 flourish of a senator’s toga. Legend has it that The 
 Coat was of holy and reverent ancestry, an heirloom 
 from his grandfather, the chief Rabbi of Grodno. But 
 tonight there is a touch to his attire that betokens an 
 important event, a wedding or a funeral. Perched on 
 his head is a stove-pipe hat. Wallowing in his wake, 
 bobbing like a small boat in the trough of a large ship, 
 comes Melamud Mordecai, nobly trying to keep up with 
 the beadle. 
 
 [ 40 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 The shammos stops to peer at us in the dark of the 
 stoop. Avrum and Davie rise. The melamud pants 
 for breath. 7 
 
 ‘Come, children,’’ speaks the authoritative beadle, 
 ‘‘come with us and earn the greatest mitzvah (bless- 
 ing). Come and recite the psalms for the dying.’’ 
 
 ‘‘Go, children, a great mitzvah, verily,’’ says the 
 melamud. 
 
 _ Avrum holds back, but yields to Davie’s earnest plea 
 to do a mitzvah. 
 
 The shammos leads the way to the top floor of an old 
 three-story house on Hester Street and, as we climb 
 the stairs, hear a weird jumble of lamenting voices. 
 Boolkie and the others, very curious, have trailed along 
 and now linger like restless imps in the hall as we enter 
 the Schneider flat. Neighbors, synagogue brethren, 
 and nine of the ten Schneider children pack the 
 four little rooms. Only Ikey Schneider, the baby, is 
 absent, called baby, although fifteen years old, because 
 he is the youngest of the children. 
 
 ‘‘Hind me my baby,’’ wails Mrs. Schneider, wringing 
 her hands. ‘‘Bring back the sinner to ask forgiveness 
 of his dying father and receive his death-bed benedic- 
 HONE ot 77 
 
 She moves like a distracted creature among the 
 people, whining ‘‘/kelle, mein Ikelle, my poor baby is 
 to be an orphan, nebach (pity)—an orphan.”’ 
 
 Ikey is ‘‘on the bum,’’ which is our idiomatic way 
 of saying that a boy is not living at home. Ikey was 
 proud when he reported to us—‘‘ My father chased me 
 outa the house.’’ His father said, ‘‘Until you were 
 bar mitevah (confirmed) I was responsible to God for 
 your sins and to man for your acts. Now you must 
 
 is 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 bear your own burdens. You steal from me, you refuse 
 to study and you refuse to learn the buttonhole trade. 
 You act like an outcast, therefore be an outcast.’’ So 
 Ikey went out, rejoicing to sleep in hallways and beg 
 or steal his daily meals. 
 
 I slip down to the hall and find Ikey larking with his 
 fellow gangsters. 
 
 ‘*Come on up,’’ I say, ‘‘your father is croaking.”’ 
 
 ‘What the hell I care, le’ him croak,’’ he answers, 
 his swollen, pimply face awry with a stupid leer. He 
 shifts his overgrown body nervously, the body that is 
 man’s size but governed by a feeble baby’s mind. Ikey, 
 who could learn nothing in school and cheder, learned 
 one thing exceedingly well—how to steal bundles from 
 wagons and bring them to Jake Weingrad’s store and 
 get a few pennies. 
 
 ‘‘G’wan up,’’ commands Boolkie. 
 
 ‘‘Come’n up wi’ me,’’ whines Ikey. 
 
 ‘*‘G’wan up, you dope,’’ answers Boolkie, adding a 
 few sharp prods in the ribs. Ikey, protesting, ‘‘Who 
 you hittin’?’’ goes up the stairs, followed by Boolkie 
 and his particulars. 
 
 Mrs. Schneider falls on the neck of her boy, but the 
 shammos pulls him away to take him to his father’s 
 bedside. 
 
 The dying man is a terrible picture of emaciation. 
 The Gabbe (president or headman) of the synagogue 
 sits at the place of honor, near the head of the bed, 
 shaking his head benignly. The shammos has distrib- 
 uted the tillim (psalm books) and we read them in a 
 muted tone that becomes a thrumming and a murmur- 
 ing as the bass and childish voices mingle. Ikey is 
 thrust forward and stands dumbly looking down upon 
 
 [ 42 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 his father’s heaving chest. The father’s eyes flicker 
 open and after one glance at Ikey’s face seems dis- 
 mayed, as though, the Gabbe later said, he beheld the 
 flaming vision of the angel of death. 
 
 Just then I looked around and saw my father come 
 into the room—a frightened look upon his face. 
 Schneider was dying of the shop sickness—consump- 
 tion—and father had a dread of the shop sickness, the 
 plague of Dollar Land. ... 
 
 The candles are lighted. The man is dead. A wife 
 grieves, and nine children mourn, but a tenth child 
 - gays, ‘‘Momie, gimmie somethin’ t’ eat.’’? Chairs are 
 overturned and we sit on the rungs, while the bereaved 
 family in stockinged feet sit on low boxes. A neighbor 
 shrouds the mirrors, and through the night we keep 
 vigil beside the corpse, droning the psalms. ... The 
 candles sputter. . . . An old man has fallen asleep and 
 snores with an occasional rasping gasp. Boolkie sits 
 near the door like a person waiting for something to 
 happen, short, heavy set, named after the bulky break- 
 fast rolls sold by the Ghetto bakers. Here is his 
 mother, a professional mourner, puttering about the 
 kitchen, every now and then releasing a prodigious 
 sigh, more like the hiss of escaping steam. She is the 
 beggarwoman who sits timelessly like a crouching 
 bronze image in front of the Grodno Synagogue—only 
 to arise and appear at funerals—rattling her beggar’s 
 tin box, mumbling benedictions on donors. Dago 
 Jack’s eager, curious face, swarthy and pinched, be- 
 comes like shining wax in the candle light, flits in the 
 doorway. He is a goy (Gentile) and may not pass 
 the threshold. A Sicilian lad, stunted, knock-kneed, 
 a bravado, the glad doer of dangerous jobs, one of a 
 
 43 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 brood of twelve. His father tends a tiny peanut 
 and chestnut stand, and his brothers are newsboys and 
 bootblacks and his little sisters slaveys for the local 
 business men’s wives. Sneak, thief, truant, a stiletto 
 artist, he acknowledges one God—To-Be-As-Tough- 
 As-Hell, and Boolkie is his prophet. 
 
 Avrum stares at the ceiling as though fascinated by 
 the cobwebby shadows cast by the flickering candles. 
 For the most part he has not made even a pretense at 
 reading. The tillim lies open upon his knees. But 
 Davie, leaning against his arm, has prayed, fearfully, 
 passionately. Avrum is a cold unbeliever, while Davie 
 believes, abjectly, in the cheder God of Vengeance. 
 Yet they are inseparable pals, called the one-and-a-half 
 twins because Davie, though be is Avrum’s age, is 
 slight and small, while Avrum is long-limbed, sturdy 
 and well developed. They belong to the bookish clique, 
 detached dwellers in an ivory tower, have nothing to 
 do with the gang and are despised for sissies. Avrum 
 with his black hair, dark, smouldering eyes and olive 
 complexion suggests a Spanish young man, and Davie 
 with his white skin, blue eyes and golden hair suggests 
 a Polish boy of nine, his actual age being fifteen. . 
 Avrum is a new kind of Jewish boy in the Ghetto. He 
 came with his folks from the Balkans. At first the 
 neighbors thought they were not Jews because they did 
 not speak Yiddish. Their everyday speech was Ladino, 
 melodious Old Castilian garnished with Hebrew and 
 bits of the universal patois of Mediterranean ports. 
 It was the language of a great population of Jews in 
 Spain, who, when they were expelled by the Inquisition, 
 carried their dialect to the Balkans and Mediterranean 
 ports, and it survives to this day. ...Avrum Toledo 
 
 [44] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 is quite mature—a silky down, like little shadows, 
 shows on his upper lip and cheeks. Years later when I 
 looked upon Rembrandt’s portrait of a Jew I thought 
 I beheld my Ladino pal with clear wide brow, big brown 
 eyes, reposeful, intelligent oval face, long shapely nose 
 with its wide thin nostrils and ripe full-blown lips, a 
 lover’s mouth. ... Avrum confides in Uncle Philip. 
 They have but one thing in common, a hearty ridicule 
 for God and all religion. Yet he is the son of a man 
 whom Philip describes as a ‘‘double harness Jew,’’ a 
 man who is so pious that he prays wearing two sets of 
 phylacteries. Avrum calls the fine long leathern straps 
 that his father winds on his arm and head the shackles 
 of superstition. But he is devoted to the ugly, stunted 
 old man of swarthy face and queer woolly beard. 
 Avrum sits many hours after school helping his mother 
 and sisters make kimonos, which Avrum’s father ped- 
 dles from door to door. . . . And Davie Solomon, wan 
 and winsome, clings to the stalwart dreamer like a 
 delicate flower upon the trunk of adark tree. He is the 
 well-beloved of old Mordecai, for in Davie the melamud 
 finds response rich and reverent. Davie’s father, too, 
 had died of the dread shop sickness and he is the only 
 child of the little ‘‘horseradish widow,’’ a shrunken 
 young woman with gray, withered hair straggling from 
 under her faded shawl. She has a small stand on 
 Hester Street near Ludlow Street, where she plays a 
 bitter tune on a horseradish mill and sells the ground 
 root in little paper packets. Davie may be often seen 
 sitting beside her, his beautiful head upon her breast, 
 and as she turns the tiny handle of the doleful organ, 
 Davie sings softly the mournful songs of an exiled folk 
 locked within the Polish pale. ... Archie Wotin is 
 [45 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 getting restless. He has been pulling Ikey’s coat from 
 behind and Ikey is confused, looking about him, not 
 knowing whom to blame. Archie is feeling better now 
 that he is fooling someone, even if it is only a half-wit. 
 His fingers are long, thin and nimble. Generations of 
 needle-plying ancestors have endowed him with digits 
 that are not an encumbrance to this descendant who 
 has turned from stitching to snitching. Archie was a 
 marvelous pickpocket. He was a versatile har, a liar 
 for lying’s sake, told a lie even when the truth would 
 do as well. He had roving little eyes set in a yellow, 
 pinched face, and he looked like a sickly child when as 
 a matter of fact his body was wiry, strong and active. 
 He seemed afraid of only one thing—of being afraid. 
 Fearlessness was his ideal. His father worked in a 
 sweatshop and saw his son only when he was out of 
 work. As Philip says, a worker and his children are 
 strangers. He goes to work while the children are 
 asleep, and in the evening he is too tired to do anything 
 but go to sleep so as to be ready again for work at the 
 break of day. So Boolkie had the bringing up of 
 Archie, whose mother has the ceaseless care of four 
 babies. ... Boolkie thinks Ikey’s bewilderment is 
 great fun. Boolkie accuses Davie, who raises startled 
 eyes from the éillim to find Ikey glaring at him. ‘‘Cut 
 it out, you sissie,’’ says Boolkie to Davie. But at this 
 moment Ikey is again annoyed from another direction 
 and he begins to splutter. . . . Harry Wotin, Archie’s 
 brother, until now sitting moodily against a wall, rises 
 and begs Archie to stop. ‘‘It is wrong and a sin to 
 harm an orphan.’’ Archie is only fourteen and his 
 brother is two years older. Archie snarls back at him: 
 ‘“You don’t expect me to swallow that bunk.’’ But 
 [ 46 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 [key settles the matter by demanding of Harry, an- 
 other one of the despised cult of book boys, ‘‘ What the 
 hell you buttin’ infor. .. .’? Avrum laughs. Harry’s 
 pimply face and scrawny neck flushes crimson as Bool- 
 kie remarks to Archie, ‘‘I betcha you could knock day- 
 light outa him even if he is your big brother. ...”’ 
 Archie assures him that he could do it with both hands 
 tied. ... The shammos thunders, ‘‘What is this—a 
 corner for tramps; have you no fear of holy occa- 
 sions? ...’’? Davie shudders and reads fervently, 
 and even Boolkie mumbles a page or two. .. . At last 
 the shammos tells us to go. His men have come to lay 
 out the body for interment in the morning. The 
 Schneiders, making a melancholy group, stand in the 
 kitchen and are awakened to fresh outbursts of grief 
 by these preparations. The reading of the tllim 
 seemed to have hushed and soothed them. The two old 
 men, the shammos’s funeral assistants, went about their 
 business with a great matter of fact manner, demand- 
 ing of the shammos, ‘‘How is anything to be done? 
 We can barely move about in such a crowd,’’ meaning 
 the mourners in the kitchen, who have been unable to 
 make their beds because of the presence of so many 
 people in every room. 
 
 [47] 
 
V 
 
 All the boys in the gang were not thieves. Many 
 remained petty thieves until stronger influences came 
 along to lift them out of the ruck. It was the excep- 
 tional, almost abnormal boy who did not join the gang. 
 The gang was romance, adventure, had the zest of 
 banditry, the thrill of camp life, and the lure of hero- 
 worship. An incident happened in the early part of 
 this torrid summer that brought all the boy elements 
 into the gangs and for the first time united the half 
 dozen Jewish gangs in New York.... Feeling ran 
 high when a Jewish peddler was killed by cobblestones 
 thrown by an Irish gang on Grand Street near Gouver- 
 neur Street. A few of our boys were held up and badly 
 beaten by the Jackson Street gang after our lads came 
 out of the East River, where they had been swimming 
 and poling logs. The Guerrillas had even fared worse, 
 their leader’s head was broken. Shimshin was per- 
 sonally brave, although not clever. He went into 
 Gouverneur Street hospital long enough to have his 
 head tied up and came out to defy the ‘‘Micks.’’ He 
 barely escaped with his life. 
 
 Jackson Street on the Hast River was the only spot 
 that had a sort of a sand beach that made the bathing 
 highly pleasurable. In fact, the whole river front was 
 in Mick territory, and during the days when the Jew 
 was a newcomer in this wild section of Manhattan the 
 Irish hoodlums regarded him as legitimate prey. The 
 summer was frightfully hot, and outside of the schwitz 
 mickvahs (Russian sweat baths), the river was our 
 
 [48 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 only place for a bath. The gangs took up the Mick 
 challenge gladly. It engendered that feverish, fanati- 
 cal spirit that comes with religious war. The Irish lads 
 shouted, ‘‘Kill the Christ killers,’? and the Jewish 
 boys cried, ‘‘Mopolize the Micks.’’ (A strange word, 
 probably coming from the root of mopel, to abort. In 
 any event it implied the direst punishment.) But the 
 Micks were splendid fighters and the Jewish attacks 
 were sporadic. It seems strange that there should ever 
 have been this intense hostility between the Jews and 
 the Irish, as later when they became acquainted they 
 were amiable neighbors and the most powerful local 
 gangs were made up of an admixture of Irish, Jews 
 and Italians. However, the gangs in the main had one 
 national predominance. 
 
 The Ludlow Streeters made a foray, but retreated 
 ignominiously. Boolkie was furious with the humilia- 
 tion. He had gibed Shimshin that we would give the 
 Micks a good beating. The Micks were too numerous 
 to be handled by a single gang. I suggested an alliance 
 with the Guerrillas, and that very morning the two 
 gangs, hot for revenge and without plan or prepara- 
 tion, invaded Gouverneur Street. We momentarily 
 swept the Irish before us. Gouverneur Street is nar- 
 row. Our boys congested the street from sidewalk to 
 sidewalk. We whistled and halooed gleefully, but in 
 another moment fled from a downpour of bricks and 
 mortar. The Gouverneur lads had simply retired to 
 their roofs, dismantled a few chimneys, and rained the 
 brickbats down upon us. Just then a gang of Micks 
 coming from Henry Street attacked our panic-stricken 
 ranks. Well, it was a pitiful debacle. You may imagine 
 our chagrin, we who had rated ourselves unbeatable. 
 
 [49] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 I felt deeply ashamed. My idea had not worked. It 
 was up to me to save my face and the standing of our 
 gang. Then there was that deep racial feeling. Our 
 defeat was the talk of the Ghetto. For the first time 
 our elders approved a gang fight. Here again was that 
 vicious racial passion. The bookish boys rallied to our 
 cause. The Stanton Street gang, a small contingent, 
 called for a conference. They, too, had tasted the bitter 
 dregs of defeat. I went to my home, saying to myself 
 a few phrases that became my formula for every tight 
 corner in which I would find myself. Use your head. 
 Use your head. There’s a way out—if you use your 
 head. I was sitting in the kitchen. Mother was wash- 
 ing clothes. The wash boiler was on the stove simmer- 
 ing. Mother asked me to get the cover for the boiler 
 from under the bed. I fetched out the cover by slip- 
 ping my hand through the handle, and in this manner 
 carried it to mother. Mother laughed at the way I held 
 up the cover, saying that in the olden times the Jewish 
 soldiers, the Maccabeans, fought with shields that 
 looked like the cover of the washboiler. And then I 
 used my head. I slipped out of the house with the 
 cover and appeared before the gang flourishing it like 
 a shield. ‘‘Come on,’’ I shouted, ‘‘now we’ll beat the 
 Micks.’’ Boolkie and Shimshin and other notables 
 listened excitedly to my idea. Every boy was ordered 
 to go and get his mother’s washboiler cover. In a little 
 time a grand army assembled on Canal Square with 
 gleaming tin and copper shields. Other boys had 
 climbed to the roofs of houses and torn off tin decora- 
 tions which became armor helmets. A council was 
 held. Stanton Street was summoned. A real cam- 
 paign was outlined. 
 
 [90] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Again we marched into Gouverneur Street. Again 
 the Micks flew to roofs and started to pelt us with 
 bricks, mortar and stones. But our clans were march- 
 ing under a tin roof. We drove them from the roofs, 
 administering cruel beatings to the captured. In this 
 gang fight a revolver was used for the first time. Shim- 
 shin in a rage had bought a revolver and was deter- 
 mined to kill a few Micks. Fortunately, his bullets 
 found no mark. 
 
 We marched down to the beach, planted guards and 
 outposts and our hosts frolicked in the slimy waters 
 of the East River. 
 
 How I enjoyed the triumph. My headwork had dis- 
 tinguished me. I was referred to as some wise guy. 
 Everybody applauded my ingenuity. Neighbors con- 
 gratulated my folks. It was war against the Gen- 
 tiles. Everyone rejoiced that the oppressor was well 
 trounced. Philip remarked casually, ‘‘Good ideas are 
 good only if they show a profit. Bear in mind—have 
 only profitable ideas.’’ It was that evening that Uncle 
 Philip, after long, silent ruminating, announced, 
 ‘Meyer is going to be a lawyer.”’ 
 
 [51] 
 
VI 
 
 Looking back I try hard to remember when it was 
 that we city street-bred boys had an age of innocence. 
 It seems that we were born with a bit of apple from the 
 tree of knowledge in our mouths. Things as they are 
 were but rarely treated as anything else but as things 
 as they are. Hymie Rubin’s grandmother, who kept 
 house for her widowed son and his children, would say 
 to Hymie, ‘‘You were already a thief m your mother’s 
 belly.’”? I mention this merely to say that we heard 
 such things so often that they had no special effect 
 upon our minds, but were just things that are. Hymie 
 Rubin had a particular grudge against his grand- 
 mother. She had made him comically knock-kneed for 
 life, and what greater injury can anyone have done to 
 him than to be made comically deformed. When Hymie 
 was born his grandmother, as was the fashion then, 
 immediately swaddled his body with tight binders, but 
 had erred in overtightening the binding about his 
 knees. Hymie had no mother to look after him, his 
 father was busy in the shop, and his grandmother, 
 half-blind, spent the day grumbling and mumbling, 
 having but one concern in life—to have a hot supper 
 ready for her son, the breadgiver. Notwithstanding 
 that she had crippled her grandchild for life, Hymie’s 
 grandmother officiated and advised at many births. 
 Consequently Hymie, at twelve, was something of an 
 authority on births. Yet he was one of the cleanest- 
 minded boys I ever knew. And in the end it made 
 
 [52] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Hymie decide to be a doctor. ... And so it was... 
 we just knew things. . . . Sometimes births took place 
 under our eyes. Many a lad has lent a hand to a 
 bustling midwife called at the last moment. ... And 
 then crowded quarters left nothing untold. . . . A mul- 
 titude of men brought a plenteous supply. Seduction 
 was commonplace, and many a man considered a trip 
 across the ocean tantamount to a divorce. So there 
 was much talk, and all a growing boy needs is a word 
 here and there to piece together a pretty tale for his 
 fellow adolescents. 
 
 Of sex mysteries there was none for me. The whole 
 scheme of life was presented to me as preordained, and 
 so what I saw and heard fitted in quite naturally. My 
 advanced cheder studies embraced the rules and regu- 
 zations of all human relations. It was not the sort of 
 thing to disorder or inflame the mind. But then came 
 the time of titters, and whispers and nudges. <A per- 
 sonal, forbidden phase was presented. Scandalized 
 murmurs, lewd references, bizarre narratives of indi- 
 vidual experiences made us sharply curious of the 
 newest Ghetto sensation, the Allen Street mysteries. 
 
 Allen Street, that shadowy lane living in the murk 
 of smoke and rust and rumble of the elevated steam 
 railroad, a stodgy home street, became in a day a 
 thronged, roisterous thoroughfare. 
 
 A bare-faced and brazen-tongued crew of wastrels 
 rented the lower floor of many houses on Allen Street 
 and displayed colorful human wares in the windows. 
 Even for the wide-open town that New York was at 
 the time, the brazen and bare-faced desecration of a 
 home street was shocking. Nothing concealed, no 
 secrecy, no mystery. The hidden rites of the mystery 
 
 [93 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 of mysteries became the crudest comedy. Panders in 
 the street bickered over a prospective customer. Boys 
 were welcomed and cajoled with cut-rates. The gaudy 
 window creatures winked and whistled a strange little 
 sound imported from the streets of Warsaw and Buda- 
 pest, their trade clarion, which whistle and hiss in one 
 most of the boys soon learned and practiced. These 
 little tricks became one of the boys’ games. Troops 
 of lads from every part of the East Side would slink 
 past to gape and wonder and end by jeering and laugh- 
 ing. A busy, noisy mart... highly profitable to 
 cadets, landlords, politicians and policemen. 
 
 Issy Weingrad, who invited bundle thieves to bring 
 their plunder to his father’s store, introduced Ikey 
 Schneider into the Allen Street comedy. And so Ikey 
 had another reason for stealing. . . . Mike Rothstein, 
 the good-natured, easy-going fellow whose brothers 
 and sisters were models of good behavior and industry, 
 seemed to have no sense of wrong. He just did things. 
 When Issy told him where he might pick up some de- 
 sirable stuff, Mike just went and stole it. And when 
 Ikey asked Mike to keep him company in Allen Street, 
 Mike drifted along, and in a short time drifted into a 
 hospital for a long tussle with disease. ... But Mike’s 
 disaster was no deterrent: soon it was a general thing 
 for the gang to visit Allen Street . . . and that, too, 
 became one of the things that are. And the things that 
 are are the things that are meant to be. 
 
 [54 ] 
 
VII 
 
 Uncle Philip was not impressed with the news that 
 the Grodno Synagogue had imported a rov (Rabbi) 
 from its name city. A rov, he said, is a scholar a 
 thousand years behind the times. Is the world startled 
 by a new invention, a scientific discovery? Then the 
 rov says disparagingly that it was known and tried 
 before, generally showing by anagrams, cryptograms, 
 hidden meanings, double meanings, that it was known 
 to this prophet or that wise scholar or was one of the 
 many things found as vain and futile by Solomon, 
 the original Great-Know-It-All. The rov lives in a 
 choked Talmudical jungle and dares not tear away as 
 much as a little leaf to let in light. He is the supreme 
 court of his congregation, presides as jurist in legal 
 squabbles, arbitrates business disputes, adjusts neigh- 
 borhood wrangles, regulates all ritual dictums, sets 
 the spiritual standard and censors manners, morals 
 and the arts. 
 
 The rov, Chiam Zucker, certainly raised the Grodno 
 Synagogue’s standing. He attracted many pious 
 members, and rich business men paid high seat rentals 
 for the honor of sitting near him. Rov Zucker set out to 
 raise funds for the erection of a seminary. His slogan 
 was, ‘‘ Beware! this new land, with its freedoms, is but 
 a snare and temptation to wean away your youth from 
 Judaism.’’ The shammos attended him everywhere as 
 a fawning flunkey and entered the pledges in a bulky 
 ledger. 
 
 Rov Zucker was easily aman of seventy. Tall, angu- 
 
 [55 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 lar and erect, he carried himself with gracious dignity. 
 He was like a patriarch of ancient times. His face 
 seemed to shine transparently white, and his long flow- 
 ing beard blew about his face like a fleecy cloud. His 
 gray eyes were steady and farseeing. Serenely self- 
 sufficient, he went about his duties and no man said him 
 nay. Even Philip respected him and admired his ways. 
 He said it was a pity that such a man should have been 
 lost in an impassable jungle. 
 
 One day Rov Zucker discovered Allen Street. After 
 the Saturday night service the Grodno Synagogue 
 members remained to hold a business meeting. The 
 rov asked a strange question. He wanted to know if 
 any member of the Grodno Synagogue owned property 
 on Allen Street. Harris Rittberg and Baruch Engel 
 answered that they did. ‘‘And,’’ asked the rov, ‘‘is 
 any part of your property let out as brothels? ...”? 
 
 It was a stormy meeting. Rittberg and Engel were 
 rich and influential members. They preferred to evade 
 the rov’s question—parried the thrust, saying they 
 did not know what their tenants were doing, although 
 it was common knowledge that certain tenants paid ten 
 times as much as ordinary tenants. The rov did not 
 urge the matter, but sat throughout the evening con- 
 templatively, majestically silent. 
 
 The following day was Sunday, Allen Street’s 
 busiest day. About noon Rov Zucker stood at the cor- 
 ner of Canal and Allen Streets, a picturesque figure 
 amid the shifting crowds. He then strode up and down 
 the middle of Allen Street, his hands upraised as in 
 prayer, and soon a number of men and boys collected 
 around him. 
 
 He stood still and a hush fell upon the street. He 
 
 [56] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 spoke in tones of exhortation and his words fell with 
 the crushing cadence of Biblical curses. 
 
 ‘‘Hear ye, Children of Israel, heed the voice of the 
 Lord and turn away from evil. 
 
 ‘*Children of Israel, ye find yourselves in a new land, 
 a stranger among strangers, and the heavy hand of 
 judgment is always upon the stranger. 
 
 ‘*Hiven so, ye find yourselves in a land of miracles, 
 a land of life and liberty, where you may work how or 
 where you will, a blessed land of free choice. You are 
 not denied your God nor His house of worship. Here 
 you are not confined, hampered nor oppressed. 
 
 ‘*Here is the joy of the righteous, for here ye are not 
 driven to extreme resorts to find bodily sustenance. 
 
 ‘*In the name of the Almighty, I ask ye, search your 
 soul, wherefore are ye in evil occupation? 
 
 ‘‘Turn away from evil, deck your shame and flee the 
 sight and word of ill-fame. 
 
 ‘**For even as one of ye is besmirched, all of ye will 
 be named foul. 
 
 ‘*Heed, or ye will bring down God’s curse upon you 
 in this fourth and last corner of the ae the further- 
 most nook of your exile. 
 
 ‘*Cease splattering slime and ne upon the Shield 
 of David. 
 
 **Open your ears and heed, or cursed be your day. 
 
 “‘Cursed be your hour, your moment, your second. 
 
 ‘‘Cursed be unto eternity. 
 
 ‘‘May your eyes become as searing coals in your 
 heads. 
 
 ‘‘May your tongues become as molten lead in your 
 mouths and choke and stifle you, even a thousand times, 
 a thousand times. 
 
 [57 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘*May your limbs wither and rot——’’ 
 
 Painted faces drew back and windows slammed shut. 
 The street began to clear as shamefaced men sidled 
 away and fled the fearsome consequences of a Rabbi’s 
 curse. Only a few open-mouthed boys lingered to 
 watch the rov. ... The rov’s eyes, turned heaven- 
 ward, did not see a hand clutching a blackjack strike 
 out. Just one blow, well placed, and Rov Zucker 
 toppled to the gutter. A wounded cry went up, not 
 from the Rabbi, but from the onlooking people, as blood 
 gushed from the old man’s forehead. 
 
 [98] 
 
VItl 
 
 Berel the harness fixer comes up for air. I was 
 sitting on the steps to his cellar. I was crowded off 
 the stoop by Philip and his friends, dubbed—the dis- 
 cussionists. 
 
 ‘Well, here we are again. The good old reliable hot 
 summer. Every summer the people talk about the 
 same thing. It’s so hot. Every winter the people 
 talk about the same thing. It’s so cold. Bad weather 
 is a fine thing. It’s one thing people can talk about 
 without getting angry.’’ 
 
 Berel spoke in his gentle way, smiling and benevolent. 
 It was easy to see that he was poking fun at Philip and 
 his friends who were having an excited argument. 
 
 ‘“<You know, Meyer, I could hear them way down in 
 my cellar and, mark you, Lutz was snoring.’’ 
 
 Berel grabbed his head between his hands, exclaim- 
 ing, ‘‘They will have to stop banging on my teapot.’’ 
 
 Now it was Philip banging away, quick volleys of 
 words,—derision, abuse, sneers.... Answers came, 
 —quick, quivering, biting, insulting, pleading, reason- 
 ing, begging and softening, and then came a stillness 
 as the one man spoke for whom the gathering had the 
 respect that a quibbling group of intimates shows to 
 a stranger.... The stranger is an American, and 
 what is more, a Gentile, and his company was held as 
 an honorary condescension. And how people knuckle 
 under to a condescender, especially such fellows like 
 Philip who defy the world. Philip defies the world so 
 long as the world takes no notice of him. 
 
 [59 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘*Who is the goy (Gentile)?’’ asks Berel. ‘‘To me 
 he looks like an Irisher, but it can’t be. He’s so quiet, 
 got such nice ways—an educated man as I live: can’t 
 be an Irisher, I am sure.”’ 
 
 Berel’s acquaintance with the Irish was limited to 
 a handful of hoodlums who thought it was fine sport 
 and good citizenship to attack these outlandish new- 
 comers, the dirty sheenies. Still, it was enough in 
 Berel’s eyes to condemn an entire people. 
 
 ‘Well, he is a real enough Irisher,’’ I tell him. 
 ‘‘His name is Barney Finn, a stranger in New York, 
 comes from an American state called Vermont.’’ 
 
 ‘‘Utt, that explains it,’’ says Berel, ‘‘the wild ones 
 are bred in this cursed city.’’ 
 
 Barney Finn’s talk is as casual as his long-legged 
 gait, amere amble that somehow covers a lot of ground. 
 
 ‘“‘Take my word, folks, what you’ve been talking 
 about is certainly important and interesting: Tolstoi, 
 Marx, Kropotkin, Engles, Bakunin, their doctrines, for- 
 mulas, theories, programs to make the world a better 
 place. But that’s where I feel moved to break in. 
 I’m a down-to-the-ground fellow. My feet kind of get 
 rooted to the spot I happen to be in. What about the 
 acre of land I’m standing on! I’ll clear it and cultivate 
 it before I tackle the millions of other acres in the 
 world. You fellows can’t see any proposition or 
 problem that’s a mite smaller than the whole earth. .. . 
 Here’s our own little patch chockful of stink- 
 weeds. ... Folks, I refer to and mean that stinking 
 shame—Allen Street. And I tell you straight out of 
 my heart that Allen Street will be what it is as long 
 as you folks stand for it... . I talked with the politi- 
 cians. Oh, they don’t make any shucks about it. They 
 
 [ 60 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 admit it’s rotten, rancid stuff. They don’t care, the 
 politicians, because the people they’re offending are 
 not voters. They don’t care so long as the greater 
 number of East Siders are just immigrants, non- 
 voting, docile greenhorns. They don’t care how much 
 they rile you—long as you haven’t got the vote. They 
 aim to please the regulars, and the regulars are the 
 fellows who corral and deliver the voters on election 
 day. And who are the regulars? The saloon keepers, 
 disorderly house operators, shyster lawyers, profes- 
 sional gamblers, thieves, gangsters and cadets, and they 
 are served by a pondful of smallfry—the petty favor 
 seekers. They’re nasty company, and a person with any 
 self-respect shuns politics: so politics stays nasty. ... 
 Politicians know but one law,—if you’re regular— 
 you’re right. Allen Street. The regulars want it,—so 
 there it is. Rabbi Zucker’s protest and broken head 
 don’t count. Hedon’t control votes. . . . Do you want 
 a decent community? It ain’t the politicians’ fault. 
 They’re willing enough. Soon as the bulk of votes is 
 decent the politicians will become decent: after all, 
 they’ve got the habit of officeholding, a comfortable 
 habit that they won’t want to get out of.’’ 
 
 I translate Barney Finn’s talk to Berel, and he gives 
 Barney high praise: ‘‘He don’t bang on my teapot.’’ 
 
 (él 
 
Ix 
 
 Philip sees to it that my bar mitzvah (Confirma- 
 tion; a sort of coming of religious age) is impressive. 
 He and Melamud Mordecai prepare a learned address 
 in Hebrew, a complicated thesis that I can’t make 
 head or tail of, but it is Just involved and pedantic 
 enough to satisfy the most critical. I commit it to 
 memory. Philip tests me every morning before he 
 leaves for work. He wakes me and before I can even 
 brush the cobwebs of sleep from my eyes, plies me 
 with review questions. I become letter perfect. The 
 day of my confirmation falls on New Year’s, a day 
 made more holy by also being Saturday, the Sabbath. 
 The synagogue is crowded and to everyone’s delight I 
 manage the intricate performance without a hitch or 
 error. My mother is proud and happy. Philip doesn’t 
 complain, and that is praise indeed. Father seems just 
 a dazed onlooker, and barely mumbles in reply to the 
 
 congratulations. 
 My own feeling is elation. I am important, I am the 
 center of interest. . . . [ am important. 
 
 But back of my mind is a greater joy,—release from 
 the confinement of the cheder. It is like saying 
 good-bye to the bug-bear of religion, the religion 
 that everlastingly thunders—fear, beware, be warned, 
 be afraid of the God of Vengeance: a God eternally 
 sitting in judgment. A mysterious, unseen, unsee- 
 able, unknowable and fearful thing—God. No wonder 
 this religion is disagreeable, and unbelievable to 
 us—pagans of the city wild. Little wonder we 
 
 [ 62 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 rebelled against our daylong studies of Biblical 
 lore with emphasis on the raw curses and chastise- 
 ments, the subtle Apocryphal enlargement of the por- 
 trait of the God of Vengeance; the endless Rabbinical 
 rules and rites and fasts and laments to appease 
 that insatiable monster—God of Vengeance. No 
 beauty. Nothing spiritual. You may vanquish or 
 seduce a pagan with beauty; but fear—a pagan laughs 
 at fear. This is how I translate today my feeling 
 towards my religion, but on my confirmation day I 
 simply felt,—I can’t swallow that bunk: I puke it 
 right back. 
 
 [63] 
 
THIRD PERIOD 
 
 Bright and large eyed maidens like 
 hidden pearls. 
 
 Koran, 
 
Ys 
 OPig: 
 
 xf Wei 
 : Re aae +) 
 Naa a Pe 
 
 ite 
 
THIRD PERIOD 
 z 
 
 Girls exist. Rather, I have just become conscious of 
 their existence. Until now it has been a Boys’ World. 
 Gorgeous flowers were blooming all around me, but I 
 trod upon them. Good form of the Boys’ World was 
 to tease, insult and annoy these gangly things called 
 girls. The sissies, only, had girl friends. As to the 
 women we visited in Allen Street, well, they were not 
 girls, they were a special species bred for a special pur- 
 pose. At first we went out of curiosity and because we 
 thought doing so made us mannish. One visit made 
 quite a man of us. 
 
 Just about the time I put on my first pair of long 
 pants I discovered the young ladies who were growing 
 up around me, and my first notice found them in the 
 beautiful budding spring time of their adolescence. 
 My experience in Allen Street did not tend to make my 
 interest in girls the vague, smouldering, undefined 
 commotion such an interest generally is in a boy of 
 fifteen. I saw, alluringly, busts, hips and legs, the 
 rhythm of bodily form and movement. My interest 
 was excited by the tales of affairs with girls, boast- 
 ingly related by Ludlow Street Don Juans. I was not 
 only sex-conscious but sex-sensitive. It was a relent- 
 less craving. 
 
 Nice girls dreaded the gang. They gave the corner 
 hangout a wide berth. Boolkie and his regulars 
 greeted them with outspoken intentions, and drove 
 
 [ 67 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 them away. But the gang had its female followers, 
 who were admiringly called ‘‘tough babies.’’ Though 
 I was girl-crazy, I could not stand the tough babies. 
 They were unfeminine little bummies, unkempt, harsh- 
 spoken and utterly without the shy charm of the flower 
 breaking out of the bud, the rare quality that drew me 
 to the nice girls. The test of the matter, most likely, 
 is that the tough baby was too ready to hand, and I was 
 characteristically after the hard to get. The nice girls 
 were elusive and dreadfully afraid of a bad name. 
 Mothers let their boys run wild, but the girls had to 
 account for every minute. The best I got was a few 
 moments’ passing talk on a stoop. 
 
 I was not crazy about any one girl—it was girls in 
 general. Sam Rakowsky, Hymie Rubin and I formed 
 a secretive clique of girl chasers. But we soon lost out 
 as the nice girls told one another that we were inclined 
 to be fresh. Fresh meant trying to kiss them. We 
 kissed but a few times but tried often. 
 
 Sam got himself a job as an All Day Tramp, the 
 name we gave to messenger boys whose soldier-like 
 caps bore a brass plate with the initials A. D. T. (Amer- 
 ican District Telegraph). His worldly education grew 
 in leaps and bounds. He was familiar with every 
 joint in town. He was a directory of dives, brothels, 
 resorts and theatres. He told racy stories of places 
 and persons. A messenger boy sees and knows every- 
 thing and everyone of interest. 
 
 Sam had an engaging manner and an inquisitive 
 nature, which was a combination to get results. When 
 in a tight corner Sam sang a song. He knew all the 
 latest hits of the burlesque and variety stage and, if 
 need be, could accompany them with a jig. He had 
 
 [ 68 ] | 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ambitions as a song-and-dance artist. Sam/’s nosiness 
 once brought us pell-mell into the back room of a saloon 
 in Mulberry Bend. It was the headquarters of a mur- 
 derous gang. They were suspicious of us. It looked 
 threatening for the sheenies when Sam placed himself 
 in the middle of the room and broke out, strongly, in 
 song, a highly smutty thing he picked up in a black and 
 tan joint in Hell’s Kitchen. He brought down the 
 house. We were welcomed as entertainers making 
 the rounds. Fortunately, Sam’s ambitions had led us 
 to while away summer evenings in achieving certain 
 blends of harmonious effects of the latest rag tunes. 
 Kimboldened by Sam’s success, and the fact that the 
 roughnecks threw coins at Sam’s feet, we put our heads 
 together in the approved quartet fashion and gave a 
 little concert. We left the place with several beers 
 inside of us and sixty cents in our pockets. Then Sam 
 remembered the place he wanted to take us to when 
 he stumbled into the back room. It was the Five Points 
 cellar places, where scrubwomen, mostly past middle 
 age, begrimed, frowsy, boozed up, were available to the 
 scanty purses of boys. Later, when tips were running 
 high, Sam introduced us to the fifty-cent houses on 
 Mott and Hlizabeth Streets, where was beginning to de- 
 velop a large Italian colony. Pimps on the street pulled 
 at us, dragged us into doorways and cried their draw- 
 ing card—‘‘imported girlies, young—very young’’; 
 that was the attraction. And we found nothing mis- 
 leading in their advertisement. The girls were young, 
 very young, ten to fourteen years old, and imported, 
 imported by Italian padrones, importers of live-stock 
 only: pleasure girls, boy and girl street musicians, 
 children acrobats, crippled and deformed children for 
 [ 69 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 begging; and when such importations were stopped 
 only by the horrors exposed by their own excesses, 
 they became respectable importers of mine and rail- 
 road peons. The Elizabeth Street joints were crude 
 and dirty places, and Hymie Rubin, rather sensitive 
 and soft-hearted, turned from them in disgust, saying 
 he minded most the little girls’ white, bewildered faces. 
 He offended Sam Rakowsky terribly when he said the 
 little girls made him think of Sam’s sisters, of whom 
 Sam had the small number of six. (Some ten years 
 later Hymie married one of Sam’s sisters.) Hymie 
 preferred the Five Points scrubs because they were 
 cheap and did not seem to be human beings. 
 
 [70] 
 
II 
 
 “‘Don’t think your education is finished. It has only 
 begun. ’’ 
 
 In this wise Uncle Philip dampened my jubilant feel- 
 ings when I brought home a diploma showing that I 
 was a public school graduate. And that is Philip: 
 nothing satisfies him. Yet I, too, should have realized 
 how little my public school education amounted to. 
 I found the school lessons one big cinch. It called for 
 no effort to keep up with the classes that progressed at 
 the pace set by the dozen or so slow pupils in a class 
 of fifty. What we really got was a smattering knowl- 
 edge on a variety of subjects. One teacher, alone, 
 taught us for a half-year term. She spent five hours a 
 day with fifty restless imps whom she was expected to 
 instruct in everything from arithmetic to zoology. It 
 was a heart-breaking task for the teacher and a dull 
 session for the pupil. It became tiresome to hear day- 
 long the same spiritless voice droning away at dates, 
 sums, platitudes and scolding preachments. Every 
 morning there was an assembly of classes before the 
 principal, Dr. Berne, a gross, red-headed bully of a 
 man, who, after reading a verse from the Scriptures, 
 would fiercely demand excellent conduct, the high 
 ideal of this schoolmaster. 
 
 Unruly boys were sent to the principal’s office to be 
 summarily dealt with by him. Dr. Berne wore a heavy 
 signet ring on his little finger. The outlines of that 
 ring were cruelly impressed on many boys’ faces. But 
 the boys won out in the end. The school had a shock- 
 
 [71] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ing number of truants and Dr. Berne’s resignation 
 followed upon a nervous breakdown brought on about 
 the time Dago Jack drew a shining stiletto from his 
 shirt and threatened him. 
 
 I expected to go to work after graduating from 
 school. Father could not work much. He spent most 
 of his time sitting by the window gasping for air. 
 I knew extra earnings were badly needed, but Uncle 
 Philip decreed City College. 
 
 ‘Don’t forget, Meyer, do you hear!’’ he said, 
 ‘‘you’re going to be a lawyer.”’ 
 
 City College was a shock after the easy snap I had 
 at school. It was altogether different. City College... 
 housed in the rusty old chapel on Twenty-third Street; 
 vine-covered, with an air of scholarly detachment; of 
 cloister quiet and dignity. Absent was the tedium 
 of public school. Here we had to keep step with the 
 brisk pace set by the teachers. Backward scholars 
 were dropped by the way. . . . Every hour, with the 
 taking up of a new subject, we marched to a different 
 classroom and enjoyed a refreshing change of per- 
 sonality. There were no soft snaps: each study, 
 directed by a specialized instructor, had to be known 
 thoroughly. 
 
 [72] 
 
lit 
 
 The Hast Side is growing, looming up and spreading 
 out. The small wooden houses with their slanting 
 roofs, the Georgian brick houses with their garrets 
 and the makeshift shop-buildings are being displaced 
 by tall structures, great tenements reared side to side, 
 back to back, with a tiny space between called airshafts, 
 and no sooner are they ready than they are jammed 
 with people. Ground is either sacred or costly. The 
 builders are magicians. The houses spring up, as it 
 were, overnight and the number of rooms per square 
 foot is greater by tenfold. A small area set off by a 
 thin wall of lathe and plaster is a room. And the 
 miracle of paying the rents exacted is accomplished by 
 the number of boarders you can crowd into the so- 
 called rooms. Great big shop buildings are erected to 
 take care of the fast-growing clothing contractors’ 
 business. Now we have sweatshops on a larger scale, 
 but work is as scarce as ever. Every day brings its 
 new flock of greenhorns, with little or no money, eager 
 for a job at any pay at all. 
 
 I feel keenly responsive to all the flow and activity 
 about me. I am thinking hard of how I am going to fit 
 into it all. I try to be as impressive as I know how 
 with the greenhorns. I like to think people look up to 
 me. As I pass they look after me and I can feel them 
 thinking: there goes Meyer Hirsch. He amounts to 
 something. He is getting on. He carries himself 
 manly, he’s tall, got good shoulders, a handsome head 
 and there’s lots of brains in that head. How I thrill 
 
 [73] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 to it-—what people think. I am convinced that is the 
 big thing in life, there is nothing else; you are nothing 
 but what people think you are. ... The pious say, 
 that’s the clever lad who harangued the congregation 
 in Hebrew so eloquently, read the portion of the Law 
 fluently and without a single mistake, and, what’s more, 
 he can interpret a page of the Talmud! The worldly 
 say, he’s got a practical head, is a school graduate and 
 now is in College: a boy who will get on in this world. 
 The sentimental observe, he’s a blessing to his parents, 
 an only child, but such a talented child, a long life to 
 him. ... If they’re not thinking these things, I am 
 thinking them about myself ... and it gives me a lot 
 of pleasure. 
 
 These days I don’t often show myself in the company 
 of the Ludlow Streeters. The gang has grown in num- 
 bers and has taken a definite character. It is nothing 
 more than a nest of thieves. I was thinking of drop- 
 ping the gang until I thought out that here was a 
 sizable asset to a young lawyer—a number of potential 
 prisoners at the bar. I looked upon every one of these 
 boastful fools as rich meat and drink for me,—still on 
 the hoof and vine, but mine eventually. . . . Boolkie 
 knew my ambition to be a lawyer. He said it will 
 be a great thing for the gang to have its own mouth- 
 piece. ... So I keep in touch with their secrets and 
 the tricks they are turning. 
 
 Davie Solomon has taken seriously to poetry. His 
 face is melancholy and drawn, and he is like one who 
 walks and yet dreams. He has become a disciple of one 
 Walt Whitman, a sort of freebooter in poetry. This 
 derisive description was applied to this Whitman by 
 our Hinglish teacher in City College. I try to talk Davie 
 
 [74] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 out of making a serious vocation of poetry. It doesn’t 
 pay, and his mother, as it is, has a devilish time grind- 
 ing out a living from her horseradish mill. However, 
 he may outgrow poetry as he sloughed off religion. 
 He is an atheist now and makes quite a fuss over it. 
 His mother is very unhappy about it, and Melamud 
 Mordecai is sure an evil spirit has lodged in him. Love 
 is Davie’s God, and Beauty his handmaiden. He is in 
 love with Esther Brinn, or he merely uses her as a 
 target for his poems. Writing a poem to her seems to 
 satisfy him. ... And Avrum Toledo talks to Esther 
 for hours. He, probably, is in love with her, too, and 
 is quite satisfied as long as she listens to his theories on 
 life as it-should-be-lived. He is a cross between a 
 philosophical anarchist and a single-taxing Socialist. 
 They won’t mix, these doctrines, formulae, world- 
 righting schemes, he is assured by the catholic and 
 dogmatic discussionists, but Avrum carries on, ear- 
 nestly, to his intellectual love. ... I listen to Davie’s 
 poems and Avrum’s convolutions, but I find them hard 
 to bear, even for Esther’s sake, for I, too, have my 
 passion, and it is not poetry or theories. It is just 
 Getting Something. Esther says, while she under- 
 stands Davie and Avrum, she finds me a Mystery. 
 Ksther Brinn is a girl of about sixteen whom we all 
 respect. Sheis natural. She is not afraid to talk with 
 boys and it is hard to imagine anyone getting fresh 
 with her. She has hardly begun to mature, physically, 
 and was not the kind of a girl to worry me, sexually. 
 Being a Mystery, she found me interesting. I was a 
 Mystery to Esther Brinn because her mind was mysti- 
 cized by the poetic and theoretical slants she got on life 
 from the Davies and Avrums, who were getting to be 
 [79 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 as thick as flies around our way. They pictured a 
 world that wasn’t or couldn’t be, and I was trying to 
 get something in the world—that is. . . . Esther could 
 not understand my being friends with Boolkie and the 
 regulars, and she took me to task for being fresh with 
 girls. ... Yet I enjoyed being with Esther.... I 
 Suppose we egoists liked her because she was a good 
 listener. Today she was but a slight, growing girl. It 
 was a few years later that she sprang out of the 
 chrysalis of the awkward age and dazzled our whole 
 beings with her exquisite beauty, a beauty that tore 
 Davie’s heart, rent Avrum’s soul and tantalized my 
 every conscious moment. . . . But Davie was the 
 prophet of Esther’s beauty, for even now he described 
 her in his poems as she was to be . . . perhaps he saw 
 it now... poets are a mystery to me.... He saw 
 her face, at any rate: he had no eyes for bodies then. 
 He spoke of her features as having the delicately 
 chiseled outlines of a rare cameo, a cameo shining in 
 the sombre frame of her black hair . . . how her eyes 
 glowed and shadowed like true agate ... how her 
 face had the pallor of marble in the first light of day. 
 He saw her hands, frail and transparent; when in re- 
 pose like Chinese lilies, and when moving, like snow- 
 birds’ wings aflutter in the moonlight, and heard her 
 voice . . . like the kiss of a zephyr on a silver bell. 
 Iam sure it is Lillie Rosenfeld, the Teaser, who told 
 Esther I was fresh. Lillie is the kind of a girl who 
 deliberately coquettes and then bitterly complains. 
 She belongs to that class of sinners who fool their con- 
 sciences by playing the réle of injured innocence. 
 Lilie is unusual. She comes upon you like a summer 
 sunbeam in a cool, dark room. .. . Golden hair, dark 
 [ 76 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 eyebrows, darker lashes, sea-green eyes, a pink and 
 white complexion and luscious red lips have won her 
 the name—F'rench Baby Doll, and her dangerous game 
 of tag earned her the private name—The Teaser. She 
 is hardly older than sixteen, but is already in the high 
 flare of womanhood, plump and well-rounded out... . 
 She has a way of tossing her shimmering head, full- 
 opening and then half-shutting her strange eyes,—and 
 you begin to lose your balance,—but it is the undulat- 
 ing curves of her shapely body that make you dizzy. 
 And so she tempts and leads you on. And she flies 
 from you, flies from the public place of the stoop where 
 there is security, flies to the dim recess of the hallway 
 and corners herself under the staircase. Here you 
 become delirious from inhaling a fragrant, ravishing 
 incense, her panting breath near your mouth.... 
 But—that is all. . . . She berates you and beats you off 
 and you wake up to witness all the tricks of her stock 
 scene of injured innocence. . . . And after each rebuff 
 I vow, ‘‘I’ll get you yet, French Baby Doll, you damned 
 Teaser, I’ll get you yet.’’... And I am not the 
 only one. 
 
