done with all I sent
you. I've give you enough to take you to Australia." He said, "I've had
to pay for my hidin' and I got to put up some more." That kind of made
me sick and I said, "Well, you'll have to get it from some one else
then, I've give you the last dollar I've got. I'm busted." He kind of
saw it was true I think, cause he started looking around the room, then
he said, "Where's the kid?" I said, "Never you mind where he is," and he
got sore again and said, "Never mind my own kid. Well, believe me, he's
mine, and I've got an idea I want him. Where is he?" and I said, "He's
where you won't get him." Jim come over to me again and stood in front
of me and says, "He is, is he? Well, I'm going to have him," and then I
got mad clear through and said, "Well, you can't have him. So help me
God, Jim, if you try to touch Billy, I'll peach on you as sure as I'm
alive." Jim laughed and said, "Yes, you will, you ain't that kind," and
I said quick, "Oh, I ain't, ain't I. No, I ain't that kind. I been
brought up to believe that it's the last trick to peach, but I'll go
back on all I ever knowed, and put you behind the bars if you ever try
to touch that kid." Jim kind of sneered. "What do you want of him?" he
said; "he ain't no better off with you than with me." I said, "Perhaps
he ain't. But he won't be raised with crooks and grow up feeling that
crookedness is straight. He'll know decent people, not a lot of cheap
second story men and dips."

Jim laughed. "You're a nice one to talk, old Bill Lane's daughter." And
then Kate, oh I said awful things, and I remember every word and go over
it all at night. I said, "Yes, and Kate Lane's sister. I know, I've had
it rubbed in enough. No one ever says Nancy Lane, they always say Bill
Lane's daughter, Kate Lane's sister or Jim Sheridan's sister-in-law.
Hain't I had that to fight against all my life? Ain't I lost every good
chance that I ever had to work in the good places, just because I've
had to buck against the reputation of my family? And then when _you_
come in the family, I might a carried the others, but no one could carry
you. Why, you dirty crook, you're known from San Francisco to New York,
and I've had to work in cheap shows and dirty cabarets just because of
you always coming and queering me when I got started. Look at the crowd
I go with," I said. "Do you suppose I'm crazy about them? But I have to
go with that kind, the kind that don't fall dead, when they find out who