. . .
The theory was admirable; but it helped her not at all in
practice. She continued to keep to the darkness, to wait in
the deep doorways, so far as she could in her "business hours,"
and to repulse advances in the day time or in public
places--and to drink. She did not go again to the opium joint,
and she resisted the nightly offers of girls and their
"gentlemen friends" to try cocaine in its various forms.
"Dope," she saw, was the medicine of despair. And she was far
from despair. Had she not youth? Had she not health and
intelligence and good looks? Some day she would have finished
her apprenticeship. Then--the career!
Freddie let her alone for nearly a month, though she was
earning less than fifty dollars a week--which meant only thirty
for him. He had never "collected" from her directly, but
always through Jim; and she had now learned enough of the
methods of the system of which she was one of the thousands of
slaves to appreciate that she was treated by Jim with unique
consideration. Not only by the surly and brutal Jim, but also
by the police who oppressed in petty ways wherever they dared
because they hated Freddie's system which took away from them
a part of the graft they regarded as rightfully theirs.
Yes, rightfully theirs. And anyone disposed to be critical of
police morality--or of Freddie Palmer morality--in this matter
of graft would do well to pause and consider the source of his
own income before he waxes too eloquent and too virtuous.
Pages:
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765