 Yetta Uditsky somehow always arrives in time to 
 behold virtue triumphant in the person of Lillie lam- 
 basting the villain. The play is so much to her liking 
 and so realistically performed that she jumps from 
 the audience and joins the action, pushing me from the 
 hallway, crying, ‘‘Go away, you loafer; I’ll tell your 
 father on you.’’ Yetta we call the Queen of Sheba. 
 Hymie Rubin once told her that she is so lovely that 
 even though Solomon had eight hundred wives he 
 would find her irresistible. As a matter of fact, Hymie 
 meant that she was a big, slovenly, overgrown lump of 
 
 [77] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 a girl with dirty blonde hair whom no one would care 
 to look upon a second time. Yetta grew up to help 
 make woman suffrage history and lead the girl waist- 
 makers’ union to victory. She married a Gentile col- 
 lege professor and wrote the best part of his books on 
 economics. But we thought Yetta an extremely dull 
 girl: I guess because her hair did not shine. No boy 
 bothered her, but she was busy fighting away boys from 
 other girls. 
 
 Harry Wotin, Archie’s brother, now a heavily seri- 
 ous young man of nineteen and a medical student, has 
 been paying marked attention to Hannah Weingrad, 
 daughter of Jake Weingrad, the fence for boy thieves. 
 Weingrad ordered him to keep away from Hannah, 
 calling him an unpedigreed schnorrer (beggar), and 
 said he is onto Harry’s game. ‘‘You nothing, you; 
 you’re looking for a girl to pay your way through 
 college.’’ . . . Besides Weingrad was doing an active 
 business with Archie Wotin, and the respectable syna- 
 gogue member did not want a thief’s brother for 
 son-in-law. 
 
 [78 ] 
 
IV 
 
 Boolkie comes with bad news. Archie Wotin, Dopie 
 Ikie Schneider and Dago Jack Marinari are under 
 arrest. A little matter of burglary. Boolkie bewails 
 most the loss of Archie the Gun. 
 
 ‘‘1’m good and sore on Archie,’’ says the bereaved 
 chieftain. ‘‘I puts him hep to easy money, makes him 
 the best little dip (pickpocket) in the business, and why 
 don’t he stick to it? No, he don’t listen to me but he 
 follows that rat-faced sonofagun, Issie Weingrad, who 
 wises him up to a store what they can get into by 
 squeezing Archie through the fanlight, Archie being so 
 skinny and quick with his body. Well, the bulls nailed 
 him and the Dope and the Dago. And now they’re 
 going to ride. Aw, if Archie ’d stick to his line, and 
 him as good as any Gun what ever snatched a poke, 
 gee, he’d be a Cannon.”’ 
 
 My erstwhile pals took a ride, a ferry-boat ride over 
 the river. Being boys of no importance politically, of 
 no family influence, without money to buy legal talent 
 and bribe policemen, justice was meted out to them 
 with striking swiftness. Such quick shrift was made 
 of the three little nobodies’ case that.a week later 
 Boolkie dolefully reported that his pals ‘‘got a bit in 
 the Ref.’’... The court committed them for an 
 eighteen months’ minimum sojourn in the dreaded 
 House of Refuge on Randall’s Island. 
 
 I was peeved with myself that the gangsters’ 
 troubles did not in some way redound to my glory. It 
 started my brain scheming. I began to haunt the en- 
 
 [79 } 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 trance to Hssex Market Magistrates’ Court, the Bast 
 Side’s police tribunal.... It was a busy mill of 
 agonized humanity. I eavesdropped and was pushed 
 away. ...I lingered ... and hurried away, busily 
 
 . returned, aimlessly, idly curious . . . but always 
 watching and listening, avidly ... till I pieced to- 
 gether conversations, cases, important names, secrets 
 
 . observed the methods of the artful runners as 
 they snapped up dazed clients for their lawyer- 
 employers ... watched out for the Who’s Who of 
 bigwigs . . . studied the politicians, always smiling, 
 affable, cordial, handshaking, and after a while I smiled 
 and nodded and even shook hands with Highmuck- 
 amucks, for I soon got onto the fact that they did not 
 know everyone they were so friendly to... and I 
 showed off like a big gun before the ignorant and be- 
 wildered relatives of prisoners who waited at the 
 prison-yard gate.... It was here that I met Maxie 
 Freund, a boy about my own age, in America only two 
 years, and who also had ambitions leading to the legal 
 profession. He joined in the game with me . . . would 
 hurry away, return, whisper in my ear, and then I 
 would make an important entry in a notebook ... and 
 we had a good time being impressive in the eyes of the 
 foreigners. . . . I tired of the make-believe. I wanted 
 the real thing. I just itched to get into the courtroom, 
 which was always jammed. I tried many times to get 
 in, but Black Riley, the fat cop doorman, barred my 
 way. Sol began to cultivate Black Riley, a huge man, 
 mainly about the girth and neck, with great black mus- 
 taches and bushy eyebrows that compete with mus- 
 taches. 
 
 [ 804 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘‘Can I get you something, Captain?’’ I said, deferen- 
 tially. 
 
 ‘““What can the likes 0’ you get me, you little 
 sheenie?’’ he asked. 
 
 ‘Anything you want,’’ I pleaded. 
 
 ‘‘Very well, there’s sumthing you can get me.”’ 
 
 ‘‘Yes, Captain,’’ I responded eagerly. 
 
 ‘‘Get the hell outa here,’’ he roared. 
 
 ‘‘Yes, sir,’? I answered and marched off, only to 
 return a few minutes later. 
 
 ‘¢And,’’ said he, ‘‘did you get it?”’ 
 
 ‘‘Yes, Captain, I got it good and plenty’’; which 
 amuses him, and while he is busy laughing I walk past 
 him into the courtroom and squeeze in between two 
 women on a bench. 
 
 Mine is not a seat of vantage. I am oppressed by 
 heavy elbows, elbows indignant at my sudden, discom- 
 forting intrusion. My view is blurred and barred by 
 big round forms, the slow moving, heaving bodies of 
 policemen, lawyers, detectives, and bondsmen. I wish 
 they were not so well fed. . . . My first impression is 
 a confusion of voices, gruff and shrill, harsh and 
 squeaky: outside in the prison yard every little while 
 an angry bell blares, a hoarse voice abuses stamping 
 horses, and ironshod wheels detonate on irregular flag- 
 stones; a sharp click, a large steel key unleashes a rasp- 
 ing lock, rusty hinges groan... dragging, shuffling, 
 weary footfalls . . . slam-bang, click, rasp, groan, the 
 door of steel bars is flung back into its steel frame and 
 made fast again . . . and prisoners and accusers, man- 
 hunters and defenders and prosecutors face the court 
 to pule and whine, plead, denounce, impale, deny, miti- 
 gate and exaggerate in tones ranging from a mutter to 
 
 [si] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 a peroration, and amid the babble and hubbub there 
 comes to me an even, strong voice rising above the tor- 
 rents of sound like the steady wind above a downpour 
 of rain. 
 
 I see nothing but shifting backs. The dominating, 
 leading voice must belong to the judge. He calls the 
 next case. A husky voice cries the name. The attend- 
 ant guarding the gate to the enclosure of the judge’s 
 bench takes up the name in bellowing tone, hurling it 
 to the guard of the prisoners’ pen, who shrieks it down 
 a corridor and an affrighted defendant squeaks, 
 ‘‘Me...me...my name.’’... An interminable 
 reading turgid with legal phrases and repetitions .. . 
 larceny ... larceny. ... Wherefore. ... Wherefore 
 ... larceny ...more jumbles of wherefores and 
 whereofs.... Clothing. ... Jewelry . . . familiar 
 words ... at last ... and they cause a stirring and 
 buzzing in the benches. .. . A womanrises .. . ‘‘Yes 
 sir, mine, that’s right ... stole my jewelry. ...”? 
 A gavel bangs. ... The attendants shout: ‘‘Order in 
 the court; keep still; sit down.’’ . 
 
 A monotonous speaker ... must be a lawyer... 
 says the same thing many times and then ends up by 
 asking for more time. ... The judge marks the case 
 off . . . an upheaval in the benches . . . protests 
 against delay by accuser and her witnesses... a jam 
 in the corridor. . . . ‘‘Keep moving; keep moving; hats 
 off until you get out.’’?... Protests and apologies, 
 and the aisle is cleared, but in the meantime another 
 case has been called. ... A hair-pulling match. Two 
 women playing dual roles of plaintiff and defendant 
 because of counter-charges . . . they lock horns, so to 
 speak, and their children bawl and their respective 
 
 [ 82) 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 husbands start a scrap on the sidelines. Both women 
 claim victory and vindication: both have been found 
 guilty and bound over to keep the peace. ... A lively 
 procession of cases all drowned in words . . . the in- 
 terest wanes, and suddenly there is an electric murmur 
 in the crowd—ah—a murder case. The most serious 
 charge is disposed of quickest of all. ... Nobail.... 
 Grand Jury. ... Again starts the array of drunks 
 and disorderlies, pushcart cases, assaults, larcenies 
 and burglaries. ... It is getting dark, the benches 
 begin to clear. At last I get a full view of the judge. 
 He was more impressive when I did not see him. His 
 Honor was a little man with a whiskey-burned face, a 
 completely bald head and the funniest pug nose. His 
 intimates called him Pugsey Kelly from the Fourth 
 Ward. 
 
 Maxie Freund awaits me. He marvels at my success 
 in getting into the court and staying there so long. ‘‘I 
 got a pull,’’ I tell him, laconically. 
 
 A few days later a tearful woman stopped me 
 and told me her husband was arrested for snatching 
 a pocketbook containing seventy-one cents from a 
 woman’s hand. She said the charge was unbelievable; 
 that her husband was a sober, steady buttonhole-maker, 
 and she can’t for anything understand why they picked 
 on him. Anyway, she said, a thousand times innocent, 
 it does not matter—he is in jail charged with the crime 
 and she doesn’t know what to do. It is near the court- 
 house and several of the runners edge up closer, scent- 
 ing game in the offing. One of them tries to draw the 
 woman aside, but I put myself in his way, whispering 
 in his ear, ‘‘Lay off, I’m taking care of this for Black 
 Riley.’? . . . He looks me over, and I turn my back on 
 
 [ 83 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 him. I warn the woman to talk with no one, warn her 
 to be careful of the men around the courts, telling her 
 they are nothing more than spies for the police. When 
 she came to me, I told her, modestly, she was lucky, for 
 I had a pull with the court. I placed her on the steps 
 of the courthouse, bidding her to observe me. I stepped 
 up to Black Riley, begged his ear a moment, saying, 
 ‘Can you recommend me to a lawyer? I got a pick- 
 pocket case.’?... Riley pats my shoulder, saying, 
 ‘*You’ve come to the right man... . Take your case 
 to Moe Levenson; you’ll find him across the street in 
 the Silver Dollar Saloon. Tell him it’s my case, and 
 I looks for my full split. . . . That’s right, my boy, in 
 the back room, and keep me posted what he gets out 
 of it.”’... I take the woman aside and say, ‘Well, 
 it’s a serious matter, have no doubt, but my friend, the 
 boss of the court, will help me out. The first thing to 
 do is to get the right lawyer, and the right lawyer 
 always is the personal friend of the judge.’’ My last 
 remark was the stock in trade bait of the runners. T 
 didn’t miss one of their cues. I guide her into the 
 back room of the Silver Dollar Saloon and look up Moe 
 Levenson, whom I find in a private room playing 
 pinochle. I inform him Black Riley has sent me to him 
 with a case. He thinks I am in trouble. But I men- 
 tion, as though it were a long-established fact, that I 
 and Black Riley are working together. . . . Moe is not 
 very pleased, he’s wondering how his own runner 
 missed the case. 
 
 Levenson talks with the woman, shakes his head 
 sadly, and says, ‘‘Terrible. Terrible. It’s going to be 
 hard. It’s going to be hard.’’? The distracted woman 
 tears at her knotted handkerchief, and grows pale. He 
 
 [ 84] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 turns to me, saying, ‘‘I leave it to you, how can I ask 
 my friend the judge to help me out in a case of this 
 kind, snatching a pocketbook from a woman’s hand? 
 Terrible.’? The woman pleads, able only to repeat one 
 imploring word, ‘‘Please, please, please.’’? Levenson 
 strokes the side of his face and remarks, ‘‘It’s going 
 to cost a lot of money, yeh, a lot of money. . . . How 
 much have you got?’’?’ The woman unties her handker- 
 chief and places on the table crumpled bills amounting 
 to twenty-six dollars. Levenson shows her a sorrow- 
 fully disappointed face. He says, ‘‘That money is 
 nothing.’? The woman quivers. ‘‘Nothing!’’ she ex- 
 claims, ‘‘why that’s all, every cent, we’ve got in the 
 world.’’? Levenson rises, absent-mindedly pockets the 
 money, saying, ‘‘If you love your husband you will 
 start out at once to beg, borrow or steal money. That’s 
 the only thing that will save him from a long term in 
 prison. Remember, we are in America, money works 
 and money talks in America.’’... The woman is 
 thunderstruck. ‘‘But he is innocent,’’ she cries... . 
 ‘<T know,’’ says Levenson, dryly, ‘‘that’s what they all 
 say.’’ .. . Levenson takes her in hand and counsels 
 her to go out among her landsleit (country people) and 
 make a collection for her husband’s defense, tells her 
 to go to relatives, pawn jewelry, sell household fur- 
 niture, in short, do anything to raise money... . 
 Levenson takes me aside and instructs me to stick close 
 to her, not to overlook any good bets and to inspect her 
 home and see what furniture she has.... I go home 
 with the woman. The first thing that strikes my eye 
 isa piano. I look at the piano, meaningly. The woman 
 says, ‘‘We went without clothes, without many things 
 to save up to buy this piano for our boy. He has 
 [ 85 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 talent. ... It will break his heart to lose the piano... 
 but we can’t let his father sit in jail for the sake of a 
 piano.’’ She goes out to borrow money and I report 
 back to Levenson. . . . ‘‘A piano,’’ he muses, ‘‘that’s 
 all right, I’ll take the piano for a part of the fee, my 
 girl will need a piano pretty soon.’’ Levenson sends 
 me with truckmen to have the piano removed to his 
 home. . . . The following morning Levenson appeared 
 in court as counsel for the accused buttonhole-maker. 
 Without inquiring into the merits of the case, he had 
 it adjourned for a week. During the week that ensued 
 the woman managed to borrow eleven dollars. Leven- 
 son again adjourned the case, and the following week 
 he was satisfied that the nine dollars more that the 
 woman brought him was the limit of this particular 
 case’s resources. It then turned out that the button- 
 hole-maker was caught among those running in the 
 street when the stop thief cry was raised. The pocket- 
 book was not found on him when arrested, and when 
 the hearing was finally held the complainant said the 
 buttonhole-maker did not in any wise resemble the man 
 who tore the pocketbook from her hand. He was dis- 
 charged, and the poor woman, who had spent her last 
 dollar, sacrificed her boy’s piano and borrowed from 
 every person she could approach, felt satisfied that 
 money bought her husband’s release. 
 
 F'rom time to time I picked up a case and brought it 
 to Black Riley, who got his split from Levenson, who 
 gave me a little rake-off. It was now two months since 
 my pals were sentenced to the Ref, and one evening at 
 the bar in the Silver Dollar Saloon I told Black Reilly 
 about their fix. He consulted Levenson. He spoke 
 about a little fixing in the right place, altering records, 
 
 [ 86 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 errors in commitment papers, and then effecting their 
 release on technical writs. It would take a little money. 
 Got to take care of the boys on both ends of the line. 
 Well, a personal case. Three hundred might do it. 
 I told Levenson the sum was even beyond imagining. 
 He replied that it showed I had no imagination. Can’t 
 try a case without imagination. He then illustrated 
 imaginative methods in case work. 
 
 Levenson said: ‘‘First thing to imagine in a case is, 
 who don’t want to be mixed up in the particular mess 
 in hand? Next thing to imagine is, how can you mix up 
 that person nice and messy? When your imagination 
 carries you that far, you can imagine the rest. Now 
 here’s your case. Three boys. Thieves. Well, they’re 
 stealing something, ain’t they? Who are they selling 
 that something to? Somebody, no? Somebody’s get- 
 ting fat on their stealings. Easy to see that Somebody 
 don’t want a brass band announcing what’s going on 
 and he don’t want to stop making easy money, and cer- 
 tainly he won’t want no criminal charges. Well, Mr. 
 Somebody will pay good to stop the noise, and that’s 
 what you call hush gelt (money). When you got all 
 you can from Somebody, your imagination keeps on, if 
 it’s any good. The three thieves belong to a gang. A 
 lot of pals feel sorry for them. If the pals ain’t flush 
 then they can go out to pull off a job to raise the money 
 to get their pals out of trouble.’’ 
 
 Levenson’s hints fell on fruitful soil. I got right on 
 the job. I talked it over with Boolkie. He shouted, 
 ‘God damn him, Weingrad ought to put up to get the 
 boys out. He’s been getting the gravy out of all their 
 jobs, and his son put them up to their last trick. I’m 
 going in and make that old bum come across.’’ I told 
 
 [ 87 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Boolkie to let me handle the matter. I said, apropos 
 of my teacher, ‘‘Boolkie, in these legal affairs you got 
 to have imagination. Leave it to me.’?... I went to 
 see Weingrad. I mentioned, after a little talk on many 
 subjects, that I was working around the courts and 
 that I had made many friends among the detectives. 
 I dropped my voice to a hissing whisper, saying, 
 ‘‘Weingrad, be careful. They’re working on your 
 ease.’’? . . . His mouth dropped. He ejaculated: 
 “They! Who, who?’’... I put up a defensive hand, 
 ‘‘Please,’’ I said, ‘‘don’t ask me any more.’’.. 
 ‘‘Tell me, I beg you,’’ he shouts... . I tell Weingrad 
 that I did not want to be mixed up in a criminal case, 
 that I had gone far enough in giving him the warning. 
 I added, ‘‘I can’t help saying, Weingrad, it looks bad 
 for you, and you got to do something.”’ . . . By this 
 time he is quite unnerved. He begs me to find out what 
 he can do to save himself, and I promise to report that 
 night. ... Well, Weingrad was a hard giver-up. It 
 took three days of screwing him up with fear before 
 he came across with the necessary three hundred dol- 
 lars. He did so when he was overwhelmingly convinced 
 that he and his son were about to be arrested upon the 
 evidence furnished by the imprisoned boys. 
 
 In about ten days Archie, Ikie and Jack returned to 
 old scenes, pastimes and practices. The gang rejoiced 
 and féted them as heroes. I was hailed as a miracle 
 worker. .. . Maxie Freund has attached himself to 
 me as a sort of sounding board. He grimaces, winks, 
 and mysteriously hints that I have a secret tremendous 
 pull. He plays my game with rare cunning. Maxie is 
 a master of the art of implying and imputing anything 
 he may wish to put over without in any way committing 
 
 [ 88 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 himself to a factual statement. He smells of the sub- 
 rosa and reeks of the skeleton closet. He irritates 
 Boolkie by appearing suddenly under his left shoulder. 
 Thieves hate to have anyone behind them. But Maxie 
 knows how to assuage him. He whispers, insinuat- 
 ingly, ‘‘I’m with you. I’m with you. It’s all right,” 
 and thereby worries Boolkie that he has complete 
 knowledge of everything; whereas, he really knows 
 nothing. But it is a good way of surprising secrets 
 out of people. 
 
 A thief with a jail term to his credit has the standing 
 of a savant with an honorary degree. Archie now 
 speaks with sophomoric assurance. He says: ‘‘Say, 
 we’re wised up to a lot of stuff now.’’? The gang listens 
 intently to the wisdom learned in the reform school. 
 How to ‘‘roll a lush’’ (rob a drunken man), how to 
 practice the fine points of ‘‘stick up’’ (highway rob- 
 bery), how to make a ‘‘getaway’’ under varying cir- 
 cumstances, how to ‘‘crack’’ a small safe, ‘‘can- 
 opener’’ fashion, or blow open a big safe with ‘‘soup’’ 
 (nitroglycerine), how to ‘‘jimmy’’ doors, drawers and 
 windows, how to snap a lock, how to use skeleton keys, 
 where to dispose of ‘‘swag’’ and where to buy bur- 
 glar’s tools, how to ‘‘fix’’ (bribe) cops and judges, and 
 many other delightful aids to a happy life of crime 
 and bravado. According to Archie his fellow students 
 in the reform school were busy planning jobs to pull 
 off npon their release, tipping each other off and work- 
 ing in concert to outwit the ‘‘screws’’ (keepers). He 
 recounted \glibly the scandals of the menagerie and 
 told what happens when a number of young animals 
 are locked up together. 
 
 [ 89 ] 
 
Vv 
 
 Berel and Barney have been teaching each cther, 
 swapping a Yiddish lesson for an English one. It is 
 funny to hear them. Barney can’t grind out the gut- 
 turals and Berel does weird things with the vowel 
 sounds. . . . A gusty November evening. <A cold 
 drizzle drives the Discussionists to Berel’s warm cel- 
 lar. ... Berel lights up the large lamp on the work 
 bench and Barney Finn is revealed hunched up on the 
 sagging couch. ... Even Lutz laughs to hear Barney 
 Finn, the lanky Irish Yankee, talk the sing-songy Yid- 
 dish of Berel’s Bessarabia. ... It doesn’t take long 
 for the ball of argument to start rolling. . . . Barney’s 
 hobby, Reform Laws, is being kicked about. . . . Legis- 
 lation is Barney’s Savior of Mankind. He would 
 legislate light, air, water, paint, space, sanitary toilets, 
 washtubs and bathtubs into tenement homes; justice 
 for poor prisoners and litigants; clean streets, pave- 
 ments, parks, playgrounds, libraries, night schools, 
 clubs, nurseries and clinics; and better moral and in- 
 dustrial conditions. ... He is answered. ... Laws 
 are futile . .. palliatives, expedients, soon discarded 
 and forgotten ... makeshifts .. . do not get at the 
 roots of wrongs and evil . . . fine codes of laws existed 
 from the time man became gregarious . . . make 
 people evasive, hypocritical and criminal . . . made by 
 the ruling class and are cruel and one-sided. 
 
 They think Barney is squelched, but he is unruffled 
 and answers: ‘‘Let me get my laws passed and then 
 I’ll tell you whether they’re futile.’ 
 
 [90 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Barney says he learned Yiddish and lived in the 
 Ghetto in an effort to understand the Jews. He con- 
 fesses that the more he gets to know the Jews the more 
 they puzzle him. He can’t make them out; so many 
 contradictions and contrasts; no two Jews seem alike. 
 ‘‘You know,’’ he confesses, ‘‘we outsiders think of the 
 Jews of the world as one type.’’... By the time 
 the Discussionists are done with him he is ready to 
 revise another popular idea he holds, namely, that the 
 Jews are unfailingly clannish, highly unified, and pre- 
 sent, consistently, a solid front against the rest of 
 the world. 
 
 Philip says, ‘‘ Barney, you are simple-minded where 
 the Jews are concerned. Solid front—bah! Clan- 
 nish—puh! Unified—ha, ha! ... Ask the Tsar’s gov- 
 ernment: they torment and kill Jews, deny them the 
 ordinary rights of education, trade and travel. But 
 who do you think lends millions to the T'sar’s govern- 
 ment? Who—but the German, English and French 
 Jews. Who lends money to the Roumanian govern- 
 ment, which treats its Jews worse than dogs? English 
 Jews, German Jews, Italian Jews.”’ 
 
 Abe Lewkowitz, who is working his head off to 
 organize a garment workers’ union, adds angrily, 
 ‘And who sweats and cheats the Jewish workman in 
 America? Jewish contractors, Polish, Russian and 
 Galician Jews.’’ 
 
 ‘“Who squeezes the contractors?’’ demands Philip, 
 injecting his pet prejudice; ‘‘who but the German 
 Jews?’’ | 
 
 Michel Cahn chimes in, ‘‘And who cramps us in 
 stinking, lousy holes and gouges us for big rents, eh, 
 who?—American and German Jews.”’ 
 
 [91 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Bennie Finkelstein says, impatiently, ‘‘Well, boys, 
 come make your point. The dollar knows no brother.’’ 
 
 Simon Gordin rises and takes the floor. His contri- 
 bution to a discussion is nothing less than a speech. 
 He prefaces all his remarks with a statement that he 
 views all subjects only against their historical back- 
 ground. He starts off in the minor key of a practiced 
 orator and then rises to a crescendo of eloquence. 
 
 ‘“‘T say to you, Barney Finn, would you understand 
 the Jews? Then go out into the world, dwell in each 
 land, and try to understand every people on the face 
 of the earth. Jews are not Jews. They are Germans, 
 Russians, Britons, Italians, Turks, Africans, and so on. 
 They are nationals; narrow, broad, petty, big, noble, 
 ereedy, ideal, material, stupid, dull, ignorant, liberal, 
 bigoted, intellectual and enlightened. They are the 
 composite people of the world. They have all the high 
 and low characteristics of the human race. They have 
 the physical stigma of all the peoples of the world. .. . 
 Go back through the ages, see the rush and sweep of 
 conquering armies, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, 
 Persian, Greek and Roman, bringing rapine’s infusion 
 of new blood into the veins of Israel; see the stamp of 
 the conquerors’ laws, customs, manners and cultures; 
 see the wide range and horrors of the dispersal, see 
 the excesses visited upon the exiles, the violence of the 
 Crusaders and Inguisitors, all bringing more infusions 
 of new blood. . . . Go out into the Ghetto and look 
 upon the children of the Jews from all lands—and 
 behold the peoples of the world.’’ 
 
 [92] 
 
VI 
 
 The Weingrads prosper. They have moved from the 
 petty retailing of odds and ends to the dignity of 
 the wholesale piece goods business, and comment is 
 being made on their grand style of living since they 
 employ aservant girl. . . . Weingrad’s country people 
 find his success as so much bitter vinegar in their teeth. 
 They say, ‘‘Look at him—so puffed up. His father was 
 a shoemaker in our village. But yesterday he himself 
 peddled shoe laces and slept on a pushcart in Gold- 
 stein’s stable.’’ . . . But today, let us talk of today,— 
 the despised shoemaker’s daughter-in-law, herself the 
 daughter of a tailor, which calling in the Russian Jew- 
 ish Pale is next to a shoemaker in lowliness, puts on a 
 magnificent air of a lady of ease as she sits in front of 
 her husband’s store. Albeit, the merchant’s wife’s 
 dress is use-rumpled and stained, the hand-knitted 
 woolen shawl around her hefty shoulders ravelled in 
 many places, and her shoes worked out of shape and 
 run down at the heels; upon her fat fingers and large 
 red ears the blazons of wealth sprinkle, broadcast 
 rosy, blue and icy gleams. Mrs. Weingrad’s diamonds 
 light up the drab lives of Essex Street housewives with 
 the fires of vanity and envy; their sparks burn into the 
 vitals of their husbands, who are asked: ‘‘Nu, when— 
 let us already see when—you will buy me such knockers 
 (sparklers) like Mrs. Weingrad’s. Oi! Yoi! I think 
 before I see that I will first live to see the Messiah. 
 See you, now, such is the world. A few people have 
 all the luck. Diamonds she has, and now she gets a 
 
 [ 93 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 servant girl. And why should she have all the 
 luck——”’ 
 
 But my eyes are dazzled by the servant girl, Gretel 
 Lipsky, a healthy, buxom greenhorn just off the ship, 
 a sort of thirty-second cousin of the Weingrads. Her 
 wages is her keep and Mrs. Weingrad’s cast-off cloth- 
 ing—if the latter ever happens. She is lodged with the 
 Bregsteins in our building because her employers can- 
 not possibly squeeze her into their four-room flat, which 
 is overcrowded with the parents and their six growing 
 children. 
 
 I watch for Gretel. Her work begins at the break of 
 day and ends at whatever time the Weingrads decide 
 to go to bed. . . . Iam dead gone on Gretel. She does 
 not affect me like Lillie, who grips me only when I see 
 her. As to Gretel, I just can’t stop thinking of her. 
 I wait for hours on the stoop to experience the thrilling 
 moment that comes as she demurely slips by. I tremble 
 and titillate like subject metal before a powerful mag- 
 net. Her mere passing makes me tingle all over. 
 Blood rushes to my face. My heart pounds. My tem- 
 ples throb and my eyes ache from the concentrated 
 stare I give her. And when she is gone the fire dies 
 out of me, and I become base, inert iron. ... And I 
 have not said a word to her. I don’t know what to 
 say. ... The rushing wind of desire sweeps the very 
 breath out of me. ... All I know is I want Gretel. 
 She is for me—life and force; and without her I am 
 lost. . . . I want Gretel, and what I want I must 
 have... Gretel. . . Gretel < ; . Gretel... . 2 She 
 colors my consciousness with the radiant hues of a gor- 
 geous sunset... . I know what I want, I know why 
 I need Gretel so badly. I want her to save me from the 
 
 [ 94 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 menace of my lust. ... Lately, a few of the fellows 
 were badly burned .. . and I shuddered to think of 
 my body eaten by vile disease. . . . I looked upon the 
 
 whiteness, symmetry and soundness of my body as a 
 holy thing. And I resolved to stay away from the 
 fouling fires of the burning offal heaps in Hlizabeth 
 Street . . . not for my soul’s sake, but for my 
 body’s. . . . And Gretelisa pure flame... . 
 
 Gretel is not a beauty in the ordinary sense. Her 
 features are irregular. She has large feet and big 
 hands. Her ample waist rests upon strong hips. Her 
 bosom is full and firm. ... She is as a young and 
 sturdy tree. ... Her deep-set eyes are a soft brown, 
 like the color of a tree’s bark after the warm rain. 
 Her cheeks are like ripe apples, round and tinted. Her 
 rough-hewn lips pucker provokingly, and her throat is 
 as the ivory tower of the Song of Songs. Her luxuriant 
 hair twines about her head like a thick garland of early 
 sumach leaves. 
 
 Tonight I am lucky. Gretel and I meet on the stairs. 
 Her breath whisks past my face like a breeze that has 
 been philandering in lilac bushes. Her skirt flaps 
 against my knees. I stop her. It is dark. I can feel 
 her surprise. My hand rests upon her plump arm. 
 She starts to go, and at last speech gushes from me, 
 passionately. 
 
 ‘‘Gretel, Gretel . . . you always run away from me. 
 Why? Have I done anything that you should dislike 
 me? ... Do you know,—night after night I wait and 
 wait but to be near you for that second of your pass- 
 ing? Waiting and watching just for a second’s sight 
 of you. Gretel, I have died to talk with you, but there’s 
 
 [95 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 no talking with you. You hurry away so. And I want 
 to talk with you and tell you a 
 
 I whisper musical Yiddish in her ear. I feel the 
 warm flush of her face, hear her breath coming fast, 
 and know her bust heaves in tumult. . . . She says she 
 cannot understand . . . she cannot believe that I would 
 stoop so low as to be friends with a servant girl... 
 particularly, since she is a greenhorn and I, an Ameri- 
 can college boy. ... And I tell her how I burn with 
 love of her, and she puts her hand over my mouth, 
 saying it is wrong for her to listen to such talk. ... 
 So—with time Gretel comes to tryst with me on the 
 stairs, in the hallway, and the sweetest moments are 
 
 the warm nights on the rooftop in the shadow of a 
 chimney. ... 
 
 (961 
 
Vit 
 
 Our kitchen is packed with the Discussionists. Boris 
 Udell, the pacifist-nonresistant-evolutionist-vegetarian- 
 Tolstoian, brought his fiddle, no doubt intending to 
 whistle away the stormy parts of the debate. But no 
 tune could rise above tonight’s raging topie. 
 
 DIE UNIE (the Union). 
 
 I am in bed, wondering when it will quiet down and 
 let me fall asleep. Abe Lewkowitz, the ardent unionist, 
 dominates the talk. He is frantically insistent: ‘‘We 
 have talked enough. Act now! Act now!’’ He has 
 raised another slogan that is too pathetic and appeal- 
 ing to be cried down. ‘‘A little better living—a little 
 sweetness out of living—raise the standard of living— 
 that’s what the union will do for us and our fellow 
 workers.’’ ... His emotion is respected . .. a mo- 
 ment’s lull, just long enough for mother’s timid, dry- 
 voiced remark to creep in, ‘‘Maybe .. . if there was 
 aunion ... maybe, my husband would be alive today, 
 and not dead from the shop sickness.’’... I forgot 
 to mention that father is dead: moved off like a shadow 
 with the setting sun. Seems to me as though he were 
 always dead. Another brooding shadow has taken his 
 place; mother now sits in his corner. 
 
 ‘*Well—aren’t we going to try? What? Wait until 
 we are sweated to death?’’ demands Lewkowitz. 
 
 Michel Cahn, the revolutionist, answers him: 
 Yes: wait; wait until we are starved and sweated 
 to the goading point, then shall we workers rise, rise 
 like the hunger-driven masses of France, and destroy 
 
 [97 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the employing class. Don’t prate unionism. Preach 
 revolution. Prepare the workers for the class war. 
 Bah—unionism. What is it—unionism—just a drug— 
 a palliative—just something to sweeten the bitter 
 cup—just something to make life a teeny bit better, 
 just endurable—endurable enough to make the workers 
 put up with wage slavery.”’ 
 
 Boris Ratnofsky, the mildest man in the gathering, 
 is an anarchist. He speaks gently. Gently he de- 
 scribes the horrors of life, the cruelties that prevail, 
 all because governments, institutions, rules, religion, 
 marriage and traditions have imprisoned free expres- 
 sion. The union, he says, will be another hampering 
 of free expression. 
 
 ‘“‘T am for the union,’’ breaks in Simon Gordin, the 
 Socialist. ‘‘It will teach the worker the force and logic 
 of parliamentary action, train him to dispose of his 
 problems in an organized, orderly fashion, and, in 
 short, prepare him for Socialism. Socialism is not 
 possible until we have an educated, self-disciplined 
 proletariat. ’’ 
 
 Boris Udell opens his mouth to speak, stops and in- 
 stead tunes up his fiddle. 
 
 **That’s it, men, tune up, that’s what all you elements 
 need—harmony. Play together, men, and each will get 
 what he wants.’’ 
 
 Barney Finn has spoken. Berel is right. He does 
 not bang on one’s teapot. 
 
 How is it Uncle Philip, rabid Discussionist, has noth- 
 ing to say? I have been waiting for him to set off verbal 
 fireworks.... The unionist is pleading again... 
 formaunion... now... onthis very spot... and 
 <fill Uncle Philip has nothing to say.... ‘‘Brother 
 
 [ 98 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 workers, who will join me?’’ . . . Lewkowitz’s hands 
 tremble as he prepares pencil and paper. . . . ‘‘Let me 
 here put down the names of the organization and educa- 
 tion committee to start the first garment-makers’ union 
 in America de 
 
 | eee 
 
 ‘¢Me.’? 
 
 ‘¢Put me down.’’ 
 
 ‘¢And me.’’ 
 
 Nonresistant, Socialist, revolutionist and anarchist 
 volunteer in a harmonious chorus. 
 
 Now, I thought, Philip will give it to them .. . but, 
 instead he bids them good night, quietly. ... In the 
 street, under our window, we hear cheers and cries— 
 ‘‘Long live the union 7? Lewkowitz’s voice booms: 
 ‘¢Brother workers, be prepared for many defeats. But 
 an inch at atime is enough. Patience is power fed 
 
 Barney Finn stays on. . . . He must still expect to 
 hear something interesting from Philip. Then I hear 
 Bennie Finkelstein speak. He is always the silent one. 
 I barely noticed his presence. He is, I suppose, some 
 kind of an ‘‘ist,’? but has not as yet put a label on his 
 views. 
 
 Philip shuts the door, saying, ‘‘Did you hear them— 
 ‘Patience is power’—that’s the worm’s slogan.”’ 
 
 Finkelstein says, ‘‘Mr. Finn, as we Jews have a way 
 of saying, if you have patience enough you will also 
 live to see the Messiah.’’ 
 
 ‘‘Barney,’’ says Philip, ‘‘you know Finkelstein, but 
 let me introduce you again: this is Benjamin Finkel- 
 stein, capitalist.’’ 
 
 So—that’s the ‘‘ist’’ he is. A capitalist... . What 
 in the name of ‘‘ists’’ is a capitalist! ‘ 
 
 [99 } 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 *‘T should have said,’’ adds Philip, ‘‘that tomorrow 
 I and Finkelstein make our beginning as capitalists.’’ 
 
 ‘¢And the worms,’’ asks Finn, ‘‘the worms with the 
 patience, I suppose, they’ll fertilize the ground for 
 you. But when your plants are up and growing, the 
 worms, too, will want to eat of the plants.”’ 
 
 ‘‘And we’ll do what is always done with worms: 
 we’ll crush them and throw them out of the garden,”’ 
 answers Philip. 
 
 Barney Finn laughs his deep-chested laugh. ‘‘ You’re 
 a frank chap, you are.”’ 
 
 ‘And what is there to be ashamed of?’’ demands 
 Philip. ‘‘I feel the earth under me as a hard fact. I 
 see life as a grim truth of dog eat dog, man devour 
 man. I don’t see life as a poet’s dream. I see that we 
 live as long as we live, and there’s nothing else, noth- 
 ing, after we’re done living: so living is the thing. 
 I see that all we can get or have is what we can get 
 from the other fellow. That’s how the whole scheme 
 of life works. There’s nothing self-sustaining. Kvery- 
 thing lives off something else. The stronger element 
 absorbs the weaker. The weak lives only to nourish 
 the strong. And that man is strong who believes he is 
 strong: he is strong because he knows there’s a world 
 of weaklings to serve him.’’ 
 
 I sat up. Philip was so sure and startling in what 
 he was saying that the air seemed to vibrate: or, was 
 it that mother moaned?... 
 
 Philip strides the room and the floor creaks under 
 his nervous heel-taps; mother clasps and unclasps her 
 hands with a cracking sound; Barney Finn crosses his 
 legs and leans forward, astir with interest. And 
 Finkelstein grins at Finn. 
 
 [ 100 j 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘‘Barney Finn,’’ begins Philip, ‘‘we capitalists 
 (uttered impressively), we who see life, the earth, its 
 forces and elements, just for what they are, are going 
 to organize and control the world. We will be kings of 
 a new order: the empire of efficiency. We will be a 
 driving force as merciless as nature for results. We 
 will be the saviors of the dream-stupefied peoples. 
 We will create industries, markets and wealth i. 
 
 Finkelstein interrupts, quaintly, ‘‘In short, tomor- 
 row morning at six, Philip Gold and I begin as bosses— 
 manufacturers of clothing. How do you like our firm 
 name—New World Clothing Company?”’ 
 
 ‘<Sounds smart,’’ Finn replies. 
 
 ‘‘Bosses?’’ queries mother. 
 
 ‘‘Yes, your brother from now on is a boss.”’ 
 
 ‘‘Yes, sister, I’m done being a slave to a machine; 
 others will slave for me now.”’ 
 
 ‘““Bosses . . . machines . . . bosses 
 mutters, ruefully shaking her head. 
 
 ‘“Meyer!’’ Philip calls, ‘‘are you asleep?’’ 
 
 ‘SNo.”? 
 
 ‘‘Tid you hear me, Meyer, I—your Uncle Philip is a 
 boss.’ 
 
 There is an irrepressible question in my mind and 
 I blurt it out—‘‘A boss! on what?’’ 
 
 ‘¢ Always practical, always digging into the guts of 
 things: that’s Meyer; that shows the shrewd lawyer 
 making in him.’’ 
 
 Finkelstein banters: ‘‘Looking for trade secrets. 
 Maybe, you can’t tell, maybe he wants to be a com- 
 petitor.’’ 
 
 ‘“Meyer,’’ says Philip, ‘‘on what? I’ll tell you on 
 what. On the backs of workers.”’ 
 
 [ 101 ] 
 
 ?? mother 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Mother’s hands snap and erack. She cries out: 
 ‘‘Only the workers, that’s all, only the workers. 
 You’re a workman yourself, what do you want of the 
 workers?’’ 
 
 ‘‘What did they want of me, what did they want of 
 your husband? All they could get. That’s what I 
 want. All I can get!”’ 
 
 Mother’s answer is a mournful sigh. 
 
 ‘‘Oh, what’s the matter with you weaklings, you 
 worms! That is the matter, dream-stupefied, you can’t 
 see the way life is organized.”’ 
 
 Finn coughs. I know he sympathizes with mother. 
 After all he is only a dreamer, whose illusion is that 
 he has a practical cure for all the ills of the world— 
 Reform Laws. 
 
 _ Philip throws back his head and exults: ‘‘I found 
 out the secret of wealth. The road to wealth is paved 
 with the backs of workers. I’ll climb over those backs, 
 the backs of workers; I’ll climb higher and higher up 
 the road to wealth till I reach the seats of the mighty— 
 the German Jews. I take a leaf from the book of these 
 damned nice, superior people, the German Jews: so 
 good, so respectable, so proud: with their vaunted 
 charities and rich temples which make you worms 
 grovel before them. They are the ones who have been 
 grinding you. But you don’t want a change of mas- 
 ters. Your present masters are so swell, you’re proud 
 of them. ... To me you say, you’re a workman your- 
 self, and what you mean is, worm,—squirm in the dust 
 of your betters. But Iam nota worm. Iamas smart 
 as the German Jews any time, and I found out the 
 secret of their success. Simple. The quick turnover 
 profits from cheap immigrant labor. Their pious dol- 
 [ 102 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 lars, their charitable, respectable dollars are sweated 
 from your carcasses. But I’ll go them one better. I'll 
 beat them at their own game. I’m not as elegant as 
 they are. I’m not veiling myself with hypocrisy. I’m 
 going to make money direct from the cheapest green- 
 horn labor I can find. The German Jews are too finicky 
 to have anything to do with cheap labor—direct. What 
 they don’t see, they don’t know of, so they say smugly, 
 they have nothing to do with sweat labor. They farm 
 out their work to contractors, and the contractors to 
 sub-contractors. And the German Jew is a good busi- 
 ness man. A good business man makes the most of 
 competition. So he beats down, screws down the com- 
 peting contractors. Oh, no, the German Jew garment 
 magnates do not employ sweat labor. No, the con- 
 tractors do. ... That’s how I'll beat them. I’ll beat 
 them because I am unashamed, unafraid to face facts. 
 T’ll have no middleman squeezer. I’ll do my own driv- 
 ing, squeezing and sweating. I'll corral the poorest 
 greenhorns as they come through Castle Garden. I’ll 
 work them, feed them and lodge them in my shop. .. . 
 And they'll be grateful. . . . And I’ll work the women 
 and children in the tenements. They’ll come to my 
 shop and be glad to get work to do at home. They’ll 
 stitch and baste in their homes, and save me shop 
 space and shop rent, and they’ll work for next to noth-— 
 ing, glad to earn a little extra money at home, and, 
 even so, they’ll thank me.’’ __ 
 
 Mother, as always, awed by her strong-minded 
 brother, pleads humbly, ‘‘Philip, you’re a sweatshop 
 workman yourself. You see what it does. You saw 
 my husband sweated drop by drop into his grave——”’ 
 
 [ 103 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘And what would you have me do, eh?’ he cuts in, 
 savagely, sneeringly. 
 
 ‘‘Start a union shop,’’ she says hopelessly. 
 
 Philip laughs uproariously, and mother shrinks from 
 him. 
 
 ‘‘It’s a good thing,’’ he says, ‘‘this is a free country 
 and I can exploit whom I like.”’ 
 
 Finn starts to go, his head lowered, but when he gets 
 to the doorway, looks up and states what he has been 
 thinking. ‘‘It’s usual to wish a fellow good luck when 
 he starts a new venture. But I can’t—for the life of 
 me—wish luck to a sweater and exploiter.’’? His mouth 
 wrinkles into a smile, but his eyes are sad. 
 
 Philip sniffs, saying, ‘‘Barney Finn, wake up: you 
 are dream-stupefied.”’ 
 
 Finkelstein stays on, going over a multitude of de- 
 tails with Philip, and I can’t sleep for the crisp click- 
 clack of their talk. 
 
 Finally Finkelstein leaves. Mother climbs a chair, 
 winds the wall clock, turns down the lamp and starts 
 for the bedroom. Philip stops her. . . . ‘‘I’ll tell you, 
 Neshke, it’s a good thing I’ve got the bringing up of 
 your boy, or you’d make a worm of him like his 
 father.’’ . . . Mother bends her head, helpless against 
 his inflexible will. . . . ‘‘You made a weakling of your 
 husband—with your damned aching after respectable- 
 ness. Your father set you a better example... .”? 
 Mother creeps off to bed. Philip blows out the light, 
 throws himself upon the couch and calls out, ‘‘ Meyer, 
 respectableness is a lot of rot. . . . Say, did your 
 mother ever tell you your grandfather was a horse 
 thief? Yes, sir, grandfather—my father—may his soul 
 rest in peace—was a clever horse thief.’? . . . The 
 
 [ 104 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 clock ticks, gloomily, and I guess the muffled sound I 
 hear is mother’s moaning.... ‘‘Meyer... in our 
 town was a little boy. He was nobody’s child—a door- 
 step bastard. He grew up and was smart, smart as a 
 bastard, just as the saying goes,—smart as a bas- 
 tard. ... He bought stolen horses from grandfather, 
 cornered the local farm products and in time was get- 
 ting rich. People became jealous and taunted him, 
 saying, ‘You’re nobody. You have no ancestors.’ 
 He said, ‘That’s all right, I don’t need ancestors. I 
 am going to be an ancestor myself.’ . . . He’s in 
 America now .. . married into a rich, snobbish Ger- 
 man Jewish family ... he’s rich and respected, and 
 he’ll be quite an ancestor for his children to look 
 Peace 400, 7? 
 
 Philip yawned and turned over with a great crunch- 
 ing of straw and springs. 
 
 ‘“Meyer, we’ve got nothing to look back to. It’s up 
 to us to be ancestors.’’ 
 
 [105 J 
 
FOURTH PERIOD 
 
 I have unveiled my interior. 
 JEAN JacguEes RovussEav. 
 
