As Jimmie and his friend exchanged tales descriptive of their prowess,
Maggie leaned back in the shadow. Her eyes dwelt wonderingly and
rather wistfully upon Pete's face. The broken furniture, grimey walls,
and general disorder and dirt of her home of a sudden appeared before
her and began to take a potential aspect. Pete's aristocratic person
looked as if it might soil. She looked keenly at him, occasionally,
wondering if he was feeling contempt. But Pete seemed to be enveloped
in reminiscence.

"Hully gee," said he, "dose mugs can't phase me. Dey knows I kin wipe
up deh street wid any t'ree of dem."

When he said, "Ah, what deh hell," his voice was burdened with disdain
for the inevitable and contempt for anything that fate might compel him
to endure.

Maggie perceived that here was the beau ideal of a man. Her dim
thoughts were often searching for far away lands where, as God says,
the little hills sing together in the morning. Under the trees of her
dream-gardens there had always walked a lover.

Chapter VI

Pete took note of Maggie.

"Say, Mag, I'm stuck on yer shape. It's outa sight," he said,
parenthetically, with an affable grin.

As he became aware that she was listening closely, he grew still more
eloquent in his descriptions of various happenings in his career. It
appeared that he was invincible in fights.

"Why," he said, referring to a man with whom he had had a
misunderstanding, "dat mug scrapped like a damn dago. Dat's right. He
was dead easy. See? He tau't he was a scrapper. But he foun' out
diff'ent! Hully gee."

He walked to and fro in the small room, which seemed then to grow even
smaller and unfit to hold his dignity, the attribute of a supreme
warrior. That swing of the shoulders that had frozen the timid when he
was but a lad had increased with his growth and education at the ratio
of ten to one. It, combined with the sneer upon his mouth, told
mankind that there was nothing in space which could appall him. Maggie
marvelled at him and surrounded him with greatness. She vaguely tried
to calculate the altitude of the pinnacle from which he must have
looked down upon her.

"I met a chump deh odder day way up in deh city," he said. "I was
goin' teh see a frien' of mine. When I was a-crossin' deh street deh
chump runned plump inteh me, an' den he turns aroun' an' says, 'Yer
insolen' ruffin,' he says, like dat. 'Oh, gee,' I says, 'oh, gee, go
teh hell and git