. 
 ed wat Vip 
 si 
 eves 
 
 3 iy mi Hh rt i 
 fn i x 
 
 a 
 
FOURTH PERIOD 
 | I 
 
 I wake, fiat on my back, open-eyed, harkening to the 
 spirited chirruping of sparrows. ... After all—even 
 here—even I feel—it is Spring . . . Spring—it means 
 nothing to me, save the new Esther. ... Yes: Esther’s 
 beauty was born with Spring; or, did Spring open 
 my eyes to lovely Esther? ... Esther. ... The birds 
 sing of Esther. ... Last night Esther stood on the 
 stoop. ... A soft night ... the air quick with whis- 
 
 pers, perfumes and the stir of wings. . . . Davie put 
 in words what we dimly wondered at. ... Anda 
 warm-colored moon came out. . . . Avrum said, ‘‘See, 
 
 the Schina shines about your head, HMsther.’’ .. . 
 Harry Wotin sits on the bottom step, his hands clasp- 
 ing his head. Is he dreaming of his fat Hannah Wein- 
 grad, and her fatter dowry? ... No: maybe he, too, 
 has found the Spring with her exquisite Esther. ... 
 Davie murmurs Walt Whitman’s ‘‘When Lilacs Last 
 in the Door-Yard Bloom’d.’’ . .. Davie and Avrum 
 enshrine Hsther. ... but not I... . Last night I saw 
 Iisther the Goddess steal down from her pedestal and 
 become flesh of the earth. She stretched out her arms 
 to the moon. And Bsther stood revealed to me— 
 Woman for Man. .. . Esther asks Davie to recite his 
 new poem and Davie with his head thrown back, his 
 
 face aglow in the moonlight, speaks. ... I sit at 
 Esther’s feet and breathe the fresh warmth of her 
 body. I feel her body aquiver with new life. ... And 
 
 [ 109 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 she listens with closed eyes . . . opens them once to 
 look long and deep into my intent, burning eyes... 
 and her hand leaps to her breast. .. . And I think— 
 Esther, I am nearer to you than this poet and this 
 dreamer. .. . I know you are a woman and you know 
 I know. ... Avrum has said that the new poetry— 
 Davie’s kind—has only one measure,—the measure of 
 emotion. So I listen to Davie’s poem: 
 
 Silence. 
 Not of the cloister cell, 
 Sunless place of souls enslaved to fixed fear; 
 
 Nor of the tomb, stark symbol of formal sorrow, 
 Decadent with the dust of tears, 
 Foul-sweet with the sighs of CAD flowers ; 
 
 Nor of the ‘dungeon, 
 
 Charged with clamorous quiet, 
 
 Where swarm the vermin of melancholia; 
 And time’s a conscious treadmill ; 
 
 No. 
 
 I mean 
 
 Silence 
 
 Silence— 
 
 Amidst the world’s moil 
 
 The struggle, the clash, the roar, the rush, the 
 lust of money and flesh, 
 
 The silence 
 
 That suspends you in timeless space: 
 
 When first 
 
 Truth flames across your heaven, 
 
 When first 
 
 Beauty is revealed, 
 
 When first 
 
 Love lives. 
 
 104 le) ‘e) 
 
 [110] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 A sentient hush... . Esther gives Davie a look 
 that stirs him. ... Avrum grasps his hand in 
 silence. .. . Harry Wotin gets up and looks quizzically 
 at Davie. ... ‘‘A poet,’’ says he, ‘‘is a bright-colored 
 weed in a potato patch.’?... Avrum retorts, ‘‘As 
 blind as a physician. Medicine is a backward science. 
 It denies the value of imagination. So, it gets nowhere, 
 stands still.’’... Harry says, ‘‘No room for dab- 
 blers and dreamers in medicine.’’?’... And Avrum 
 answers, ‘‘Oh, Harry, I was hoping you would be 
 different.’’ ... Harry, looking at Esther, says, ‘‘Up 
 in college they knocked the dreams out of me. They 
 have made me clear-eyed. Look at Davie. He takes 
 up room and air and nourishment and gives nothing in 
 return but an empty, flashing picture. Let him do 
 something.’?... Esther speaks softly, ‘‘Harry, you 
 are hard. Because you’ve been hard at it. Working 
 hard to get money for your tuition and at the same 
 time, studying hard. You are out of sympathy with 
 anything else. Nothing seems worth while except 
 medicine. But I tell you, Harry, poets are not weeds, 
 useless parasites. They are very important to us. 
 They are our eyes and ears to beauty.’’... Hymie 
 Rubin comes looking for Harry, who is preparing him 
 for the entrance exams to his medical school. . . . 
 Harry looks about him and waves a contemptuous hand 
 tothe moon. He asks, ‘‘Why does the poet rejoice with 
 the coming of Spring? Is Summer far away? The 
 Summer here in the Ghetto, in the slum, in the dirty, 
 erowded city. What is there to rejoice over! Where 
 is his imagination, his eye for beauty? Does he see the 
 beautiful babies? What of the Summer that brings hell 
 to our babies? Summer complaint—that is Spring’s 
 
 [111] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 beautiful promise to our babies.. With the heat they'll 
 die like flies. I know it is not beautiful to look 
 ahead and see babies vomit and mess, turn blue 
 with convulsions, become skinny and spavined, yel- 
 low and greenish, writhe and moan in distress, and 
 fade and pass away under the eyes of agonized 
 mothers.’’... Esther touches his arm and tells 
 him, ‘‘It is beautiful and imaginative to look ahead 
 and try to save them—’’... Avrum says, ‘‘So you 
 doctors think it is only a medical matter when the 
 babies die like flies. I told you you have no imagina- 
 tion. ... Would the babies get sick and suffer and 
 die if they were not babies of work people living under 
 the conditions of starvation wages? Doctors, infallible 
 scientists that you are, tell me, do dark, hot, filthy 
 tenements make nice Summer habitations for babies? 
 Is cheap can milk and rotting foods—the leftovers of 
 farm and dairy and market which the poor can afford— 
 a healthful diet? Can the babies thrive when their 
 mothers are underfed, run-down, overworked, and 
 haven’t even time for the babies? Oh, doctors dears, 
 improve the wage and thereby improve the standard 
 of living, and, presto, the medical miracle will happen, 
 
 an improved standard of health.”?... Talk. Talk. 
 Talk. And all I can do is look at Esther and desire 
 her. ... The evening passed in more talk, with 
 
 Esther listening pensively, never looking at me, though 
 she knows, I am sure, that I can’t take my eyes off 
 her. ... And later I went to the roof where Gretel 
 waited. She did not complain of the long wait. Her 
 arms were ready for me and I found solace in the fiery 
 peace of her embrace. ... Yet with the kisses of 
 Gretel still hot on my lips, I stole through the alley- 
 [112 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 way to the backyard of Esther’s house, gripped my 
 fingers on the sill of her window, drew myself up, 
 bracing my knees against the bricks, and looked 
 through the half closed shutters of Esther’s little 
 room. The moon had gone down behind the houses. 
 It was dark. I could see nothing save an outline that 
 suggested a bed....I hesitated ... heard a quiet 
 breathing. .. . I dropped to the ground and went to 
 my bed aflame with desire ... slept feverishly .., 
 and awoke to the Spring call of the sparrows. 
 
 [113 J 
 
IT 
 
 It is all settled. Harry is going to be a babies’ 
 doctor, and Hymie a women’s doctor—confinement 
 cases. ‘They will have one office, a practical arrange- 
 ment for the care of mother and child. Hymie is all 
 worked up over the idea; he has imbibed Harry’s 
 enthusiasm. ... He is telling us about it but breaks 
 off in dismay—‘‘ Where the hell am I going to get 
 tuition, books and everything?”’ . . . Harry has an- 
 other year to go. The years of work and study have 
 told on him frightfully. He looks like a living skeleton. 
 Somebody once called him all neck. He has been work- 
 ing on knee pants every night till one in the morning 
 besides attending medical college. Harry says nothing, 
 he knows it is hell getting the money. . . . Sam Rakow- 
 sky says, ‘‘Don’t worry, Hymie, I got an idea how to 
 get a lot of jack this summer.’’ . . . Hymie does not 
 look pleased and makes no response. Sam’s ways and 
 ideas are growing more and more distasteful to him. 
 Lately, Hymie has been coming under the influence of 
 the idealistic gang, and has been bitten by the eru- 
 sader’s bug for education and amelioration of the 
 suffering masses.... Simon Adler threw away his 
 cigarette.... ‘‘Get a good graft,’’ advises Simon, 
 who is working his way through Columbia Law School. 
 Simon has a cute little graft—stealing professors’ and 
 students’ overcoats with the help of Boolkie’s experts. 
 Simon doesn’t steal, he only spots the lay of the 
 plunder. . . . Now Sam loves Hymie and considers 
 his sensibilities. He says, ‘‘I got something good. On 
 
 [ 114} 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the level stuff. And we'll clean up. Got to work it 
 14 A aa 
 
 Sam has moved up from the messenger boy class 
 nearer to the height of his ambition. He is an usher 
 and fellow of all jobs in Tony Pastor’s Variety Theatre 
 on Fourteenth Street. He is smitten more than ever 
 with the song and dance craze. Sam says, ‘‘I got a 
 new step. Regular crackerjack. It’s gonna knock ’em 
 dead. .. . I'll show it to you, but I’m waiting for a 
 gzuy—gotta show it to him—Al Wolff, one wise gazabo. 
 You musta seen him. He’s the prize candy box bally- 
 hoo in Miner’s teayter.’’ Every attendant of Miner’s 
 Burlesque Theatre knows the voluble between-the-acts 
 speechmaker who convinces you that every ten-cent 
 box of candy contains a val-oo-able prize soot-able for 
 ladies and gents. Generally the gents found a minia- 
 ture chemise or a tiny pair of unmentionables, and 
 ladies often were lucky enough to find a small piece 
 of shaving soap. 
 
 Al Wolff shows up. He is fat-faced and big-bellied. 
 A stogie is stuck in a corner of his mouth and the 
 belching weed is in dangerous proximity to his wide- 
 brimmed western fedora, a head piece favored by show 
 people. He was dressed in what Sam called hot-dog 
 clothes. . . . Sam presents us and Al lets us touch 
 his fat hand as he unctuously confides he is pleased 
 to meetcha. ... Al says to Sam, ‘‘Do your stuff, 
 kid.’’? . . . Sam fishes a harmonica from a pocket and 
 hands it to Al. . . . ‘‘Now, Al, get this idea. I’m 
 gonna come out made up asa Jew—’’... ‘You don’t 
 need no make-up ,’? Simon’s voice from the side- 
 line... . ‘‘No wise cracks,’’ decrees Al with balloon- 
 like omniscience. .. Sam continues: ‘‘Whiskers, a 
 
 bit 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 derby hat squeezed over my ears, a frock coat YS ane 
 Al interrupts, offendedly, ‘‘Hey, you said you was 
 gonna show me new stuff——’’... ‘‘Hold your 
 
 horses,’’ admonishes Sam; ‘‘then I pulls I few wheezes 
 about the Irish and the Jews, you know, a couple of 
 good old Joe Millers for feelers out. Then I wants the 
 music to begin. Now get this: Al, this is the hard part 
 for you,—the music—’’... Al says, ‘‘I never saw 
 the tune that I couldn’t beat—”’ ... ‘‘Well, see what 
 you can do with this—first an Irish reel, very zippy, 
 see, and when I am good and warmed up in the middle 
 of the Irish jig, giving the regular Irish steps, I wants 
 the music to slip into a Jewish wedding kazezateka 
 (Russian-Jewish lively dance) with a barrel of snap, 
 and that’s when I’m gonna show them a combination 
 step that’s gonna knock them for a gool. . . . Get this 
 right, Al, I’m gonna give you the two airs and I’m 
 gonna show you how to join them up. But the hard 
 part is the windup—when you gotta get a medley of 
 the Irish reel and the Russian kazzatzka.’’ ... Sam 
 hums, beats his hands and feet in time and Al follows, 
 lamely, with the harmonica, but they keep it up, 
 patiently, for over an hour until the desired Irish- 
 Russian-Jewish potpourri is accomplished. The 
 tremolo and whining strains of the harmonica have 
 attracted a mixed audience. Mothers with babies in 
 carriages, a mob of kids pushing and shoving, Boolkie 
 and a bunch of Ludlow Streeters, Esther, Lillie and 
 Hannah on the stoop, Gretel looks out of the window, 
 a few pushcart peddlers have moved their vehicles 
 nearer the excitement and the Canal Street horse cars 
 wait while the conductors investigate and report back 
 to the drivers, and the passengers stick their heads 
 f 116 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 out of the windows, asking one another what is the 
 matter.... Samishappy ... anaudience!... Al 
 looks around him in the masterful way of a leader 
 accustomed to the gaze of mobs.... Sam signals, 
 ‘‘Let her go—gimme a few bars—to open up, and then 
 start her again and go right through.’”’... Sam’s 
 dance begins . . . and the audience is noisily appre- 
 ciative . .. and then came the knock-them-dead cli- 
 max... it almost made us dizzy. Sam’s feet don’t 
 seem to touch the ground. The windup is acrobatic. 
 He does marvelous bodily contortions on his heels with 
 original, difficult variations of the kaezatzka whirligig, 
 and suddenly he leaps into an Irish jig in time with the 
 music and then as suddenly twists himself into wild 
 Russian back-breaking steps that seem impossible 
 to do. 
 
 Al orders the mob dispersed. . . . ‘‘We gotta talk 
 business,’’ he says. ... Sam selects Hymie, Davie, 
 and myself to take part in the conference.... I lead 
 them to Berel’s cellar. ... Al remarks, ‘‘Sam, you 
 got the goods and all you need is a good manager to 
 put you over,’’ and we all knew he meant himself. He 
 already had the flare and bluster and cocksuredness 
 of a burlesque show impressario. . . . Al shakes hands 
 with Berel with the assuring ‘‘pleased to meetcha”’ as 
 he manipulates a stogie from one end of his mouth to 
 the other with his tongue, teeth and lips. ... Davie 
 wonders what’s it all about. Sam has confided to me 
 the great scheme so near his heart. Hymie, who can 
 think only of his career, worries about the possibility 
 of dirty work. He is becoming one of those persons 
 who fuss dreadfully about keeping clean. ... Al asks 
 Sam: ‘‘I suppose this is the balance of your quar- 
 
 {117 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 tet.’?... ‘Yop,’ answers Sam, ‘‘good talent, every 
 one.’?. .. Alis skeptical, ‘‘You can think so, but they 
 gotta show me—I’m from Miner’s.”?... Sam points 
 us out, “‘Now Davie, here, is my high tenor, got fine 
 falsetto topnotchers; Hymie is comedy barry (bari- 
 
 tone), Meyer is bass and I’m straight tenor.’? 0. ae 
 calls on Hymie to oblige. Hymie is reluctant but yields 
 to importunate Sam. ... Hymie’s was a nasal bari- 
 
 tone. ... Al pronounced it good for comedy stuff, and 
 on the spot bestowed upon him his stage sobriquet— 
 Hi Rube. ‘‘You’ll come out wearing a sunbonnet with 
 blue ribbons on it tied in big bow under your chin; 
 and you’ll carry a carpet-bag. We gotta give you some 
 lines about a poor country girlin a big city. And you'll 
 sing a hot-stuff song—a parody on a pop-oolar song— 
 of what happened to an innercent gal in a wicked 
 town. ... lLet’s see you try to talk like a gurl ae 
 Use your nose, kid; use your nose.”? . . . Hymie 
 balks. . . . Sam pleads. ... Al Says indignantly, 
 **Don’t do me no favors. You ain’t the only nose barry 
 in Noo Yawk.’’ ... Sam says, ‘‘Hymie, this is gonna 
 give us work for the whole summer. You'll get enough 
 kale to see you through college.’? ... ‘*What do you 
 say, Meyer?’’ Hymie appeals to me. I advise him to 
 try it out. ‘‘If there’s money in it we’ll stick along, 
 otherwise we’ll drop it. It’s might work: yw a 
 tries us out individually and then as a quartet. He 
 withholds his approval and Says we need a whole lot 
 of polishing.... Davie submits, wonderingly, but 
 when he learns that Al, our manager, is going to put 
 us to work as singing waiters in a Chinatown dance 
 hall, he flatly refuses... . Al gets sore. ‘‘Say,’’ he 
 demands in disgust, ‘‘you got a crust, bringing me a 
 f 118 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 lot of sissies to do turns in a hell’s-bells spielers’ par- 
 lor.’”?... Avrum arrives in time to convince Davie 
 that work he must if he expects to continue college next 
 term. ... Everyone willing, at last, Al first begins to 
 tell us of the difficulties in our path. We thought the 
 jobs were ours for the taking.... Al arranges to 
 sneak us into Miner’s and for Sam to pass us into Tony 
 Pastor’s so that we may profit from professional excel- 
 lence. And until summer comes we must rehearse 
 without letup. Then he will arrange for gratis try- 
 outs in back rooms and rathskellers. When the right 
 time comes he will spring the quartet upon Frenchie 
 Lavelle, who runs the largest dance hall in Chinatown. 
 ‘You gotta be good to get past Frenchie,’’ warns 
 Al. ... ‘‘Just about summer will be the right time: 
 
 that - mien some of his regular singing waiters go down 
 to Coney Island fer big money in Paddy Ryan’s joint. 
 Maybe you'll get the jobs, and if you do, you’re good 
 for big money.’”’? . .. Before he leaves he entitles our 
 ‘‘aooregation’’—a favorite theatrical description for 
 a variety turn numbering more than two persons—the 
 Fast Side Four—Entertainers to the Four Hundred. 
 He has designated Hymie as Hi Rube and now names 
 Sam—Sid Raleigh, the human slide trombone; calls 
 Davie—Dan Slater, the angel-voiced tenor, and de- 
 scribes me as Melville Hart, the only basso profundo 
 in captivity. ... Al amused us with his descriptions 
 and assured us, most convincingly, that under his guid- 
 ance we would become world-famous performers. 
 Only leave it to him. I am perfectly satisfied so long 
 as Al finds me the money to pay for my first year in 
 law school. 
 
 [119] 
 
iit 
 
 Maxie Freund comes awhispering in my ear. He has 
 found a place, downtown, near the courthouse, where 
 second-hand law books are displayed on stalls in front 
 of a book store. He hints they are bargains, great 
 finds, indispensable; grasp the opportunity. It is 
 Maxie’s last thought, apparently, that the books be 
 stolen. And he adds, significantly, Boolkie will be glad 
 to get them for me. Boolkie assigns Little Joe and 
 Big Joe, practicing and proficient shoplifters, to 
 fetch me a few sample law books. Maxie seizes the 
 volumes, runs through them with loving fingers 
 and pronounces them highly satisfactory ... In a 
 short time Maxie and I acquired a considerable law 
 library. ... Maxie finds a law book fascinating read- 
 ing and enjoys collecting and indexing what he terms 
 cute little jokers in decisions. He likes cases of hair- 
 splitting, and he can think and talk only in the pon- 
 derous jargon of the law. He says he finds law a cinch 
 after the heart-breaking intricacies of the Talmud. 
 Maxie, except for cheder studies in Russ-Poland, has 
 never been to school, but every evening, after he leaves 
 work in the shirt factory, grinds away in preparation 
 for the State Regents’ examination to earn enough 
 counts to be permitted to take the law exams. When 
 it is slack in the factory he sits through solid sessions 
 of the Supreme Court, enjoying himself more than a 
 boy at a circus. He is all alone in America, and has 
 but one companion, a tomcat, upon whom he practices 
 cross-examination. He tells me the more the cat snarls, 
 
 [ 120 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 backs up, claws and spits, the calmer he grows. After 
 a while his intense, though quiet, unswerving but 
 smooth talk, and a soothing motion of his index finger, 
 sort of mesmermize the cat... . He says he is going 
 to be a new kind of a lawyer, a quiet-spoken one, and 
 he has an idea that this quality together with a hypno- 
 tizing intentness is going to make him the greatest 
 cross-examiner that ever lived... . He suggests that 
 we become partners. That we would make a great 
 combination. I will get the cases, squeeze out every 
 dollar in them, and he will prepare and try the 
 cases. ... The plan seems a good one. 
 
 Now and then I snare a sucker for Moe Levenson 
 and in return for my occasional services he agrees to 
 swear to my Clerkship, which will save me a year in 
 law school. 
 
 I see little of Philip. He says nothing to me, except 
 for an occasional sharp warning,—‘‘Keep your nose 
 to your studies.’’ .. . He has no time for words now. 
 He is up at the break of day, and often does not return 
 until midnight. Only a burning ambition could keep 
 him going. His former friends, the Discussionists, 
 have excommunicated him. His shop is reputed to be 
 the worst example of a sweater. And more, he is con- 
 demned for having started the system of farming out 
 work to children and women to be done in their homes. | 
 
 Barney Finn stalks the Ghetto streets like a melan- 
 choly Hamlet. ... Ilookafter him. I have just heard 
 the queer news that he is in the freshman class of the 
 Columbia Law School, his height and age making him 
 quite conspicuous among the youngsters.... But I 
 look after Barney Finn curiously. He is in love with 
 Esther. She told me Finn took up law so that he could 
 
 Sia 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 write his own reform laws and fight the poor’s causes 
 in the courts. 
 
 I never get much of a chance to be alone with 
 Hsther. She is busy taking a course in the Teachers’ 
 Training School. In the evening her short stay on the 
 stoop finds her surrounded by girl friends or attended 
 by Davie and Avrum. Lately, Barney Finn has joined 
 the group. I am sure they are all in love with her, and 
 to me they are strange lovers. They don’t make love. 
 Davie is inspired by her and his poems are indirect 
 love tenders. Avrum seems to keep in the background, 
 as though he wants to give Davie every opportunity. 
 His act may be called the finest manifestation of un- 
 selfish friendship. I felt that virility and positiveness 
 were lacking in Avrum’s makeup. I often noticed that 
 good-naturedness is another name for softness and 
 weakness. ... And Barney Finn looks into Esther’s 
 shadowing eyes and talks on hopefully of making a 
 greater America out of the rough new materials from 
 Kurope. ... Esther is their deity, before whose altar 
 they offer their ideals for consecration. She exalts 
 them into high resolve, but I try to reason with her not 
 as a goddess but as a human being. I think idealism is 
 the refuge of the incompetent. The real force of life 
 is too much for them, and they dream of a softer 
 existence. . 
 
 But I never get a chance to be alone with Esther. 
 I believe that given the time and place alone with a 
 woman she cannot resistme.... One Saturday after- 
 noon I saw Esther’s parents start strolling towards 
 East Broadway, the Sabbath promenade boulevard of 
 the Ghetto. I waited, and Esther did not follow. I 
 knocked on her door. She opened it and I walked in, 
 
 f 122 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 closing the door after me. She was too surprised and 
 I acted too quickly for her to stop me. I asked for her 
 father. She said he had just gone out. I stood looking 
 at her. . . . Her beauty was too much for me. I fell to 
 my knees. ... I was worshipful, too. I adored the 
 woman. She drew back ... a pulse beat in her 
 throat ... her hands fluttered to her hair. I hobbled 
 on my knees closer to her and embraced her legs, press- 
 ing my head against her knees. ... Her whisper is ter- 
 rified—‘‘ Meyer—Meyer—what are you doing?”’... 
 My pressure upon her legs was such that she was 
 forced to kneel in front of me, and I grasped her wrists 
 and talked close to her face. And Hsther’s kindness 
 was almost her undoing . . . goodness . . . kind- 
 ness ... that is, weakness. She talked gently to 
 me... her silver-bell-like voice inciting memore ... 
 I pressed her back on the floor, hanging over her head, 
 speaking with all the passion raging in me. ... Then 
 I heard voices in the hallway, steps . . . the cautious 
 man of this real world spoke to me—warned me of 
 danger.... Iletherup.... She looked at me won- 
 deringly, even sympathetically, for she was Esther. 
 it was her first experience with the violence of 
 passion. ... 
 
 And I go with my great hunger to Gretel... .. And 
 I leave her ... hungrier for Esther. ... 
 
 [123] 
 
IV 
 
 Moods beset me like a swarm of fleas on a dog. ... 
 I think Esther avoids me, loathes me... perhaps, 
 fears me. She is a puritan, and I surprised the woman 
 in her. Was that a responsive gleam of fire I saw in 
 her suddenly opened eyes that sought mine and fled 
 again behind fine screens of lashes? ... No, no. The 
 puritan is supreme in her. She is not going to let her- 
 self think she is a woman. She prefers to be the 
 unfleshly ideal of the dream-stupefied blunderers. But 
 the woman of the earth is there, and I worry that she 
 favors Avrum, strong, handsome, eloquent and lov- 
 able.... Now I think it is Davie that takes her 
 womanly fancy, Davie with his curly blonde hair and 
 hazy blue eyes, a child of a man to ensnare the mother- 
 liness of a woman’s heart, and I know motherliness 
 springs from the sex instinct.... Again I think it 
 is Barney Finn that may win her. He has the quiet 
 charm and repose of a Gentile, qualities that appeal to 
 the fine and high-strung East Side girl who seeks 
 escape from vulgarity and overemphasis of ego... . 
 These are the most pertinacious fleas, the gadflies of 
 jealousy, and they give me no peace. . . . And defeat— 
 what a terrible itch it leaves. But I deny defeat. Deny 
 it, but the itch does not let me sleep. .. . 
 
 It is Sunday morning. The quartet is rehearsing in 
 Berel’s cellar. I follow along, mechanically. I try to 
 heed Al Wolff’s injunction to zip it up . . . but every- 
 thing is Esther. She draws me from all things. My 
 overmastering vanity fills me with hate, and I breathe 
 
 [ 124 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘‘damn her.’’? . . . I remember a look in her face, a 
 look of pity. Pity—wait—wait, just wait, I will not 
 even show her pity. Pity is the greatest offense to 
 pride. And I vow she will yet crawl before me, abject, 
 begging for crumbs of my love... . Alis thundering, 
 ‘Bells, bells, bells! G’wan, try it again.”?... The 
 effect Al wants is of dissimilar toned bells, mingling 
 resonantly, receding, rising and swelling, and under 
 the gyrations of his stogie-baton our voices begin to 
 peal strangely symphonic. ... Berel smacks his lips 
 and exclaims, ‘‘Such a year on me if it isn’t better than 
 the Kishineff choir. Golden bells. Golden bells.’ ... 
 Al’s father, a cantor of renown, taught him the choral 
 art, but Al deserted the synagogue for the theatre and 
 became the scandal and grief of his parents’ declining 
 days. ... Over and over again we do the choruses, 
 solos, gags, nifties, buck and wing duets, grand ensem- 
 bles and specialties. ... Davie makes a suggestion. 
 Al howls him down. He is witheringly scornful, 
 ‘“What’s that last remark? <A few classical ballads? 
 So long, good-by, I kiss the whole shooting match 
 good-by. Classical ballads, say, where do you get that 
 stuff? Do you want to put a crimp in us? There’s 
 only one thing goes in this game,—give the gang what 
 it wants, and if you want to get by, you gotta be better 
 than the next guy.’’ . . . Davie inquires, quietly, ‘‘Tell 
 me, if you can, how do we know the people do not want 
 good music and good poetry, if no one will bring good 
 music and poetry before them.’’?... Al says, ‘All 
 right, all right, call it a day. Remember, kiddo, I’m 
 the manager, and:what I says, goes. What you want 
 to go looking for trouble for? That’s what we man- 
 agers are for—we knows what the public wants and we 
 [ 125 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 gives it to them.’’... Sam consoles Davie that it 
 would be best not to think of trying any highbrow stuff. 
 He says, ‘‘They won’t get you. Them roughnecks 
 would laugh you in the face and laugh you outta the 
 show.’’... ‘‘Say,’’? demands Al, ‘‘this is a nice time 
 to come sashaying into the party with any-meeny-my 
 tripe. I got it all fixed for the East Side Four to play 
 a date, Saturday night coming, in the Dutch Village 
 Rathskeller. You’d make a bum outta us with your 
 classical bushwah. Forget it, now, forget it. And you 
 fellers don’t quit working out every chance you get. 
 Saturday night is our tryout, and I’m fixing it to have 
 Frenchie Lavelle come and give us the once over.’’ 
 
 Sam is agog. The dream of his life begins to merge 
 into realization. But his face turns gloomy. He whis- 
 pers, ‘‘Say, Meyer, what are we gonna do? Al don’t 
 know we ain’t got the price for makeups. What are 
 we gonna do?’’... Before I can answer I give myself 
 a number of mental shakeups, tossing about the tor- 
 menting fleas, so that I may begin to grapple with 
 Sam’s problem. And then I remembered a little plan 
 - of my own that would need money. Al liked my idea; 
 in fact, he averred with managerial aplomb, that he had 
 counted on such a scheme himself. I meant to salt the 
 rathskeller audience with a sprinkling of Ludlow 
 Streeters to stimulate applause, and our claque would 
 have to have money for drinks and coins to throw to 
 the entertainers. 
 
 Berel greets a newcomer. It is Lewkowitz, the tire- 
 less and oft-defeated union organizer, come on an 
 errand of mercy. He offers a pasteboard to Berel. 
 ‘‘And, what is it?’’ asks Berel. Lewkowitz tells him 
 it is a raffle ticket for a gold watch for the benefit of a 
 
 f 126 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 consumptive union member whom they want to send 
 to Denver. ... <An excellent idea, I think, and I then 
 and there conceive the plan of running a raffle for a 
 non-existent gold watch. It is one thing to run a rafile, 
 but another matter entirely to sell tickets and fail to 
 present the prize to the lucky number holder. 
 
 So I wander about, with Sam at my heels, asking his 
 unhappy question, ‘‘What are we gonna do?”? ... 
 Davie has hold of my arm and is dilating upon art for 
 the masses. The people will not reject the beautiful, 
 he argues. Avrum comes and relieves me of Davie. 
 And then I come upon Boolkie eating a sandwich. In 
 the shelter of an upturned pushcart a passionate crap 
 game isin progress. Dago Jack is rolling the dice and 
 he prays, ‘‘Come, baby, come, be nice to papa.’’ Little 
 Joe says, ‘‘Them dice knows who’s fadin’ you and 
 they ’ll never, never come to you.’’ The dice roll to a 
 great snapping of fingers, and a disgusted howl advises 
 me that Dago Jack failed to make his point. . . . Bool- 
 Ine gets my wink signal and saunters off with me. 
 “Now, Boolkie,’’ I begin, ‘‘here is a nice, easy way to 
 get a little change for both of us and give the boys a 
 big time Saturday night in the Dutch Village Raths- 
 keller. We are going to run a raffle, see. We print 
 tickets: Raffle for a sick friend. A gold watch to the 
 lucky number. Twenty-five cents a chance. Get the 
 gang to hold up the storekeepers, landlords, stand- 
 holders and peddlers to buy raffle tickets. They know 
 it’s wise to keep on the right side of you. They got to 
 come across with protection money once in a while. 
 Next time we’ll run some kind of a racket, a dance or 
 something. Get them in the habit of coming across 
 with protection money.’’ Boolkie likes the idea well 
 
 [ 127 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 enough to make the rounds himself. On the following 
 day I brought him the printed tickets, and in a few 
 hours he disposed of one hundred at twenty-five cents 
 each. We made a fifty-fifty split, Boolkie agreeing to 
 stand treat to favored members of the gang on Satur- 
 day night in the Rathskeller. ... 
 
 And Sam and I spent a happy evening bargaining 
 with the Houston Street costume storekeepers for our 
 various makeups. Little Joe accompanied us and stole 
 a fine beard for Sam and a splendid set of mustaches 
 and goatees for me. Little Joe’s system of stealing 
 was side-splitting to us. He simply took things right 
 under your eyes. It was so preposterous that no one 
 ever watched or suspected him. He is never from 
 under your eyes, true enough, but the hand, gentlemen, 
 as the sideshow ballyhoo will tell you, is quicker than 
 the eye. Little Joe’s gifts were not for long wasted on 
 petty shoplifting. He got a fat job in ‘‘Honest John’s”’ 
 gambling house as a dealer. Little Joe’s lightning 
 manipulations helped to maintain ‘‘Honest John’? 
 Brook’s high reputation for square dealing. 
 
 New York town’s vice is always self-conscious, like 
 the bad manners of a growing boy. Its symbol and 
 guiding beacon is the red light, which shines, resplend- 
 ently, tonight, Saturday, the big pay night, and flush 
 time of Manhattan’s pleasure places. There is no pre- 
 tense or hypocritical disguise, no game of hide and seek 
 of outward order and decency. The lid is off. The 
 town is wide open. The red lamp glowers in the door- 
 way and says, I am sin, and the people drink and sing 
 and love, boastfully, as though to say, See—I sin. 
 
 Are you pleasure bent? Look for the color of red. 
 If you are color blind, ask a cabby or a policeman. If 
 
 [ 128 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 you are not overfinicky, ask a child. Everybody 
 knows. ... The Tenderloin is a bright lobster pink. 
 Allen Street has the hue and smell of a red herring. 
 Elizabeth Street reeks, blood-red, tart and fulsome like 
 overdoses of cheap Chianti. And the Five Points’ 
 erimson lamp blinks sickeningly under its mottlings 
 of mud. 
 
 The Dutch Village is a dazzling ruby on the Tender- 
 loin’s gory breast. It is an uptown, expensive place, 
 divided in two parts. Upstairs there is a meretricious 
 atmosphere of refinement. It goes in for the good taste 
 trimmings of the day. Pink lights, palms, carpeted 
 aisles, tablecloths, full dressed waiters and a string 
 orchestra. Strikingly dressed women, chosen for their 
 statuesqueness, today’s standard of pulchritude, loll 
 past your table, tinkling their satin petticoats and dif- 
 fusing heavy perfumes, and ask, quietly and modestly, 
 if you desire their company. . . . Meanwhile there is a 
 strumming, politely restrained, by the string orchestra 
 stuck up on a shelf-like balcony. And then a wind- 
 broken tenor with an ill-fitting wig and waxed mus- 
 taches, and an old soprano desperately painted against 
 her manifest years and with a remarkably buttressed 
 figure, together, or individually, cook up an operatic 
 farrago of overworked and mangled arias made 
 already unbearably familiar by hurdy-gurdies. . . . 
 But downstairs in the Rathskeller it is different. Here 
 there are no carpets or tablecloths. It has a rough 
 and ready, good-fellow, you’re-welcome-any-way-you- 
 come air. Instead of tenors, sopranos, and a dulcet 
 string orchestra, we have roof-reverberating coon 
 shonters and a whiz-bang ragtime band, made up of a 
 piano, fiddle and drum, mostly drum. The girls who 
 
 [ 129 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 seek your company are not so toney, and their style 
 not so spiffy, but their manner is cordial and naturally 
 New-Yorkese. They sit down at your table, give or 
 receive a quip, and if not wanted, move along to the 
 next one. Here you have an intimate good time, and 
 you may stay as long as your money lasts. The Dutch 
 Village never closes. 
 
 Al times our début for the midnight hour. He wants 
 a well-filled place and an audience that has become 
 mellowly convivial. . . . He points out Frenchie 
 Lavelle, sitting in a corner, and we look at the huge 
 man with a saturnine face, whose eyes seem scratched 
 out by crows’ feet. ... ‘‘Don’t play to him,’’ Al ad- 
 vises; ‘‘it won’t do no good. Frenchie looks for one 
 thing—the way you hit the mob. Now g’wan and hit 
 ’em for a bull’s-eye.’’ 
 
 The drummer beats a prolonged roll call. Al mounts 
 the performers’ platform. He is recognized. Every 
 patron of Miner’s knows him.... ‘‘What are you 
 giving away tonight?’’?... ‘‘A prize in every pack- 
 age.’’ . . . ‘‘Only a dime, the tenth part of a 
 dollar.’’... <Al’s fat face creases in happy smiles 
 at the good-natured sallies. . . . ‘‘Do your stuff, 
 kid.’’ .. . Al motions the drummer and he beats again 
 a roll call, and Al begins, ‘‘Ladies an’ gents——’”? A 
 ceat-call. An exaggerated sneeze. A mock baby-crying. 
 Al puts up a tolerant hand against the familiar friendly 
 buffoonery. . . . Cries of ‘‘give him a chance’’ spurt 
 out here and there, mostly from planted Ludlow 
 Streeters. ‘‘He’s good.’’?... Al launches into his 
 speech, his voice carrying above an occasional inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 ‘‘Ladies an’ gents, I’m gonna take a few minutes of 
 
 [130 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 your time.’’... ‘‘It’s all right, long as you don’t 
 take our watches.’’?... ‘‘He can do that, too.” ... 
 ‘‘Take a year off.’’? ... ‘‘I hope the judge gives him 
 ten years.’’... ‘‘On bee-have of the manigment, I 
 takes pleasure in arnouncing a brand new fee-ture for 
 tonight’s entertainment, an added attrackshun, which 
 they has got at great expense, and will be shown to the 
 public for the first time anywhere. I takes pleasure 
 im arnouncing the East Side Four, kwartet, buck an’ 
 wing and comedy artists, introducing numberous 
 nowelties, all bein’ under the pursonel direckshun of 
 A. Wolff, Esquire. Ladies an’ gents, I now calls upon 
 the Hast Side Four, entertainers to the Four Hundred, 
 to show you their stuff.’’.... We filed to the plat- 
 form, and Al identified us, individually, by our stage 
 names. ... Applause broke out, no doubt started by 
 our claque, and then it became general. Everybody 
 was in good spirits. 
 
 Al took the piano and played the introductory bars 
 of Sam’s medley song and dance. To the onlookers’ 
 delight, Sam put on his makeup right out front. It was 
 something new. Ashe put on his beard and frock coat, 
 and squeezed down the squat derby over his ears, he 
 kept up a rapid fire of familiar Irish-Jewish wheezes, 
 connected up in a story, to which Al tinkled an accom- 
 paniment. Then Sam began the dance, saying, ‘‘Now 
 watch the national dance of New York. Irish-Jew- 
 ish.’? . . . Loud applause. ... The difficult dance, 
 with its weird intermixture of Irish reel and Yiddish 
 kazzatzka, brought down the house, and there were 
 long calls of ‘‘do it again, kid.’”?... The comment 
 ran, generally, ‘‘It’s hot stuff.’’ To give Sam a chance 
 to catch his breath, the quartet sang the chorus of 
 
 [ 131 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘‘Paddy Reilly Does the Jewish Wedding Dance,”’ 
 music by Sam Rakowsky, words by Al Wolff... . Big 
 applause. Our quartet was really well trained and 
 capably blended, and the effect of bells impressed our 
 hearers, for New York was at this time quartet 
 crazy. ... The drummer and fiddler caught the easy 
 tune, really nothing more than the familiar Irish reel 
 melody and Jewish wedding music, rearranged and 
 joined. Sam did his dance again, and by the time he 
 started the back-breaking heel dance the audience broke 
 out in surprised enthusiastic applause. Then Al played 
 an introduction that called for Davie’s appearance. 
 He had no makeup on, but his wan beauty and ethereal 
 expression brought cries of ‘‘Oh sister, does mamma 
 know you’re out tonight?’’ .. . ‘‘Hoo, La, La.’’?... 
 ‘‘Sweet baby.’’ ‘‘Cut the comedy.’’?... ‘‘Give him 
 achanst.’’... Davie began to sing. His pure-toned, 
 deep and richly sweet voice hushed the eruwd. He sang 
 a sentimental ballad, a mother song, full of flourishes 
 that music hall gods doted on, into which he put tender- 
 ness and appeal, and when his voice broke in sobs dur- 
 ing the pathetic finale—one of Al’s touches—the house 
 went wild. The quartet took up the chorus, trying sev- 
 eral of Al’s shadings, and the resultant table rappings 
 and feet poundings attested to our success.... Hi 
 Rube almost gave the bunch hysterics when he 
 appeared in a sunbonnet and a wrapper that showed 
 his pants legs. He carried a carpet bag. His mincing 
 steps and squeaky voice were well done. He sang an 
 original bit of thing that couldn’t bear repeating even 
 in a frank book. I was the author of the words, which 
 I fitted to a popular tune of the day. The title of the 
 song was, ‘‘Something Tells Me If It Happened Once 
 [132] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 It Will Happen Again.’’ And Hymie made his narra- 
 tion so woeful that he achieved high comedy results. 
 And under Al’s tutelage, he got down among the audi- 
 ence, and went from table to table, and spoke the lines 
 to music, ‘‘Won’t you tell me, please, I’m only a coun- 
 try gal in a big city, if it happened once, will it happen 
 again?’’ ... Bringing the audience into the show was 
 an example of Al’s craftsmanship. It was the begin- 
 ning of that kind of entertainment in New York. I had 
 no specialty number. My voice was used only for bass 
 effects in the quartet. They made quite a fuss over us. 
 Coins dropped at our feet, especially during Davie’s 
 second song, ‘‘ Mother’s Broken Heart.’’ . . . We were 
 treated to drinks, and at last Frenchie gave the good 
 word to Al. And we jumped for joy. We were engaged 
 as regular singing waiters beginning Monday night. 
 While the regular coon-shouters did their turns wa 
 mingled with the audience and worked for the house. 
 Working for the house means ordering expensive 
 drinks whenever we were treated. Sam and Hymie 
 were quite drunk and by the time dawn came they had 
 to be put behind the piano to sleep it off. Al stuck to 
 beer and was always himself. We now knew the secret 
 of his being able to get us a date to play the Dutch 
 Village Rathskeller. Mazie Lou, premier coon-shouter, 
 was stuck on him. And in this little world of abandon 
 when a woman loves you she shows it in an exaggerated 
 way. We think it is exaggerated. It is rather the 
 metier of their morals. Mazie Lou, a little drunk now, 
 kept asking everyone, looking ecstatically at Beefy Al, 
 moist and bedewed with sweat, ‘‘Ain’t he grand! Ain’t 
 he grand! Ain’t he got the grandest act you ever 
 seen!’’ ... There was a girl wandering about the 
 [133 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 place and she reminded me of Esther. It was more 
 striking when I saw that she had taken a decided fancy 
 to Davie. This girl was called Billie. She had turned 
 down a number of invitations for the night, and just 
 hovered around Davie. Her resemblance to Esther 
 inflamed my jealousy against Davie. But Davie was 
 dazed in these surroundings, and a bottle of wine he 
 had drunk made him star-eyed and moodily uplifted. 
 He barely noticed Billie. She was a great favorite and 
 had an Irish temper. She got it into her head that 
 Davie was studiously ignoring and insulting her. Ina 
 rage she slapped his face. <A glass rolled off the table 
 and splintered on the floor. The piano stopped. <A’ 
 drunken hush fell over the place. It was the drifting 
 dawn time, when even noisy revellers begin to whisper. 
 Davie rose and held out his hand, and asked pleadingly, 
 ‘*What have I done ?”? . .. Billie flung herself to 
 her knees. ‘‘I didn’t mean it. . . . I couldn’t help 
 it. . . . I’ve gone crazy listening to your golden 
 voice.”? .. . Davie helped her up, placed her in a chair 
 and sat down beside her. . . . The comment ran that 
 Billie had gone nuts again. There was a little gossip 
 that she came of good people . . . that some day she 
 would get hers . . . too much temper and independ- 
 ence for a street walker... and, besides, she did not 
 have the protection of a pimp... and she wasn’t a 
 regular feller. ... The other girls made nasty re- 
 marks about her. They were jealous of her distinctive 
 good looks and refined bearing .. . most of all they 
 resented that the better class of frequenters, the good 
 spenders, all tried to pick up Billie. . . . Billie was the 
 first choice. . . . Boolkie was ponderously intoxicated. 
 He had tried to make Billie, and I guess he was pretty 
 [ 134 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 sore at her. He waddled over to her and asked her what 
 she meant by hauling off and slapping a friend of his. 
 He said he had a good mind to squash in her face for 
 her. Billie opened her handbag and took out a small- 
 barreled revolver, and said, ‘‘Go ahead and try it, you 
 big bully.’? ... Davie was distressed. He begged for 
 peace, said it was nothing, and Boolkie retired in face 
 of the revolver, saying, to save his face, ‘‘It’s all right, 
 ’*g long as my friend says so.’’ . . . I watched to see 
 what would happen to the pure idealist in the hands 
 of an infatuated harlot. Davie was drinking another 
 bottle of wine. Billie was sipping iced absinthe. She 
 took another, while Davie mooned over his second 
 glass. And Billie now gulped down an absinthe plain. 
 The ivory pallor of her face deepened. Her slender, 
 long-fingered hands moved restlessly, erratically across 
 the table. She asked Davie to sing. The wine had gone 
 to his head. He sang ‘‘Drink to Me Only With Thine 
 Eyes,’’ and the audience wanted to know what the hell 
 he was pulling off, though they were charmed by the 
 feeling and beauty of Lis voice. Billie seemed lost ina 
 rapturous trance, and her slate-gray eyes filled with 
 tears. ... And Davie sang again, wonder of wonders, 
 a Schubert love song, which made the audience go wild 
 with enthusiasm. ... Al said that the audience was 
 drunk enough to like anything once they liked you 
 when they were sober. . . . And Billie drank ab- 
 sinthe. ... The other girls said, ‘‘Look out for her 
 when she hits that stuff hard. She goes nuts.’’?... 
 I took my whiskey straight, like grandfather-horse- 
 thief. I found it made me morose and thoughtful. I 
 took the liquor thinking that maybe it would cheer me 
 up, but instead thoughts of Esther kept shooting 
 [ 135 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 through my brain like red-hot needles. And there was 
 Billie to remind me of her. . . . I took aseat at Davie’s 
 table. He was either frightfully innocent or deliciously 
 drunk. He was reciting Walt Whitman to Billie, who 
 listened with an intense face, showing intense absorp- 
 tion or intense bewilderment. ... And Davie was 
 explaining Walt Whitman to her. He told her Whit- 
 man loved all people, and because he loved them he 
 could understand them and reach their soul-beings. 
 She asked, ‘‘And do you think he could understand 
 me—me—and love me and see the soul of me——”’ . . 
 And then Davie, whom I thought but a baby of the 
 world, spoke to her Whitman’s lines addressed to a 
 street walker for an appointment. . . . And Billie 
 drank her absinthe, and I swallowed the raw booze, 
 while Davie spoke of the poet he was going to be... . 
 ‘‘T have been precocious, but I shall lose all that as I get 
 to know and love people. I shall get the swing and 
 measure of life. I will move like the swell of the sea, 
 I will fiy on the wings of emotion, I will pant with the 
 consumptive, swelter and pine with the prisoner in his 
 cell, I will agonize on the wheel of industry, I will reel 
 with the drunken man, drunk with his despair or his 
 joy, I will thrill with the mother who suckles her babe 
 and the father who looks on, I will walk the streets with 
 the homeless, the pariahs and wantons and love them 
 and be with them, I will sing their song, their lilt, their 
 pean, their dirge; my beat will be the beat of their 
 hearts, the beat of their tired and halt steps, the pulse 
 of their wrongs and angers and passions i 
 
 Now is the sodden hour. The waiters are busy with 
 their own breakfasts. Henry Meckelheimer, the pro- 
 prietor, comes to look over the cash receipts. It is 
 
 [ 136 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWI, 
 
 Morning. The air clears. A young girl’s voice calls 
 out—‘‘Papa.’’... Meckelheimer answers, ‘‘Here I 
 am, downstairs.’?... A flaxen-haired girl appears, 
 fresh-eyed, and brisk. It is Henrietta Meckelheimer. 
 I look at her, wondering how a morning glory grows 
 in a garbage can. The Meckelheimers have an apart- 
 ment over the Dutch Village. . . . But I saw Henrietta 
 Meckelheimer again—twenty years later. She was 
 brought before me, and I sat in judgment upon her. 
 She was convicted of robbing a man in a panel game. 
 She was friendless, without home or money, and a hope- 
 less morphine addict. I sent her to State’s Prison. .. . 
 They started to mop the floors and we roused up Hymie 
 and Sam. We squeezed them into a hansom cab, and 
 followed in a barouche. Billie watched us leave, and 
 when the barouche started off she called out, ‘‘So long, 
 boys, I’ll see you down Frenchie Lavelle’s place.’’ 
 
 I remarked to Davie, ‘‘She is coming to see you—no 
 one else.’? And the gadflies of jealousy tormented 
 me.... Davie answered, ‘‘I think she enjoys our 
 work. ...Iwillbegladtoseeher....Ah... look, 
 Meyer—Homer wasn’t the only one to see the rosy- 
 fingered dawn.’’ . . . The barouche swung into Sixth 
 Avenue and there the dawn died. 
 
 [187 ] 
 
V 
 
 Monday morning Al leads the way down the Bowery, 
 past the succession of saloons, bedhouses, two-cent 
 coffee places, second-hand clothing stores, oyster 
 stands, rescue missions, and second-hand shoe cel- 
 lars... . Underfoot it is slippery with chew-tobacco 
 juice. Hverybody is busy spitting. The old-timers, 
 the right-at-home bums sun themselves in the door- 
 ways of lodging houses and at the corners. Panhan- 
 dlers look for live ones. Fake cripples and blind men, 
 offering pencils or shoe laces, whine for pennies. One 
 drunk mutters, another speechifies, one sings or curses, 
 and another lies prone in everybody’s way and nobody 
 pays him the least notice. Sailors, stevedores, oilers, 
 stokers, firemen, hobos and street walkers crowd the 
 sidewalks. Country boys, threadbare and hungry-eyed, 
 fortune seekers stranded in the big city, and tired- 
 looking, jobless men from everywhere, wander in this 
 land of the down and out. . . . Here is the city’s back- 
 wash of sewerage. ... Into Park Row, continuation 
 of the Bowery, at Doyers Street, where Chinatown 
 begins, is Frenchie Lavelle’s bar-room and dance hall. 
 
 It is too early for Frenchie. His barkeep expects us 
 and admits us to the dance hall. It is cavernously dark, 
 except for one light, a blue and yellow gas jet at the 
 farther end over a piano. We see a creased bald head 
 with uneven fringes of white hair bending over the 
 piano keys. A full glass of whiskey stands on the music 
 rest. The head is motionless. Hands creep sound- 
 
 [ 188 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 lessly, searchingly across the keyboard.... <A few 
 notes, aimless; and again silence. The door shuts be- 
 hind us. Music begins.... Al whispers, ‘“Wait a 
 minute. He don’t know nobody is here; that’s when he 
 plays like you never heard anybody play. ... God— 
 how that man can play.’ ... Davie whispers, ‘‘He is 
 improvising.’’?... The music: drops of water upon 
 a still pool; fugitive themes, alighting, fleeing; crash- 
 ing gusts of despair, anger, protest; fantastic humors; 
 shifting moods, cold, harsh, bitter, abandoned; and 
 again drops of water on a still pool.... Davie is 
 moved. He says, ‘‘I know what he is doing: he is think- 
 ing in music.’’. .. The barkeep comes in carrying a 
 glass of whiskey. ‘‘A little oil for the music box,’ he 
 remarks. We follow him to the piano. The old man 
 drinks up the whiskey before him and the barkeep 
 places the full glass on the music rest... . So this is 
 the marvelous ‘‘Piano’’ O’Brien whose playing Al can- 
 not praise enough. He never uses music. Whiskey 
 is his score, and he won’t play unless the whiskey is 
 before him. 
 
 Piano O’Brien rises, gives us a gallant bow and says, 
 ‘‘Good morning, gentlemen. I have been expecting 
 you.’’. .. Alshakes his hand and introduces us. ... 
 And that evening we began as singing waiters. 
 
 The art of a singing waiter is in a class by itself. It 
 consists of carrying a song over a multitude of busy 
 doings, remarks, orders, servings, making change and 
 cleaning tables, all done during the song. Occasionally 
 you interrupt the song to sing out the order, and then 
 you must immediately take up the last word and note 
 where you left off. Try singing in a changing crowd— 
 
 [ 139 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 *“<*T loved you, Nellie’-—‘Draw two!’—‘as I never’— 
 ‘Make it two more!’—‘loved before.’’’... During 
 the heartrending moments of the piece you may have 
 to make change for a two-dollar bill and reckon up the 
 amount due, put down the change, receive your tip, 
 move to the next table, mop its surface dry, remove 
 empty glasses on a tray, call at the little door for your 
 ordered drinks, pass out the right brass tags to the 
 checker, show people to the tables, smile to known fre- 
 quenters, laugh at a friendly gibe and stoop to pick up 
 a coin thrown as a compliment to your vocal efforts. 
 And then when the second chorus is reached, the four 
 of us, no matter how far apart we may be, do our 
 quartet stunts. 
 
 Piano O’Brien’s deft signals holds us in key, time 
 and place. Heis more than an accompanist. He is our 
 guiding genius, attending our every move with tele- 
 pathic accord. And so he sits the whole night, slightly 
 stooped, at the piano, accompanying the singers, play- 
 ing a vagrant, restful interlude, or joining the fiddler, 
 cornetist and drummer in banging out the dance music 
 of the day. And his eyes seem drowned in the eternal 
 well of whiskey on the music rest. He appears as tire- 
 Jess and detached as an automaton. He is a pale-faced 
 drunkard, as though the very blood in him has turned 
 into high-proof spirits. . . . Drunk unceasingly for 
 many years, yet he is never the drunken man. His 
 repose is deathlike, but gruesome in the midst of life. 
 His eyes are like small clams congealed in alcohol. He 
 has thin lips that compress into a purple straight line. 
 His skin, drawn taut over forehead, cheek bones and 
 jaw bone, seems petrified. His hands, only, seem 
 limber and living, but the hands become as part of the 
 
 { 140 } 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 piano. To the world he has no personality or being 
 or self except as the thing of the piano. So he is 
 known as Piano O’Brien. His secrets seem hidden 
 behind the glaze of his eyes. No man knows his his- 
 tory. A word, a whisper here and there, has had it 
 that he is an unfrocked Jesuit... . But Davie Solo- 
 mon evoked glimmerings of the man he may have once 
 been. He found sympathy in Davie, and it unsealed 
 the years of silence. ... Once he spoke in Hebrew, 
 a scholarly, meticulous Hebrew. ... Hymie, always 
 curious, saluted him in Latin. And O’Brien let us 
 listen to a Latin parable as crisp and clear as the new 
 pages of a classic. .. . Maxie Freund, who sometimes 
 came with me to rehearsals and who regarded Latin 
 as the holy tongue of law, turned some of the rehearsals 
 into a Latin lyceum. O’Brien was a happy teacher. 
 Maxie said he was better than a thousand text-books. 
 And then Sam, who until now had hobbled across a 
 pianoforte with two heavy fingers, learned to use all 
 his fingers under O’Brien’s instructions. 
 
 The world comes to Lavelle’s—a world of men. 
 
 The East Side and West Side, uptown and down- 
 town, drift in, singly, and in merry batches . . . curi- 
 ous lads, feeling adventurously grown up... young 
 men with cigarettes dangling from their lips, careless- 
 mannered, desperately affecting the nonchalance of 
 rakes ... little cliques of married men, thrillingly 
 frisky and wicked with the matrimonial yoke cast off 
 for anight ... old men seeking youth at the fountain 
 of folly . . . clean-faced college boys furiously living 
 ‘‘the life’? .. . swaggering gunmen, guerrillas and 
 gangsters who give the place a tone . . . chummy 
 groups of sailor boys and marines after a long practice 
 
 [.141 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 cruise with faces as free and fresh as the open sea, 
 consciously on a hell-raising shore leave . . . race 
 track hangers-on and touts and jockeys in loud- 
 patterned clothes . . . seafaring men picturing 
 the nations of the world, flush with back-pay and 
 pent up desire . . . pimps aflash with jewelry 
 and nobby clothes . . . puffed up one-horse politi- 
 cians . . cheap gamblers, loaded dice and cold deck 
 artists ... cappers .. . sneak thieves, hold-up and 
 second-story men... husky yeggs... roving pan- 
 handlers . . . kerosene circuit actors... dope ped- 
 diers . . . steerers to gambling and bawdy houses ... 
 flitting, temperamental fairies, the queer effeminate 
 men... slumming parties, distinguished by their full 
 dress . . . a world of men. 
 
 Of course, the main attraction is the girls, who 
 wind in and out the table spaces like a garland of 
 strangely strung and varied flowers. The garland has 
 dragged in the dust of many roads. . . . But flowers 
 are flowers ... what if they are rumpled and faded, 
 soiled and drooping with rough handling .. . anyway 
 there is left the suggestion of fragrance and charm 
 and beauty . . . but they are not the posies they once 
 were. Now they are downtown flowers—who came 
 Chinatown way after being discarded by uptown. ... 
 Tenderloin gets the fresh-cut flowers .. . later the 
 gutter wash drifts them down to Fourteenth Street, 
 and then the changing tide flings them on to the mud 
 flats of the Bowery and Lavelle ’s, where they stay until 
 dumped into the garbage cans of Five Points, Mulberry 
 Bend and the waterfront back rooms. . . . The trench 
 in Potter’s Field is the last stop. 
 
 Lavelle’s is better than street-walking. The bright 
 
 [142] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 lights, music, drinks, songs and jollity of good-time 
 crowds help them forget that they are on their way to 
 the dump heaps. ... And now this life takes on the 
 sameness of the factory and department store life they 
 gave up because it was dull and drab and always the 
 same... this unending, inescapable sameness becomes 
 the horror that may be forgotten with dope and booze’s 
 specious aid. Desperate people know how to be hilari- 
 ously, extravagantly happy. And the place rings with 
 their high-pitched, desperate merriment. They shriek 
 over our smutty songs, our double-meaning gags; weep 
 over our sentimental ballads; drink deeply, chatter and 
 smoke without letup; dance with vim and abandon 
 and march off with their snared john to a filthy 
 bedhouse with the gayety of a schoolgirl off to a 
 
 picnic. .. . Their incessa»* smile, ringing laugh, good 
 cheer, sparkling eyes, wh>’ ere they but the habits of 
 their workaday life? . . . But Davie says they are 
 sparks from their souls t» light the world ... that 
 they are the stars of dar desire.... ‘*Whatever 
 
 that may mean,’’I put in s'urringly. ‘Let me tell you 
 what I mean,’’ persists Davie, ‘‘I mean it igs the soul 
 force ever working to exalt all human conduct.”’ .. . 
 
 O’Brien hears Davie and asks him, ‘‘Who are you— 
 what are you that you love and excuse everyone?’’... 
 
 ‘‘T learned comradeship, understanding from Walt 
 Whitman, love from Jesus and forgiveness from 
 Maolstois?? iM 
 
 O’Brien ruminates on the piano keys .. . fitful 
 thoughts . . . again he is as one alone in a dark forest 
 and listens to drops of water on a still pool.... He 
 murmurs, ‘‘You Jews—how many Christs are among 
 you?——-’”’?... Sam frowns at such heresy. Hymie 
 
 [ 143 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 muses and smiles. He has told me that since he became 
 a freethinker he feels a thousand pounds lighter. . . . 
 Davie smiles, saying, ‘‘I hope—no more Christs. 
 Christ was a dreamer, but without strength and sanity. 
 Adoration of a superstitious mob turned his head; he 
 succumbed to the hypnotism of their belief that he 
 sprang from the godhead.’’ ... O’Brien rises, lean- 
 ing against the piano, as though falling back, and he 
 hears Davie remark in the most matter of fact tone, 
 ‘‘The hope of a better world is in the destruction of the 
 god-delusion.’’ 
 
 It is the petering out hour, morning. The lights have 
 been put out except for the one over the piano. Here 
 and there a drunken boy or man has fallen asleep over 
 the tables. An old Chinese woman with a wizened face 
 and a childish form comes and stands meekly near the 
 piano. She is O’Brien’s wife, punctually arriving 
 every morning to lead her husband home. O’Brien is 
 nearly blind. Davie bows to her, and she jerkily bends 
 her body. The scraping of a chair, quick catlike treads 
 and Billie appears under the arc of gas light. She has 
 come every morning for a month. Her eyes are like 
 stars in a fog, and her face has the radiant whiteness 
 of sun-filtered morning mist. 
 
 As Davie speaks, I think I hear his master, Avrum 
 Toledo. ... ‘‘Destroy the god-delusion. Then we 
 won’t have a supreme being to blame, appease, and 
 look to. God’s will—there’s the answer to war and 
 horror, disease and suffering, injustice and tyranny. 
 God’s will. Accept all in God’s name in God’s world, 
 the best world of all possible worlds. Yield. Submit. 
 We go on living in an ugly world of hate and pain and 
 grief, comforting ourselves in a vision of a God’s here- 
 
 [ 144 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUN CH AND JOWL 
 
 after. Destroy the god-delusion, and man will account 
 to himself.”’ . .. 
 
 Billie steps forward. She has not listened. She asks 
 the question she has put every morning, ‘‘Dave, are 
 you going home with me?’’... The question always 
 makes me laugh inwardly. Everybody has a home. 
 Hven Billie, the temperamental street-walker. Her 
 home, most likely the barest kind of a furnished room 
 somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen. And every morning 
 Davie answers, kindly, patiently, ‘‘My mother, Billie, 
 I can’t leave my mother.’? ... Now she asks, ‘“Are 
 you on the level, you tin-Jesus; are you on the level, 
 or are you just stringing me?’’... Davie laughs, 
 gently, and moves close to Billie. She looks up into his 
 face, and her eyelids flutter. Her hands are clutched 
 at her breasts. I can see nothing else in her except the 
 heightened lust of a depraved creature for a pure 
 thing. But Davie, although he has rid himself of the 
 god-delusion, has replaced it, as we always do, with 
 another delusion. No matter what happens to the 
 body, the soul force remains untainted. ... Davie 
 took Billie in his arms and said, ‘‘Believe me, Billie, 
 I love you.’?... It was very simple. Davie loved 
 Billie because she needed him.... Billie flung her 
 arms around his neck, whispering passionately, 
 ‘“T'ry me, Dave, I’d do anything for you. Try me, 
 IBV Ot a og 
 
 145] 
 
VI 
 
 Ragtime has the whole country jogging. From the 
 World’s Fair in Chicago it sent syncopated waves 
 bounding across the length and breadth of the land. 
 The negroes had given America its music. Soon the 
 white man started stealing the negro’s music and 
 making it his own. There was money in the negro’s 
 music. Cultured people snickered at it. Boston, which 
 at this time still claimed to be the center of culture, 
 stuffed its ears. Musicians, who ruled and confined 
 their art with religious dogma, raised their hands and 
 voices in horror and denunciation. The élite, the elect, 
 the polite, the ultra-fashionable, and their aping fol- 
 lowers, despised ragtime and complacently decreed its 
 early doom. But ragtime had the vitality of a people’s 
 music and the whole country hummed, sang, whistled, 
 two-stepped and cried for more doggerels and mad- 
 dening tunes. 
 
 The ragtime craze helped to fill Lavelle’s every 
 night. I took pains to let Lavelle know that it was the 
 superior work of the quartet with its many improve- 
 ments and innovations that had made Lavelle’s usually 
 dull season the busiest he had ever known. Slumming 
 parties of full-dressed men and evening-gowned women 
 came regularly in greater numbers, and they were wel- 
 come as big spenders. At my suggestion Lavelle 
 printed a special wine list with higher prices for their 
 benefit. It was about this time that Al and I took over 
 the management of the place on a percentage basis. 
 Al took care of entertainment and T had charge of 
 general matters. 
 
 [ 146 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Al added a trombone to the dance orchestra. He 
 ' made every musician a performer. He showed the 
 drummer how to throw his stick in the air and catch 
 it without losing a beat. He made the cornetist go 
 through contortions while playing, and taught him the 
 trick of over-riding cacophony. He got interesting 
 effects by making the cornetist hold a derby hat at the 
 end of his horn, and got bizarre blare effects by placing 
 glazed paper over the end of the trombone. The fiddler 
 had to imitate the famous Rigo, a gypsy violinist. He 
 made him wear a crazy wig and a short red plush 
 jacket. O’Brien heightened the tempo and suddenly 
 slowed it, surprising and delighting the dancers. This 
 kind of music started a new kind of dancing. Al intro- 
 duced the Bowery Wriggle, a dance perfectly suited to 
 the eccentric rhythm. It was the father and fore- 
 runner of the Turkey Trot and modern dancing. Often 
 Al led the band, making the players a part of the 
 hilarious dance. Until then dancing was done with 
 the feet. We started the dance of the body as a thrill 
 for the sightseers, and, to continue to draw them, we 
 made the dances more and more animalistic. Al 
 picked up Ivan Orloff, a down-and-out straggler on the 
 Bowery, who had been a pupil of the St. Petersburg 
 school of the ballet. He trained Orloff and Billie, a 
 sinuous and graceful dancer, to give exhibition dances 
 of the Bowery Wriggle. Before long everybody was 
 doing the Wriggle. Militant clergymen, sensationalists 
 who called themselves sociologists, who visited our 
 place, instituted a campaign of sermons against 
 Lavelle’s, describing it as the modern Sodom and 
 Gomorrah. They succeeded in advertising our place 
 extensively among their congregations and in the news- 
 [ 147 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 papers and we soon got fat returns from their attacks. 
 
 Al and Sam were busy creating original ragtime 
 songs and dances. O’Brien encouraged them, saying 
 its flexibility offered infinite possibilities. He urged 
 them to make use of the negro plantation, levee and 
 spiritual songs with their pulsating African rhythm 
 and ornament them with Semitic colors and figures. ... 
 Davie said that the boys ought to try for originality. 
 O’Brien said there was nothing original in music. Man 
 understood only a few sounds. He sneered at musi- 
 sians’ technical flourishes and intricacies, declaring it 
 was not music but rather a limited parlor game. A 
 melody, a tune, was music; nothing else. And all 
 - musical writings were differentiations of the few tunes 
 known toman. He sketched the history of music. He 
 took as an example church music. He jokingly referred 
 to the musical reformer, Palestrina, the sixteenth cen- 
 tury choirmaster and composer for the Pope, and 
 declared his grand and solemn church music was noth- 
 ing more than lewd tavern songs and troubadour 
 chanties rearranged to meet the Sistine Chapel’s 
 needs. ... It sounded unbelievable. Davie asked, 
 ‘“‘Do you mean he could make a solemn mass cantata 
 of such a song as Sweet Rosie O’Grady?”’... We 
 laughed. What could be more ridiculous? Sweet 
 Rosie O’Grady, the simplest little love song that 
 somehow had the widest popular appeal. It had a 
 nursery and sugary refrain.... O’Brien did not 
 reply. Instead he played Sweet Rosie O’Grady as it 
 is usually played. Then he began to weave its strains 
 until there was left only a remote suggestion, an elusive 
 reminiscence of the hackneyed tune. He stopped and 
 Hymie took down a Latin translation of the words as 
 
 [ 148 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 O’Brien dictated. . . . Latin words to music that rang 
 magnificently sacerdotal. We caught O’Brien’s idea. 
 Al said it was great stuff for a choir and started re- 
 hearsing us. We mastered the words and tempo. We 
 enjoyed their solemn, strange cadence. Although we 
 had watched it developing, the final effect was exotic 
 and startling. During the choruses I was instructed 
 to set up a sombre background of hallelujahs, and it 
 was long before Al was satisfied that I gave each halle- 
 lujah a proper bell-like intonation as thrown against 
 Davie’s silvery flutelike tinkles. Sam fell in robus- 
 tiously, and Hymie droned like an organ. O’Brien was 
 pleased with the fun of the thing. He congratulated 
 Al on his choir handling, saying he had the Palestrinian 
 method of throwing dissimilar toned voices against 
 each other and obtaining an harmonious whole... . 
 *¢Palestrina, me eye,’’ scoffed Al; ‘‘that’s my old 
 man’s method. He is a chazan. You know what that 
 is, a cantor. He got the method from his father, and 
 his father from his father, and so on. Say, Palestrina 
 must be some four-flusher. The method is as old as 
 the Jews.’’ 
 
 We decided to try out Latinized and Palistrinated 
 Sweet Rosie O’Grady on the mixed gathering in 
 Lavelle’s. Nobody took it for the original, although 
 not a note was changed. It was received as a tremen- 
 dous piece of blasphemy and the foul deed of O’Brien, 
 who, they were convinced, was a renegade, mocking 
 priest.... A few of the girls wept as though at a 
 solemn mass, and several drunken men became vocifer- 
 ously conscience-stricken. A man tried to hit O’Brien 
 with a chair. The slummers thought the mass music 
 a great jest, but it nearly caused a riot. I saw at once 
 
 [ 149 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 it was a mistake. Where religion is concerned no one 
 has a sense of humor. Drinking people are the 
 most unreasonable when a religious question comes 
 up. Most bar-room fights begin in religious discus- 
 sions. . . . My bouncers surrounded me, ready for the 
 signal that would start their celebrated bum’s rush. 
 Hach bouncer, a professional bruiser, selected a 
 troublesome fellow, made a quick dash, gripped him 
 by collar and scruff and the seat of his pants, ran him 
 across the floor, gaining momentum near the door, 
 where a properly placed kick sent the rowdy reeling 
 and sprawling into the gutter. 
 
 We are making money. Drinkers are liberal tippers. 
 Drunken men submit to being overcharged and short- 
 changed. The slummers paid high prices gladly; they 
 would not have liked it nearly so much if it were not 
 expensive. Every night we reckoned up our percent- 
 age of the gate and were elated with the profits. 
 Lavelle was a good sport and freely conceded that we 
 had drummed up a fine business. Al and Sam wanted 
 me to join them in a song publishing enterprise. I de- 
 cided to bank my money to pay my way through law 
 school. Yet had I invested in their publishing business, 
 my money would have earned in ten years close to a 
 quarter of a million dollars. Al and Sam became the 
 richest publishers of popular songs. They cooked up 
 the music for musical comedies; stars paid them fabu- 
 lous royalties for exclusive songs, and then came the 
 phonograph to grind out more royalties. They really 
 owed their success to O’Brien. He opened up to them 
 the storehouse of the world’s best melodies. He played 
 for them for hours, and Sam and Al followed him and 
 picked out the tuneful bits from the works of the mas- 
 
 [ 150 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ters. These tasteful bits they wove into ragtime hits. 
 And their music became the music of America, and its 
 leading motive was always the throbbing African 
 rhythm. Davie said their music appealed because it 
 had the beat-time of the living body’s blood. 
 
 We found that Lavelle’s receipts swelled as we 
 attracted the respectable citizens, who spent as lavishly 
 as they were proportionately shocked. They wanted 
 to see the life and excitement that they imagined was a 
 continuous phantasmagoria of depravity, license and 
 murder. So I decided to treat them to an occasional 
 picturesque murder. I staged the scene near the piano. 
 Billie and Ivan, completely disguised by queer cos- 
 tumes and make-up, had just finished the Wriggle to a 
 tumult of applause. It was sensual and fleshly enough 
 to satisfy the cravings of the most respectable curi- 
 osity. They seated themselves at a table that I had 
 pushed out on the dance floor. Dago Jack, dressed in 
 clothes that would gratify the sightseers’ notion of 
 what a cutthroat should wear, staggered across the 
 floor. Billie, on seeing him approach, rose and 
 
 screamed. ... In the meantime my bouncers stood at 
 the doors to keep timid people from running out in a 
 panic... .. Dago Jack was instructed to speak lines 
 
 that would keep the character true to the popular idea 
 of a tough guy. ‘‘Cull,’’ hissed Jack, ‘‘when I sez lays 
 off me moll, I means lays off, lays off, see.’ ... Ivan 
 jumped up dramatically and drew a dirk from his shirt. 
 The dirk had a bright colored handle that flashed in 
 the gaslight. Dago Jack snarled and with a swift shift 
 of his arm flung out a long-bladed stiletto which he 
 caught high in the air. ... Ivan backed out on the 
 dance floor with Jack following. They slowly circled 
 [151] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 around each other, while the surprised onlookers 
 watched with bated breath. Dago Jack made a cat-like 
 leap and a desperate lunge, barely missing Ivan. Billie 
 screamed. Men gasped, and a number of girls 
 shrieked. ... Now Jack has Ivan on the run. Billie 
 is on her knees imploring Jack. Jack makes another 
 drive with the stiletto and everyone sees the blade 
 slowly sink into Ivan’s back. Ivan stumbles, raises 
 agonized hands, totters towards Billie and falls face- 
 forward across the table, sending glasses splintering 
 to the floor, and to everyone’s horror the stiletto re- 
 mains sticking in Ivan’s back. Jack surveys his pros- 
 trate victim with a sneer on his face, stoops and picks 
 up a derby hat from the floor and hangs it on the handle 
 protruding from the dead man’s back. Jack pulls his 
 cap over his eyes and starts strutting across the floor. 
 Near the door he calls out, ‘‘Stay where youse are, 
 youse guzzlers and lobbygows, youse lousy tripe, don’t 
 move. Youse seen what happened to dat spieler, well, 
 culls, look out dat don’t happen to youse.’? And he 
 darted out. Buzzes of conversation, craning necks, 
 frightened glances. The band starts a rollicking Wrig- 
 gle. Two bouncers swiftly cross the floor, carelessly 
 lift up the supposedly dead Ivan and carry him off. 
 And the dancing starts as though nothing had hap- 
 pened, and soon Ivan returns minus his exaggerated 
 make-up and no one knows him for the recently assas- 
 sinated dancer. Billie also returns without her crazy 
 clothes and wild make-up and the nice tragedy is kept 
 intact in the minds of the thrill seekers. 
 
 Then I hired three Chinamen with particularly yel- 
 low and malevolent faces to sit at a table smoking very 
 fancy opium pipes. I instructed them to glower at the 
 
 [ 152 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 passing girls, who ordinarily would not be frightened 
 by a thousand Chinamen, but, at my hint, they shrink 
 back and ery out in alarm. 
 
 There was a little bit of a girl called Millie the Stray. 
 She had the frame and height of a twelve-year-old girl 
 and a thin face with deep-set eyes that helped along 
 the picture of girlishness. Millie joined our little play 
 with gusto. As she passed the Chinamen’s table, one 
 of them leaped up and placed his taloned fingers 
 around her neck. She drew back, of course to the cen- 
 ter of the dance floor so that the slummers would miss 
 nothing, and apparently the Chinaman was choking to 
 death a little girl of twelve. It was a good sadistic 
 picture. Finally the Chinaman dropped Millie to the 
 floor, where she lay in a convulsed heap. She cried out, 
 ‘‘Don’t kill me, Ly Chee, don’t kill me. I'll bring you 
 all the money next time.’’ Ly Chee was an intelligent 
 fellow and could speak a pretty fair English but for 
 this occasion he spoke pidgin English. ‘‘Me killee 
 lou, me killee lou, bling allee timee allee money, no 
 floget, me killee lou.’? 
 
 I staged police raids, fights between two girls over 
 a man, a hold-up and other divertisements for the 
 gullible. 
 
 Hymie is happy. He sees a clear way through medi- 
 cal college. Meantime, Lavelle’s is a clinic to him. He 
 tries to win the confidence of the girls and learn the 
 causes of their downfall. He listened to many romantic 
 stories. He said only one girl had told him the truth, 
 and she was Billie. She ascribed her downfall to curi- 
 osity. He then began making notes of the girls’ state- 
 ments, the general trend of their talk, their tastes and 
 manners, and then came to the conclusion that the 
 
 [ 153 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 greater part of the girls came from respectable middle 
 class homes. He said he was trying to arrive at their 
 psychological index number. It was as a result of his 
 inquiries in Lavelle’s, coupled with his years of experi- 
 ence in gynecological clinics, that he arrived at his 
 finding that passionate women do not become prosti- 
 tutes. He said that the ecstatic, vibrant quality of a 
 passionate woman’s love life is so holy to her that she 
 cannot give herself promiscuously. It is the woman, 
 he reasoned, to whom the physical relationship is not 
 beautiful and glorious, who finds it easy to give her 
 body freely. 
 
 154} 
 
Vil 
 
 It was long past noon. I slept heavily after a busy 
 night in Lavelle’s. Through my sleep swam the figure 
 of Hsther, always above me, always eluding me. I 
 woke slowly to a heavy pounding on the door. The 
 pounding kept up. Mother was out, and I got up and 
 opened the door. Dopie Ikie was there with a message 
 that a couple of guys wanted to see me down in the 
 Talkers’ Café. I dressed and started down the stairs. 
 Half way down I collided with Lillie the Teaser. I for- 
 got all about the message that had been brought me 
 and grabbed Lillie in my arms. She asked what I was 
 doing, but I noticed she made no effort to free herself. 
 1 kissed her many times and then she whispered, 
 “*Meyer, people will see us here.”? . . . I took her hand 
 and led her up the stairs, and when we came to my door 
 she asked, ‘‘Where are you taking me?’’... Lillie 
 was ambitious to go on the stage. She had heard I was 
 manager of Lavelle’s and that we were making a big 
 success. So I told her I wanted to talk with her about 
 going on the stage. She went into the house with me. 
 I locked the door and she said nothing. She stood 
 trembling near the table. I looked at her golden love- 
 liness and my brain seemed to swim. One thought 
 came into my mind. I remembered Hymie’s phrase. 
 IT had put my finger on Lillie’s psychological index 
 number. Her eyes were dilated and her breast moved 
 rapidly. The egotist was always supreme in me and 
 I cried out, ‘‘Lillie, do you love me??? . .. Her words 
 
 [ 155 J | 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 came out in little gasps: ‘‘Meyer—Meyer, do you love 
 Me ss 
 
 We sat on the couch. Lillie’s nervous fingers were 
 trying to put up her jumbled hair. Tears ran down her 
 flaming face and her body shook. She turned her head 
 away fromme. A knock on the door. Lillie shuddered 
 and I shot my hand out, covering her mouth. I called 
 out, ‘‘Who is it?”’... ‘It’s me, Dopie. Didn’t I tell 
 you a couple of guys is waitin’ for you?’”’... ‘‘All 
 right. Tell them I’ll be right down.’’ 
 
 [156] 
 
Vill 
 
 The Talkers’ Café is on Division Street, facing our 
 little square. It is a tea house, a rendezvous for the 
 freethinkers of the Ghetto. Avrum, Davie and Hymie 
 are seated at a table near the window. I sit down and 
 look out on the cobbled square, aswarm with half-naked 
 children playing in the hot July sun. Hymie is looking 
 through a big text-book and Davie is writing on the 
 back of a soiled menu card. Avrum regards Davie 
 with anxious eyes. The place is full of talking, gesticu- 
 lating men. A poster on the wall announces a Yom 
 Kippur (Day of Atonement) picnic to be given by the 
 Truth and Light Bund. It is a gesture of contempt 
 and defiance. The young Jews wish to show the extent 
 of their emancipation by feasting and revelling on the 
 orthodox Jews’ holiest fast day. I remember that 
 Avrum is against the freethinkers holding the picnic. 
 He is a pacifist. He thinks no good is done by antago- 
 nizing people; that we should reason patiently with 
 the unenlightened. 
 
 Avrum sent for me. He has not wanted to leave 
 Davie alone. He tells me Davie has decided to marry 
 Billie. Avrum thinks Davie’s act is prompted by his 
 desire to atone to Billie for the wrong man in general 
 has done to her. Avrum thinks no good will be done 
 to Billie by sinking Davie’s life and career with hers. 
 Avrum says Davie has the sacrifice mania. . . . Hymie 
 looks up. It is the sort of analysis that tickles him. 
 Davie smiles shyly at Avrum. ... ‘The Christ 
 mania.’’ . . . He starts to tear the menu in small 
 
 [157 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 pieces. . . . ‘‘No,’? Davie continues, ‘‘I am not so 
 noble. . . . I think you will notice that people love 
 in two ways. One kind loves the person he needs for 
 his happiness, the other kind loves the person who 
 needs him. First I was drawn to Billie because she 
 needed me. I suppose it is a compliment hard to re- 
 sist. . . . Now it has become so that I need Billie. She 
 is beautiful. She is an artist. She has a good mind. 
 { tell you it matters nothing to me what she has 
 been.”’?... I start to speak, ‘‘She is not normal. The 
 normal, every-day existence will not hold her. She is 
 intense. She will take you >... Avrum holds up 
 his hand. He says, ‘‘There is nothing more to say. 
 I feel now that Davie loves her. It may not be as you 
 think, Meyer.’’ He smiles, apologetically, and says, 
 ‘‘Meyer, you know you are something of a hard realist: 
 you have a one way mind.’”?... I remark casually, 
 ‘‘All right, have it your way, it’s none of my 
 funeral.’’ ... Across the street I see Esther turning 
 into Ludlow Street. . . . Esther has lost Davie. I am 
 glad of that, the egotist in me rejoices. And now you 
 have lost me, Esther, I tell myself; but I am not quite 
 so sure that Lillie can make me forget Esther. Gretel 
 could not do it... . And there is Lillie talking with 
 Esther at the corner. She is smiling and gay. ...I 
 thought Lillie would be hiding somewhere, crying her 
 heart out. . . . I had forgotten Lillie was a good 
 actress . . . and I think, maybe, she is happy be- 
 cause she loves me. That is a pleasing thought. . . . 
 On my way down to Lavelle’s that evening I found 
 Lillie at the corner, waiting for me. Esther is on the 
 stoop, and I try not to think of her. Gretel looks after 
 me out of the window. I have just left her. I think to 
 [ 158 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 myself, Gretel is just like a wife. No matter what I do, 
 I come back to her. She seems to round out the day 
 for me. I realized years later that between Gretel and 
 me there was a happy physical affinity. 
 
 I suggest a matinée, next Saturday afternoon; Lillie 
 agrees with a nod and I tell her where to meet me. . . 
 I took her to a burlesque show and then to a furnished 
 room house. . . . Lillie is just good to look at, but one 
 cannot everlastingly look at a face. She is dull, pas- 
 sionless, complaisant. ... So, afew years later, when 
 Sam fell in love with Lillie, I advised her to marry him. 
 She was not in the least offended by my suggestion. In 
 time she became engaged to Sam and married him. I 
 think she was torpidly true to her husband and was 
 likely to stay so unless a forceful person came along 
 and annoyed her into changing her mind. 
 
 [159] 
 
IX 
 
 O’Brien’s piano is like a waterfall in a cavern that 
 takes the colors and reflections of the advancing day’s 
 humors and melts into a living murmur of night. Har- 
 monies ripple from his fingers, changeful scores from 
 the world’s masterpieces, which Al and Sam heed with 
 the rapture of treasure hunters. Sam shouts in glee 
 that he can twist a blareful, stirring Wagnerian fugue 
 into nigger jazbo stuff. Al tells him, ‘‘ Well, kid, jazz 
 her up.’’ It was the beginning of their use of the word 
 ‘¢jazz.’’? Whenever they appropriated a melody or 
 strain they simply jazzed it up into one of their synco- 
 pated hodgepodges. 
 
 Now Billie, whimpering, runs like a frightened crea- 
 ture from Davie to O’Brien. She is as one who has 
 wandered in dark places and suddenly comes upon a 
 brilliant sunrise. And she whimpers, ‘‘He wants to 
 marry me.’’ Orloff’s cloudy face turns ashen. His 
 eyes blink in the glorious light. O’Brien turns his 
 head. But Al and Sam are lost in the meshes of the 
 colorful embroiderings of their musical tapestry. 
 
 ‘‘He wants to marry me.’’ Billie weeps on 
 O’Brien’s shoulder. . . . ‘‘Hey, girlie,’’ cries Al, 
 ‘‘you’re making a bum outta the rehearsal.’’ ... 
 Soon the rehearsal starts again, but first there is 
 Davie’s idea of a wedding. He takes Billie’s hand, 
 saying, ‘‘Before the world I take you as my wife, 
 my mate. Do you take me as your husband, your 
 mate?’’ ... And in this wise Billie and Davie were 
 married. 
 
 [ 160 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 A barfly stumbles among the tables, lighting up the 
 place. Orloff fingers a slim-bodied glass that had held 
 Billie’s last absinthe potion. He muses with Russ 
 retrospection: a woman becomes desired by many as 
 soon as one man wants to marry her.... Now he 
 understands why Billie would have nothing to do with 
 him. ... He speaks of himself as a playboy of the 
 world’s pleasure marts. . . . Like most educated Rus- 
 sians, his keenest interest in life is analyzing emotions. 
 He observes with a mixture of contempt and amuse- 
 ment that there is none so faithful and straitlaced as 
 a courtesan when she finds respectable love. She is 
 beyond the temptation of mere flesh. Fed-up people 
 find it easy to forswear fleshpots. The simple fare of 
 virtue has an exotic flavor. Tired out roués become 
 home-loving husbands. The sex problem begins after 
 marriage for the man who has been chaste. Marriage 
 awakens his sex life. After marriage his eyes and 
 thoughts follow attractive women. If you don’t sow 
 your wild oats before marriage, you are likely to sow 
 them after. So he thinks Billie’s heartaches will be 
 many. Davie is too good-looking, and Billie will be tor- 
 tured with jealousy. People always judge others to be 
 at least as bad as they themselves are. Ask any prosti- 
 tute. She will tell you that there isn’t a single virtuous 
 woman in the whole world. She knows—her self is the 
 gauge. ... Inshort, Orloff reasons Billie would have 
 been better off with him. Orloff is right. The trouble 
 with the world is that people can’t get away from 
 justifying themselves. 
 
 The summer is drawing to a close. I have seen little 
 of Hsther. Harry Wotin interested her in a milk 
 station for sickly babies, where she works as an inter- 
 
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HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 preter and assistant to the doctors. The milk station 
 was Harry’s idea. Barney Finn got his spinster aunt 
 to finance the place. Esther, Barney and Harry are as 
 happy as only people can be who think they are succor- 
 ing a dying world. 
 
 One day I persuaded Esther to take a day off. We 
 made a gala holiday of it on the beach of Coney Island. 
 I showed off like a schoolboy, displaying all the aquatic 
 tricks I had learned as an East River wharf rat, and 
 Esther, who timidly lingered in the surf, was impressed 
 with my strength and daring. Most of the day we 
 frolicked in the water. The only chance we had to talk 
 was when we lunched on the sand under the boardwalk. 
 She spoke of Davie. It came like a black cloud to 
 darken the day.... ‘‘Is he happy? Has he kept on 
 with his poetry? He must have loved her with a rare 
 love to have taken her.’’? . . . I said I did not want to 
 talk of anyone but Esther. And she answered, ‘‘ Then 
 there is nothing to talk about.” ... I began to 
 sulk.... ‘Meyer, please let us be good friends. I 
 don’t want any lovemaking. I don’t want anything to 
 take my mind off what I have set out to do.’?. . . Thad 
 it. Esther was heartbroken over Davie, and she was 
 looking for forgetfulness and consolation in giving her 
 life to the children of the East Side. Esther looked out 
 on the water, and my spirits sank as I saw the calm 
 repose of her face and her eyes alight with joy at the 
 beauty of the sky and sea. And she was more baffling 
 than ever to me... 
 
 Late that afternoon we returned to Ludlow Street. 
 To my great surprise I found Billie sitting on my 
 stoop. Her face was convulsed with held-back tears. 
 Her eyes were wild with fear and she spoke in a hollow 
 
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HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 voice. ‘‘Meyer, they took him away in an ambulance.”? 
 Esther ’s face blanched and she cried out, ‘‘Oh, Davie— 
 what happened to him?’’... The two girls stood 
 looking at each other. I sent a little boy running to 
 fetch Avrum. ... Billie turned her back to Esther. 
 
 ‘‘We were sleeping this morning, me cuddled up like 
 a baby under his arm. And Davie started to toss, and 
 I heard his breath puff in little gasps, and his hands 
 began pulling at me like he was trying to save himself 
 from going under. When I sat up I saw blood bubbling 
 from his mouth, running down his white neck like 
 burns. AndI screamed. People came, andacop. He 
 rung for an ambulance and the doc said he was in a 
 bad way, and they took him away over the river to that 
 pest house on Blackwell’s Island, the place they call 
 City Hospital. I went there and they wouldn’t let me 
 near him; said visiting days was only twice a week; 
 nearest one is two days off. All they would tell me, 
 he’s very sick. The con and something else. The 
 something else—they wouldn’t tell me what that was. 
 What am I gonna do? Meyer, what am I gonna do? 
 I got to see him. I just got to see him.”? 
 
 Her face softened under the flood of tears. ‘‘I guess 
 I got to let his mother know. I guess it’s only right I 
 should.”? ... Esther spoke to her quietly, ‘‘Please 
 don’t tell his mother. Wait until we know something 
 more. Maybe then we will have better news.” 
 
 ‘“‘You’re Hsther, ain’t you? You’re the girl he 
 thinks so much of.’’ 
 
 Avrum came. He shook hands with Billie, and 
 stroked her arm. ‘‘Hold fast,’’ he said, ‘‘it might not 
 be so bad as you think. We will do everything, every- 
 thing for Davie. Everybody loves Davie.’? Billie 
 
 [ 163 j 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 smiled and looked around, saying, ‘‘Everybody. Guess 
 that’s right. There’s nothing else to do but love him. 
 There’s no harm or hate or bad in him. He feels for 
 everything and everyone. I guess that’s why he could 
 take up with me.’’ 
 
 Avrum and I took Billie to see Lavelle, who brought 
 us to see Big Jim Hallorhan, the political boss of the 
 lower end of Manhattan. Hallorhan owned the build- 
 ing which housed Lavelle’s dance hall, and Hallorhan’s 
 ownership put Lavelle’s place beyond police interfer- 
 ence. Hallorhan towered over us. He had a pink, 
 fleshy round face supported by a bull neck that rested 
 on bulging shoulders. He heard Billie’s story. He 
 rang for a bartender. Hallorhan’s office was in the 
 back room of a Bowery saloon. The bartender brought 
 paper and pencil. Hallorhan with a big, clumsy hand 
 wrote, ‘‘Dinty Shea shake hands with bearer Meyer 
 Hirsch a regular fellow he’s one of the boys Jim Hal- 
 lorhan.’’ Hallorhan told me to take the note over to 
 the City Hospital and see Dinty Shea. ‘‘He’ll fix 
 you up.’’ 
 
 Hallorhan’s note worked wonders. Dinty Shea said 
 Davie would be put in a private room with a special 
 nurse and have the best of everything. Billie begged 
 to be allowed to stay with him. Dinty said, ‘‘I’ll do 
 anythin’ for Big Jim.’’ Then we were taken up to see 
 Davie. He was lying in a long ward congested with 
 beds, where all the sick men and boys seemed to be 
 complaining and groaning at one time. A nurse put a 
 screen around his bed and the three of us sat down and 
 looked at Davie, sunk in a heavy, perspiring slumber. 
 Billie whispered, ‘‘Look at my boy, laying there all 
 give out like a baby. Look at his golden curls laying 
 
 [ 164 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 on his head like they was tired out, too.’’ His face 
 had the color of refined wax with just a tinge of yellow. 
 His eyes opened and he lay there looking at the ceiling 
 without seeing us. Then Billie sobbed. Davie was too 
 spent to move. He called out in a whisper, ‘‘Don’t 
 ery, Billie, I’m all right.’’ And Billie laid her wet 
 cheek on his hand. Avrum stood up, smiling in Davie’s 
 face. ‘‘See, Billie,’’ said Davie, ‘‘there’s Avrum, like 
 aray of sunshine. Tell her, Avrum, people get sick 
 and people get well.’’ 
 
 We waited while Davie was being transferred to a 
 private room. The doctor, a young interne, trying to 
 be as matter-of-fact as possible, told us that Davie was 
 suffering from a bad case of pulmonary tuberculosis, 
 to say nothing of some other serious complication. He 
 said, ‘‘There’s no use filling you with false hope. 
 He can’t last long.’’ 
 
 Billie moaned, ‘‘I done for him. I done for 
 him.’’ . . . She paced up and down the corridor. . . . 
 ‘*Say—God—God—what did you want to do it for! 
 I thought you sent me Davie to make me go straight 
 and clean. No, you sent him to punish me. You saved 
 up all the dirt to give the first clean man I met, the 
 first man I loved, the first man who loved me.’’... 
 She leaned against the wall. ‘‘I know why you done it, 
 God. You wanted to get even with me for what I done 
 to my mother. Now, God, I’m punished enough. Let 
 my Davie get better, give him back, I pray God, give 
 me back my Davie. Without him I’ll be a drifter 
 again.’’ 
 
 Davie did not get better. Even an interne may be 
 right. Kverybody knew Davie was dying except Billie. 
 In her extreme grief she turned to prayer. The burden 
 
 : [ 165 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 of her prayer was, ‘‘Let up, God, don’t you see I am 
 punished enough.’? But Davie had another hemor- 
 rhage. So the time came that his mother had to be 
 told. Mrs. Solomon had begun asking anxiously after 
 him. He had not come to spend the last Sabbath day 
 with her. It was the one day of the week he gave to his 
 mother after his marriage. I brought her to the hos- 
 pital, making it easier for her to bear by saying his 
 illness was inevitable. Davie’s father had died of the 
 shop sickness, and I convinced her that consumption 
 was the one inheritance the father had left the 
 son. She did not so much as look at Billie. When 
 the neighbors heard that Davie had married a Gentile 
 they urged the mother to disown her son, and never 
 see him again. But in her eyes her son could do 
 no wrong and she stopped all discussion about his 
 marriage. ... ‘‘Mamma,’’ said Davie, ‘‘here is my 
 wife, Billie.”? . .. Mrs. Solomon looked at him, dis- 
 traught and constricted. . . . ‘‘She don’t want to 
 know the likes of me,’’ said Billie. ... And all the 
 mother could do was to stand alongside of the bed and 
 look and look and look at her baby who was fading 
 away under her eyes.... Esther and Avrum came. 
 We were all silent and solemn. Only the object of our 
 commiseration was smiling and cheerful. Little pink 
 spots burned under his eyes, which were steadily 
 glassy. He seemed to sense in our silence, not so much 
 distress over his condition, as a unanimous censure 
 upon Billie for his condition. ... ‘‘Billie,’’ said he, 
 ‘‘come sit on the bed so that my head may rest upon 
 your breast. I want you close to me, so that when I go 
 I shall feel that I am passing into your wondrous heart. 
 Billie, I bequeath—to you a memory . . . and this is 
 [ 166 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the memory: I love you, believe in you . . . you gave 
 me fulfillment and happiness. .. . Do many men die 
 happy in the fulfillment of their belief? . . . Friends, 
 I leave you a heritage—believe in the soul in people— 
 the soul is incorruptible. If I could tell you the fulfill- 
 ment my well-beloved showed me. . . . If I could 
 
 tell. .. . Inexpression: stillborn ... yet racked with 
 the aches of creation .. . tortured thoughts .. . tor- 
 tured ... in travail for expression . . . feeling, feel- 
 ing, fine and fierce . . . immured in the sealed sepul- 
 chre of inexpression.’? .. . And so Davie died with a 
 
 poem on his lips. 
 
 Davie’s death stirred anew the scandal of his mar- 
 riage to a schicksie (Gentile girl). Mrs. Solomon went 
 to the shammos to arrange for his interment in the 
 synagogue’s burial ground. Mendel Gerditsky bal- 
 anced himself on his good limb and told her that 
 Davie’s marriage had excommunicated him, and there- 
 fore he could not be placed in the congregation’s con- 
 secrated burial plot. His presence would defile the 
 sanctity of the place. However, he would call a meet- 
 ing of the trustees to consider the matter. The refusal 
 to bury Davie in the Grodno Cemetery brought all the 
 members to the trustee’s meeting. The synagogue was 
 crowded. Rov Zucker sat up front to the right of the 
 Torah cabinet. The gabbe, Jake Weingrad, recently 
 elected because of his generous contributions of a new 
 Torah and a new coat of paint for the benches, stood 
 by the prayer stand in front of the Torah cabinet and 
 presided over the buzzing meeting. In Jake Wein- 
 grad’s opinion the matter was a simple one. Davie 
 could not be buried in holy ground. He would disturb 
 the peace of the dead. The matter seemed settled. 
 
 [ 167 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Rov Zucker stroked his beard, and turned the pages of 
 alarge volume. Trustee after trustee, glad of a chance 
 to make a fervent speech, denounced Davie and his 
 terrible sin. Mrs. Solomon pulled her shawl tight 
 around her shoulders, left the woman’s compartment 
 and mounted the central service platform. She spoke, 
 and the congregation was shocked into silence by the 
 temerity of a woman intruding in the men’s part of 
 the synagogue. ‘‘Here is my spot,’’ she said, ‘‘here 
 I will remain until death overtakes me, until my son 
 is laid to rest by his father’s side among his own 
 people.’’?... At this point I nudged Maxie Freund 
 to raise the technical questions that he and I decided 
 upon in order to confuse gabbe Weingrad. He strode 
 down the aisle and addressed the gabbe. ‘‘Who says 
 the deceased is married to a Gentile! Who can prove 
 it? You are condemning his soul to eternal wandering 
 by refusing to inter him in hallowed ground. What 
 proof is there of his marriage? Who can show one 
 tittle of evidence that the deceased was married to any 
 woman in a constituted tribunal, church or syna- 
 gogue?’’ Rov Zucker shook his head, commendingly. 
 Maxie continued, ‘‘It is therefore that I suggest that 
 you call upon a student of our own laws, who at the 
 same time is a student of the American law, to tell us 
 what evidence, if any, there is of a marriage. Let Mr. 
 Meyer Hirsch tell of the painstaking inquiry he has 
 made of this unfortunate affair.’’ ... Maxie deliy- 
 ered the speech we had cooked up together, in his quiet 
 yet compelling style. I got upon the service platform 
 and asked permission of my elders to present the 
 known facts of the case. I decided upon a formula of 
 repetition. I knew that an oft-repeated statement 
 [ 168 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 gathers strength and intimidates. I demanded, ‘‘Who 
 among you can say of his own knowledge that the 
 deceased was married? No one. Who will dare to 
 fasten a wife, a forbidden alliance, upon the poor boy 
 now silenced until judgment day? No one. Nobody 
 knows of his own knowledge that Davie Solomon was 
 married. Are we women in the market place that we 
 heed every rumor? No, we are men concerned with 
 actualities and facts. Davie Solomon is not married. 
 Who can produce the wife? Noone. There is no wife. 
 He is not married, no woman can claim him according 
 to the law of this land and least of all according to the 
 law of Israel. I have seen the deceased every day for 
 the past ten years, every day I have seen him, and I can 
 say that he is unmarried according to all legal under- 
 standing. He is not married! And no one can prove 
 the contrary! He is not married!’’ 
 
 Many heads were shaken from side to side in sur- 
 prise at my eloquence. They recalled my confirmation 
 harangue. Whispers flew about, started by Maxie, that 
 I was a remarkable lawyer in the making. 
 
 Gabbe Weingrad was nonplussed. He appealed to 
 the Rabbi for an opinion. 
 
 Rov Zucker spoke thus: ‘‘I have heard many grown 
 men say, do not bury the dead young man, he is married 
 to a schicksie. Yet not one of these grown men have 
 told us how they know that the young man was mar- 
 ried. I have heard a youth declare he is unmarried. 
 Can anyone contradict him, contradict him with 
 proof?’’ 
 
 The trustees decided to bury Davie. In the mean- 
 time Avrum had told the hospital authorities that 
 Davie had requested him to leave his body in the hos- 
 
 [ 169 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 pital to be dissected by medical students. But Mendel 
 Gerditsky, the redoubtable beadle, raised a great storm 
 in the office of the hospital and Davie’s remains, 
 slightly hacked here and there, were turned over 
 to him. 
 
 The funeral was interesting. The dispute over 
 his burial brought throngs of curious. The Ludlow 
 Streeters turned out in a body in honor of their pal. 
 They had considered him a pal ever since he made a 
 hit in the toughest joint in the city. The Essex Street 
 Guerrillas came in six carriages which Shimshin had 
 blackmailed a local livery stableman into providing. 
 O’Brien was led in by his Chinese wife to peer at 
 Davie’s face with his dim eyes. Frenchie Lavelle, 
 inopportunely, came with a wreath, which I hid under 
 the stairs. Bartenders, burglars, pimps, Davie’s City 
 College and school teachers and many others who had 
 known the strange boy and loved him, squeezed into 
 the small flat to look upon him for the last time. Soon 
 Ludlow Street became an immovable mass. As the 
 crowd grew, everybody for blocks around came to see 
 what brought such a gathering. And it was with great 
 difficulty that the funeral procession started for the 
 Grand Street ferry en route to the cemetery in 
 Brooklyn. But, in all that great conclave, Billie could 
 not be found. And Davie was buried with all the cere- 
 mony he despised, and, with his passing, his bride of 
 fulfillment disappeared as though she, too, were swal- 
 lowed up by the earth. 
 
 [1704 
 
x 
 
 “Aren't you going to schule (synagogue) ?’’ mother 
 asked. She has just finished lighting and blessing the 
 candles. A yahrzeit (death anniversary) candle lamp 
 burned on the shelf over the stove in father’s memory. 
 It was the eve of sacred Yom Kippur. 
 
 T hardly heard her question, so engrossed was I ina 
 book on criminal law. The door opened and Maxie 
 Freund pussyfooted into the kitchen. He had just 
 passed his Regents’ examination with great ease— 
 after paying one of the examiners twenty-five dollars, 
 thereby sparing himself another year’s preparation. 
 Big Jim Hallorhan put me next to the examiner, and 
 I arranged the easing detail for Maxie. 
 
 Maxie greeted Uncle Philip, who was lying stretched 
 out upon the couch, smoking a pipe. Philip now used 
 a pipe because it was more economical than cigarettes. 
 It seems the more money he made, the more frugal he 
 became. ... ‘‘Good evening, Herr Capitalist, may 
 your fast be a light one.’?... ‘‘May your fasts be 
 many and heavy,’’ responded Philip. Maxie wished 
 mother a good year and a light fast, and then saluted 
 me with ‘‘Good evening, Judge.’’... Philip puffed 
 stentoriously, blowing little clouds of smoke over his 
 head. Mother remonstrated with him: ‘‘Philip, what 
 will the neighbors think and say to see you smoking on 
 Yom Kippur?’’ To which Philip replied, ‘‘Let them 
 shut their eyes, the scared jackasses.’’ 
 
 Mother again pleads, ‘‘Meyer, please go to schule. 
 It is Yom Kippur. Every Jew, no matter what an 
 Epikaros (Epicurean) he may be the rest of the year, 
 
 FA74)] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 goes to schule one day—on Yom Kippur. Please, if 
 only for my sake, go to schule.”?... I tell mother 
 that I plan to spend the holy day in study, as law school 
 opens the following week. Whereupon Maxie inter- 
 poses in the singsong of the Talmudist, ‘‘On the other 
 hand, your honor, I think attendance at the synagogue 
 may be properly classified as part of your preparation 
 for lawyership.’? . . . ‘‘How do you make that out?”’ 
 inquires Philip, who credits Maxie with sharp wits. 
 And Maxie reasons in this wise: ‘‘To begin with it 
 keeps him before the eyes of a lot of people. It stamps 
 him a solid, respectable member of the community. It 
 gives him a chance to impress a number of people. 
 Kiverybody needs a lawyer some time, and the man 
 before their eyes is the most likely one theyll think of 
 when that time comes.’’ So Philip says, ‘‘Get off to 
 schule, Meyer. Hereafter be a regular attendant, 
 mind. Maxie is right. Strut before them. They ll 
 take you to be the man you say you are. Impress them. 
 Make yourself their lawyer, the only lawyer they ll 
 think of. Stick your oar into their congregational 
 affairs. Advertise yourself. Start off with giving them 
 free advice. They’ll pay well later on. Do things for 
 them. Get them used to having you do things for 
 them.’? ... After which I and Maxie became regular 
 schule-goers. 
 
 Yom Kippur morning I accompanied mother to 
 schule. I noticed a crowd in front of the Talkers’ Café. 
 The onlookers were highly scandalized and offended. 
 The Ghetto freeminded elements were publicly eating 
 on the most sacred of sacred fast days. The supersti- 
 tious expected to see the traducers stricken on the spot. 
 The tolerant deplored their bad taste. In the window a 
 
 [172] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 large poster invited the public to come to a Yom Kip- 
 pur picnic at North Beach. The Talkers’ Café was the 
 only restaurant open in the entire East Side. The news 
 of the open, defiant sacrilege spread, and, by noon- 
 time, when I left the schule for a breath of air, I found 
 a dense mob in front of the café. Indignation grew as 
 the hungry fasters beheld the impudent unbelievers 
 dine with ostentation. . . . Soon Boolkie and his lads 
 used the ready contents of overflowing garbage cans 
 with which to pelt the men and women who went in and 
 out of the café. The dodging and fleeing of the calumni- 
 ators amused the crowd. Boolkie, spurred by popular 
 approval, then hurled a cobblestone which smashed the 
 large plate-glass window. This was received with an 
 uproar of acclaim. Then began a shower of stones, 
 bricks and any missile that came to hand, and the café 
 became untenable. When the freethinkers rushed out 
 of the bombarded position the crowd pursued them 
 until they were dispersed in all directions. A few were 
 caught and severely drubbed and the café was com- 
 pletely wrecked. 
 
 By this time the exercise and excitement had made 
 the gangsters good and hungry. They could get noth- 
 ing to eat at home. They had just stoned men and 
 women who dared to eat openly on a holy fast day, © 
 and they themselves were now thinking of ways and 
 means of getting food. Everybody is agreed that con- 
 sistency is the height of cruelty. . . . Big Joe reported 
 that he had a line on a lot of good stuff. Mrs. Wein- 
 grad, he said, was in schule and her ice-box was 
 crammed full of ‘‘yum-yum, boys.’’ And he licked his 
 chops, making everybody’s mouth water as he de- 
 scribed each delectable, giving us to understand his 
 
 [ 173 } 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 representations were as per tasted sample. It was too 
 much for Boolkie. He hastened a detail of youngsters 
 to raid the ice-box and bring the stuff to a secluded 
 backyard in Canal Street. They returned forthwith 
 with a large roast duck, gefilte fisch, white holiday 
 bread, the light and toothsome challah, a variety of 
 fruit and a big honey cake. Everybody cried out, 
 ** “Yum-yum, boys,’ is right; Yum-yum.’’ So the cham- 
 pions of the fast observance made an excellent meal 
 from the Weingrads’ larder, fattened for an after-the- 
 fast-feast. 
 
 All of which reminded me that T was ravenously 
 hungry and there was nothing to be had at home. I met 
 Lillie and asked her if she were hungry. She just 
 laughed. Lillie never did anything. She was the kind 
 that was always made to do the thing. I told her to 
 slip up to the station of the Third Avenue elevated, 
 where I would wait for her. She just laughed, as much 
 as to imply, well, the sin is on you, you’re making 
 me do it. 
 
 We got off at Fourteenth Street, where there were 
 a number of Gentile restaurants. We could not get 
 into any one of them. They were packed with my 
 hungry co-religionists, and the waiters told me that 
 Yom Kippur was their busiest day of the year. We 
 had to walk up to Twenty-eighth Street before we 
 could find an eating place with a free table. How 
 we enjoyed the hearty meal! <A fast day always puts 
 an edge on an appetite. And Lillie just laughed when 
 I took her again to the furnished room house. ... I 
 hurried back to the Synagogue and was in time for the 
 solemn closing services. In all it was an interesting 
 day. 
 
 [ 174] 
 
XI 
 
 Came brisk October evenings with electioneering’s 
 carnival confusion. Brass bands; fireworks; red splut- 
 tering torches; bonfires; ringing bombasts; button- 
 holings; cigar-giving and whiskey swilling; monster 
 mass meetings; parades; streamers; picture buttons; 
 badges; gaudy and glittering banners snapping in the 
 wind; walls, windows, fences, ash cans and packing 
 eases plastered with posters screaming slogans and 
 promises and showing the heavily postured likenesses 
 of the candidates. And the wind swirls the torn and 
 discarded multi-colored campaign literature high in the 
 air like so much confetti. At the corners, crowds gather 
 to hear cart-tail orators. Their faces are like burnished 
 copper under the kerosene flare lamps. The speakers 
 blare as usual the annual ass-solo of balderdash and 
 buncombe, so sweet to the ears of jackasses. They 
 listen in the same open-mouthed, naively spellbound 
 way, clap their hands and cheer in the ready fashion 
 of the habitually gullible. 
 
 Maxie and I attended the political meetings to get 
 lessons in public speaking. The excitement was catch- 
 ing, and it seemed so easy to sway the multitude that 
 I just itched for a chance to try my powers over them. 
 Besides, Maxie said, the best way to learn public speak- 
 ing was to take the stump yourself. Then we consid- 
 ered what party would be best for us to join. . . . The 
 Jewish business men were disposed to vote Republican. 
 They felt after Cleveland’s disastrous free trade ad- 
 ministration that a Republican high tariff wall would 
 
 [175 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 keep out hard times. At this time, however, the bulk 
 of the Hast Side, politically, was negligible. Many 
 were not in the country long enough to become citizens. 
 Many who could qualify for citizenship could not spare 
 the time. It took several precious mornings to become 
 a citizen. By making these men citizens and control- 
 ling their votes, but a few years later, I was able to ask 
 the older bosses to reckon with me as a political some- 
 body. I got my idea from the Socialists, who were con- 
 stantly urging the workmen to become citizens and 
 make themselves felt in the parliamentary functioning 
 of their country. I went them one better. I arranged 
 for a quick and easy process in the courts to change 
 them from aliens to citizens, flattered the new citizens 
 into joining my club, did them trifling favors and paid 
 them a few dollars on election day. The secret of 
 political power and swinging local districts to success 
 is told in a few words. The average man under our 
 system of pull and favoritism believes that any day 
 he may need a favor, and it is for this possible favor he 
 puts his franchise in pawn. ... The Socialists had 
 put a ticket in the field and except for a great deal of 
 pre-election oratory confined to the Ghetto—elsewhere 
 they were beaten off—they were considered perma- 
 nently insignificant because their total vote on election 
 day was one of the jokes of the times. ... So Maxie 
 and I looked over the political prospect for personal 
 opportunity only. We were concerned with no other 
 issue but just what we could get out of it. It was mani- 
 fest to us that the lawyers who succeeded in court were 
 those with pull. And it was evident that Tammany 
 ruled the city, although the Republicans held national 
 sway. So we decided to become Democrats. We 
 [ 176 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 attached ourselves to Big Jim Hallorhan’s club. I 
 gave up singing in Lavelle’s, only giving a couple of 
 hours a night to getting things running. Al reorgan- 
 ized the quartet after Davie’s death and after Hymie 
 dropped out to take up studies at medical school. 
 
 I made my maiden speech in Big Jim’s clubrooms. 
 As the meeting was attended mostly by his Irish con- 
 stituents, I made it a fulsome piece of adulation of the 
 philanthropies of the Big Boss, the pee-pul’s one and 
 only friend. His eleemosynary works consisted of giv- 
 ing out a few dozen shoes in the winter, free Thanks- 
 giving baskets and a free picnic for women and 
 children in the summer. 
 
 Big Jim told me to tackle the East Side. He wanted 
 to put a crimp in the Republicans, and he was the only 
 man at that time who foresaw the growth of the Social- 
 ist vote among the Jews. He was also worried about 
 the Italians. He thought their warm blood would 
 respond to the Socialistic appeal. Big Jim was shrewd. 
 I organized a flying squadron of youthful spellbinders, 
 and we made a rousing campaign. Maxie instructed 
 the speakers to stress the few points that we made our 
 political stock in trade. We represented the Democrats 
 as the common people’s party, painted the Repub- 
 licans as the silk-stockinged bluebloods, and lied atro- 
 ciously about the Socialists. We fastened upon them 
 every crime of radicalism, called them freethinkers, 
 free lovers, enemies of God and the sanctity of the 
 family. We gave them an odor that they have been 
 unable to shake off to this day. We used rough-house 
 tactics in breaking up their meetings, and even rotten- 
 egeed Republican rallies. The hoodlums and the police 
 were with us. I recruited Boolkie and his gang, im- 
 
 Ra 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 pressing upon them that political pull afforded police 
 immunity. — 
 
 The day before election was ‘‘dough day,’’ the day 
 each district captain received a roll of money for ju- 
 dicious use on election day. The price of a vote in those 
 days was two dollars, and to a poor man, who saw no 
 farther than his instant belly needs, this was a lot of 
 money. When I saw the money circulating, I confided 
 to Big Jim that I had a gang of strong-arm men work- 
 ing for me and that they were ready for his orders. 
 Big Jim assigned his lieutenant, Red Mike Dooley, to 
 put the boys to work. Red Mike conferred with various 
 district captains and then handed me cards bearing the 
 names and addresses of voters and their districts. My 
 boys were to vote in the names of these citizens, who 
 were known Republicans and doubtful Democrats. 
 Red Mike accompanied the gang, pointed them out to 
 the election inspectors as the right guys and then the 
 boys entered the booths, voting straight and regular. 
 They were armed with clubs and blackjacks to over- 
 come such slight opposition as they might encounter. 
 The Ludlow Streeters spent an hilarious day dashing 
 about town in carriages, voting willy-nilly, stealing 
 ballot boxes with the connivance of policemen and sub- 
 stituting others in their place. I paid the boys ten 
 dollars and I pocketed one hundred dollars as fair 
 compensation for generalship. 
 
 Tammany, as usual, swept the city. There was a big 
 celebration on election night, and I led the Ludlow 
 Streeters and others in a local torchlight parade. We 
 carried brooms as a symbol of the clean sweep. The 
 parade stopped in front of Big Jim’s club. I instructed 
 Maxie to stay with the paraders and stimulate their 
 
 [ 178 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 cheering while [ went in to felicitate Big Jim. He wag 
 surrounded by a large gathering of drinking men, 
 and I noticed he was the only one who did not take a 
 drop. I shook hands with him. Our band was playing 
 ‘*A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,’’ and when it 
 stopped our fellows began to cheer under Maxie’s 
 leadership. Many cheers were given for Big Jim. 
 Then the name of Meyer Hirsch was cheered. ‘‘Who’s 
 the bunch outside?’’ asked Big Jim, cordially. ‘‘That’s 
 my club, Boss,’’ I told him. Then Red Mike told the 
 boss that my boys had done a good day’s work, and 
 Big Jim said he was glad to hear it, adding, ‘‘Come 
 around and see me if there’s any little thing I can do 
 for the boys.’’ 
 
 We then marched down to Lavelle’s, where we had 
 a riotous time. 
 
 Early in the morning I crept into bed. I was tired 
 but could not fall asleep. I spent hours picturing to 
 myself the honors, glories and profits that would 
 accrue to me from a political career. I saw now very 
 clearly how it was that in my city lowbrows ruled in 
 high places, and I saw myself with my brains and 
 astuteness reaching dizzy heights. ... 
 
 [1791 
 
Ne Galt 
 
 aia 
 
FIFTH PERIOD 
 
 Woe unto you lawyers also! for ye load 
 men with burdens grievous to be borne, and 
 ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one 
 of your fingers. 
 
 St. Luxe, 
 
FIFTH PERIOD 
 I 
 
 As I pass it seems as though the very tenements bow 
 in deference. The pushcart peddlers humbly tip their 
 hats. I am their protector and advisor. The gang 
 greets me as boss. Even Shimshin and his tough eggs 
 look up to me as their guardian saint. Business men 
 greet me, respectfully, as their accelerator in certain 
 affairs. Everywhere I meet respect and gratitude. 
 The bearded orthodox schule people praise my faithful 
 attendance and the way I serve the schule and the poor 
 without pay in legal matters. My policy is to put as 
 many people as I can under obligation to me. They 
 are the straw for the bricks of my political structure. 
 
 So we have come up in the world. I am a lawyer, 
 politician, champion of Jewry and member of a dozen 
 Jewish lodges, societies and charity organizations. I 
 became a Professional Jew in emulation of the success- 
 ful Irish politician whose principal capital is being a 
 Professional Irishman. ... By this time Philip feels 
 himself solidly on his feet as a manufacturer. No one 
 knows how much money he has made. At any rate, he 
 has the biggest sweatshop in the East Side. We live on 
 Canal Street in the upper part of a private house that 
 boasts running water, gas light, washtubs and a bath- 
 room. 
 
 I begin to be mindful of good repute. I don’t bother 
 with Lillie. Sam is courting her in earnest. But Lillie 
 doesn’t draw or hold me. It is easy to drop her. But 
 
 [ 183 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Gretel is so different, she seems to be my physical com- 
 plement. I cannot give her up. ... And I suggest to 
 mother that we get a servant girl. She says she likes 
 to keep busy, wouldn’t know what to do with herself 
 without housework, and there really was not much to 
 do. ... Philip knows what is back of my mind. He 
 insists that we get a servant girl. I tell mother that 
 Gretel, Weingrad’s maid of all work, is a good worker 
 and has agreed to work for us. Mother gives in, as 
 usual, afraid to oppose her brother. That evening 
 Gretel came, ostensibly to be our servant girl. 
 
 In the morning mother woke early as was her habit. 
 She went to Gretel’s little hallroom to call her. She 
 was not there. ... 
 
 Philip called to mother to serve breakfast. Gretel 
 watched mother, nervously, and then sat down at the 
 table. Then I followed, also giving everything a mat- 
 ter-of-fact, taken-for-granted air and joined them at 
 the table. Mother stood still by the stove looking at us 
 in bewilderment and anger. 
 
 Philip again demanded his breakfast. 
 
 Mother spoke in a dry voice. ‘‘What is this fy 
 
 Philip was impatient. He was always the business 
 first, business-as-usual man. He snapped: ‘‘Serve 
 breakfast and ask questions later.’’ 
 
 We ate in silence. Gretel looked abashed. She was 
 never bold. Mother finally burst out, ‘‘It’s a fine serv- 
 ant girl you have brought me. Where is she—the 
 servant girl? ... Is your mother the servant girl? 
 That’s it, I am a servant girl to a Me Ne iniée MAT Obes 
 blushing, slipped into her room. . . . Philip told mother 
 to be sensible, make the best of it. Philip lit one of my 
 cigars and left for his shop. 
 
 [ 184 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Mother came close and looked at me. Her face 
 showed that she believed I was outraging every de- 
 cency. She wept quietly and asked how I could offer 
 my own mother such an insult as to ask her to live 
 under the same roof with Gretel—and worse, expect 
 her to serve her. I told mother Gretel was not a bad 
 woman, and so she asked, ‘‘Then, if she is a good girl 
 it is your duty to marry her.’’... SoTI tried to ex- 
 plain to her that I had my career to think of, that some 
 day I would be able to command a large dowry and the 
 daughter of a fine family ... in the meantime... Il 
 am but a man, and this arrangement was better than 
 chasing around. ... I warned her to mind that to the 
 outside world Gretel was our servant girl and nothing 
 more. 
 
 Mother cried again. She ended up by saying, ‘‘It 
 cannot be that you are my child. You are so unfeel- 
 ing—you must be the goat’s child.’”? ... And during 
 many years that followed mother never spoke as much 
 as one word to Gretel ... not until her craving for 
 decency was gratified . . . but that should be told 
 later, in its place. 
 
 [ 185 ] 
 
II 
 
 There is a cloud that comes to darken my world. 
 Hsther hides the sun of my greatness. When I am with 
 her she makes me feel .. . extinguished . . . sort of 
 blotted out. She seems to live in a world wholly apart 
 from mine. She teaches school and directs girls’ clubs 
 in the little social settlement Barney Finn started 
 with his aunt’s money. She trains with the intelli- 
 gentsia ... the welt schmerz droop-eyed, the hollow- 
 cheeked idealists, the long-winded radicals and the 
 hands-raised-in-horror parlor and Pecksniffian reform- 
 ers... . Mine is a busy, pushing, pulling, scheming, 
 contriving life, but I cannot put Esther out of my mind. 
 She is the only defeat in my life . . . and just what I 
 want of her I do not know. When I am with her she 
 obscures my other world. My eyes are filled with her 
 loveliness. Her sentient charm takes me away from 
 Meyer Hirsch, ever present before my eyes in a Nar- 
 cissus reflection. I quail before her clear, broad under- 
 standing ... and to talk with her is a refreshing 
 relief from the humdrum rot of my daily doings. . 
 And yet I do not for a second think of marrying her. 
 I have come to know one thing. Ambition is my undy- 
 ing desire. Marriage must socially and financially 
 further my ambition. ... It is always just before I 
 fall asleep that Esther comes before me. ... I want 
 her love, her blind approval of everything Ido... v1 
 want to be her supreme being . . . but if Esther should 
 come suppliant, adoringly lost in me, then she would 
 not be the Esther that wrenches me from myself. ... 
 
 [ 186 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 I came to the little office in the settlement house. T 
 was determined to prove to myself that Esther did not 
 count. I was going to put her out of my mind, nothing 
 would mar the perfect picture I made of myself... . 
 Esther was alone. Her willowy form draped in a one- 
 pieced dark dress was silhouetted against the white- 
 washed wall. Her face had that luminous quality that 
 Davie described so long ago—like marble in the first 
 light of day. Her beautiful hands, I thought, moved 
 towards me as I came into the room. I looked at her 
 and knew that the beauty of Esther would ever lurk 
 in my being and never let me rest. . . . I meant to 
 say just a few passing words, wasn’t going to show 
 I cared or was interested ... but I stammered as I 
 lost myself in the shadows of her eyes... . I asked 
 her to come to the opera. Her face brightened with 
 pleasure. Her answer tinkled in my ears like the 
 silver bells Davie told about—little silver bells chim- 
 ing to the kisses of zephyrs. . . . ‘‘You know, Meyer, 
 I have never been to the opera ... you are making 
 a dream-wish come true.’’?... J had never been to 
 the opera but .. . it would be unlike me to make such 
 an admission. 
 
 ‘Then let us go tonight—tonight, Hsther.’’... 
 Stimulating is her quick assent, and gratifying. Per- 
 haps, after all, there is a little place in her heart for 
 Meyer Hirsch. ... Impulsively, I speak—surprised 
 on the instant at the surrender I was making,—‘‘ You 
 don’t know—you know, you feel, you must know—how 
 much I enjoy being with you. I can’t tell you why, 
 or what it is—it just is... I suppose it is love. 
 I love you, I love—’’ . . . Pulling at my sleeve is my 
 acquired extra sense, caution, become an apprehensive 
 
 [ 187 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 instinct against self-commitment under any circum- 
 stances. Now, there is a shouting in my consciousness: 
 hey there! don’t involve yourself! Career. Ambition. 
 Greatness. Honor. Wealth. High Places. Look out! 
 A dream-stupefied girl. Nowhere: that’s where you 
 will get with her. Nowhere. Nowhere. ... But I do 
 not heed the warning din. I shut my eyes to the con- 
 juring high places. ...I put out my hand. All that 
 I held precious—those jewels I had crystallized from 
 life—lay in my hand, held out to her. What if Esther 
 had taken it . . . would I now be writing a different 
 history of Meyer Hirsch? . . . Ignoring my appeal, dis- 
 dainful of what I had to proffer, she drew herself away. 
 Rather, she shut herself from me. I could hear the 
 snap and click of steel fastenings made against me. 
 And, as always, the more she resisted me, the more I 
 desired her. Denial, difficulties, defeat fired the lust 
 of conquest, the sheer call and lure of the hunt. 
 
 ‘*Do you know what they are going to sing tonight?”’ 
 she asked, pulling on her gloves with jerky tugs. Far 
 from calm was Esther. I caught at little clues for 
 comfort. Surely, she was disturbed. Had she not 
 put on her gloves before her coat and hat? She didn’t 
 look at me with her characteristic face-forwardness. 
 And her breath came quicker. As she reached near 
 me for her hat, I caught her arm, crying, ‘‘Esther, 
 Hsther, I wish they would sing a love song for me 
 that would reach your heart.’’... A smile lighted 
 up her face, and shaped her mouth for a kiss ... so 
 I thought ... and her eyes full opened right under 
 mine as though to let me see what was working in 
 her mind and heart ...as if she herself knew. 
 Does anyone ever know, know anything except the pull 
 
 [ 188 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 and response of blood? ... Swiftly, I bent down and 
 kissed her. Her lips seemed to melt in my mouth. 
 Like a boy, tasting love’s first kiss, passion’s first 
 thrill, I was quivering all over, fair to swoon. Startled, 
 overwhelmed but for a lightning-illumined moment, 
 Esther quickly recovered and moved towards the door. 
 I turned, expecting to find her gone, but there she was 
 framed in the panel-like doorway, a picture of a life- 
 time balancing on the threshold of fate. She had put 
 on her hat, a white soft beaver, and, when she uplifted 
 her head, it looked like a halo made of little white 
 flowers. Her face was soft and white and her lips, 
 moist, hurt and crushed-looking. But there were her 
 eyes, clear, unflinching, and, to me, like frozen pools 
 in the light of a wintry sky. ... I had touched the 
 body, and the body yielded, but the spirit, the spirit 
 was untouched. I saw it... the spirit could not 
 bear with me . . . the spirit which I chose to name— 
 puritanism. Anyway, I have something of Esther’s. 
 I tasted of her lips, a drop of wine squeezed from the 
 rarest passion fruit, so potent, one drop made my 
 senses reel. But, in my heart, I am sick of a vague 
 disappointment. ...I1 cannot let Esther go. It is 
 early. Later, troubled by a prudish reflex, she might 
 not want to meet the man who took the swift body- 
 surprising kiss. 
 
 I looked at my watch and said, ‘‘Esther, it is a 
 little after five. Come uptown with me and we'll find 
 a nice restaurant where we’ll have a leisurely dinner 
 before the opera. There’s a good deal I want to talk 
 about—’’ Quietly, amazed, perhaps, at her own doubt 
 as to what to do, she studied me, seeming to probe 
 her instincts for a searching light to throw upon me 
 
 [189 ] | 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 She took her little bag from the writing stand, looked 
 at me with a smiling, composed face and said, unemo- 
 tionally, ‘‘Come Meyer, let us go.’? Her eyes were 
 clear and unafraid. 
 
 As we tread our way through thronged Chrystie 
 Street, which is the narrow mouth to Second Avenue, 
 Hsther’s hand nestled on my arm and I was glad of 
 the chance to have her close to me. It was Esther who 
 suggested that we walk a winding way uptown in and 
 around the quaint and quiet streets of Stuyvesant, 
 Gramercy and Madison Squares where old New York 
 was making its last stand against the push and swarm 
 of business and immigration. She liked the reposeful 
 byways with their Georgian brick and brown stone 
 houses of subdued elegance, fitting grand manner and 
 soothing good taste. It is her favorite walk, and a 
 key to what she wants. 
 
 Coming upon the wide walks of the boulevard— 
 Second Avenue was our grand avenue of the prome- 
 nade—Listher took her hand away and strode beside 
 me in the independent, upstanding, free-swinging way 
 of hers. ‘‘Don’t take your chummy hand away,’’ I 
 pleaded. She replaced her hand with a comradely 
 taunt—‘‘Come along, little boy, are you afraid of 
 getting lost?’’ My exhilaration was that of a school- 
 boy on a lark, the exhilaration of camaraderie. For the 
 moment my head was clear of the passion-wine. I too, 
 skipped along, freed from the dead weight of flesh- 
 heavy desire. But, when the hand lying next to my 
 ribs began to warm, penetratingly, I tingled.... 
 Within I began to boil and rage and anathemize the 
 spirit, the sacred spirit that hides behind an ice bar- 
 rier and is adamant against my strongest flame. 
 
 [ 190 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 A cheery, familiarly nasal greeting roused me from 
 my mood of bitter chagrin. _ 
 
 ‘‘Hey there, where are you two rushing off tof 
 Wow, where’s the fire?’’ 
 
 I daresay our walk kept time with the charging 
 rush and torment of my thoughts. 
 
 We turned around and found we had been seen and 
 followed by Hymie Rubin and Harry Wotin, both doc- 
 tors now. With them was a tall good-looking young 
 man with a weather-tanned face. 
 
 **Give us a chance to say, ‘How do,’ won’t you??? 
 demanded Hymie, jocularly. ‘‘Haven’t seen you in 
 @ year and a Wednesday.’’... 
 
 “‘Meet Dr. Lionel Crane.’’ ... Where did he get 
 the bang-up snobbish name—doesn’t go with his face. 
 I mulled with distemper the cognomen—too smart- 
 sounding this Lionel Crane to be anything else but 
 a cognomen—that ill-fitted his handsome but pro- 
 nouncedly Jewish physiognomy. Possibly I was preju- 
 diced by an instantaneous shock of jealousy. There 
 actually wasn’t anything outstandingly Jewish about 
 him except his nose, and that feature, the after-truth to 
 tell, was a fine example of a Roman proboscis. ... On 
 the spot I disliked him, this Lionel Crane, ne (Harvard 
 matriculation) plain, vulgar, Lazarus Cohen. Like 
 velvet rubbed the wrong way, sickeningly soft, creepily 
 irritating, was his meticulous, modulated speech with 
 its heavy Harvard accent. It cloyed. Inconsonant in 
 him, not his by right, therefore an affectation, I felt, 
 as were his distinguished manners—a nicety of deport- 
 ment shaming mine and calling attention to my gau- 
 cherie. Anyway, I was ill at ease, upset, mentally tied 
 up, so to speak, by a short circuit of my emotional 
 
 [ 191 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL. 
 
 wires. .. . I wanted to drag Esther away. Here was 
 a cross-current, Dr. Lionel Crane, whom I feared. .. . 
 **On a visit to New York... . Looking around... 
 tremendously interested .. . gripping developments 
 ... growing into a national problem .. . big field. ... 
 Yes . . . might stay on. No; wasn’t going in for 
 straight medicine. Nor for surgery. Something new.’’ 
 ... Superior something or other. Very. Very. 
 Superior. . . . He didn’t say it—but his bearing’s im- 
 press brings out his superiority. . . . Perplexing, 
 whatever it is. . . . ‘‘Race psychopathology. Serious. 
 Very. Race Psychopathology.’’ . . . What aname for 
 —the Jewish Problem! .... ‘‘Yes: in America... 
 Certain of it. Bound to spring up, spread like a pesti- 
 lence, the Jewish Question. ...’’ I catch snips of 
 talk, snatches of an idea. I don’t like this overbearing 
 fop in his English cut clothes, his simple cane, pince- 
 nez with its thin little black streamer disappearing 
 somewhere in his collar, his finesse, ease, superiority 
 and self-command. I see him taking Esther away from 
 me, probably appeals to her like a Gramercy Square 
 house. She bends, absorbed, interested, to his talk, 
 his personality. 
 
 At last relief comes when Hymie breaks in with a 
 jest. He has turned out to be a rotund little man, sug- 
 gesting a plump boy despite the disguise of a spade 
 beard. ‘‘How do you like my whiskers, Esther? Go- 
 ing to let them grow long enough to hide my knock 
 knees. ’’ 
 
 ‘You look terribly dignified and doctorish,’’ vouches 
 Esther, merrily. 
 
 ‘‘Raised the hirsute thingamajig out of self-defense. 
 
 [ 192 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Countenance too cherubic. Can’t look innocent and 
 be a doctor. Got to look like a doctor to be one.’’ 
 
 Even sombre-visaged Harry jokes about the beard. 
 ‘‘Doctors,’’ says he, ‘‘owe a duty to the germs who 
 give them so much business. When they chase the 
 germs out of the patient it’s only fair that they pro- 
 vide them a convenient hiding place. That’s why doc- 
 tors wear beards.’’ 
 
 ‘“‘T’m a doctor all right, here’s the Van Dyke to prove 
 it.’? So Hymie prattled away, saying he feels like a 
 boy on the first day of vacation. He has just ended his 
 long internship in a maternity hospital, and was plan- 
 ning to take a part of Harry’s so-called office, two bare 
 rooms with the minimum of doctoral contraptions to 
 impress patients. How can a man be a doctor without 
 imposing cabinets of instruments, a library-like sitting 
 room, pictures, hangings, medicinal odors and the hush 
 of teetering agony—without even a suggestion of the 
 traditional doctor’s office? No wonder Harry can’t 
 make a start. He knows babies and wants to treat 
 them. But when the mothers come to his stark office, 
 where there is nothing but conscientiousness and scien- 
 tific knowledge, which they can’t see, they are appalled. 
 He can’t be a good doctor, they reason. He has noth- 
 ing himself. Here is Harry. His ambition reached 
 after years of diligent study and racking midnight toil 
 on knee pants. He has had his dingy Forsythe Street 
 office open two years, hardly ever gets a paying patient, 
 and looks as shabby and starved out as ever. LHivery- 
 body wonders how he gets along. Does he still make 
 knee pants during the secret hours of the night? I 
 daresay, if his mother didn’t fetch him an occasional 
 meal he would starve to death. And he muddles on,— - 
 
 [ 193 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the idealist; and what is he getting, I gloat, with and 
 for his idealism—nothing! He stumbles on because he 
 is dream-stupefied. Why doesn’t he get wise to him- 
 self and know the world he’s living in, the world he’s 
 got to contend with? He knows a doctor without money 
 can make his start in only one of two ways, marry a 
 rich girl to tide him over the first getting-acquainted 
 period, or perform abortions. I suggested a few off 
 color cases to Harry, but he turned from them in hor- 
 ror. Just dream-stupefied. I can’t make out Harry 
 at all. There’s his brother, a clever pickpocket who 
 has so grown in the esteem of the light-fingered fra- 
 ternity that they have raised his rating from Archie 
 the Gun to Archie the Cannon. 
 
 ‘Tomorrow I begin the practice of medicine. Look 
 me up in the swell doctors’ row on Forsythe Street. 
 Don’t fall over the garbage cans and don’t trip over 
 the tomcats. Forsythe Street has more tomcats than 
 any other place in the world.”’ 
 
 ‘‘My congratulations and best wishes, Dr. Rubin,’’ 
 Esther shakes his chubby hand. 
 
 ‘Good luck to you, Hymie,’’ I mumble. 
 
 ‘‘Thanks, Esther. Much obliged, Meyer. I need 
 good wishes—and patients. I bet Harry is glad to 
 have company. Won’t be so tough and lonely now 
 that he’ll have someone else starving alongside of 
 him. ...’? Weall laughed. Even Harry. Hymie is 
 droll even when he doesn’t say anything that’s intrinsi- 
 cally funny. But the shadow of a cloud settles on 
 Harry’s face when Hymie’s jocularity touches a sensi- 
 tive spot. 
 
 ‘*The only way to make a start as a doctor is to get 
 a rich father-in-law. Meyer, old boy, find me a shidach 
 
 [ 194] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 (a match) with a dowry big enough to fit up a classy 
 office and carry me along the first five years.’’ 
 
 Harry is thinking of his Fanny Weingrad, whom, 
 people say, he wants to marry for her father’s 
 money. . . . Now, Dr. Crane swings the talk into a 
 serious channel. 
 
 ‘‘Dr, Rubin, there’s a great truth lurking in your 
 jest. The State should endow a physician the first five 
 years of his practice.’’ 
 
 Whereupon another discussion starts on that Second 
 ‘Avenue corner, and it seems to me as I sweep my eyes 
 up and down the street that Second Avenue is dotted 
 with little groups of Discussionists. Just when I have 
 decided that they would rather talk than eat, Hymie, 
 bubbling over in his festive mood, asks, ‘‘Say, when 
 do we eat?”’ 
 
 There is no getting away from ebullient Hymie, who 
 is like a college lad on a spree. So I have plenty of 
 company at the dinner I had planned for Esther 
 and myself, for confidings and communings, for the 
 pleasure of having her alone, near me, before my 
 eager eyes. 
 
 Hymie takes us to a foggy goulash joint, a Hun- 
 garian cellar restaurant on St. Marks Place, just off 
 Second Avenue. Everybody is smoking in the poorly 
 ventilated place, which accounts for the fog. My im- 
 pression is of a misty sea with bobbing heads as buoys 
 and waving hands as sails; laden schooners, waiters, 
 carrying remarkable numbers of dishes in both arms, 
 eruise through the aisle-channels; and one of these 
 waiters takes us in tow and gives us a crowded berth 
 at a small table in a corner. The unceasing talk is like 
 the wash of the tide around our wharf.... ‘‘Best 
 
 (195 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 goulash in the world, and oh boy! their schnitzels are 
 schnitzels.’? Hymie is making amends for the stuffy, 
 noisy surroundings. ‘‘And you can get real Pilsener 
 and Culmbacher and pischinger torte and French pan- 
 cakes @ la Wein, Sauerkraut and Furters, and the 
 Sauerkraut—sweet as the dew on the morning’s rose.”? 
 The way he ecstasized over the dishes awakened gusta- 
 tory sensations. The proprietor, a Bohemian, round 
 as one of his kegs of native beer, came to shake hands 
 with Herr Doktor, and listened delightedly to the 
 praise of his cookery. 
 
 ‘“‘T will serve you myself,’?? he announced with 
 princely grandeur. He showed us further honor by 
 ordering a timidly hovering omnibus boy to spread a 
 clean tablecloth and bring his proprietorship’s per- 
 sonal dinner service. ... Although it was a good din- 
 ner in every respect, Dr. Harry Wotin and I sat 
 through it in moody silence. I know Harry is thinking 
 of Fanny Weingrad, whom he may count as lost to him, 
 for next week she is to be married to a business man 
 of her father’s choosing. 
 
 Shammos Mendel Gerditsky was the shadchan 
 (marriage broker) who arranged the match. The 
 shammos supplements his meager earnings as beadle 
 by being a matrimonial commission merchant, and a 
 peddler of ritual wines. This morning the shammos 
 had laid before me the details of the affair, as he 
 wanted to sue Weingrad, who questioned the amount 
 of his commission for finding a desirable husband for 
 his daughter. I called in Weingrad and effected a 
 settlement. The shammos, who liked Harry, said it 
 was a sad affair that would mend itself. No one, in his 
 
 [ 196 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 opinion, ever died of love. Dying of love was a grand« 
 mother’s tale. Yet in his own way he felt sorry for 
 poor Hannah, who looked woebegone with her puffed 
 fat face soiled and distorted with crying. She was 
 short and big-bodied and pined for her spavined- 
 looking, pinched-faced schnorrer doctor. The shammos 
 praised her for a dutiful daughter. She would make 
 the sensible marriage, though her heart wasn’t in it, 
 just to please her parents. 
 
 ‘‘Tt will mend itself, no one need fret, it will mend 
 itself,’’ Gerditsky reiterated, but added, a little wist- 
 fully, ‘‘Harry is a dear young man, but no one seems 
 to see it.’’? . .. So Harry sits brooding over his lost 
 Fanny, and I note with growing dismay that Esther 
 and Dr. Crane are hitting it off like long lost, joyously 
 restored kindred spirits. 
 
 With twinkling eyes, twitting lips, between bites and 
 munching mouthfuls, Hymie darts from table to table 
 greeting fellow students; young physicians; acquaint- 
 ances of the free guild of radical-minded; young old 
 men, keen Discussionists of welt pohtik; old young men 
 who are grayed and aged by their first discoveries of 
 the grim and harsh realities of life; and the regular 
 coffee-house hounds, who had transplanted themselves 
 from the amiable idleness of Vienna, Budapest, 
 Prague and Berlin to a similar ground and atmosphere 
 in the new world, who live on remittances, borrowings, 
 eard-playing, peddling of pawn tickets, cleaning soiled 
 cards and reselling them, doing any odd little what not, 
 except work: a motley, queer, happy-go-lucky collec- 
 tion of humanity. : 
 
 I heed Crane’s elegant enunciation. . . . There has 
 been a lively debate between him and Esther. He says, 
 
 P1973) 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘¢Please do not deceive yourself.’? ... She has just 
 declared that the Jewish question will simply wither 
 away in the free, pure air of America. . . . But Crane 
 
 counters deftly, opening deeper and deeper the flesh of 
 the subject with swift, knowing scalpel-thrusts. 
 
 ‘<The Jews will create a Jewish Question in America 
 as long as they cling to their bizarre Jewishness. .. . 
 What calls immediate, curious attention to the 
 Jews ... his outlandish ways and attire—his beards 
 and ear-locks. . . . He is always the repellent for- 
 eigner awakening unpleasant associations of the his- 
 torically misrepresented Jew ... his slovenly, baggy 
 clothes, or his overdressed, bejewelled, flashy appear- 
 ance; his blatancy and vulgarity . . . antipathetic 
 assertiveness ... his maddening infallible belief in 
 himself as being better, wiser, cleaner, more moral, 
 shrewder, greater; the chosen of the One and Only 
 God, worshiped in the One and Only true way—his 
 way ... his contempt of all others, their ways, living, 
 believing, stupidity . . . and he becomes hateful, 
 unbearable, undesirable. . . . Are you shocked— 
 angered——— But those are the things we have been 
 letting the outside world see. Here in America the Jew 
 can show that he is something else than the marked, 
 harried creature he seems . . . or the grasping, merci- 
 less, self-centred Shylock of popular imagination. . . 
 Now in America the Professional Jews stir up rum- 
 puses, alarms, furors over every fancied grievance, 
 insult and reflection. They focus a spotlight upon the 
 Jews. Their self-righteous rantings in the circulation- 
 seeking press, in pulpits, on the political stump, in mass 
 meetings and legislative halls, do more to raise up the 
 spectre of the Jewish question in America than all the 
 
 [198 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 sneers, insinuations and charges of the rabid Anti- 
 Semites. . . . The Professional Jew is making his 
 people more and more a delicate political problem. He 
 forbids all criticism. 
 
 ‘¢ And that is what we need here—criticism, and more 
 criticism from within—a self-consciousness of short- 
 comings. . . . But who dares criticize the Jews for 
 resorting in America to Old World ways of gaining a 
 livelihood? Necessary, the last resorts of a hampered, 
 hemmed in people, and, so, we understand that they 
 were excusable—in the Old World. But here, in Amer- 
 ica, shall we condone usury, faginism, receiving stolen 
 goods, corrupting officials, procuring, brothel-keeping, 
 sharp-dealing, legitimatizing the cheating and over- 
 charging of Gentiles, labor-sweating? ... And they 
 are but a handful comparatively, this riffraff, this scum 
 of the wretched, cynical Continental civilization. 
 
 ‘‘Because the Professional Jews won’t permit criti- 
 cism and house-cleaning this handful of riffraff is made 
 representative of the great population of poverty- 
 stricken, hard-working, clean-living, simple, law-abid- 
 ing Jews. .. . So they stifle criticism, these Profes- 
 sional Jews who are doing nothing but working on 
 their lucrative jobs of appealing to the racial vanity 
 of their people. . . . What if the criticism pierces like 
 the probing, cleansing lancet, and burns and pains 
 like antiseptic poured on festering sores? . . . The 
 Jews fe 
 
 Why are there tears in Harry’s eyes? Hymie has 
 taken his seat at the table and listens, soberly. And 
 Esther, well, her eyes have not been off his face for 
 even a fleeting, wavering second. Crane’s face is com- 
 posed; his eyes have a far-away look, as though pass- 
 
 [ 199 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND J OWL 
 
 ing over a resumé of what he has said. The coffee and 
 French pancakes are served and we eat in silence. 
 After the table is cleared we sit without speaking, 
 looking at Crane, expecting the tank to fill and again 
 spill cascades of ideas. In me there is a rising, per- 
 sonal anger. I want to retort, choke him with strong 
 patriotic answers. But my wires are crossed. I can’t 
 function. . . . Like the far-away boom of the surf, 
 crawling, menacing, ominous .. . Crane’s pronuncia- 
 mento. ... 
 
 ‘The Jews . . . only the Jews themselves . . . can 
 solve the Jewish Question. But it has been made a 
 closed subject. Its door has become a trap. He who 
 ventures to open it is caught and crushed in the jaws 
 of the guardian dogs of Jewry, the Professional Jews. 
 They call themselves the protectors of their people. 
 But in reality they are the jailors of their people, keep- 
 ing them from enlightenment and self-liberation. Un- 
 discussable—the unwritten law of the Professiona] 
 Jew. Non-discussable. The Jew is non-discussable, a 
 forbidden subject. 
 
 ‘But I will discuss it. I will take the sick ego of my 
 people to the clinic. I know I will be called the enemy 
 of my people, hounded, cursed, spat upon, disowned 
 even by my own family, ridiculed, called a renegade, 
 turn-coat, the paid tool of the Anti-Semites .. . excori- 
 ated .. . left without peace. . . . But I have got to go 
 ahead, see ahead. ... I will take the sick ego of my 
 people to the clinic.’’ 
 
 Crane lights a cigarette. I think that here is my 
 chance to call a halt and remind Esther that she wants 
 to walk. But Esther says, ‘‘Please, don’t stop, Dr. 
 Crane.’’ 
 
 [ 200 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 _ “Yes, yes, go on,’’ urges Harry in a dry voice, finger- 
 ing his throat; while Hymie urges him to get it off his 
 chest. 
 
 - Crane smiles at Hymie and then looks into Esther’s 
 eyes. Ido not seem to exist... . 
 
 ‘‘There is no question of religion. .. . Worship as 
 you please, when and where you please. But get rid 
 of the foul fungus of the Ghetto. If you do not become 
 an integral, euphonious part of the American nation 
 you will again isolate yourself and stand out yellow- 
 badged among the people of the New World... 
 again ... alien, wandering, strange figures .. . again 
 ... distrust, dislike, persecution. ... The Jew must 
 take himself in hand, see himself as the world sees 
 him. Face historical facts. Face scientific truths. 
 Face medical and pathological findings. Treat him- 
 self. . . . I know when the outsider criticizes the Jew, 
 the Jew withdraws behind the ramparts of his Ghetto 
 and his religion, throws himself blindly into his con- 
 soling faith, a faith that has given our race a paranoiac 
 tendency, the faith that he is God’s Chosen People... . 
 God will deliver His Chosen People from the oppres- 
 sors and smite the oppressors . . . and His Chosen 
 People will rule the world ... some day . . . some 
 day... . We are hysterical, overwrought, high-strung 
 ... we need the sedative of repose, selflessness. ... We 
 are neurasthenics ... look at the greater ratio of insan- 
 ity and feeblemindedness among our people. ... We 
 suffer from racial paranoia... believe in our racial 
 supremacy, assert it, boast it; flaunt it in all our 
 actions. .. . There has been too much inbreeding in 
 the fastnesses of the Ghetto, so there are insanity and 
 feeblemindedness, and diabetes. ... I know the Jew 
 
 [ 201 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 has been forced to use his brain-machine until it is 
 jolted out of gear ... that living in dread and fear 
 of the oppressor has made us hysterical and neuras- 
 thenic ... but herein America .. . itis different... 
 should be different . . . we can make it different. .. . 
 Tear down the walls, let out the pent-up people to 
 mingle and mix. Let intermarriage bring in the saving 
 tonic of new blood. . . . End the isolation a 
 
 I don’t know how much longer he would have con- 
 tinued. I looked at my watch and reminded Esther 
 that we would be late. We bade them good-bye, hur- 
 riedly, and Esther asked Dr. Crane to visit Finn’s 
 social settlement. ... She wanted to see more of him, 
 hear more of his crazy race psychopathology. 
 
 I called a cab, and we rode uptown without talking. 
 I saw Esther was lost in thought and it seemed to me 
 that Crane had vastly widened the distance between us. 
 
 I got tickets for the little balcony under the gallery. 
 Hardly had we taken our seats than the lights went out 
 and the orchestra showed dimly beneath the footlights. 
 The overture began ... Aida. . . . I did not hear the 
 music. . . . I could feel only that Esther, who sat next 
 to me, was in spirit far removed from me. I had 
 touched her hand and she pulled it away sharply. ... 
 For a moment I thought I could fling myself from the 
 balcony. . . . But egotism came to my rescue. I sat 
 dreaming through the music, carried away by the 
 imaginings of the High Places I would reach... . 
 Esther would be an impediment. . . . She would make 
 me dream-stupefied. . . . I don’t remember what 
 Esther said. . . . I kept my eyes towards the High 
 Places. . . . The odor of perfumed warm bodies rose 
 to my nostrils. I saw the white circle of shoulders in 
 
 [ 202 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the boxes, and I told myself I would sit in the white 
 circle, honored, sought after, charmed, loved .. - 
 voluptuously happy. 
 
 I left Esther at her door, bade her a crisp good night, 
 walked vigorously to my home and ran up the stairs. 
 I was running away from the pull of Esther. 
 
 I found Gretel waiting up for me. 
 
 { 208 J 
 
IIT 
 
 HIRSCH & FREUND 
 Counsellors at Law 
 
 Thus read the large gilt letters on the expansive 
 plate-glass window of the store in which we make our 
 Offices. And a Swinging yellow and black sign, high 
 above the door, to catch the roving eyes from all points, 
 is more to the point. It bears a one-word legend, in 
 three languages, English, Yiddish and Russian, black 
 gaping out of yellow: 
 
 LAWYER 
 
 Mine has been a bad night. My mood is in the throes 
 of misgiving. Here is my office. But yesterday, I 
 pridefully beheld it, and today, I see it shamefacedly 
 as a pirates’ ship. . . . I am in terror of the dream- 
 stupefied. I have breathed the scents of their poppy 
 fields. 
 
 Our pirate ship, flying its skull and bones and plague 
 colors, lay, so to speak, at the mouth of the lagoon. 
 Across the way is the Essex Market Courthouse. All 
 vessels in distress, alimp, leaky, in tow, must pass our 
 runners and steerers, pilots for the predatory crew of 
 Hirsch & Freund, who are adept and daring with 
 the grappling irons, and perfect ferrets for smelling 
 out worth-while plunder. 
 
 Little groups of men and women wait in front of our 
 office. They are the overflow of our already filled to 
 capacity sitting room. People like to patronize a 
 
 [ 204 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 crowded shop. It is the herd instinct, the fear to be 
 alone, act alone; the fear to try the new. . . . Deferen- 
 tial good mornings, stepping back and making way, 
 raising of hats, eager, solicitous glances, servile hold- 
 ing out of hands, and awed whispers of ‘‘here he 
 comes,’ are balm to my sick, drooping spirit. I pass 
 through the congested sitting room. It is like being 
 bathed with healing oils. . . . I plunge into a sea of 
 troubles, other people’s troubles, and peace comes to 
 my soul. My brain clears. The poppy scents are dis- 
 sipated. Iam again Meyer Hirsch. 
 
 The little glazed door, which connects Maxie’s office 
 with mine, opens an inch. I get rid of the client who 
 has my ear. I shut my outer door with a bang by way 
 of signal to Maxie that the coast is clear. Immediately 
 Maxie enters, followed by a stalwart, lumbering fellow 
 with an inflamed face. . . . ‘‘Judge Duffy, I want 
 you to meet my partner, Meyer Hirsch, a regular 
 feller.’’? ... ‘‘Glad to know you, Mr. Hirsch.”’... 
 A few minutes of small, awkward talk, and then His 
 Honor departs. . . . Maxie smiles. He looks like a cat 
 laughing in his whiskers as he remarks, ‘‘That’s my 
 fifth one. Laying the hooks and lines. ... Well, bread 
 on water, hey Mike? ... Just took up Duffy’s notes 
 for two thousand. Told him not to worry about them. | 
 Pay when convenient. You know, when convenient. 
 Won’t bother me if he never pays.’’ ... Chuckling, 
 Maxie makes an entry in a small black book which he 
 has taken from his vest pocket. ... ‘‘Charged it off 
 to profit and loss.’’ . . . I simply grin. Maxie’s facial 
 expression is an attempt at cuteness. It is very un- 
 becoming. But I did not pick my partner for good 
 looks. He is viciously clever, but loyal and above- 
 
 [ 205 j 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 board with me. I keep the political irons hot, fix the 
 cops, do all the backing and filling in connection with 
 the criminal cases. I split fees with court clerks, 
 attendants, keepers, detectives, policemen, their supe- 
 riors, saloonkeepers—anybody who will bring us cases. 
 I take care of the boys all the way down the line from 
 the judge on the bench to the bootblack in the criminal 
 courts’ hallway. Maxie’s province is the civil courts, 
 and his skill and subtlety as a cross-examiner along 
 new lines have already earned him a reputation. But 
 Maxie knows that legal knowledge only, on the part of 
 a lawyer, even plus cleverness and preparation—en- 
 titles a lawyer to starve in New York courts. So he 
 keeps his hand in the political grab-bag and is a note 
 broker; only judges’ notes. Like most of the judges, 
 Judge Duffy was heavily in debt—in the beginning of 
 his term. . . . So it was in that hurly-burly time of 
 New York’s nineties: A nomination or appointment 
 to judgeship cost a stated sum; judgeships had their 
 regular scale of prices. The market price for a 
 Supreme Court place was $35,000. The average salary 
 for the term fixed the price for the job. . . . Maxie’s 
 system was simple. All he wanted was the good will 
 of the jurist. He did not ask any outright preference 
 from the finicky and the fourflushers, just wanted the 
 shade on his side. Soon the judges found it was safe 
 to rule in his.favor. For Maxie was not crude. He 
 came into court prepared, bristling with facts, 
 a-sparkle with decisions, and pointed like a porcu- 
 pine with technicalities. First, he had won the grati- 
 tude of the judges, and then he proceeded to exact 
 their respect for a thoroughly and cleverly prepared 
 case—which gave them an essential sense of security. 
 [ 206 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 So the judge did not have to fear making a raw deci- 
 sion, and incur a rebuking reversal. Maxie saw to it 
 that the case was punched full of loopholes. The 
 judges liked him. He did not throw the full brunt upon 
 them. He steered the case into a safe channel, tied it 
 up in such a way that no one knew where it started or 
 where it should land. Presently there circulated one of 
 those quietly notorious facts that Maxie even wrote the 
 decisions for the judges, wherein you learn how Maxie 
 created a good many legal precedents—the secret 
 twists of which he alone knew. . . . In time, when a big 
 matter was broached to a judge, he feared to move 
 unless Maxie was taken in as trial counsel. Then the 
 Judge felt he was safe in throwing the case. ... So, 
 the notes bore fruits of perennial bloom. Judges 
 became our steerers. 
 
 Steadily, with unremitting purposefulness, I was 
 creating a political organization that I could call my 
 own, an organization that would make me a factor in 
 politics. I organized the pushcart peddlers into a Pro- 
 tective Association. In batches of four and five, some- 
 times as many as ten, I had them sworn in as citizens. 
 My first move was to stop the petty police graft which 
 extorted a quarter a day from each peddler. The ped- 
 dlers began to hold up their heads. Then I pointed 
 out that too many people were coming in as peddlers. 
 So I had an ordinance passed making it unlawful to 
 peddle without a license, and only citizens with pull 
 could get licenses. All the peddlers flocked into the 
 Protective Association, became citizens, and saw it was 
 good business to limit the number of competitors. The 
 Peddlers’ Protective Association voted me a large 
 yearly retainer. My principal service to them was to 
 
 [ 207 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 stop the constant, annoying and expensive interference 
 by the police, settling squabbles over profitable spots, 
 opening up new streets to peddlers’ stands, stopping 
 petty thievery by buying off the leaders of the gangs, 
 who also gave the peddlers protection from marauding 
 Irish gangs. The peddlers’ vote was mine, solidly, 
 could be counted as a unit. Big Jim Hallorhan 
 acknowledged my good services, and I asked him a 
 favor for the boys. I wanted to keep the good will of 
 Shimshin and his gang, as well as the unswerving sup- 
 port of Boolkie and his constantly renewed ranks. 
 There was keen competition for the pickpocket privi- 
 lege of the Brooklyn Bridge terminal, where swirling, 
 pushing crowds made pocket-picking easy and lucra- 
 tive. Detectives were assigned to see that the regularly 
 designated pickpockets operated without interference 
 and to keep out poachers from this fine game preserve. 
 Big Jim awarded the Brooklyn Bridge concession to 
 my district. I divided it among four pickpockets, two 
 from Shimshin’s gang and two from Boolkie’s, which 
 gave the leaders a good income. A certain percentage 
 of the pickings went to the guardian detectives and to 
 the police inspector in charge of the Bridge district. 
 
 By this time the tough babies, who were quite grown 
 up, became the gangsters’ meal tickets. They were 
 sent out on the streets. It was a police privilege for 
 girls to solicit on certain busy highways. If you were 
 not in right, your girl was arrested and kept from the 
 best flesh marts. So I saw to it that my boys’ girls 
 were unmolested, collected the police tribute from them 
 and gave it to the local inspector of police, who found 
 it convenient to have me do his collecting. I never 
 dealt with the girls. I saw to it that Boolkie and Shim- 
 
 [ 208 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 shin took up the allotted tolls and brought them in 
 promptly. 
 
 So it came about that I became the attorney for the 
 flesh brokers, the procurers and resort keepers. To 
 keep up a certain kind of police appearance, to quiet 
 the grumblings of the press and reformers, I arranged 
 with the pimps, procurers, girls, and houses ‘‘to stand 
 for a raid,’’ which meant submitting to a spectacular 
 alleged police clean-up, which for a few days filled the 
 newspapers and the courts and was soon forgotten. 
 The court cases were hushed up. And then business 
 continued as usual at the old stands. As Big Jim said, 
 New York is a nine-day town. 
 
 T talked over Allen Street with Big Jim and Little 
 Tom, the former’s cousin, who was responsible for my 
 district. The reformers were making a fearful stew 
 over Allen Street. It was the crudest of all bawdy- 
 house streets. We decided that Allen Street should 
 shift to other quarters. I knew the sentiments of my 
 congregation and the Peddlers’ Association. They did 
 not want brothels so near their homes and children. 
 I thought we could make political capital by making a 
 sensational raid on Allen Street and having it appear 
 that our political party without police aid broke up the 
 vile nuisance. Jim and Tom saw the point. They 
 assigned the nearby district captains to report to me 
 with their strong-arm men. We gave the houses two 
 weeks’ time in which to make other arrangements, and 
 advised them of the date of the clean-up. I then went 
 about stirring up the congregation and the Peddlers’ 
 Association, telling them how indignant Big Jim and 
 Little Tom were when I laid before them the extent of 
 the abuse. I raised a hue and cry, a battle slogan, 
 
 f 209 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘‘Clean up Allen Street; clean up Allen Street.’? Bool- 
 kie and Shimshin, two big procurers, were my assist- 
 ants on the day of the clean-up. We marched into 
 Allen Street like virtue incarnate, drove the women 
 from the houses, threw furniture in the street, and in 
 a short hour Allen Street was no more a redlight 
 haunt. The landlords were quite broken-hearted, but 
 everybody else was satisfied, the newspapers playing 
 up and applauding the event. I was the head and cen- 
 ter of the publicity, and got the lion’s share of credit 
 and esteem. Next election we swept the district as it 
 never was swept before. I named the candidates for 
 the State Assembly and the City Board of Aldermen. 
 They were my straw men, Moritz Krulewitch and Her- 
 mann Weisbrod. But ten years ago they were raw im- 
 migrants. Having a constitutional dislike for manual 
 labor—back home they were the young sons of the 
 trader class—and having adaptable personalities, they 
 soon got onto the Professional Jew game. ‘They, 
 ostensibly, were insurance brokers and adjusters, 
 notary publics and self-sacrificing executives of the 
 Roumanian and Polish Jewish lodges and societies. 
 So when the election came, their respective com- 
 patriots, the Roumanian and Polish Jews, joyfully 
 voted for Krulewitch and Weisbrod, holding it a per- 
 sonal honor in having their lodge members named for 
 official distinction. Krulewitch and Weisbrod knew 
 how to hold their jobs. In all their speeches they 
 unfailingly referred to me as the Shield of Israel in 
 America; they busied themselves doing petty favors 
 for their constituents, protesting against the slightest 
 sign of anti-semitism in schools, parks, public places, 
 newspapers, office-holders and especially in the utter- 
 [ 210 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ances of their immediate political opponents. They 
 would call upon me, leading sheep-like committees, and 
 ask me as the Leader of My Oppressed People in 
 America to end this or that discrimination. They per- 
 formed their legislative duties with punctilious atten- 
 tion to the party’s orders. In short, their conduct 
 assured them a steady political future in New York, 
 and a rise from poverty to riches. Hymie Rubin, who 
 was developing into an amiable philosophical anarchist 
 with a weakness for puns, called the progress of my 
 office-secking protegés, ‘‘From Wretches to Riches.’’ 
 Hymie could safely joke about everybody, for every- 
 body’s wife came to be his patient. Hymie began by 
 having countless maternity cases and no fees, but this 
 unceasing experience made him in time one of Amer- 
 ica’s greatest and best paid obstetricians. When a 
 woman attaches herself to a doctor she makes him 
 her god. 
 
 Again we re-elected our nominee for Congress, 
 Joseph Goodman, a high officer of a national Jewish 
 fraternal and protective order. He held tenaciously 
 to the Congressional job by making only one speech at 
 each term of Congress. Goodman made his one speech 
 and then devoted himself to his lodge and other duties. 
 In time this speech became an Hast Side classic: our 
 best heads had concocted it. It was a hair-raising 
 recital of the horrors of Jewish persecution in Russia 
 that splashed vitriolic denunciations upon the T'sar and 
 his government as being officially responsible for the 
 pogroms, and ended with an hysterical plea to 
 the American government to sever relations with the 
 Tsar’s government until the massacres were stopped. 
 His campaign orations gave him no troubles of com- 
 
 f 211 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 position. He simply repeated his Congressional speech. 
 Goodman’s Socialist opponent was Avrum Toledo. 
 Avrum made the mistake an honest man always makes, 
 tells the truth as he understands it. He ridiculed Good- 
 man and suggested another cure for pogroms. He was 
 nearly lynched. He must be fearless or foolish to 
 think that he could make the Jews believe, even for a 
 moment, that they themselves, in the slightest degree, 
 may be responsible for pogroms. It was not so much 
 what Avrum had said, but what we had twisted his 
 words into, that made trouble for the Socialist Party, 
 which, we said, was responsible for Avrum’s views... . 
 Avrum had said that Jewish ways made it easy for the 
 Russian agents-provocateur to inflame the peasants 
 against the Jews. That the peasants are naturally 
 irritated and resentful when they find themselves sys- 
 tematically cheated and impoverished by the wily 
 Jewish traders, who seem, in their simple minds, to 
 rob them with the devil’s cunning. When fired with 
 vodka and wild reports, and religious fury, the resent- 
 ment is easily fanned into hatred. He did not say that 
 the Jews as a whole cheated the peasant and deserved 
 his resentment, but accused the trader and money- 
 lender classes. 
 
 He said: ‘‘Let us look with clear eyes and calm 
 brains at the Russian pogrom question. We know the 
 Government inspires the outrages. We know the Gov- 
 ernment uses the violence and pillaging as the means 
 of letting off the people’s steam, which otherwise might 
 be directed against their rotten government. Is that 
 all that concerns us? How about the people whom it is 
 80 easy to incite against our people? Have we wronged 
 them in any way? Where is our fault, in what way do 
 
 [ 212 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 we help along the happening of pogroms! I beg for 
 a little common sense among ourselves, a few home 
 remedies, which will do more than all the impassioned 
 speeches in the Halls of Congress, speeches that are 
 used merely as bait to catch your votes. I say it will 
 not be such a simple matter for the Tsar’s government 
 to stir up pogroms when we have won the good-will, 
 trust and affection of our Gentile neighbors. If they 
 have every reason to respect and love us, how then can 
 they be made to hate and destroy us? So itis up to us 
 to stop the abuses of the traders and money-lenders. 
 ‘“We must tell our people that these traders and 
 money-lenders, the leaders and controllers of our 
 community, this minority of profit-takers, are the root- 
 causes of the pogroms. Let us understand the Russian 
 peasant’s mental operations. Is it not easy to be in- 
 cited against the persons who have been systematically 
 wronging you? Stop the wrong, the first wrong, and 
 you will end the ultimate wrong. Life is reproductive. 
 Wrong begets wrong. Hate begets hate. Love will 
 beget a happy family. . . . In time the Russian govern- 
 ment, unable to instigate the peasantry, will have to 
 come out in the open. They will have to use troops 
 to massacre the Jews. The world will ring out in pro- 
 test against such savagery. Butchery, wearing official 
 garb, attacking a peaceful, unoffending people, will 
 turn the world against Russia. She will be a pariah 
 wherever there is public opinion. It will be savagery 
 without excuse, a savagery stamped with the seal of 
 the Russian bureaucracy, and then we can make a 
 powerful appeal to the world’s sympathy and inter- 
 vention. How different it will be when the Jews come 
 to the world with clean hands and clear consciences! 
 [ 213 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 No longer will the Russian government shrug its shoul- 
 ders and say, smugly, ‘the pogroms are the anger of 
 the people against the abuses of the Jews.’ ”’ 
 
 There was the devil to pay. Even the Socialists 
 turned upon Avrum. They said he was a Spanish Jew 
 and did not feel for the Russian Jews, and was like his 
 German ilk in his dislike and contempt for his 
 unfortunate brethren in the Pale. . . . Scratch a 
 Socialist—the espouser of the brotherhood of inter- 
 nationalism—and you will find a rabid nationalist. ... 
 No man can escape the prejudices and predilections 
 of his blood nor cleanse himself of the pitch of his 
 environment. 
 
 Avrum, college graduate, was a garment worker, a 
 plain operator at the machine. And, now, what did it 
 avail him to have sacrificed his personal career to be- 
 come one in suffering and understanding with the slave 
 to the needle? One indiscretion, one scratch, had 
 angered the nationalistic people. How dare he inti- 
 mate that the Russ—or Pole—Jews themselves may 
 even in a part be responsible for the pogroms? Why, 
 man, in other words, he was justifying—justifying 
 pogroms! 
 
 All the explanations his friends tried to make 
 incensed them more. They hated him for a Span- 
 lard. ... But Avrum smiled and plodded on in the 
 ranks of the thin, straggly line of unionists. Before 
 long he found it harder and harder to get a job as it 
 became known that he was a labor agitator, a wild- 
 eyed Socialist who could even justify pogroms. Yet 
 Avrum carried on. If he was hurt, he did not let on; 
 if it shook his faith in the people’s ability to carry out 
 Socialism, he showed it in an increasing demand upon 
 
 [ 214 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 educational programs for the workers. First he 
 wanted to prepare their minds, then he wanted to pre- 
 pare their hearts, after which he saw the Utopian 
 millennium. 
 
 Sometimes he went to the extreme folly of sincerity. 
 He tried to convert the bosses to unionism. He said 
 an improved standard of living and working conditions 
 would make the workers more efficient. He appealed 
 to their interest, then he tried to touch their hearts. 
 There was a twinkle in his eyes and a smile of self- 
 amusement on his face, or he might have been taken 
 for stark crazy, when he said to the bosses :—‘‘ You are 
 keeping out the light of a great happiness from your 
 lives. The greatest happiness is to see everyone 
 around you happy. For how can you be happy if even 
 one of your fellowmen is in need and distress??? 
 
 And they answered his smile and gave him the 
 sack. .. . After a while only Philip would employ him. 
 Philip said he did not fear his influence in his shop. 
 No one could organize his shop. The minute a man 
 joined the union he fired him. And there were ten 
 greenhorns ready and eager to take his place. Philip 
 enjoyed Avrum’s talk, saying it was a fine example of 
 the self-deluded vaporings of the dream-stupefied. 
 
 Fancy my surprise when Philip, who never took more 
 than five minutes for lunch, and thereby gave himself 
 a life-time of stomach trouble, called at my office and 
 asked Maxie and me to take lunch with him in a quiet 
 place where we could talk. At lunch Philip announced 
 he wanted our advice on how the unions could com- 
 pletely stop work in all shops and for once really win 
 astrike.... 
 
 Maxie taunted him, ‘‘Getting afraid of the unions? 
 
 [ 215 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Worrying if they can win. Want to know when to hop 
 off the fence. . . .”? But soon Philip disclosed that he 
 had a deeper purpose. He confused us for a time 
 when he seemed to insist that he wanted the unions to 
 paralyze all the shops for a season. 
 
 But we got an inkling when he said, ‘‘Except my 
 shop. I want my shop to work in full blast—as a union 
 shop, a union shop while it suits my purpose.’’ 
 
 Maxie took him in hand with questions. He brought 
 out that Philip wanted to expand his business, was 
 ready for bigger, better business. He wanted to steal 
 the best accounts in the country from the long-estab- 
 lished German-Jewish concerns. If he could stop their 
 production, completely, for one season, he could make 
 an entering wedge that never could be dislodged. He 
 had several things up his sleeve. He had standardized 
 the difficult short stouts, he could fit any man with a 
 ready-made suit better than a custom tailor. He could 
 undersell his competitors. He had stolen the best 
 styles, pippins, sure-sellers. He wanted to spring his 
 lines on the big accounts of the country when they had 
 to listen to him. He needed one season to convince 
 them. 
 
 Maxie hit right at the heart of the matter. ‘‘How 
 do you manufacturers always manage to beat the 
 unions?”? 
 
 Philip told him that when the unionized workers quit 
 there were plenty of greenhorns to take their places. 
 Moreover, the workers had so little money that in a few 
 weeks’ time hunger drove them back to the benches. 
 ‘*But,’’ added Philip, ‘‘our gunmen make picketing im- 
 possible. The union might make progress in their 
 strikes if they had a chance to keep the scabs out of the 
 
 [ 216 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 shops. We bribe the police and they assist our gunmen 
 guards. They can’t talk to the workers, they don’t get 
 a chance to win them over to the union.”’ 
 
 ‘‘Say,’? remarked Philip scornfully, ‘‘doesn’t it 
 prove they are worms, these workers? They don’t 
 know enough to put up a fight for what they want. 
 Why don’t they get gunmen to fight the bosses’ gun- 
 men? Gunmen are the cheapest thing in New York. 
 What’s the price, Meyer: a black eye, five dollars; a 
 general beating up, ten dollars; a broken arm or leg, 
 twenty-five dollars; an out and out killing, fifty dollars! 
 
 ‘‘Tf they won’t do their own fighting, too finicky like 
 the respectable manufacturers, why don’t they farm 
 out the job to a private detective agency? They don’t 
 care who pays them. They’llhire gunmen to fight their 
 own gunmen. That’s the cheapest thing they got to 
 sell, human abortions—what am I talking about—mon- 
 key abortions. When they’re killed nobody’ll miss 
 them; good riddance. Beat up the scabs the way we 
 maul the workers. Fight for what you want, and the 
 battle never goes to the finicky.’’ 
 
 Uncle Philip’s half-joking, half-earnest tirade put a 
 thought in my mind. I was running down a list of 
 union organizers. There were too many pacifists. 
 Life-for-love’s-sake fellows. They did not understand 
 life as unending change in conflict. I remembered 
 Michel Cahn. Lately he has been spouting a new 
 creed. ... ‘‘All power to the workers. Seize the in- 
 dustries, workers, and keep them. They are yours, 
 could not exist without you. You created them. To 
 heil with middle class parliamentarism. Act. Direct 
 action.’’? . . . Michel Cahn is my man. I will put my 
 gangs to work for him. Call off the other gangs. I will 
 
 [ 217 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 show the dream-stupefied how to get what you want. 
 Use the simple method of life. Change in conflict. 
 
 ‘When do you want the strike?’’ Lasked... . Philip 
 laughed. ‘‘Look at him. Mike Hirsch, Shield of Israel. 
 Got everything fixed, already, I bet you.” . . . “Pretty 
 near,’’ was my succinct avowal. 
 
 My emissary found Michel Cahn taking tea in the 
 Talkers’ Café. His answer was, ‘‘Let the Honorable 
 Haunch Paunch and Jowl come here if he wants to see 
 me.’’... Haunch Paunch and Jowl—so that’s the de- 
 risive picture the radicals had drawn of me. The lean, 
 drawn starvelings in their dream-stupefied state were 
 jealous of my well filled out, prosperous form. It had 
 not yet reached the terrible proportions of obesity that 
 years in a swivel chair on the judicial bench had later 
 given me. But I suppose I was beginning to get fat. 
 Well, I knew how to put my pride in my pocket when 
 it served my pocket. Anyway, I was always working 
 for my pocket like the Big Chief of my party. So 
 Haunch Paunch and Jowl meandered over to the 
 Talkers’ Café and sought out the ideal-proud starve- 
 ling, Michel Cahn, word-spewing revolutionist. 
 
 I took Cahn by surprise. ‘‘Do you mean what you 
 say—the struggle between capital and labor is a class 
 war? If it is war, do you believe in the methods 
 of war? Or, are you just a tea-drinking talker in the 
 Talkers’ Café? The union is getting nowhere. You’ve 
 got an organization. The members are getting tired 
 of paying dues, their payments are not coming in the 
 way they should. They are backsliding, gradually; 
 you'll lose them all unless you give them results.’’ 
 
 ‘‘Well,’’ he said, measuring me carefully with his 
 eyes, trying to sense my motive, ‘“‘have you come to tell 
 
 [ 218 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 me something I know, something I am saying all the 
 time?’’ 
 
 ‘‘T have come to find out if you know that the unions 
 are in a dangerous fix. What are you doing about it, 
 besides talking? Isn’t the time ripe for militant 
 unionism, direct action, fighting the bosses with the 
 bosses’ tools?’’ 
 
 ‘‘Meyer,’’ he said, slowly, running a finger up and 
 down his glass, ‘‘I have watched you grow up. I have 
 watched your dear uncle. I know your breed. What 
 do you want?’’ 
 
 ‘‘T want a job. I want to be the union’s lawyer. No 
 fee. Just the prestige, just the acquaintances it will get 
 me. I want to run your next strike, but not with your 
 love-mumblers, but with you direct-actionists.”’...I 
 held forth temptation. ... ‘‘Bring the strike to a suc- 
 cessful conclusion and you'll become the union’s undis- 
 puted leader. The men will follow blindly the man who 
 wins for them the long fought and sought points.’’ 
 
 ‘‘And your uncle?”’ 
 
 -¢¢Te’s frank about it. He put me up to this. I can’t 
 and don’t want to humbug you on that. He sees 
 Avrum’s point. He’ll be better off with union condi- 
 tions. Better conditions will make better workers. 
 Besides it will standardize and regulate production. 
 It will give him more peace, leisure, enable him to plan 
 ahead. But he can’t do it unless he has a strong union 
 that will make his competitors toe the mark. A union 
 shop, you know, can’t compete against a sweat shop. 
 You’ve got to unionize the industry. But you can’t do 
 it by following namby-pamby methods. There’s only 
 one way you can convince pig-headed business men, 
 who as a class think they. know better what’s best for 
 
 f 219 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the world than any other class. They think their busi- 
 ness ways are the only ways for the world. Force and 
 strength, and the most convincing proof—getting it 
 done—making them do it, will prove your point to 
 them.’’ 
 
 Then we began to talk in whispers. 
 
 The following day I met the secret executive com- 
 mittee in the back room of a saloon on Second Avenue. 
 A militant strike was planned. The gangs got their 
 first jobs with the unions to fight the bosses’ gunmen. 
 In this way gang warfare became the crux of every 
 New York strike. The battle went to the strongest 
 gangsters reinforced by policemen. Sometimes labor 
 had control, sometimes capital; but it was always a 
 gang fight that decided the vital issues of capital and 
 labor. 
 
 Our attacks were concentrated on the shops of the 
 biggest manufacturers, the key men of the industry, 
 whose accounts Philip wanted to nab. They would be 
 taken off their guard because they would not dream 
 of a successful strike. Until now they had found the 
 union easy picking. Their gunmen guards, Irish and 
 Italian guerrillas recruited by private detective 
 agencies, and a strong police guard, were their chief 
 reliance. 
 
 I saw the Chieftains of my party, and, thereupon, the 
 police were suddenly needed elsewhere. At this time 
 the garment manufacturers belonged to the silk-stock- 
 inged Republican Party, and did not count with. us. 
 
 Our gangs maneuvered around the shop district in 
 carriages pulled by swift horses. They swooped down 
 upon the guards, who heretofore had received no resist- 
 ance, and surprised them with assaults in force. Our 
 
 [ 220 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 gangs entered the workrooms with picked union men 
 who spilled vitriol and other corroding acids on the 
 finished and unfinished clothing. The scabs were 
 driven out and the foremen badly beaten up. We 
 established long picket lines, followed scabs to their 
 homes and, if they would not listen to reason and join 
 the union, they were severely mauled. Soon it spread 
 around that it was dangerous to scab. The big shops 
 were successfully tied up, and then we began to har- 
 ass the smaller men. They quickly signed up with 
 the union. But I advised against letting any shops 
 begin manufacturing. Philip wasn’t quite ready yet. 
 Nobody would be allowed to work until he was ready to 
 spring his lines. And he didn’t intend offering his 
 sure-sellers until there was a crying need for them. 
 The big manufacturers had a great deal at stake. 
 The labor turnover was the profit of the day. They 
 increased the number of guards and then set up a vir- 
 tuous outcry in the newspapers that law and order 
 were being threatened by the violence and destruction 
 of the union’s hired marauders. The gangs made 
 feuds over the strike. It showed their lack of intelli- 
 gence. They invaded each other’s home hangouts, 
 fired off pistols at random and occasionally slaugh- 
 tered an innocent bystander, a pushcart peddler or a 
 child. Rarely was a gangster hurt. Pickets were 
 brutally handled and our men broke the bones and 
 heads of scabs. It became a battle royal, and it began 
 to look as though the superior numbers of the bosses 
 would win the day. I then hit upon the scheme of buy- 
 ing off the bosses’ gunmen. I worked it through the 
 ward politicians in the gangs’ home districts. I wanted 
 them to lay off for three weeks, by which time the 
 [ 221 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 manufacturers’ season would be killed. The Irish and 
 Italian guerrillas were under the leadership of Tanner 
 Jones, 2 young, fearless thug, and Jack the Rock, a 
 Sicilian bravado. Both were amenable to their poli- 
 ticians’ request and a handsome piece of change. 
 Frenchie Lavelle also helped. Jack the Rock’s girls 
 worked his place, and when he asked the Rock to be a 
 good fellow for a couple of weeks, it clinched the 
 matter. 
 
 Meanwhile there was a great hullabaloo in the news- 
 papers. They had an axe to grind. They looked for 
 every chance to hit at Tammany’s police administra- 
 tion, and proceeded to make capital out of the reign of 
 lawlessness in the strike. Barney Finn was working 
 for the strikers. His classmate was in charge of the 
 city desk of one of the popular afternoon papers; and 
 Barney interested him in the human interest stories of 
 the hardships of the needle workers, and a sob sister 
 was assigned to accompany Esther through the homes 
 of starving garment workers. The sob sister turned 
 the tide of public opinion. The sordid, semi-starved 
 life of the sweatshop families had a Dickensian flavor 
 and appeal. The vile sanitary conditions and long 
 hours in the shops were described tellingly. The tune 
 of the newspapers changed. Barney Finn emphasized 
 Leader Lewkowitz’ point. The immigrant workers 
 were fighting for an American standard of living. 
 The newspapers took up the demand for an American 
 standard of living, just what that was for the average 
 American workman nobody knew. Sociologists were 
 just beginning to stick their noses in the cess-pool of 
 industry. At any rate, our cause became the popular 
 
 [ 222 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 one. In a month’s time the manufacturers gave in and 
 patched up a sort of truce with the union. 
 
 Philip had gotten the accounts he wanted. He 
 moved his showrooms to a swell Broadway office build- 
 ing, but continued his shop in Madison Street, which 
 now had grown into a place that needed three large 
 floors. 
 
 Now I was hailed as the workers’ champion. The 
 union began to flourish, and as soon as it showed signs 
 of prosperity and success the grafters and easy-thing- 
 boys began to edge in. They looked for the soft jobs 
 of business agents and walking delegates. 
 
 Avrum had protested with unflagging consistency 
 against the methods of warfare and big business in 
 union affairs. He left the union. Cahn, flushed with 
 victory, read him out of the organization. He said 
 Avrum’s pacifism was the worst enemy of the union’s 
 cause. It would keep the workers supine forever. 
 Force must be met with force. Avrum said there would 
 be no end to wrong if another wrong was used to 
 oppose it. So Avrum said he would now devote him- 
 self to educational programs for the workers. He then 
 began a pilgrimage that took him all over the country. 
 
 He toiled in coal mines and steel mills, always living 
 in the wretched workmen’s colonies; labored with the 
 textile workers at the great looms of New England and 
 the South; joined the migratory pickers and garners 
 of fruits and grains in the East, West, Southwest and 
 the Coast; did loathsome tasks in canneries and 
 fisheries; became a vegetarian after three months’ 
 penance in Chicago slaughter houses; felled timber in 
 the trackless forests of the great Northwest; grubbed 
 in the copper and silver mines of the desert regions; 
 
 [ 223 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 saw the land and the cities, spoke with the peoples in 
 their jargons, dialects and home-land tongues; re- 
 turned once in a while to see his family and talk 
 earnestly with Esther; and then started anew on his 
 search for the soul and needs and desires of the Ameri- 
 can worker. Wherever he went he spoke the gospel 
 of oneness of interests, pleaded for a combining of all 
 crafts in one common union that would have an over- 
 whelming moral force. He said union money should 
 be used to found schools and universities for workers. 
 
 He was laughed at, but his sincerity in the end won 
 a hearing. Other migratory workers took up his mes- 
 sage, went like wandering missionaries everywhere, 
 trying to awaken a consciousness in the workers that 
 they had one cause that should be effectively expressed 
 in one big union. . . . In the little office of the settle- 
 ment Avrum told Hsther, ‘‘I find that there is no such 
 thing, as yet, as an American workman. They are to 
 each other—Hunks, Wops, Squareheads, Kikes, Micks 
 and Heinies. They look down upon each other from 
 the heights of their nationalism. The American will 
 not associate with the greasy foreigner. The Italian 
 detests the Hungarian, and so on. Then, there is a 
 class feeling of crafts. The mechanic holds the meaner 
 workman as his social inferior. Everyone sees himself 
 as a potential boss, dreams of amassing big money, 
 employing others. The class lines are tightly drawn. 
 But it will be different when the workers of America 
 become a racial identity. Then they will see each other 
 as brothers, in sympathy, comradeship and under- 
 standing, as Americans all. Meantime, we must keep 
 at them to learn, to rise above their clannishness, and 
 mean aspirations; stop the sporadic struggles and 
 
 [ 224 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 unite as one. When we break down the class lines, 
 the snobbery of nationalism, replace it with a common- 
 ality of spirit, then labor in its dignity and knowledge 
 will share equally with capital the good things of the 
 earth.’’ 
 
 [ 225 
 
IV 
 
 I hear amusing stories of Barney Finn’s attempts to 
 compete with Boolkie. He is trying to win the boys 
 away from the corner hangout with counter-attractions. 
 What has he to offer? A reading room and a gym- 
 nasium. And good precepts. On the other hand, 
 Boolkie purveys adventure, easy money, good times. 
 Dance halls. Joints. Racy tough babies. Jobs as 
 scab-killers, the safe and easy employment of political 
 thuggery and well-paid roughhouse onslaughts in gam- 
 blers’ wars and disorderly house disputes. His was 
 the life of thrills . . . and something doing all the 
 time. . . . Boolkie’s biggest aid is unemployment. 
 There are always more young men than jobs. Then 
 again the jobs paid so poorly and were of such a mean 
 character that it hardly paid to put in ten and twelve 
 hours a day and at the end of the week find yourself 
 without even a margin for a good time. .. . They 
 didn’t want to become needle workers; they saw the 
 hell of a life their fathers led. And what of the ambi- 
 tious fellows who looked for economic salvation in 
 business and professional life? A few rubs of the 
 rough-grained world wore away the idealistic tender- 
 ness and left them with a protective skin of callous- 
 ness. It did not take them long to see that the straight 
 and narrow path was long and tortuous and ended in 
 a blind alley. There was nothing in the conspicuous 
 examples of American life to inspire anything else. 
 Politics stank of corruption and chicanery. Big busi- 
 ness set even a worse example. Daily the people were 
 
 [ 226 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 treated to scandal after scandal in commerce, industry 
 and government. ... The order of the day was— 
 PLAY THE GAME AS YOU SEE IT PLAYED.... 
 It was a sordid generation, a generation creeping out 
 of the mud into the murk. Avrum was right about one 
 thing. There was not as yet an American identity. 
 There was yet to rise up an American standard... . 
 It was the time and process of finding ourselves, a sort 
 of evolutionary process that began as a creeping thing 
 in the scum. 
 
 Such was my talk, my reasoning. Esther failed to 
 see the exigencies I cried into the case. I spoke at 
 length, sincerely. I believed, sincerely, my way was 
 right. I guess I was arguing more to convince myself. 
 I was raising up a bulwark of logic against Esther’s 
 plea that I join the so-called forces for good. I had 
 few intervals of leisure. I was up to my neck in a 
 swamp of doings. I was a recognized leader. Being 
 a politician, I had to be responsive to everyone’s beck 
 and call. . . . Sometimes a lull came and then I would 
 think of Esther. But while my mind and time were 
 taken up it was easy to fight off the pull of Esther. ... 
 Then it began to dawn on me that mine was the fate of 
 every politician; my life did not belong to me, it be- 
 longed to the party and the game. I was in too deep 
 to draw out. I had taken root in the morass; I didn’t 
 dare try transplantation. 
 
 [227 J 
 
V 
 
 We went together to the marriage of Lillie Rosenfeld 
 to Sam Rakowsky, now the Sid Raleigh of song-writing 
 fame. It was a grand affair in an uptown hall. The 
 Kast Side’s Who’s Who was there. Sam was a famous 
 son of the Ghetto, who had grown wealthy in the music 
 publishing business. He and Al Wolff were also play 
 producers, mostly musical comedies which were noth- 
 ing more than glorified burlesque shows. Al said he 
 knows what the public wants; fancy smut and a lot of 
 bare legs. 
 
 The jewels and gala gowns of our women vied with 
 the electric lighted chandeliers. Everybody knew 
 everybody. Hearty greetings, hails, shouts, guffaws, 
 shrieks and gales of laughter, screechy children sliding 
 on the dance floor, the zooming of a brass band playing 
 Sam’s famous hits—a regular home party without fuss 
 or repression. i 
 
 Tonight, Hymie Rubin announced his engagement 
 to Sam’s sister, May, a school teacher with serious eyes 
 and café au lait colored hair. . . . Al Wolff came with 
 his second wife—the first one was some unknown whom 
 he had divorced. Mrs. Al Wolff II. was a famous 
 musical comedy star. . . . Old friends, introducing 
 their wives or husbands, or fiancées. . . . Everybody 
 was married or getting married....Hymen was 
 GLOod ta 
 
 Ksther, dressed in a corn-colored dress, looked go 
 alluring I could not keep my eyes off her. She was such 
 a contrast to the full-blown peonies about her... . 
 
 [ 228 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Fat arms, bulging busts, great hips, puffed up faces, 
 double chins. . . . A white flower on a slender stem in 
 a tropical garden. . . . When I found myself alone 
 with her behind an artificial palm in a corner of a little 
 balcony, I lost all control. I saw the luminous white- 
 ness of her shoulders, the smouldering light in her 
 eyes ... tonight they were not frozen... . Love, 
 warmth, sensuousness were aswarm in the hot per- 
 fumed air like bright-hued butterflies. . . . Hven 
 Esther thawed, and came out of her sheath as a warm 
 bloom. ... I had been drinking champagne. I was 
 all aglow, mad, no longer Meyer Hirsch—minus the 
 self I had given myself. I was only the man seeking 
 his mate. ... Like the summer wind breathing the 
 passion glow into the flower, full-awakening it, so were 
 my words spoken close to Esther’s face.... I was 
 on my knees before her, entranced by her beauty that 
 diffused over me the odor and charm and promise of 
 a new springtime. I kissed her hands lying in her lap. 
 Then I felt her head lowered near mine and she 
 was whispering. The music played. The whisper was 
 lost, but one word nestled softly in my hearing... 
 ‘Shoy.??... And I let my head lay in the caressing 
 folds of her gown and felt the quiver of her limbs. . 
 
 Laughing voices came nearer, her hand pulled at my 
 shoulder andI got up. . . . Love-making couples came 
 seeking our nook. ... We sat quietly, without talk- 
 ing, like guilty children.... A gruff voice .. . like 
 a premonitory grumble of thunder that makes people 
 fly to shelter. ... Nearer came the gruff voice, and 
 I heard it call—‘‘Mr. Hirsch. Anybody seen Mr. 
 Hirsch?’’... It was Big Joe, rougher looking for 
 the need of a shave, with baggy clothes and a cap pulled 
 
 f 229 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 down to his eyes as if to add to his disreputable appear- 
 ance. His bloodshot eyes seemed like coals with dying 
 gleams of fire. His message was urgent and brief. 
 ‘Three of the boys pinched. Murder charge. Outside 
 bulls dropped them. Murder charge. Taken right 
 down to Headquarters for the third degree . . . third 
 degree .. . murder charge . . . the Dope, Archie and 
 the Dago.’’ . . . I took leave of Esther hurriedly, told 
 her I hoped I would be back in time to take her 
 home.... ‘‘Esther, wait until the very last start to 
 go, wait for me,’’ I pleaded... . But I did not get 
 back in time. 
 
 Boolkie waited outside Police Headquarters. He 
 gave me a quick warning, ‘‘Third degree, boss.’’ I 
 hastened in to see the Chief and asked him to lay off 
 the third degree. They were my boys, regular boys. 
 He told me an ominous fact. The railroad bulls had 
 worked up the evidence, and the regular detectives 
 had to join in when the evidence showed up bad. I ex- 
 plained to the Chief that I had to stop the forcible 
 examination of the boys. I knew that Dopie Ikie could 
 not withstand the cajolery of rubber hose, blackjacks 
 and police batons. ‘‘Chief,’’ I said, ‘‘one of these boys 
 is weak-minded, nothing more than idiot and is bound 
 to cave in.’’?... I sent for Big Jim and Little Tom. 
 I got my way. The boys were safely locked up in cells 
 and I saw them long enough to instruct them... . 
 ‘“Not adamn word. Don’t say a damn word.’’ 
 
 The boys were accused of the murder of a ticket 
 seller of the Canal Street station of the Second Avenue 
 elevated. They were also charged with the robbery of 
 over three hundred dollars of the railroad’s receipts, 
 the alleged motive of the murder. The crime was now 
 
 [ 230 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 six weeks old. It had caused the usual stir and then 
 seemed to be forgotten. The police did not over- 
 extend themselves in their investigation. General 
 report had it that the boys had a hand in it. But the 
 railroad company did not drop the case. Their detec- 
 tives planted a stool pigeon in the saloons and other 
 haunts of the gang. Dopie Ikie’s beery boast gave the 
 game away. It seemed there would not have been a 
 killing had not the Dope desired to shine as a killer. 
 The boys had held up the ticket seller at the point of 
 pistols, taken the money and were making their get- 
 away when they heard a shot fired. Archie and Dago 
 Jack looked back and saw the Dope grinning, with a 
 smoking revolver in his hand.... It was the first 
 notch on the Dope’s gun and he was proud of it. He 
 bragged to the stool pigeon, and they were all hauled 
 up to answer the murder charge... . The ticket chop- 
 per and an old man waiting for a train were positive 
 in their identification of the hold-up men. We tried to 
 reach them via the usual channels of political pressure, 
 money and threats. Boolkie was ready to bump them 
 off himself. But the railroad detectives guarded the 
 witnesses and supported them in grand style. The 
 company wanted to stop the frequent hold-ups of their 
 station agents. . . . The stool pigeon was an ex- 
 convict. The only honest employment at this time open 
 to a jailbird was as spy, informer and instigator. 
 Boolkie wanted to get the stool pigeon. He half killed 
 a barfly who earned drinks by cleaning spittoons in 
 Jarski’s saloon, and from him learned the name of the 
 rummy who had been seen chinning with the Dope over 
 glasses of beer in the back room. The rummy was a 
 poor kind of a squealer where taking care of himself 
 [ 231 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 was concerned. He started off on a spree with the 
 betrayal money. Boolkie traced him to the saloons and 
 joints in the neighborhood of Jack the Rock’s hangout. 
 He put a price of one hundred dollars on the tongue of 
 the squealer. Two days later the hundred was paid. 
 The rummy-amateur-detective was stabbed to death 
 in a bedhouse to which he had been lured by a 
 woman. They cut out his tongue as a warning to other 
 informers. 
 
 The case went to trial. Hiverything was against us. 
 The Dope had blabbed to the railroad bulls the minute 
 after he was taken in custody. The eyewitnesses were 
 clear and convincing. We could not tamper with the 
 jury as the railroad investigated every man that was 
 called and they challenged the doubtful ones. Fortu- 
 nately, we had one planted juror. He hung up the 
 jury. We got the best we could hope for—a disagree- 
 ment. 
 
 But at the second trial the railroad forces were more 
 vigilant. They had a high-class jury. The boys were 
 convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair. 
 
 The verdict, although expected, came as a shock. 
 For that matter, I labored throughout the trial to get 
 a verdict of guilty in a lesser degree than death. It 
 sounds funny, but is the fact; everybody was fighting 
 and praying for a favorable verdict that would give 
 the boys life imprisonment! Such is the hold life 
 has on us. 
 
 In the corridor I found three mournful groups. 
 Dopie Ikie’s mother, Mrs. Schneider, her head covered 
 with a knitted woolen shawl, her shrunken face like a 
 stark symbol of the recent death pronouncement, her 
 body swaying as to a rhythm of despair, stood between 
 
 [ 232 ] | 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Archie the Cannon’s parents, the meek and highly 
 respected Mr. and Mrs. Yonkel Wotin. The W otins 
 seemed stunned, shrivelled up, as though the tears had 
 been burned out of them. And near them, like a forlorn 
 image, desolate in his Sunday crape suit, waited Dago 
 Jack’s father, his furrowed leathern face stiffened 
 with restrained tears. ... At the head of the wide 
 staircase waited Boolkie, surrounded by bereaved 
 Ludlow Streeters. ... And yet another group stood 
 watch at the door, a delegation from the social settle- 
 ment, come like a priestly comforter at the deathbed— 
 Esther Brinn, Barney Finn and Dr. Lionel Crane. ... 
 Finn’s pale blue eyes looked compassionately at the 
 mournful group of parents, and then turned wrathfully 
 upon Boolkie. But Finn could not stay angry for long. 
 Esther spoke to him and they moved over to the mourn- 
 ful parents with assurances that the fight to save the 
 boys would not be given up.... I tried to give them 
 hope and cheer, told them there were many chances for 
 a successful appeal, but in my heart I knew there was 
 none. . . . We had one hope left, the Governor’s 
 clemency . . . to commute the death sentence to life 
 imprisonment. 
 
 The social settlement meant to make a stand against 
 
 - capital punishment. I told them that they would have 
 
 to move heaven and earth to influence the Governor, 
 a Republican, a hard-boiled believer in the maximum 
 penalty for all offenders. 
 
 Dr. Crane said the fight should center around Dopie 
 Tkie Schnieder. His life, he conceded quizzically, was 
 the least worth saving. He saw the execution of Ikie 
 as a piece of barbarism equal only to the legal murder 
 of a child. He said Ikie was sentenced to death be- 
 
 [ 233 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 cause he was legally of age, although mentally he was 
 but a child, and no one is older than his mental years. 
 Society must be very backward in its understanding 
 if it cannot begin to realize that low grade imbeciles 
 like Dopie Ikie are really infants dangerously endowed 
 with the bodies of men. Being infants, they should not 
 be saddled with the responsibilities of normal grown- 
 ups, nor held lable as men of full reason for their 
 acts. ... Ikie’s mentality—or lack of mentality—was 
 one of the issues we fought out in the trial. Legally 
 speaking, no one could testify Ikie was insane. No 
 more than you can say that a boy of seven is insane 
 Just because he has a limited, childish comprehension 
 of life and its responsibilities. . . . Dr. Crane, as 
 one of my expert witnesses, contended that Ikie should 
 be treated according to his mental age. It was time 
 that Society took up the question of the relation of 
 the feebleminded to conduct, as we have taken up the 
 insane’s relation to and effect upon conduct. They 
 should be isolated like the insane, and kept from repro- 
 
 ducing their kind... . Kept from reproducing their 
 kind. ... The judge was a good churchman. He 
 frowned. ... Man interfering with His Will!... 
 
 The judge ruled Ikie was legally sane and responsible 
 for his acts. ... Hsther knew Ikie, knew him for an 
 irresponsible, foolish baby. Since the murder was due 
 to his act, she reasoned the other two should not be 
 put to death, but punished for their share of the crime. 
 And, again, she did not wholly blame the boys. She 
 felt that Society had neglected these children and now 
 should do something for them. ... I have observed 
 that Society begins to take an interest in its neglected 
 [ 234 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 children as soon as these children take some kind of 
 violent revenge upon Society. 
 
 Dr. Harry Wotin came out of the courtroom. He 
 had heard his brother Archie committed to death. 
 He had not talked with his brother in years. But now 
 that he was in trouble, Harry came to help him.... 
 Everybody waits, and then gets fearfully busy when 
 it is too late. ... Harry looks a little better dressed. 
 His coat and pants match; they never did before. 
 Hymie is bringing business to the office. It took Hymie 
 but a few years to become the East Side’s most highly 
 valued doctor. But Hymie said Harry was the greater 
 scientist and healer of the two. But that didn’t put 
 money in Harry’s pocket; Harry didn’t know how to 
 play the game. ... Harry said nothing, took his par- 
 ents’ arms and led them out of the courthouse. ... 
 And then Esther wept, a silent upstanding grief, a 
 few tears rolling down her cheeks. She wept for 
 Harry. Harry who gave all his time to the settlement 
 babies . . . later I learned the better reason for her 
 tears. She feared the good Wotin father and mother 
 would soon have another loss, another death, another 
 son snatched away. Harry had volunteered to submit 
 to experimental inoculations. ... The Wotin boys, 
 Harry the doctor, and Archie the Cannon—so different, 
 sprung from the same seed, nurtured in the same 
 soil . . . so different . . . but were they really differ- 
 ent? ... Fearlessness, self-immolation were their 
 common characteristics. ... I remember... early 
 in the trial . . . Archie saw it looked bad for the three 
 of them. He said there was no use in the whole bunch 
 being ‘‘croaked.’’ He would be the ‘‘fall guy,’’ assume 
 all the blame and exonerate the other two... . He made 
 
 [ 235 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 up a story that he thought would clear his companions 
 and implicate him alone. Dago Jack refused the sacri- 
 fice—and offered to make a similar one. Even the Dope 
 would not let Archie take all the blame. ... And the 
 Dope . . . he seemed to enjoy the whole mess, had no 
 conception of what he had done or what was in store 
 for him. He liked the life in the Tombs prison and 
 afforded entertainment to his tier prisoners with his 
 gibberish and silly songs. ... And how he liked it 
 when a fellow prisoner rattled his bars and called out, 
 ‘‘Hey, Ikie the Killer, give us a song. Shut up, you 
 bums, listen to a regular guy sing.’?.. . Dago Jack 
 had the blues. He said it was his fault that Ikie came 
 along. He had a tip that the station agent had a lot 
 of money on hand, and invited Archie to stick him up. 
 The Dope, hearing that a job was to be pulled off, 
 begged to be taken along. The Dago was a good fellow, 
 didn’t want to hurt the Dope’s feelings and let him 
 trail along. ... They would never have trusted him 
 with a gun, but Ikie managed to get hold of a gun by 
 lying to Jarski’s bartender, whom he told that Boolkie 
 had sent him for a pistol. . . . And so it hap- 
 pened.... 
 
 When I told Esther of Archie’s proposal to shoulder 
 all the blame and die to save his fellows, and how Dago 
 Jack refused and made a like offer, she recalled Davie’s 
 
 belief . . . his belief in that something in man’s make- 
 up that was always working, working to exalt human 
 conduct. . . . She was very bitter at the general 
 
 indifference towards the city’s children. She felt that 
 
 under other conditions these condemned murderers 
 
 might have been of some good to themselves and their 
 
 community.... Yet... I tried to point out... so 
 [ 236 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 many others, confronted with the same set of circum- 
 stances and conditions, had turned out so much dif- 
 ferent and better. ... I thought her answer very cold 
 and somehow it rankled in me for a long time .. . 
 ‘‘Not so very different, Meyer, not so very different.”’ 
 
 A few months later I went up to Sing Sing to tell 
 the boys the bad news. The appeal had gone against 
 them—unanimously. The date of execution was 
 fixed. ... Archie looked towards the little green door 
 that leads to the fatal chamber, and said, ‘‘ All right, 
 dust off the electric chair.”? . . . Dago Jack was 
 equally unmoved. . . . They would live up to their 
 part—their ideal; fearlessness—to the last flicker. ... 
 And the Dope . . . he paid little attention to our talk 
 and seemed more interested in a new clog dance that 
 one of the death-house inmates had taught him... . 
 
 We flooded the Governor with letters, petitions, tele- 
 grams and appeals. But we could not penetrate his 
 hard-boiled maximalism. Finally, Barney Finn and 
 I went to Albany to plead with the Governor for com- 
 mutation. He was adamant. He said the crime was 
 heinous and called for dire punishment as an example 
 and warning. . . . Sounded like the railroad’s attor- 
 ney. ... I had no influence with him. I belonged to 
 the wrong party. He made a slap at me when he 
 declared that the boys’ crime could be laid with all 
 propriety at the doors of Tammany Hall.... Five 
 years later the Governor and I met again. I recalled 
 his high and mighty condemnation of wrongdoing. I 
 recalled how righteously he asseverated no wrong 
 should be condoned by right-thinking citizenship. ... 
 When the Governor and I met again I had one of his 
 
 [ 237 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 personal friends in a black pocket. I had him cornered. 
 This friend of the Governor’s, a prominent society 
 man, member of an old aristocratic American family, 
 was found out as an unspeakable criminal, a corrupter 
 of children, a poisoner of the spring of womanhood. 
 And this same Governor bought me off, bought me off 
 to suppress the evidence, bought me off with Well, 
 that should be told Iater. . . . Meanwhile, the boys 
 were doomed to die. 
 
 I remember the day of the electrocution. Dr. Harry 
 Wotin was on his deathbed in a hospital. I went to see 
 him with a little remembrance from his brother Archie, 
 some little something Archie had fashioned out of 
 horsehair in the death-house. I also brought a horse- 
 hair ring for Esther, a gift from the Dope...) > Harry 
 was surrounded by a clinic of eminent physicians. . . . 
 They were watching his death with keen interest—with 
 deference towards the martyr to science... . Up in 
 Sing Sing his brother, too, was being attended by physi- 
 cians—awaiting the death thrill that would give them 
 the criminal’s brain for study. ... Here in the hos- 
 pital Harry was proving his important point—by 
 dying. The doctors said he was right; a certain some- 
 thing does cause a certain something which kills. ... 
 Harry was dying to save others. And Archie was 
 being killed to warn others. ... Where was Mamma 
 Wotin? She had chosen to go to Sing Sing to be near 
 the boy who was to die in ill-fame’s consuming em- 
 brace. That boy, in her mother’s heart, needed her 
 most. ... Harry could have the consolation of a great 
 deed done. 
 
 Dopie Ikie went to his death doing his clog dance. 
 
 [ 238 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 He called upon the official witnesses, a solemn statu- 
 tory gathering, to see how good he could click his heels 
 together. Not aman smiled. They dared not have a 
 sense of humor in the face of death. Ikie was greatly 
 amused when they seated him in the chair and fastened 
 a bandage around his eyes. He laughed outright as if 
 he had been tickled by the copper trappings and straps 
 they attached to his body, and when the juice was 
 turned on, it burned the leer upon his sallow, pimply 
 face and glazed the eyes that never saw life except as 
 a place of playthings. ... Archie was taciturn. He 
 refused to see both his mother and the Rabbi. He asked 
 for a cigarette, which I gave him. He lighted it, and 
 remarked it brought back a certain taste to him... . 
 
 ‘“T taste it now,’’ he said, as though chewing, ‘‘the 
 potatoes we used to bake in our street bonfires. Do 
 you remember how good they tasted, Meyer; do you 
 remember?’’ ... And they escorted him through the 
 little green door. . . . Dago Jack marched to his death 
 in all the glory of Catholic repentance and forgive- 
 ness. ... He madea strange request. ... They had 
 taken the Dope first, as they thought he would be least 
 able to stand the ordeal of waiting. As the Dope 
 passed the Dago’s cell, the Dago whispered, ‘‘Wait a 
 minute, kid. C’m here an’ let me kiss you.’”’... He 
 kissed Ikie’s cheek. ... ‘‘Forgive me, kid, will you 
 forgive me? I should ha’ never let you come. You’re 
 only a baby. I should ha’ never let you come ... poor 
 kid . . . you’re only a baby.’’? . . . And so they 
 BGS! \ 00's 
 
 [ 239 ] 
 
VI 
 
 Now comes gossip to torment me. . . . And it drifts 
 in to me, the talk in the bazaars—the jostled world of 
 pushcarts and stands, stalls and trays and baskets, the 
 talk of the lullful moments, when hucksters and bar- 
 gainers forget fish, and apples, and underwear and 
 pillows, for more toothsome fare. .. . 
 
 ‘‘Did you hear dh 
 
 ‘‘What are you talking ...tchk...a shame, as I 
 live, a shame for Jewish people.’? 
 
 ‘“‘You didn’t hear... . Thou knoweth Brinn—a fine 
 man and learned, and what is more, a good Jew ... his 
 daughter ... thou remembereth little Estherril—a dark 
 one sy 
 
 ‘*Yeh—yeh—I remember si 
 
 ““Nu, they say ... they say she’s going to marry 
 that long goy (Gentile).”? ... Meaning Finn... 
 
 “‘For sure . . . you know for sure, landsfrau (lands- 
 woman) ?’’ 
 
 ‘So I should know of my troubles... . Who amI 
 to be the confidant of Americanskies, hah? . . They 
 say ... and so I say—if you’ll let me have the pota- 
 toes a penny cheaper I’ll take ten pounds A 
 
 ‘*T can’t, believe me, we should both so live, the way 
 I can’t They: say, you say ... utt 2. if they 
 say, it must be something already, if they Say.’ 
 
 ‘‘And that means called America . . . such a calam- 
 ity to parents ... tomarry a goy ... Tchk. A mad 
 shame, such a year and luck on me, nach what a 
 
 [ 240 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 shame! ... Igo... can you let me have it a little 
 eheaper ...orIgo....”’ 
 
 Esther and Finn were seen so much together as to 
 bring out a great clucking of ‘‘they say’’——_ But sup- 
 pose. . . . What a hateful blow to my ego were 
 Esther even to consider another one when I, I—Meyer 
 Hirsch—wanted her. 
 
 Shadchans (marriage brokers) are after me. . .. 
 They bring alluring offers of dowries. They keep the 
 marriage idea in my mind, an idea to summon up one 
 image—Hsther’s. And now gossip buzzes disturbing 
 warnings inmy ears.... Esther.... Your Esther... 
 she who fills the secret places of your being ... the 
 places you never look into, don’t want to look into. ... 
 Esther of the secret places ... look out, you’ll lose 
 oo ee 
 
 But wouldn’t I be a fool . . . just when things are 
 shaping my way. ... Marriage might be the biggest 
 stepping stone of all, the big boost up to the High 
 Places. ... Consider. ... Why are you looking for 
 trouble! ... Think. ... You’re so well off for the 
 biding period; you have nothing to complain of; bide 
 your time. ... There is Gretel, a divan of delight 
 for your tired head. . . . A comfortable, unannoying, 
 storm-free arrangement. . .. Why, why look for 
 trouble ... you’re fair on your way to the biggest 
 career in New York ... how you are sizing up!... 
 Time ... just more time. ... The cynosure of all 
 eyes; looked up to; catered to; they’ll run after 
 you. .... And power! Power. Money. Position... . 
 Beautiful cultured damsels with tempting fortunes 
 ... of high-up families ... anointed and arrayed for 
 you ... paraded before you as before a king... 
 
 [ 241 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 yours to choose .. . to pick the queenliest of all to 
 grace your kingly court....Bah...and_ that 
 other ... that nobody ... well, what if her grand- 
 father was the Vilna Gaan (Chief Rabbi of Vilna) .. . 
 look at her father, what a father-in-law, a father-in-law 
 who sells penny-a-glass soda water ... puh! 
 
 These are the thoughts filtering into my mind like 
 hot ashes. . . . I am getting ready for bed. . . . It is 
 the beginning of another summer. . . . I stand by the 
 window . . . a young moon rides the heavens, trailing 
 the gauziest of nebulae . . . like a bridal veil... a 
 bridal veil. ... Gretel calls me . . . is she apprehen- 
 Sive . . . does she sense that I am seeing a heavenly 
 virgin bedecked in nuptial lace?... ‘‘Come away, 
 Meyer. ... How long! . . . you have been staring at 
 the moon! They say it is not good to look at the moon. 
 Do not look at the moon... come, Meyer, my heart, 
 come now to bed.’’ ... 
 
 Gretel murmurs over me in the way of her nightly 
 wooing ... ‘‘My tired one, rest here. May my arm 
 be your pillow, beloved. ... King among men, so, my 
 tired one ... s0.”? 
 
 In the brooding quiet the bothersome thoughts re- 
 turn. The moon’s glow invades my closed lids. I turn 
 
 from the moon, turn and fidget. . . . ‘*Rest, my heart, 
 rest... Meyerelle ... you are uneasy ...I1 will 
 whisper you to sleep. . . . You looked at the moon and 
 
 stars, my pretty, my Meyerelle. .. . But I, your 
 
 Gretel, I look at you... . Sleep then, my prettiness, 
 
 sleep... . You are my shining moon and stars, my 
 
 shining moon and stars... and the world... you 
 
 are Gretelle’s world, heart mine. . . . Here you rest 
 
 upon my heart... . Task nothing more. .. rest upon 
 f 242 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 my heart .. . the world is mine.’’?... Her hot lips 
 press upon my eyes, searing into them, as if to burn 
 out all other images and visions. ... Divan of de- 
 light, diva . . . drooping, lulled, soothed . . . asleep. 
 
 I rouse up in terror. A red glare seems to have 
 
 burst before my eyes . . . but the room is yawningly 
 black. . . . Had not a bell clanged insistently, 
 clanged . . . and was there not a rushing, blood- 
 
 curdling outcry? ... And the moon has gone, left me 
 in a terrifying darkness. ... Maybe Gretel cried out in 
 her sleep. I bend over her face and feel her breath 
 upon my cheek. She sleeps calmly. ...I wait and 
 listen, straining my senses. . . . What waked me? .. . 
 The glare. The bell. The wind of anguished 
 voices. .. . All is quiet, the dead stillness of a tomb. 
 The blackness expands. I am dropping in an abyss—a 
 speck in the deeps. . . . I clutch the coverlet. . . . The 
 blackness contracts. . . . Now it is pushing upon 
 me .. . the walls are drawing together, the ceiling 
 sinks down upon me. . . . I gasp for breath, I am 
 stifling. . . . I thrust out my hands to stay the crush- 
 ing walls. . . . Istrike Gretel. She awakes, grasps me 
 in her strong comforting arms, holds me to her breast 
 like a slipping, fainting child and pours beseeching en- 
 dearments upon my face. ... Slowly, I come to and 
 sink my face in her dress, glad to shut out the night- 
 mare like a boy covering his head with a sheet... . 
 ‘*Tell me, now, you are quiet. What is it, my life, 
 what is it? Tell me. You were tossing and tear- 
 ing. .. . Your brow is cold and wet . . . so rest, here 
 by my heart ... so.’’. . . Shaken, spent, I snuggle 
 to her side and hold her tight. 
 [ 243 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘Nothing, Gretel. Ill sleep now. Just a bad 
 dream.’’ 
 
 I shake off the childish dread. - I must dismiss 
 the bothersome thoughts and Pied I can sleep. I had 
 taken them to sleep with me. ... Quietly, I consider, 
 clear-brained. . . . Iknownow. . . . There is no other 
 way. It is eatted. I know. . (pad on. Push on, 
 Meyer Hirsch. Now, the ian is carrying 
 you...» push on. ... Ambition is the undying de- 
 Sire... push on... . Ambition is the un—— 
 
 { 244] 
 
SIXTH PERIOD 
 
 : And sit we upon the highest 
 throne in the world, yet sit we upon our own 
 TN Ga 
 
 MontTAIGNE. 
 
Aly 
 aN as 
 Sart MA 
 
 l 
 We 
 
 hi 
 
SIXTH PERIOD 
 I 
 
 ‘‘The time has come to throw Gretel overboard.’ 
 
 Little sparks eddied and then were swooped up the 
 chimney. A log adjusted itself with a painful crunch, 
 spurting new flames and sparks. Philip and I sat 
 alone in the unlighted library, ensconced in deep 
 leather armchairs, basking in the fitful glow of the open 
 fireplace. ... Philip waited, waited for his words to 
 burnin. Flicking a little cloud of ashes from his cigar 
 into the tumult of flames, he sat forward, bringing his 
 steady inquiring gaze upon my immobile face. 
 
 ‘‘Get rid of her, Meyer. Your ship’s putting into 
 port ... don’t need ballast any more... get ready 
 for a rich cargo.’’... 
 
 He watched my face. I did not so much as flicker an 
 eyelash. But he seems to read my thoughts. . 
 ‘*She’s becoming a fixture in your life. What’s worse; 
 don’t let her become an unbreakable habit. ... Mark 
 you, Meyer . . . your prescience of old has not become 
 dimmed, I hope. See through ....and ahead... . 
 Since we moved uptown we had to give the lovely 
 Gretel a new status; we invented a pretty fiction— 
 she’s a companion for your aging mother—lives in 
 your mother’s apartment—but in your apartment, 
 too—on the top floor ... we think, away from the 
 servants’ prying eyes . . . we think we are fooling 
 the world. ... But Gretel is too much the buxom 
 beauty, a beauty that is seen too much as your mother’s 
 
 [ 247 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 companion . . . good clothes, handsome carriage ... 
 a suggestive picture. ... What then shall we expect 
 but that the world in its private little whispers should 
 Say it suspects? .. . And soa pretty tale spreads.’’ 
 
 An anguished hiss; the living sap is scorched as ir 
 a flame of hate. Change in conflict. Hiss, sizzle, hiss. 
 Moaning, dying, expiring in a simmer. Gretel. Over- 
 board. The sacrificial logs crackle in answer: over- 
 board with her, overboard; we’re burning up for you; 
 let her drown for you. The cold hearth—the end, the 
 grave. But Philip throws on more logs. A merry 
 sparkle. Gayety—Glamour. The song of life in death; 
 death feeding, giving life. Change in conflict. Every- 
 thing dies for you, for you—Meyer Hirsch. 
 
 Philip falls back, lost in contemplation of the gloom 
 over the mantelpiece, speckling with gleams, like fire- 
 flies in an overcast night. 
 
 Thoughts pile on me. TI daresay it’s a fleeting mo- 
 ment that Philip has kept the silence. Like a flash of 
 the myriads of the heavens, thoughts, images, happen- 
 ings and talk spun out in this mere breath of time. 
 The world’s agony is told in a sigh. .. . Gretel’: 24 
 get rid of her. Esther; don’t think of her, don’t, don’t. 
 Hsther. . . . Last night Dr. Hymie Rubin came to see 
 mother. Suppose she dies. Then something will have 
 to be done about Gretel. . . . His knock-knees are 
 funny. How he waddled around the room. Picked up 
 books and threw them down. With a bang, down went 
 the books. ‘‘What’s the use?” he squeaked, recalling Hi 
 Rube of Lavelle’s . . . Lavelle’s. Gaslit glories. . 
 ‘*Damn books. What’s the use?” .. . Philip snorted. 
 He knew what Hymie meant. .. . ‘‘Uptown; the 
 animal on top. Uptown, a new world of get-on- 
 
 [ 248 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 johnnies living off downtown stay-where-you-are- 
 mutts.’? ... His knock-knees were funny, and his 
 beard. He said there’s nothing the matter with 
 mother; she’s just homesick, lonesome for the Ghetto; 
 her world. He did not even say good night; banged 
 down the stairs, sounded as if his knees were banging 
 together. . . . Uptown. The apex of prosperity. 
 Fitted snugly in the smug brownstone West Highties 
 overlooking Central Park. Uptown. On the crest. 
 Uptown. But downtown, there I maintain a voting 
 residence, the mouth of my tentacle. Politically, I am 
 still an East Sider, politically only. I am still feudal 
 lord, but as a sort of political absentee landlord. New 
 style in politics for political bosses. Convenient. 
 Absentee feudal lord. Somebody said that. Barney 
 Finn. The hell with him. The hell with him.... 
 Hirsch & Freund, going bigger than ever, still draws 
 its great practice from the Hast Side, but it’s spread- 
 ing around that we are a firm for results. Results. 
 Doesn’t matter the who or the how; get the results. 
 Results; and they flock tous. ... Whata grand suite 
 of offices, ours, Hirsch & Freund’s—an entire floor of 
 a skyscraper. Last word in skyscrapers, rugs, desks, 
 clerks, files, pretty stenographers, partitions, water- 
 marked stationery, tricks and results.... And 
 Philip is getting results. A smart array of showrooms 
 and offices in a Broadway loft edifice. Edifice; not just 
 a building. An edifice—to results. But Philip manu- 
 factures in the good old way . . . hiss, swelter and 
 seethe... . the Good Old Way—sweating on a grand 
 scale. In barracks, that’s where he manufactures the 
 sure sellers, The New World Brand for Men Who 
 Know Clothes for Men. . .. In dingy barracks, asoak 
 [ 249 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 with sweat. . . . But they get the results. The shekels. 
 And Philip is rich; how rich no one knows. Everybody 
 says he is a millionaire; which is nearly as good as 
 being one. ... Five years. The last five years of our 
 great Coming Up in the world. . . . Turned down the 
 nomination for the Superior Criminal Court bench. 
 Good judgment—Meyer Hirsch’s! Saw it was an off 
 year for my party. Won’t do to be tagged as a de- 
 feated candidate. No black mark of defeat on the 
 record of M. H. My party just went down to defeat. 
 Didn’t hurt my prestige; my district rolled up a big 
 vote for Tammany. Even defeat made me shine—by 
 contrast. . . . So, I’ll wait and run in a sure year. 
 New York’s reform spurts are shortlived. Took all 
 the Good Elements to lick us. A fusion ticket; sour, 
 left-out-in-the-cold Tammanyites, disgusted Jeffer- 
 sonian Democrats, and clever Republican politicians 
 aching for a whack at the public crib. They raised a 
 tremendous fuss. A storm of old stuff; abuses, scan- 
 dals, graft, redlight, waste, inefficiency; old stuff. A 
 virtuous fuss and pother that even got the people to 
 vote who usually were too respectable and superior 
 to bother going to the polls. Just the same my district 
 showed up fine in the count. Privileged class’ plural 
 voting ; repeaters, floaters, stuffers. Control. Organi- 
 zation. Cash. Showed I kept my district in my vest 
 pocket. Funny; the reformer Barney Finn ran on the 
 Fusion ticket for alderman. Snowed him under. 
 Damn him; he raked me over the coals. He called my 
 number. Called me out of my name. He and the 
 Socialists may think they’ve got my number. Can’t 
 harm me if they have my number, so long as the bulk 
 of my voters don’t know how to figure. But I get a 
 [ 250 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 sick feeling thinking of those damned Socialists. How 
 they attack me; describe me as Colossus of the Flesh- 
 pots astraddle the East Side. One foot on its belly 
 and the other foot on its neck. Hawnch Paunch and 
 Jowl. And they print caricatures of me in their scur- 
 rilous daily. Haunch Paunch and Jowl. The Socialists 
 are gaining votes. I’m keeping the regulars, the good 
 old standbys, the favor-seekers. But the Socialists are 
 gathering the new crop of voters; the untested genera- 
 tion. The younglings. The Russian newcomers taught 
 in the school of revolutionary thought. Bah! the 
 Socialist of today is the bourgeoisie of tomorrow. 
 Wait until they bunk against realities. Wait until they 
 get a little worldly goods. They’ll change. They’ll 
 come around. When a radical grows up he is a con- 
 servative. ... Everything is fuel. ... 
 
 ‘Did you speak, Meyer?’’ 
 
 I’m not going to talk about Gretel. I’ll shift the 
 subject. 
 
 ‘¢‘ Just thinking, Phil; are the unions bothering you 
 much??? 
 
 ‘““We’re gunning for them. Organized my manu- 
 facturers’ union. Slip of the tongue; not a union. An 
 association of manufacturers; an association. .. .’’ 
 A sardonic laugh.... ‘‘A vast dealisinaname. A 
 union is un-American. An association fights for Amer- 
 ican principles. Get me, Meyer....’’ Hiss. Sputter. 
 Angry snaps and bites. ... ‘‘Unions are opposed to 
 the grand American institution—Personal Liberty. 
 They deny workmen the right to work. None of the 
 unions’ business to tell free American workmen for 
 whom, what and where and how to work. They can’t 
 tell us how to run our business. We’re American, the 
 
 [ 251 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 association; and the union, a foreign invasion. .. .”? 
 Overboard with Gretel. Phil is consistent. After the 
 union served his purpose he threw it overboard... . 
 *“‘Can’t say. ... In a way, yes, Meyer, in a way, the 
 unions have done the industry a certain amount of 
 good. Improved the workers’ standard of living and 
 with it the standard of the industry. But can’t let the 
 unions grow too strong, learn too much. Always 
 the danger of their getting wise unto themselves and 
 taking over the industry. And where would we get off 
 at? ... Slowly, imperceptibly, let the unions whole- 
 somely regulate the industry. Good for the bosses and 
 workers to end the body-destroying and nerve-racking 
 seasonal rush. .. .’? 
 
 But Philip doesn’t want to talk about business. He 
 lapses into cigar-puffing, a sort of let ’s-drop-it hint. 
 After leaving his offices Philip had made it an inflexi- 
 ble, self-defense rule never to talk shop. In the begin- 
 ning he found business an exacting mistress. Madame 
 Business said, if you want to keep me, and if you 
 want me to keep you, you must give yourself wholly 
 to me.... Now Philip is rich enough to relax, to 
 seek other interests. He didn’t want to belong body 
 and soul to his business. All around him he saw the 
 awful bores it was making of nine out of ten busi- 
 ness men. ‘They could see, hear, talk and read only 
 business. 
 
 Philip finished his coffee, rang for the butler, who 
 gave him a light for a fresh cigar... . Once more he 
 swings my thoughts to Gretel... . True, she had 
 taken on a new status uptown. She calls herself Ger- 
 trude; only lets me call her Gretel when we are alone. 
 Bit by bit she has picked up a fair English, though 
 
 [ 252 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 I prefer her musical Yiddish with its poetic flexibility. 
 As mother’s companion she gets around everywhere 
 in the automobile, shopping and visiting. . . . Private 
 whispers. . . . Sizzle. Her full figure with pleasing 
 roundness shows of the good clothes she wears, and 
 I see with pride that men’s eyes follow her. .. . Will 
 the fiction be found out, the whisper flare into a burn- 
 
 ing scandal? ... Get rid of her?... I had never 
 thought of that... . Everything is so cozy and com- 
 fortable and well-ordered. . . . The last five years had 
 
 really seen me grow fat—Haunch Paunch and Jowl. 
 My chin seemed to start at my cheek bones. Hogshead 
 belly and cabbage head. ... Did Henri Fabre ask, 
 why does the white butterfly seek the cabbage? .. . 
 Gretel. Surely, now I was getting to be like most fat 
 people, willing to let well enough alone, to stay put. . . . 
 On the other hand, look at Uncle Philip who has kept 
 himself slim and erect, remained a vital fighter. He 
 1s stirring my hulk, prodding the fat upon my sensi- 
 bilities, urging me out of the lethargy. I know what’s 
 in his mind. Another big step forward. The old 
 Philip; never satisfied. In fact he’s getting ready, 
 himself, for such a step—marriage. 
 
 ‘*Don’t wait until she is an embarrassment... .?? 
 
 ‘“‘Gretel will never stand in my way... .”’ 
 
 ‘*You can’t count on a woman. You never know a 
 woman even after you’ve lived a lifetime with her. 
 You don’t know her because she don’t know herself.?? 
 
 Someone came into the room, a gliding, nigh sound- 
 less presence. The Japanese butler with a tray. ... 
 I mused over the coffee. Philip threw away the half- 
 burnt cigar for the luxury of a fresh smoke. ‘Only 
 the first two inches, no more,’’ he says with epicurean, 
 
 [ 253 J 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 millionairish diffidence. He bent over the match, 
 brought his face nearer the firelight, and I studied his 
 heavy shock of black hair, clustering into little groups 
 of tiny curls, with its strange wide swath of gray. He 
 has the tight mouth of a dyspeptic. Little hollows 
 have been clawed out of his cheeks. Yet a handsome, 
 rather distinguished face, for its spareness. Is it the 
 deepening firelight ... his eyes ...ajest ... eyes 
 of a dreamer, a poet .. . but his cheek bones and chin 
 bone and forehead bones .. . the steel skeleton of a 
 skyscraper. ... Indeed, a skyscraper, steel, stone 
 and iron-flanged concrete, personality. ... Once he 
 remarked it is a wonder he had survived at all the mad 
 fury of the early struggle. His business had indeed 
 been his mistress; a passion greater than the passion 
 of blood, the passion for power wealth would bring. 
 An eighteen-hour day was the usual thing, hardly even 
 pausing to eat. A snatch, gobble and guzzle—lunch. 
 Late in the evening, as he worked, hunger would claw, 
 remindingly. Dinner—supper. Open a can of salmon, 
 soak it in briny artificial vinegar and spoon it up with 
 a hunk of bread; with a large raw onion for a condi- 
 ment. On. Drive on. And his had been a seven-day 
 week. ... And now Philip had a stomach to remind 
 him. The stomach reminded him that there was life. 
 The stomach made him repent.... At last, almost 
 at the brink of stomachic demoralization he saw there 
 was life—life to be lived. Like all the commerce- 
 cursed, he said he would live—live the way he wanted 
 to live—big, grand, wonderful, when he had made his 
 pile. But nearly always, they get buried under that 
 pile. ... At last life was there to live, but he had 
 lost the habit of living, had not the capacity, mental, 
 [ 204 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 physical or spiritual, to live. Everything in him was 
 almost sapped out by the vampire. Toil was a habit. 
 Sometimes it seemed he could not live without the 
 pressure. ... But he was Philip and took himself in 
 hand. He tried to win back the habits of interests, 
 reading and living. It came hard. He had to teach 
 himself over again. He had to wean himself of the 
 business man’s contempt for culture. And the stomach 
 needed the tenderest ministrations of a great dietitian. 
 He heard the verdict, die or diet... . But the great 
 thrust of the incentive to live came when Phil decided 
 to attack the citadel of the Jewish Four Hundred, the 
 exclusive social aristocracy of the German Jews. He 
 tried and was rebuffed. They wanted not a Russian 
 Jew in their midst. So he decided to hold aloof a 
 while. He would find a way to sneak into the holy city 
 and stay in. 
 
 Phil became a princely entertainer. A host of syco- 
 phants flocked round his lavish purse, and became the 
 fown-criers of his greatness. He started first-night 
 parties at the theatres, followed by memorable suppers 
 to the chief actors of the play. He financed shows with 
 Al Wolff, became an angel of support and success to 
 would-be prima donnas and tragediennes. His com- 
 pany was graced by beauteous women. He was the 
 high patron of charity benefits) He became the man 
 about town. He had his box at the opera, hob-nobbed 
 with the famed persons of the stage and opera. In his 
 business district he created a luncheon club, censored 
 its membership list and made it fastidiously exclusive. 
 In truth, he was a prince among business men. Down- 
 town he was sought out by everyone. But, somehow 
 the unwritten law kept him from being asked into the 
 
 [ 255 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 charmed inner circle of the Jewish Four Hundred. He 
 had not pedigree. He was a nouveau riche Russian 
 Jew. And the élite had a definite rule against Rus- 
 sian or Polish Jews, just as the real Four Hundred 
 had a hard and fast rule against Jews entering their 
 intimate circle. How then may a society remain exclu- 
 sive unless it is exclusive? ... And it came to pass 
 im Philip’s mind that he would marry himself into the 
 elect. Not for a second was he thinking of marrying 
 a wife. He would take unto himself—a pedigree, a 
 social license. . .. And he was nearing the stage of 
 aegotiations with his prospective father-in-law, which 
 accounts for Phil’s pressing of the subject of Gretel 
 tonight. For tonight Philip expected Herman Solomon 
 Munsterkase—his potential father-in-law—to call with 
 a rich banker to play pinochle in Philip’s famous 
 bachelor quarters. . . . And this Munsterkase had an 
 unmarried daughter on his hands, a leftover in the 
 social shuffle for husbands. More to the point was 
 Miss Josephine Rauch Munsterkase’s most apparent 
 age. She was old enough to worry her parents, who 
 belonged to a world that regarded old maidenhood in 
 one of their daughters as a personal, insufferable 
 reflection. ... I met the lady on the steps of the Fifth 
 Avenue Temple, a temple which Philip joined as a 
 maneuver in his siege of the Four Hundred. She was 
 a dried-up specimen, without even the saving grace of 
 personality. But Phil minded only one thing—the 
 pedigree. And the Munsterkases had a flock of cousin- 
 ships in the social aviary atop the upper crust where 
 inbreeding of social self-sufficiency had made them like 
 royalty—one family. So their pedigree was the prize 
 he was after—a life pass into the sacred precincts. . . . 
 [ 256 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 It is laughable, ironic. What have you got, now that 
 you’ve got it! That is what Philip exclaimed when at 
 last he had reached the peak. And what did he find? 
 The rare people of the high altitudes were like all land- 
 locked mountaineers, dull, gloomy, backward and 
 painstakingly provincial... . The tragedy of Phil’s 
 life is that he always got what he wanted. ... How 
 longingly he looked at that social High Place of the 
 Jewish Four Hundred. . . . As soonasa Russian J ew, 
 the crass and despised herring-eater, makes a heap of 
 money, he is obsessed with a consuming yearn to mingle 
 with high-up German Jewish society. And, I suppose, 
 his longing is intensified by the latter’s unabiding con- 
 tempt. ... In my own case, though, I was more like 
 the new-born American Jew, holding myself as a part 
 of a new aristocracy—the American aristocracy of 
 success, hall-marked with the dollar sign . . . dollar 
 land... dollar land.... 
 
 “Tf you'll take my advice, Meyer, you won’t lose 
 any time. Don’t wait for 3 
 
 *‘Mr. Munsterkase and Mr. Mortimer.’’?... The 
 announcement came with the click that turned on the 
 electric lights... . Munsterkase was a man of about 
 sixty, short, stoop-shouldered and potbellied; his yel- 
 lowish complexion was relieved by a Van Dyke beard 
 of reddish white; and his narrow thin face seemed 
 smaller because of a great curved nose. You remem- 
 bered Munsterkase by his nose. He crossed the room 
 with a slight swaying motion, and presented Adolf 
 Mortimer, his cousin. . . . Mortimer of the banking 
 family of that name: the great Mortimers! The room 
 seemed to light up with their august presence. . . . 
 Again I was struck by Munsterkase’s heavy Teutonic 
 
 [ 257 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 accent, and was more surprised since I learned he had 
 been in America over forty years.... It was the 
 accent of his shut-in clan. . . . Mortimer was different. 
 Tall, broad-shouldered, with an outdoor complexion 
 and easy physical bearing, he looked the American 
 developed on a university campus. His enunciation 
 reminded me of Dr. Lionel Crane, whom I was expect- 
 ing this evening. The Harvard Tone. ... Munster- 
 kase had a lineal hold in a department store, and 
 Mortimer had inherited a vice-presidency in a banking 
 house founded four generations ago in the free city of 
 Hamburg and now was financing copper mines and 
 railroads in Western America. ... Here are people 
 to kotow to... chief seat holders of the Fifth 
 Avenue Temple. ... For a certainty we are getting 
 there ... but there is a sour taste in my mouth... 
 Gretel. ... Well, I suppose, what else ... over- 
 board. ... I am incoherent tonight—small talk— 
 Phil is telling a story—did I hear him say over- 
 board ... no, board of directors. ... Now Esther 
 jumbles up my mind.... Gretel.... Esther.... 
 Why does her image come to worry me tonight... it’s 
 so long now that I have even talked with her. I thought 
 she had quite faded away ... but tonight.... 
 
 A committee from the temple files into the room 
 headed by young Rabbi Drucker. They have come to 
 confer with me. I have been sticking my oar into the 
 temple affairs. I have been busy raising an issue. A 
 successful politician knows how to make capital out of 
 his opponents’ material. Finn is getting too much 
 influence in the East Side. What is worse, he is sin- 
 gling me out for attack. I have suggested to the temple 
 that our congregation start a social settlement in the 
 
 C 258 
 
 HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Ghetto to salvage the drifting spiritual life of the new 
 generation, who are falling too much under the un- 
 Jewish influence of persons like Finn. ... I invited 
 Munsterkase and Mortimer to advise with the com- 
 mittee. My mind is again clear and keenly alert. I am 
 mindful to make a good impression on Phil’s intended 
 papa-in-law.... ‘‘We won’t be long,’’ I console 
 them; ‘‘and then we can play pinochle with a good 
 conscience ;’’? which makes everyone laugh. ... Soon 
 we are settled comfortably before the fire; and our 
 gliding Japanese servants offered smoking things. . . . 
 Drucker was assistant Rabbi to the venerable Joseph 
 Roseman, for many years Rabbi of the Fifth Avenue 
 Temple. The young Rabbi was an ambitious fellow 
 and knew all the wiles of the climber. His sure method 
 was to praise and puff up influential members... . 
 He mentioned the topic of the committee meeting, using 
 it as an opening to flatter me. He spoke the readily 
 understood sanctimonious phrases ... Judaism... 
 Judaism. ... Again he sees a chance to flatter 
 me.... ‘‘Mr. Hirsch ... long known as untiring 
 defender of Jewry and its enduring-through-the-ages 
 ideals and culture. . . . Now with great insight Mr. 
 Hirsch sees a situation that develops, menacingly. . . . 
 Among ourselves, we must really keep it among our- 
 selves, for no good purpose may be accomplished by 
 advertising our shame . . . therefore among ourselves 
 we must see as Mr. Hirsch has wisely seen, the young 
 Jews of the new generation are being weaned away 
 from Judaism.’’ ... Munsterkase shook his head in 
 solemn distress. Mortimer suppressed a yawn... . 
 The Rabbi at best was a dull fellow, outside of knowing 
 how to play his particular game well. I feared he 
 [ 259 | 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 vould drag out the meeting and deny Munsterkase his 
 coveted pinochle game. Fortunately, Dr. Lionel Crane 
 arrived at this juncture. ... I had asked Crane to 
 give us the benefit of his expert advice. I was playing 
 a little game with Crane, seducing my enemy after the 
 infallible Turkish fashion of demoralizing a dangerous 
 man with a pashaship and a seraglio. I had a sneaking 
 feeling that giving Crane a good job and a chance to 
 mix with the higher-ups, he would play the game, and 
 forget his crusade against the Professional Jew and his 
 theory of intermarriage as the saving tonic for the 
 Jewish race. And I wasn’t far from right, for Crane 
 _ sought eagerly the job of establishing a social settle- 
 ment under the patronage of the exclusive Fifth 
 Avenue Temple. Besides Crane now had a wife and 
 baby to support. ... Orane stood in the center with 
 his back to the fire. He was getting a little bald now, 
 and carried a respectable corporation. His manner 
 was suave. In the past his talk used to bite into you. 
 Tonight he brushed you gently. ... Yet, he had his 
 old way of scaring off contradiction; he knew too well 
 anything he talked about. ... Said Crane, ‘‘Are you 
 aware that Christian Science, New Thought, Theo- 
 sophical, Ethical Culture and Unitarian churches are 
 attracting Jewish membership, particularly among the 
 younger Jews?’’... Munsterkase literally pricked up 
 his ears. ... Canit be! ... ‘‘Yes, they are attract- 
 ing the spiritually hungry who are repelled by the 
 crudities and absurdities of our own orthodox religion. 
 Your temple is a reformed synagogue, it expresses 
 your departure from orthodoxy. But you have kept 
 to yourselves. How are the young Jews to find out 
 that a Jew may worship and live in a sane, dignified 
 [ 260 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 and American fashion and yet remain a Jew! You 
 have got to bring them the message of your ways in 
 the same way that the social settlements founded by the 
 Gentiles bring them the appeal of their ways. And 
 yet when you get down to it, your ways are no different 
 from the refined Gentile’s. . . . Really what we are 
 concerned with is to gain respect for Judaism, and to 
 gain respect for Judaism we will have to dignify it. 
 Our next task is to tone down our high-pitched per- 
 sonalities. ... In order to win over the minds that 
 have become emancipated from the dread and super- 
 stition of orthodoxy you will have to show them that 
 our religion is reasonable and purposeful. Purpose- 
 ful; a religion that does something besides praying. 
 Then there are others whom we will have to attract 
 from the social side. The propertied middle classes 
 like the business of going to church on Sunday morn- 
 ing ; it’s something nice to do on Sunday morning when 
 
 there’s nothing else to do. . . . So the old world syna- 
 gogues in this new world are inadequate, unsatisfying, 
 socially and spiritually. ... But there is yet another 
 
 serious phase of a growing Jewish population that 
 is religionless. A great number are finding their 
 spiritual craving gratified in Socialism and_philo- 
 sophical anarchism. I hold radicalism is an expression 
 of spiritual need. ... Do you think it will improve 
 our position in America when our people become known 
 for radicals, enemies of existing institutions? It will 
 
 be another cause for dislike and distrust .. . a people 
 always swinging between extremes.... It is time 
 that the Jew in everything he does should cease to 
 make himself a marked man... .’’ 
 
 Voices spring up in agreement.... An elderly 
 [ 261 | 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 man, ‘‘Who could believe it would come to this? Alas! 
 A little liberty and our young abandon the religion 
 their fathers died for. ... What persecution could not 
 do, a little liberty does....’?... Drucker, ‘‘Mr. Hirsch 
 has the right idea... .’’ Munsterkase, ‘‘The wurst 
 is thot Socialism .. . owfull . . . and anarch-ismus— 
 that is terrible.’? .. . A committeman on the fringe: 
 ‘“‘Save them from the proselytes. .. .’’ Whereupon 
 Drucker dilates upon our duty to our people. He hag 
 a steady flow of stereotyped phrases and bromidioms, 
 and it is getting a little drawn out. After all, a prob- 
 lem is only a problem, but pinochle is a fascinating 
 game. Deftly I take the lead from Drucker and bring 
 the meeting to practical considerations. As usual, the 
 Job of getting something done is delegated to a sub- 
 committee of three, in this case, Crane, Drucker and 
 myself. A safe social settlement guided by the Fifth 
 Avenue Temple is practically assured. Philip has 
 watched the meeting with interest. He is pleased. be- 
 cause Munsterkase has been impressed favorably. ... 
 The committee began the confusing business of shaking 
 hands and taking leave, sprinkling their farewells with 
 solemn asides at the seriousness of the problem. 
 Drucker shook hands with me in his sleek way, and 
 asked casually if I had read the evening papers. .. 
 
 No.... ‘The nasty headlines you missed them, Mr. 
 Hirsch. Imagine my feelings as I read, ‘Poor Jewish 
 Girl Marries Millionaire Sociologist’—a goy... 
 what’s his name—the man who started the settlement; 
 yes, Finn. Seems an aunt or two died and left him a 
 few millions, so he is a subject for publicity. Look at 
 the headlines—poor Jewish girl.... Who is the 
 girl? . . . the paper named someone, I think her name 
 
 [ 262 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 sounds something like his . . . yes, yes, now that you 
 mention it—Esther Brinn ... scandalous.... They 
 say she married him for money . . . see the implica- 
 tion . . . everything against the Jew . . . she married 
 a goy for his money. .. .”’ 
 
 Crane confirmed the astounding news—‘‘Yes, took 
 Finn years to win her. Something seemed to stand in 
 the way. Perhaps the difference in religion. Or, 
 maybe another man ... who knows. ... They were 
 married quietly a few weeks ago. Ethical Culture cere- 
 mony... But now that Finn has inherited millions 
 the marriage has become a newspaper sensation. .. .”’ 
 
 I slipped upstairs to my room. All was still. Mother 
 nodded in her rocking chair, and I could hear the slight- 
 est kind of a hum, almost like a faraway river murmur, 
 probably Gretel busy in another room. ... I was very 
 calm; a terrible quietness had settled on me. I took 
 my hat and coat. ... Again, the trick of rapid inco- 
 herent thoughts flipping about my mind. ... I looked 
 at mother. She always wanted to sit in a corner, just 
 as she did in Ludlow Street after father’s death. ...I 
 slipped past her into the hallway. I have put on my 
 hat and coat without an idea of going anywhere. It 
 seems I just had to go. Where, did not matter.... 
 Go. ... In the library the pinochle game has be 
 gun. ... 1 make an excuse, just called away by an 
 important case. ... 
 
 Esther married! The December wind seemed to 
 howl it through the side street I paced on my way 
 towards the river. Esther... your Hsther—mar- 
 ried ...toFinn... yourenemy.... I came to the 
 
 | [ 263 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 granite parapet and looked on the dark river... . 
 Overboard with Gretel... . I turned my back to the 
 river. ... Esther. ... An electric arc light over the 
 roadway shone upon a bit of white paper, shone 
 whitely and reminiscently, and then was swept up 
 and away on the black wing of the screaming wind. . . . 
 Hsther married. . . . Do you remember .. . the white- 
 ness of that bit of paper . . . do you remember, Meyer 
 Hirsch, once, when you went for the second time to 
 look into Esther’s window? How you pulled yourself 
 up to the sill, and with your head moved the shutter 
 aside, and the moon shone in for a moment. ... Esther 
 asleep on the bed . . . a moonbeam upon her shoul- 
 ders, and she moved ... the coverlet turned down 
 and you saw the whiteness of a marble bust, a Grecian 
 bust . . . and a cat rankled over the cans in the back- 
 yard and you fled... . Oh, the sheer beauty of the 
 Grecian bust. . . . Meyer Hirsch, you will never for- 
 get. ... The wind screeched in my ears... you 
 thought you would forget . . . but you will never for- 
 get Esther ...her eyes...her hands... her 
 quick smile . . . and her voice . . . you will never for- 
 get... . Everything is rushing on, swiftly. The wind 
 is sweeping the world away from me... . I am left 
 alone clinging to the granite block . . . the trees rush 
 past, the houses swoop away, the river rages on its 
 flight from me; below me I feel a rumble; now comes 
 a gaseous snort ...a freight train flees after the 
 wind-borne trees, houses, river, and swirling roads... . 
 The wine of her lips—one kiss . . . limbs quivering 
 beneath silk . .. a whisper ... dust off the electric 
 chair ... charred potatoes but sweet ...a whis- 
 per ... hands tingling under my hot lips. . . 
 [ 264 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ‘*What the hell is the matter with you? You made 
 your choice. What’re you bellyachin’ for?...’’ 
 
 The wind is stilled for a brooding moment. Two 
 men have passed. Their pungent talk is like an answer 
 to the flipping images in my mind. Be quiet. You 
 made your choice. So I face the river and I hear 
 the rhythmic wash, and it seems to be querying, 
 ‘*What the hell is the matter with you? Go home, go 
 home to your Gretel. She waits and longs for you. 
 Go home to your Gretel.’”’?... 
 
 ‘‘You’re givin’ me the go-by. Please, Jack, don’t 
 give me the go-by....’’ | 
 
 The wind whips up the dust and dead leaves. 
 
 ““It’s good-by for good, Margot, good-by and good 
 luck.’’ 
 
 A girl stands beside me. First she sobs, and then 
 she snickers. ‘‘Where did you come from, fat daddy ?”’ 
 
 I stand stolidly watching the river lashing its white 
 hittle children hither and thither—they are like my 
 ghost-thoughts tumbling and dashing and getting no- 
 where. 
 
 “‘Hey, are you ossified, fat daddy?’’ . . . She poked 
 me in the ribs. I looked around as a hand came up 
 to my shoulder. 
 
 ‘Say, fat daddy, sweet daddy, I wisht somebody 
 would take me off on a drunk. I want to get stinkin’, 
 paralyzin’, forgettin’-drunk ... forgettin’ .. . forget- 
 tin’... drunk... . Did you see him gi’me me the go-by? 
 He’s through. That’s all—through. Said I was a fast 
 filly but no thoroughbred. Said when I got a few 
 drinks in me the streak showed. ... Why didn’t I 
 take Madame Mina’s advice? She’s the wise old 
 owl. ... A girl like me should stick to fat guys and 
 
 [ 265 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 old blokes, safe, nice fat daddies like you... shouldn’t 
 get tangled and twisted with a young fellow... they 
 gives you the go-by’’.... 
 
 She took her hand away. She began drumming 
 her fingers on the stone... . ‘‘Say, fat daddy, warm 
 my hands, won’t you? Warm my hands, they’re dead 
 cold. ... That’s me all over. I always ha’ got to 
 have someone. ... Ican’t be alone... . I can’t stand 
 bein’ cold . . . I can’t stand the gaff of just bein’... . 
 I got to be doin’... .I got to keep goin’... .I got to 
 have lovin’.... That’s the way, sweet daddy, I’ll 
 stand clost and keep my blue fingers inside your nice 
 fur, coat..”. .aim’t thal nicer turtle  bebeonee 
 benny cost a nice piece of change. . . . You got a nice 
 friendly fat face ... hey, but you, too, ha’ got cold 
 college eyes .. . what’s a matter with you educated 
 guys ... what do they do to your eyes? ... I’m 
 gonna put my face on your nice soft lamb’s collar... 
 that’s what I need—soft lamb . . . not killin’, draggin’ 
 muscles. . . . Sweet daddy, take me home, take me 
 home.’’... 
 
 ‘‘Move along, now, keep movin’, can’t loiter here all 
 night; come on now, get a move on.’”’ . . . Peremptory, 
 cold, cutting words hurtled at us as though out of a 
 gust of the wind. The policeman swung his baton as 
 he waited to see how quickly his order would be 
 heeded. . . . The girl pulled my arm, saying, ‘‘Come 
 on now, daddy—’’ now whispering, ‘‘see, the cops 
 are gettin’ fresh now, gettin’ ready for next month 
 when the new reform mayor comes in. Come along 
 now, and have a good time while the goin’ is good. 
 Next month the lid goes down tight.’’ . . . We moved 
 
 [ 266 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 along the path of the little strip of parkway, and the 
 heavy-footed policeman passed us. 
 ‘‘Daddy, seems like you was drunk. But I don’t 
 
 smell nothin’ on ye... . You ain’t been hittin’ the 
 dope, fat boy?”’ 
 Pitying me... she is pitying me... this little 
 
 creature of the crossways .. . pitying Meyer Hirsch, 
 fat, ungainly, phlegmatic . . . a safe man for the little 
 chit; no other woman would steal him from her... . 
 Say, where is that remote yesterday of conquests? ... 
 
 The hall door shut behind us. . . . Walking up the 
 stairs she tells me little confidences in my ear, ‘‘My 
 name’s Margot. You’re a Jewish lookin’ gent and so 
 I’m gonna introjuce you for—let’s see—Mr. Cohen, 
 that’s a Jewish name like Jones is one of our names. 
 This place is Madame Mina’s. She likes Jews. They 
 was good to her. There was three old fellows what 
 owned shares in her like in a stock corporation. They 
 couldn’t afford each one to keep his own woman, and 
 they wasn’t the kind to knock aroun’, so they took 
 shares-like in Mina. Now she’s old and she keeps a 
 nice respectable call flat. No joint.’’.. 
 
 .. . Margot settled me in an armchair, and perched 
 herself with ingenue childishness upon my knee. 
 
 ‘¢Now then, have them fetch a couple quarts of cham- 
 pagne,’’ I suggested. 
 
 ‘‘Say, you’re a regular sport,’’ said Margot, admir- 
 ingly, ‘‘I figured you for a white sport... . Cham- 
 pagne ... for a giddy drunk .. . first the world am 
 dark and dreary ... but wealthy water brings the 
 rosy dawn... champagne.’’... 
 
 The colored maid brought a cooler with champagne. 
 Margot put a little screen around the armehair which 
 
 [ 267 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 gave us a little air of privacy, but only an air. ... 
 But it is pleasant here. ... Margot is so engaging, 
 winsome and disingenuous that she charms away dis- 
 turbing thoughts and memories. Margot does not live 
 in life, she plays at living. She is casual, gracious; 
 and life just happens to her. She follows naturally 
 the trend of the next happening, and so goes on; one 
 moment broken-hearted, and again blithe and gay .. . 
 she adorns the idling hour. . . Her eyes are deeply 
 blue, and her nose a bit of a turned up thing; she has 
 boyishly rounded cheeks, a small living mouth, good 
 teeth, and a tiny perfect chin. Her throat arches 
 slenderly, and her chest and waist are like a supple 
 lad’s. . . . She tilts the glass against my lips and bids 
 me quaff long and deep, promising a rosy awakening 
 from ‘‘your dumps.’’ .. . ‘‘You don’t have to tell me 
 your real name,’’ says she, ‘‘but it’s more chummy- 
 like to call you by your pet name, you know, somethin’ 
 the boys call you... .’’... Involuntarily, I utter, 
 ‘*Haunch—’’ and catch myself . . . ‘‘Hunch,’’ she re- 
 peated as the word of her understanding; ‘‘hunch, 
 that’s a good handle. You must be lucky. You get 
 the hunch of what to pull off. Good hunch. Hunch. 
 Hunch, that’s what I’ll monicker you. Hunchy- 
 boy... . Say ain’t this grand stuff... hits you in 
 the right spot.’’.. 
 
 Tam quite drunk .. . my own self .. . my past... 
 everything up to this hour seems to have detached it- 
 self from my consciousness and flown away. ... Iam 
 happy. ... I have taken myself out of the cellar of 
 my hulk... and I quit holding back—I let myself 
 sail in life—TI am a little fuddled and uncertain on my 
 
 [{ 268 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 feet. . . . Someone has come to help with Margot on 
 the other side. ... They take me into a half-dark 
 room ...a bed sways before me... but they man- 
 age to let me slide onto the bed . . . then I remember 
 that at home they will fret and worry... . Gretel 
 will . . . and I grunt, ‘‘Margot—good girl—telephone 
 —gotta telephone home—waiting—worrying—’’ She 
 staggers a bit, pulls herself together, speaking thickly: 
 “Damn right—can’t have ’em waitin’ and wor- 
 
 ryin’.... Mikeen, hel-lup him up wi’ye, take him 
 over the phone... got to call up... wife or sump- 
 oe anumpin’....., . waitin’. .\,. worrilan?:.°.'. he’s 
 
 a white guy ... hel-lup him to—’’ They sat me on 
 the floor and put the telephone in my hand. With a 
 great effort I concentrated on the number.... 
 Quickly came the anxious voice of Gretel’s, as from 
 another world, another existence. ... I managed to 
 speak and conveyed to her... . ‘‘Case ... would 
 take all night... would call in the morning again’’... 
 and I heard her speak anxiously in Yiddish, something 
 or other about being careful of myself and I slumped 
 over... . Forgettin’—drunk—— 
 
 1 269] 
 
IT 
 
 A voice kept at me, began to percolate in as a vague 
 whisper, and then worked clearly into my mind... . 
 ‘“When do you have to get up . . . when do you have 
 to vet up???) 3.4 
 
 I opened my eyes and for a moment or two was 
 puzzled by the unfamiliar face peering at me. . . . 
 
 ‘“‘Are you pretty groggy, sweet daddy? I’m doin’ 
 time with a hang-over myself .. . butit’sabeaut.... 
 Wait now, sit pretty, and I’m gonna fetch a pitcher of 
 ice water, and then I’m gonna hand you your breakfast 
 —a large pot of demi-tasse.’’... 
 
 Oh, my head. Little sharp things are picking at my 
 head in a million places. . 
 
 ‘‘Hey there, Hunchy, don’t guzzle that ice water so 
 fast, want to give yourself a chill and heartburn? ... 
 Thataway ... easy.’?... And she rested my head 
 on her breast... .‘‘No go to the well again... 
 slow, now.’’ . . . She put my head back on the pillow, 
 tucked the sheets under my chin, and then kissed me 
 on the tip of the nose, the last being a trick seemingly 
 peculiar to Margot... . ‘‘Listen, Hunchy-boy, have 
 you got a job to go to or sumpin’? Thatawhy I’ve 
 been razzin’ you like a puppy at the shoulder of a 
 Saint Bernard. . . . Now tell your little sweetie, what 
 time you got to make it. It’s clost to nine now.’’... 
 
 “‘Thanks little girl, I’ll have to get up pretty 
 
 [ 270 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 soon. ... L’ll rest a few minutes . . . get myself to- 
 CCM ae 
 
 ‘*All right, you look kinda shot to pieces. .. . Now 
 I’ll go and make the coffee.’’ . . . I looked after her, 
 and saw she staggered a little. . . . I called out, ‘‘Say 
 
 you ought to be lying down yourself—’’ . . . And she 
 answered cheerily, ‘‘I’ll say so—but I’m a little sticker, 
 another name for sucker, that’s the way I’m made. . . 
 I want you to know, Hunchy,’’ she stopped to say at 
 the doorway, ‘‘this ain’t no panel joint, no shake 
 down crowd. I’ve done a little rough work in my 
 time ... just for fun ... but Mina don’t stand for 
 nothin’ rough. ...I checked your bankroll with 
 Mina. . . . But boy, oh boy, you need that bankroll for 
 the check you gonna get. Wait till you see the bad 
 news for all that champin you slewed . . . but it was 
 a gran’ little party ... and I don’t care... Daddy 
 is rich, ain’t you?’’... and she skipped away. 
 Madame Mina came into the room with Margot. She 
 had my pocketbook in her hand and gave it to me with 
 a little memorandum for the drinks. Madame Mina 
 had something on her mind and she came to the point 
 with German abruptness. . . . Said she, ‘‘I looked in 
 your pocketbook. You understand that. I went over 
 with Margot to make sure how much was in it. I see 
 you are a lawyer, and I got a case for a lawyer.’’... 
 Wherewith Margot, pipingly, broke in, ‘‘Look alive 
 now Hunch, we’re gonna throw you some good busi- 
 ness.’’ ... Madame Mina continued, ‘‘ Downstairs is 
 the janitor woman, a widow, she’s got one girl, only 
 sixteen. She’s been away for four days. She was 
 away with the iceman’s girl. All evening the mother 
 was after her Jenny to tell where she’s been and what’s 
 [ 271 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 she been doing. . . . A millionaire . . . you know the 
 reformer . . . yes, that’s the name, an old fellow——”? 
 
 When I heard the details I got up with alacrity. 
 Here was the prospect of a big killing. I told Madame 
 Mina that I would have a man work on the case im- 
 mediately. In the meantime she must see that the 
 girl does not leave the house. .. . 
 
 Margot helped me gather my scattered things and 
 put myself together, presentably, meantime, carrying 
 on a one-sided racy conversation. 
 
 _ Later I watched her as she stood by the window, 
 marvelling at her boyish form now draped in a diapha- 
 nous pale green kimono tied with a girdle around the 
 hips. Her bright hair fell in ripples about her face 
 and shoulders. . . . She appeared to be lost in a little 
 reverie, a sort of child’s absentmindedness. .. . But 
 when it came time to say good-bye, she again put her 
 face upon the Persian lamb collar of my overcoat, and 
 spoke in a wistful though detached way, ‘‘Wonder, 
 Hunchy, if I’m gonna see you again.”? .. . And I re- 
 membered that she was my chit of the crossways and 
 that I owed her an earnest.... ‘‘A fur coat for 
 Margot, how would that hit you?”’.. . ““A home run, 
 Hunchy.’’ . . . And I told her where to go and select 
 a coat after her own heart. . . . She just looked at me. 
 Then she got up on her toes and kissed me on the tip 
 of the nose... . ‘‘You mean it, you ain’t kiddin’ 
 me. ...1 said you was white . . . shake, Hunchy, and 
 thanks ... but lookahere, daddy . . . you don’t think 
 you’re buyin’ me... you ain’t buyin’ me... . I’m 
 promisin’ nothin’. I am myself—Margot ... got to 
 keep doin’... and goin’... and if that Jack with 
 [272 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 hunky white teeth should come aroun’... well I ain’t 
 promisin’ nothin’.”’?... 
 
 There in the queerly lighted room, where sputtered 
 a low gas jet, and, a black blind, three quarters drawn, 
 was at odds with the pushing, strong morning sunlight, 
 Margot, in the changing shadows and glare as of a 
 wood, seemed elfin, indeed a will-o’-the-wisp love 
 sprite. ... 
 
 [ 273 ] 
 
Tit 
 
 The office staff looked nervous and fidgety when I 
 came in late in the morning. Maxie flew into my pri- 
 vate chamber the minute he heard I had come in... . 
 Gretel had been making frantic inquiries concerning 
 me; apparently my muffled abrupt message at an eerie 
 hour of the night had mystified and worried her. ... 
 
 “On a bat... or ona case, Mike?’’... 
 
 ‘‘Both, Max.’’ 
 
 He smiled as he regarded my pasty face and blood- 
 shot eyes. ... I called for our expert runner, Lurie 
 the Rat, a labor spy and an expert blackmailer.... 
 I outlined the case to Maxie and the Rat... . With 
 staccato clearness Maxie instructed the Rat. ... ‘‘Get 
 both girls. Stick with them. Let them tell their stories 
 to each other. See that they agree with each other. 
 Don’t open your trap till they have talked themselves 
 out. Then line up their stories over and over again 
 until they never can forget that that’s the story. Then 
 write it down—in their own language—you’re a notary, 
 —swear them—but don’t dare use legal phraseology. 
 Don’t stultify and paralyze your witnesses with legal 
 words. Be careful, Lurie, you amateur lawyers love 
 legal shmooserie ... avoid it like a plague... 
 always have your affidavits in your witnesses’ own lJan- 
 guage... slang... filth... everything... then 
 you can’t go wrong. A witness can’t go back on his 
 own pet terms.’’ 
 
 Maxie never interviews witnesses, especially in cases 
 where blackmail may be charged. None could accuse 
 
 [ 274 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 him first-hand. But he knew how to instruct his wit- 
 ness-handlers. Our rats knew how to whip witnesses 
 into shape.... 
 
 Lurie was despatched with a second runner who was 
 to bring the girls’ sworn statements back to the office 
 while Lurie stuck to the girls. ... 
 
 The runner in good time returned with the girls’ 
 own stories. ...In a few minutes two plainclothes 
 shakedown specialists from Police Headquarters re- 
 ported and asked to hear the town’s latest dirt... . 
 They smiled in anticipation of the nice fat drippings of 
 a millionaire on the spit. ... They were instructed to 
 go to the accused’s home, ask for him, and of course 
 they would be referred to his lawyers. The detectives 
 were then to go to his lawyers and intimate that the 
 charges had been made but that a certain law firm had 
 the accusers’ depositions . . . and then leave the rest 
 to Hirsch & Freund... big lawyers are our meat.... 
 
 The news came in that Judge Martin Hussing of the 
 Superior Criminal Court had died last night. Maxie 
 regretted that the Governor was a Republican; other- 
 wise I might get the appointment. ... And he put a 
 thought in my mind. . . . The millionaire was a promi- 
 nent reformer and high in the national councils of the 
 Republican Party... . 
 
 I waited alone in my office. A fur dealer called up— 
 ‘sis it all right’’—‘‘what’s that’’—‘‘a fur coat for a 
 young lady’’—for a moment I could not understand— 
 my mind was filled with the vacant judgeship which 
 could not be filled by an election now but by the Gov- 
 
 [ 275 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 ernor’s designation—‘‘what did you say’’—‘‘name— 
 Margot’’—‘*‘Yes ... yes... give her a good coat... 
 no bill. . . . I’ll be up and give you the cash . . . yes, 
 Mortie:. 6) that’s rieht 70. 
 
 Now I considered the judgeship . . . seemed to stick 
 in my crop. Now I know... the judgeship is the 
 price for squashing the case... . 
 
 An august name is announced—the former governor, 
 who had refused clemency for my boys... . I guess 
 he has come about the millionaire’s case. . . . He beats 
 around the bush in an elegant fashion, but I remember 
 his brusque treatment of me and I call him to time and 
 tell him to come down to brass tacks. .. . He hems... 
 ‘‘would be unfortunate ...a really great man . 
 philanthropist . . . humanitarian . . . no good served 
 by prosecution and publicity ... no good at all... 
 some matters best if quieted . . . for good of public 
 morals . . . of course, girls and their people properly 
 compensated ...and the lawyers ...and de- 
 tectives .. . the same good accomplished . . . terrible 
 warning to man...amistake.’’... 
 
 ‘*Good citizenship should not condone wrong-doing.”’ 
 I have repeated his memorable bromidiom, but he is too 
 wrapped up in his worry over his client and personal 
 friend to detect ironic shading. . . . He takes me seri- 
 ously and starts over again his lame extenuations. .. . 
 So I come to the point. 
 
 ‘*Listen here, Mr. Ex-governor, it isn’t going to cost 
 your friend one cent to squash this ease, not acent. .. . 
 He'll get a retraction and exoneration in the girls’ own 
 handwriting. . . . I will pay the hush money to their 
 parents and the detectives ... but I expect a piece 
 of writing in return ...a Christmas present from 
 
 [ 276 | 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 your Governor—a certificate of appointment naming 
 Meyer Hirsch to fill the unexpired term of Judge 
 Hussing. ... Meyer Hirsch, Judge of the Superior 
 Criminal Court.’’ 
 
 He was so taken aback that he half rose from his 
 chair. 
 
 ‘¢Make the next train to Albany and you ought to be 
 back the first thing in the morning with the—appoint- 
 ment. It will give your governor a chance to show 
 what a sweet believer he is in one of your pet planks 
 in your platform—a non-partisan judiciary. A Re- 
 publican governor appoints a regular Democrat, Meyer 
 Hirsch, whose knowledge, experience and sterling 
 character so well fit him for the Superior Criminal 
 Court. Where the judiciary is concerned the Governor 
 shows a fine non-partisanship. It will be something 
 in his favor besides doing a favor to big Republican 
 contributors.’’ 
 
 He tried to talk me out of my idea, tactfully men- 
 tioning a neat sum, a staggering sum, but I said curtly, 
 ‘‘Take it or leave it, I’ll wait until eleven tomorrow 
 morning.’’? . . . I opened the door for him as an un- 
 mistakable cue that the interview was concluded... . 
 He shook hands pleasantly and said he was leaving for 
 Albany on the next train. . 
 
 [277 ] 
 
IV 
 
 Philip is still an early riser. . . . The next morning 
 I was awakened by loud rapping on my door, and then 
 Philip rushed in with a newspaper in his hand. He 
 cried, ‘‘You scamp, why didn’t you tell me before? 
 Don’t you think my future father-in-law would be de- 
 lighted to know he is marrying his daughter into a 
 judge’s family?’’ . . . I demanded to know what he 
 was talking about. . . . Philip waved the paper, ex- 
 claiming, ‘‘Here it is on the front page. . . . Governor 
 Appoints Hirsch to Superior Court. . . . Republican 
 Executive Designates Democrat. . . . Victory for Non- 
 Partisan Judiciary—Hirsch A Well Known Practi- 
 tioner—A Leader of National Jewish Societies’? .. . 
 I grabbed the paper eagerly and saw it was a mid- 
 night despatch from Albany. A certain man must 
 have been so importunate that he had had the anounce- 
 ment made at once to reassure both himself and 
 AALS aN: 
 
 By the time I got to the office the place was jammed 
 with people come to congratulate me. Big Jim came 
 in to find out what the hell it was all about and was 
 1 a turncoat and was I going to double-cross him after 
 all he done... . I took him into Maxie’s office, ex- 
 plained my strategy and received his congratulations 
 on my quick thinking. Judge Hussing was a Democrat 
 and to have had his place taken by a severe Republican 
 would have hurt our popular prestige. ... The ex- 
 governor was in my private office. ... He was my 
 warmest congratulator and well wisher. ... Now I 
 
 J 278 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 was a judge... he kotowed . . . the whole world 
 seemed to be kotowing. ... Maxie came in grinning 
 and hugged me. . . . The world never heard of a cer- 
 tain case. I saw to it that everybody concerned was 
 amply satisfied . . . and in this wise I became Honor- 
 able Meyer Hirsch, Justice, Superior Criminal Court. 
 
 [279 ] 
 
Vv 
 
 A formula of polite nothings has given me a stupid 
 fifteen minutes. .. . I try my best to make conversa- 
 tion... . Once more begins the tiresome formula: 
 ‘‘Really ... howkind . . . thank you... very good 
 of you ...do come again.”?... An awkward hia- 
 tus... . An early spring breeze stirs the curtains. 
 I take in the rich-looking room of Philip’s Riverside 
 Drive residence. He has just returned from his honey- 
 moon, and is now established in a modern duplex apart- 
 ment which he has furnished with distinguished taste 
 and elegance. . . . The former Miss Munsterkase, now 
 my Aunt Josephine, received me with get graciousness, 
 which, I soon observed, was a drilled-in, learned-by- 
 rote system of saying something. . . . I daresay had 
 pert Margot been present she would have sized up the 
 situation succinctly—‘‘nobody home.’’ Tt came to me 
 as I watched the expression of her face that Mrs. Philip 
 Gold was like Dopie Ikie Schneider, but she had the 
 advantage of thorough drilling in how to keep up a 
 semblance of talk. No wonder she was let go to a Rus- 
 sian Jew. ... After all, I consoled myself, it wasn’t 
 a wife that Phil wanted... hardly mattered that she 
 was mentally below par . . . she was a means sue Co a 
 stepping stone. ... 
 
 At last Phil comes to my relief. After Josephine 
 left the room I could almost hear the irrepressible 
 Margot exclaim, ‘‘Some sap, but—some sap.” . . , 
 That little red-head with her zestful charm sticks in 
 my mind. . . . I'll have to contrive to see her without 
 
 [ 280 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 reflecting on my judicial dignity. ... A zestful little 
 thing spicing the cup of life... . 
 
 Phil makes a wry face at his wife’s retreating back. 
 He draws near, and says with a twisted smile—‘‘ Well, 
 Judge, give the verdict. Speak up. You and I never 
 deceive each other. Say it, Philip Gold’s wife is noth- 
 ing to look at and no one to talk to.... A wife... 
 an admission ticket . . . everybody’s cousin. . . . I’ve 
 picked the prize moron .. . hasn’t she got a lovely 
 moronish profile a? 
 
 I grinned. Philip made another wry face. .. . 
 ‘‘Oh—that honeymoon. ... One thing is certain ... 
 After all, honeymoons serve their purpose.... One 
 thing is certain—my wife never travels with me 
 again.... The bargain is made: that’s done with. 
 She has a husband and I have an admission ticket. 
 Henceforth, our lives go their separate ways. .. . 
 Remember, Meyer, sometime they may bring a wife 
 poisoner before you. Be easy with him, poor 
 fellow.’’ 
 
 Philip took me to sit in the window embrasure. The 
 river was opaque in the April twilight. Shining motor 
 cars sped by. The lawns glistened greenly sleek, and 
 the trees lifted their clean limbs to show their new 
 little leaves. I watched the boats floating their pen- 
 nants of smoke and steam, and saw the river turn a 
 gleaming blue under the changing sky. Philip, too, 
 looked on in silence and then remarked, ‘‘A little dif- 
 ferent from the view on Ludlow Street, eh, Meyer? ... 
 By the way, Meyer, your uncle has an ambition, and 
 you will have to help along. . . . What would you think 
 of Philip Gold as ambassador to Turkey—seeing that’s 
 the only ambassadorship open toa Jew?... Picture 
 
 [ 281 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 it, will you—His Excellency, Philip Gold, Plenipoten- 
 tiary toIslam. . . . A great world opens up before me, 
 a new world, greater interests, world problems. .. . 
 But I won’t get there by belonging to your high-binder 
 party. You fellows have a good system for local elec- 
 tions, but you don’t stand a show to win the presidency 
 again. We manufacturers and industrialists know 
 what butters our bread... . Tama high tariff Repub- 
 lican, and with an eye to what I want I shall become a 
 large contributor to the national campaign fund. Hmu- 
 lating your excellent example, I am organizing the 
 Garment Manufacturers’ Republican Club. Papa-in- 
 law knows what I am after, and he and the royal family 
 are eminently delighted. Banking and department 
 store influences will count a great deal. Fancy my sur- 
 prise when I found that father-in-law had presented 
 me with a handsome dowry, which dowry I shall drop 
 into the political pot. ... Now, your honor, this is 
 where you come into the plot. Your distinguished con- 
 duct on the bench will be an aidto me. If you are going 
 to be a typical Tammany judge you'll smell up all the 
 works. The royal family will be distressed. Here’s 
 your chance: you have been selected as a non-partisan 
 Jurist. Play the part to perfection. Avoid anything 
 that may turn into a scandal. An outstanding record 
 will compel the party to name you for higher office.’’ 
 
 ‘We have considered that already, dear uncle—am- 
 bassador,’’ I told him. ‘‘In fact I have won over Big 
 Jim and the other Big Guns in Fourteenth Street to 
 leave me off dirty work. Itis easy. The district attor- 
 ney simply does not assign such cases to me where 
 political favoritism is necessary. I am beginning to 
 shine out as a judge that deals severely with criminals. 
 
 [ 282 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 Tomorrow I am going to impose a record sentence on 
 a burglar. The game is to make the poor slobs pay for 
 the leniency we show the politically favored. If you 
 have no friends in our court you are given a long ride 
 im the black maria. Also I am becoming a learned 
 advocate of the probation system—a cloak for leniency 
 where the bosses need it. Besides, Maxie analyzes 
 cases in advance, and tells me when it is safe to throw 
 acase. In short, 1am grooming myself for the mayor- 
 alty candidacy. Our party needs a man with a good 
 public record to minimize the reformers’ hulla- 
 baloo. . . . Behold, Your Excellency, Meyer Hirsch, 
 Mayor of New York.’’ 
 
 We both laughed. Philip’s face soon turned serious. 
 And he asked, abruptly, ‘‘And Gretel—what are you 
 doing about her?’’ 
 
 ‘“Well, Phil, I really—well a 
 
 “*T can see you’ve done nothing, and don’t know what 
 to do. I think it’s a case where someone will have to 
 doit for you. ... Don’t you see how an advantageous 
 marriage will help along your plan?’’.. . 
 
 Suddenly it was night. All the colors and shapes, 
 with their shadows and contrasts, were swallowed up. 
 
 ‘“The time has come to settle that matter. Go away 
 to the country club for the week end. I’ll see Gretel. 
 Financially, she’ll have nothing to worry about. Ill 
 satisfy her on that score. Then I shall point out to her 
 how decently you’ve treated her all these years and 
 where her duty lies. I think I’ll make her see the light, 
 and save you an unpleasant scene.’’?... I pulled the 
 bar and shut the window. The wind was blowing up 
 cold. I thought the cold air made me shiver. .. ., 
 Philip pushed the point, mercilessly,—‘‘ What do you 
 
 [ 283 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 say, there’s only one way—decide and do it.’’... I 
 sat still for a moment or two; then I heard someone 
 walk into the room. Aunt Josephine’s screechy voice 
 asked, ‘‘Really, why sit in the dark?’’... I touched 
 Philip’s arm and said, ‘‘ All right, do it.” ... 
 
 [284 7 
 
SEVENTH PERIOD 
 
 Cesar once, seeing some wealthy strangers 
 at Rome, carrying up and down with them in 
 their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and 
 monkeys, embracing and making much of 
 them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask 
 whether the women in their country were not 
 used to bear children.’ 
 
 PLUTARCH. 
 
SEVENTH PERIOD 
 I 
 
 Philip is dead . . . dead and buried. 
 
 Gretel . . . better say Gertrude ... she who used 
 to be Gretel . . . now that she is my wife won’t even 
 let me call her Gretel . . . was never a hypocrite. 
 Ever since a memorable day seven years ago, she has 
 hated Uncle Philip. . . . Today she went to the funeral 
 as my wife, not as a mourner; nor did she as much as 
 once dab her eyes with a stuffy handkerchief for ap- 
 pearance’s sake. I think she enjoyed the dull knell of 
 spadeful after spadeful of earth and pebbles beating 
 upon the coffin. She heard the Rabbi’s touching eulogy 
 with composed features. Under her arm she held 
 mother, supporting her to her side. As for mother, 
 I believe Philip’s death opened up the wells of grief 
 for father. ... On our way home in the automobile 
 Gretel said pointblank that a just retribution had over- 
 taken the ruthless Philip. . . . Primitive, natural in 
 all her emotions and reactions. . . . And mother mur- 
 mured, ‘‘God overlooks no one . . . no one.’’? . . 
 They agree in everything. Never dida POEher dite 
 and daughter-in-law live in such perfect accord as did 
 mother and Gretel. . . . Strange . . . strange in- 
 deed . . . mother hadn’t talked with Gretel in all the 
 years until the crucial day when Philip had me sneak 
 off to the country. He tried to buy off Gretel. ... 
 
 We have just come home from the funeral. ... It 
 has been a trying day on my nerves: better to say a 
 
 [ 287 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 trying day on my avoirdupois. Seven sedentary years 
 in the upholstered judicial swivel chair and rich living 
 have made me nigh massive. The first Haunch Paunch 
 and Jowl cartoon was prophetic. ... So I sank into 
 the armchair facing the window to rest myself, watch- 
 ing the placid river. The afternoon is on the wane. 
 I study the oversize busses crowding aside the puny 
 motor cars. ... Childrenromp.. . but there are so 
 few children. . . . I see plenty of dogs dawdling slack 
 leashes. ... Sickening: I wish Gretel wouldn’t make 
 such an ado over that miserable mutt.... There is 
 one thing I thought of at Philip’s grave. ... Long 
 ago... that dim time of dreaming and striving... 
 he had said we would make ourselves notable ancestors 
 to be looked back to ... ancestors... towhom... 
 lap dogs . . . lap dogs who whined if they were made 
 to walk across the floor. . . . Here’s Gretel. And 
 Josephine, dear Aunt Josephine of the thirty-two quar- 
 ters escutcheon, adores a Chinese chow which she ear- 
 ries upon her fiat bosom, and deifies a great Persian 
 cat which sits on a shrine of soft silken cushions. ... 
 Cancer of the stomach—that is what did for 
 Philip. ... Social climbing, fortune building, politi- 
 cal scheming for an ambassadorship were all thrown 
 in the discard and he began a new deal in life, a stub- 
 born combat with the malignant, pitiless disease. 
 Philip lost with a smile. ... The last days in the 
 sickroom: Philip lying like a spent monarch in a high 
 four-poster, a medieval bed he had picked up in an 
 auction in London; the Persian cat with a becalmed 
 Buddah expression at the foot of the bed; and the chow 
 snivelled on a silk rug under a chair. I suppose Aunt 
 Josephine didn’t quite make it all out: that is why she 
 [ 288 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 was all over the sickroom with her little gods. The 
 nurses wanted to put them out, but Philip’s sense of 
 humor had it that he would die mocked by the crowning 
 symbols of his success. .. . Towards the end he was 
 attended by Dr. Hymie Rubin. The great specialists 
 with their fabulous bills had cut and radiumed to the 
 tune of tumbling doubloons. Philip did not cavil at 
 stupendous fees; for that matter he declared he would 
 gladly give his storehouse of gold—with his moronish 
 wife and the worshipped dog and cat for good measure. 
 But the priceless surgeons said—too late: they could 
 not repair the digestive engine after it had been 
 knocked to pieces by years of neglect and abuse. ... 
 So he sent for Hymie—for conversation. He wanted 
 to be taunted, taunted, to die fighting. More, he asked 
 for Avrum Toledo. He wanted to have it out with 
 him for the last time. But Avrum was somewhere ir 
 the lumber camps of the Northwest. ... ‘‘Let me 
 die . . . let medie lulled by the anodynes of the dream- 
 stupefied.’”?... A satyr’s head: Philip’s; his bone- 
 gray hair rumpled into puffs like horns; a carved face 
 with pointed nose and sharp chin. . 
 
 Maxie came to draw the will. 
 
 ‘‘Have you any particular bequests you wish to 
 make?’’ asked Max in a businesslike voice. 
 
 The satyr grinned ...mayhap he winced, but he 
 intended it to be a grin. His voice asked banteringly 
 of Hymie Rubin, ‘‘ Little doctor, you say what shall be 
 done with the filthy lucre . . . you know, the blood 
 money: i 
 
 Hymie sat down on the bed. Musingly he stroked 
 his beard and his features relaxed in a smile to meet 
 the laughing mask before him. His nasal tones hung 
 
 [ 289 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 lazily in the still air. The chow uttered a tiny squeal 
 and the royal cat majestically scratched an ear. 
 
 ‘*T believe you capable of anything, my superman,”’ 
 said Hymie; ‘‘anything: even to the extent of taking 
 my advice. May I ask you to be consistent with the 
 capitalists who have been your models? . . . You capi- 
 talists are unconscious scientists. You are vivisection- 
 ists. You experiment on humans. You spend your life 
 keeping creatures on the rack. Then when you die you 
 devote your money for research—cures for the devils 
 you have half-killed. So I ask you to be consistent. 
 Leave your money to found a sanitarium in the Adiron- 
 dacks for those suffering from the shop sickness—a 
 sanitarium for consumptive garment workers.”’ 
 
 ‘‘A merry jest, Dr. Hymie, a merry jest. You want 
 me to die like all weaklings—afraid, contrite, kneeling 
 to the confessor. You misjudge me, Hymie. Do you 
 think I’d die knowing the worms would gloat over my 
 cadaver? You think I’d give them a chance to say that 
 Philip Gold became conscience-stricken in the fear of 
 death and sought to make amends for the wrongs he 
 had done? I have done no wrong. I have been life. 
 I lived after the plan of life... . No, no charity will 
 keep the worms, worms. Let them evolve through 
 suffering.”?... 
 
 He left everything to me, saying that I was the only 
 one for whom he had ever had any affection. But he 
 remembered to rebuke me for having let myself get in 
 so deep with Gretel... . 
 
 I drowsed a bit, but was annoyed by the dog come 
 snuffling at my shins. . . . Yes, I should tell how Gretel 
 came to be my wife; Gretel, the last person in the world 
 I thought I would marry. ... I went to the country 
 
 [ 290 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 club . . . a shadow seemed to linger near me, a fore- 
 boding. ... The next day Philip telephoned ...a 
 snag ... better come back. . . . Gretel was in a 
 chair, crying. Mother stood at her side, comforting 
 her. It looked so queer. Philip stood looking out of 
 the window. When I came into the room Gretel rose 
 and looked at me searchingly. Philip came forward 
 with his hands stuffed in his pockets. For several 
 seconds no one spoke: it seemed the longest time. 
 Finally Philip said, smartingly— 
 
 ‘‘A fine thanks you’re getting for being decent. 
 Treat them like dogs and then they’ll expect nothing 
 better. Do you know what she’s done? She’s black- 
 mailing you, holding you up! ‘Threatens a breach 
 of promise suit . . . some kind of legal entangle- 
 ment ... going to claim you’re her common law 
 husband. ... After I spoke to her she rushed out of 
 here. Where do you think,she went? Went where 
 everybody with a kick goes—to that Finn and his 
 settlement. Told him everything. And he said he 
 would take her case. ... Wecould beat that... but 
 what more has she done? She has won over your 
 mother. Your mother is your worst enemy. She backs 
 up this woman. Says she will go into court and tell 
 that you and Gretel have been living as man and wife 
 all these years. Whew! What a fine scandal—_— Go 
 ahead, Meyer. I warned you. Now go ahead and see 
 if at this stage of the game you can talk them out of 
 their madness. I have offered twenty-five thousand 
 dollars a 
 
 *‘t don’t want money,’’ said Gretel, like a flash 
 from flint. 
 
 Finn... Esther came into my mind. ... Esther 
 [ 291 } 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 . . She knows all.... Finn, my enemy, has been 
 given this weapon against me. ... Mother... back- 
 ing up Gretel ...mother.. 
 
 ‘*T don’t want money.’’ Her voice was tired. 
 
 ‘*Ts it true—Gretel, tell me, is it true——’’ 
 
 (a4 Yes. 93 
 
 I felt exhausted and dropped into a chair. Gretel 
 made a quick move towards me, but held back when she 
 saw my frowning face. But mother came and touched 
 my arm, saying, ‘‘You hear, you have not been as a 
 child tome. Now in my old age, show me that you will 
 obey me as a child. Show me in my ending days that | 
 you can do a fineness for me. Marry Gretel. She has 
 been as a wife to you. You told me yourself that you 
 found her a good girl. Who knows better than I how 
 good and true she has been to you these many years? 
 It is right that you should marry her. I will not see a 
 sin done to a good girl. Do not heed that Philip. Let 
 him rage, let him storm, let him tear down the walls, 
 and bring the roof upon my head. I will stand by her. 
 I will tell the truth. It is the right——”’ 
 
 ‘“There she goes with that damned respectableness,”? 
 Philip snarled. 
 
 “‘T would talk with you, Meyer, but let Philip go out. 
 I would talk to you alone,’’ Gretel pleaded. 
 
 I looked at Philip and he withdrew. 
 
 *“You look tired,’’ Gretel ventured to say. 
 
 My voice was husky. ‘‘Why did you go down there— 
 down to that place?’’ I asked. 
 
 ‘I was afraid of everyone. How Philip tore at my 
 heart. I needed someone. You were not here. He 
 said you would not come back until I was gone and had 
 signed the papers your partner made out. I was in 
 
 [ 292 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 terror. Did you think those years were as nothing 
 to me—to me? Did you not think I loved you?... 
 Oh, he went at me so. I was insane. I used to hear 
 the people say that Finn kept a secret and was a friend 
 of people in distress. Ihave no onehere. Mother said 
 Philip wanted you to marry someone else. The right 
 was that I should be the one to marry you. Your own 
 mother says so.... Oh, Meyer, and does not your 
 heart say a 
 
 She choked and cried. Then came a wild burst of 
 passion. 
 
 ‘‘Nothing will stop me, nothing. That Philip has 
 
 made me so afraid.... Whatis money! All those 
 years burned into my heart. ... I am not to be con- 
 sidered. ... My life... my feelings . . . my burst- 
 ing heart. ... Whatismoney!... Thereis nothing 
 in life but you; I live in you, Meyer, in you. . . . What 
 is money. ... I better go and kill myself... . I will, 
 Twill. ... Meyer, will you think of our love life these 
 years? ... Marry me, Meyer....Iam afraid... 
 afraid . .. oh, he made me so afraid. . . . It was like 
 
 trying to tear everything away from me ... to be left 
 with nothing to live for. . . . Marry me——’’ 
 
 _ Her words rang out in the room, clanged in my 
 head. 
 
 But mother was the hardest of the two. She stood 
 like a stone wall against Philip’s importunities... 
 and mine she silenced... . 
 
 What was to be done? An open scandal would be 
 terrible. It is unthinkable. ... 
 
 So, I married Gretel. 
 
 How the world talked! There was no open comment. 
 It was a still scandal, a gaseous undercurrent poisoning 
 
 [ 293 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the roots of my political tree. I was done, politically. 
 But I clung to the judgeship. ... I was addicted to 
 power and honor. ... I clung to the judgeship. ... 
 When my appointed term was over and I came up for 
 election, my party made a deal with the Republicans, 
 securing their endorsement, thus avoiding the mud- 
 
 slinging of an open campaign. ... The still scandal 
 went through the city ...a judge of a high court 
 married his servant girl . . . had been living with 
 
 her all these years. Garnishings made the tale a 
 prettier one. 
 
 Society was out of the question. Gretel was rather 
 crude. She spoke a self-learned English of many 
 peculiarities. A former servant girl and mistress 
 could not pass muster in the strict society of the Ger- 
 man Jews. Besides, Philip and Gretel could not so 
 much as bear the sight of each other. 
 
 [294] 
 
II 
 
 So here we live in Allrightniks Row, Riverside Drive. 
 The newly rich Russian, Galician, Polish and KRouma- 
 nian Jews have squeezed out the German Jews and 
 their Gentile neighbors. Great elevator apartment 
 structures are being put up to house the clamoring 
 Allrightniks. 'The Ghetto called anyone who was 
 well off—one who is all right in this world, that is well 
 fixed, an Allrightnik. We moved in the world of 
 Allrighiniks. 
 
 Allrightniks: plump and fat women who blandished 
 the extremes of the latest styles in clothes, trying to 
 outvie one another; and were never seen without a 
 blinding array of diamonds on ears, breasts, fingers 
 and arms ... the men were always business men— 
 business was their cult, hobby, pastime—their life. 
 Did they collect in little groups of a social evening, then 
 they discussed the fascinating details of some specula- 
 tion or enterprise. They interpreted life in the terms 
 of moneymaking. Their faces were puffed and sleekly 
 pale; their bellies stuck out as the show windows of 
 their prosperity. Invariably you found them chewing 
 fat cigars; their middle fingers ablaze with many- 
 karated solitaires: eye-openers. . .. The women 
 played poker in the afternoon and in the evening came 
 together to gossip and flaunt clothes and diamonds, 
 mentioned significantly what they paid for this and 
 that, complained of their servants, to whom they left 
 the care of their children, and told risque stories: 
 their talk was a hysteric din, and their laughter un- 
 
 [ 295 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 restrained . . . while, in the adjoining room, their 
 husbands, loud-mouthed and coarse-humored, gathered 
 to play stud poker or pinochle for high stakes. The 
 game was not the thing: they were charmed by the 
 gamble. Their craze for speculation expressed itself in 
 steep gambling. Once the play began their faces set 
 in grim lines, and they attended passionately to the 
 fluctuations of chance with such skill and craft and 
 bluff as they could command. . .. High-priced, vivid- 
 hued automobiles with liveried chauffeurs helped to 
 blazon their success. . . . Having given themselves 
 over wholly to wealth, then show was the only sign of 
 their existence. ... Show. Show. ... Even in their 
 charity. Charity was another outlet for display. Pom- 
 pous, righteous beneficing.... Show. ... Even to 
 the marrying off of their children. Spectacular 
 matches, big money in alliances with big money, money 
 the standard of this special aristocracy. . . . Dollar- 
 land. ... Gretel, after living a shutaway, dubious 
 role, now revelled in the extravaganza-life of this All- 
 righimk society... . And Allrightnik religion was a 
 bumptious holding forth in swell temples and syna- 
 gogues. ... And they took to their bosoms canines 
 and griffins, aping the so-called swell society of the 
 goywm. 
 
 I am bitter and sore this evening.... The gang, 
 who came in as impoverished immigrants unused to 
 wealth, were made dizzy and giddy by sudden 
 riches. . . . But I wondered about the Hast Side. ... 
 It was not the same place I knew as a boy, a young 
 man....tI had lost contact with that world. ... 
 Crane said we were always swinging between ex- 
 tremes: a pendulum of emotion. . . . In the Hast Side 
 
 [ 296 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 the radicals were making headway. Were they bring- 
 ing spiritual fare for the spiritually hungry? .. . 
 Who would believe fifteen years ago that the Socialists 
 would carry one of my assembly strongholds as they 
 did last election? . . . Money chasers and dream 
 chasers. ... In the Ghetto there was a large, grow- 
 ing, fanatic cult of intellectualism . . . a fine-frenzied 
 idealism .. . art, literature, music, social science and 
 politics in the pure meaning of the word—calling the 
 new generation ...to me a strange generation, so 
 different, so alien to my understanding. ... The new 
 generation, this queer stranger, seemed to be creeping 
 upon me ... what is their meaning . . . what do they 
 want .. . where will they end .. . will the money 
 craze get them and dazzle them? .. . 
 
 I drowsed again, and opened my eyes because some- 
 one was looking at me. It was Mr. Bernard Lowe, my 
 neighbor, come to condole with me... . Bernard 
 Lowe, a sweet-faced, aging man, gazing upon me with 
 kindly blinking eyes . . . Bernard Lowe . . . do you 
 remember Berel of yesteryear, Berel Lotvin, the har- 
 ness fixer in the Ludlow Street cellar . . . Berel 
 
 ‘Sleep ... rest... don’t let me disturb you, my 
 friend.’’? His voice is gentle and pleasing. 
 
 ‘‘Just a little catnap, a fat man’s drowse,’’ I told 
 him, clasping his hand. ‘‘And, how do you feel, 
 Berel?’’ I asked. He responded with his ready good 
 humor: ‘‘What a question to ask of a Christian 
 Scientist !’’ 
 
 And we both laughed. Funny: Berel is a Christian 
 Scientist and a sincere one: always ready to give his 
 personal testimony of its healing, pacifying won- 
 ders. ... Once he told me his story in his unaffected 
 
 [ 297 | 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 way. He was aman of considerable means. But Berel 
 attributed his wealth to mere chance. Someone told 
 him the automobiles were come to stay and multiply. 
 He gave up the harness-fixing hole and opened a little 
 tire repair shop in upper Broadway. It was a new 
 industry: the firstcomer got the ploneer’s big chance. 
 But what was more to the point, Berel’s good humor 
 and dependable word won him respect and friends 
 among the Gentiles. ... In time he grew to be the 
 largest distributor of tires and accessories. . . . In the 
 heyday of his prosperity he was laid low with diabetes, 
 commonly called the Jewish sickness. He tried every 
 famous doctor and cure. He was given up. ... Inher 
 despair Berel’s wife called in a Christian Science 
 healer. . . . And Berel said faith and love healed him 
 and made him whole and well; best of all, it brought 
 him equanimity and peace: being took on meaning. 
 His simple exposition was very touching. 
 
 We talked of his two boys, big young men, putting 
 in their last years in Yale. Berel did not want them 
 to go into business. He said business soils . . . he was 
 encouraging his lads to give themselves to art and 
 science .. . life was something more than mere com- 
 peting for money... . 
 
 ‘‘Life speeds on . . . just think . . . soon you’ll be 
 thinking of marrying off the boys,’’ I said. 
 
 ‘‘T don’t have to think about it at all... they’re 
 thinking of it themselves. ... They used to go to 
 church with me Sunday mornings when home. . . but 
 now I notice they’re going to Rabbi Drucker’s New 
 Temple. There’s a reason. . . . You know the beauti- 
 ful daughters of Sid Raleigh . . . you know our old 
 boy friend, Sam Rakowsky . . . he has two golden 
 
 [ 298 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 beauties . . . like their mother . . . two clever girls, 
 musicians, who detest their father’s songs... . Funny, 
 he doesn’t mind what they think of his music. He’s 
 sending them abroad to study under the masters. Well, 
 my boys are after the golden beauties with the golden 
 voices. ... Now, just to please me, they join me to 
 ehurch Wednesday nights. . . . Well, there’s one thing 
 I owe the lads, the right to choose their own wives and 
 own beliefs. ... Good evening, Meyer, mamma will 
 be looking for me for dinner. Good evening Hs 
 
 T’ll not stay home tonight; I am too depressed... . 
 T’ll slip out and telephone Margot ... Margot, my 
 consolatrice. ... I interested Al Wolff in her. He 
 put her in a show, a show I financed. She was an excel- 
 lent investment. She was to the theatregoers the pert 
 personification of the New York pleasure girl. The 
 critics praised her vim and originality. All the artists 
 wanted to paint her exquisite hands and feet. Her legs 
 were a stage classic, having the shapeliness of a Greek 
 vase. Al starred her in a big revue called ‘‘The 
 Chicken of the Crossways’’—the crossways being 
 Forty-second Street and Broadway. Then came the 
 movies to tempt her with a big contract. Always she 
 consulted her sweet daddy. She never forgot to be 
 grateful, although she was occasionally unfaithful. 
 The public adored her as their whimsical Margot of the 
 Movies. ... Margot lived in a bizarre apartment 
 chaperoned by an ancient duenna, an aunt created for 
 my protection. . . . I can’t complain of Margot. She 
 was always honest. She tried her best to keep her little 
 affairs a secret from me... . But I knew she had love 
 affairs lurking around the corner, and I tried not to 
 think of this unpleasantness. . . . Sometimes when I 
 
 f 299 ] 
 
HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 
 
 stood over her I felt like a hulking pachyderm, gross, 
 flesh-odorous, snorting over a white gazelle, a white 
 gazelle with a burnished head... . 
 
 Again I drowsed, and I seemed to have a pleasant 
 dream that Margot was on my knee gently pinching 
 my ear. But it was that confounded dog who had been 
 placed on a cushion on a table near me. His little paw 
 had been touching my ear.... Gretel is humming 
 Sid Raleigh’s latest hit, a topical song he wrote for 
 Margot. It is a hodgepodge of sentiment, mixing 
 sunshine and rain, love and jealousy, joy and grief, 
 laughter and tears, commonplaces for the masses, easy 
 thoughts for the sluggish multitude. Margot had made 
 its refrain famous, something about... ‘‘tell me, life, 
 tell me, what’s it all about; tell me, life, what’s it all 
 abonut?’?\... 
 
 Gretel calls, ‘‘Come, Meyer, come and eat. I got 
 something you like. Gedamfte brust und patate 
 lahtkes.’’? (Potted breast and potato pancakes.) ... 
 I heave my great bulk and waddle towards the dining 
 room. ... Again Gretel sings ... ‘‘Tell me, life, tell 
 me, what’s it all about; tell me, life, what’s it all 
 AbONLe 7ye 
 
 What—— 
 
 It smells good. 
 
 Gedamfte brust und patate lahtkes—— 
 
 THE END 
 
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