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Updated: June 9, 2025
"Yes," he flung back, dryly, "and a damned insolent one, too." "He has his faults," she defended. "He's not polished, but he's forceful." She turned a malevolent smile upon her husband. "When he told that drunken servant girl to go, she went!" Starratt could feel the rush of blood dyeing his temples. "That's just in his line!" he sneered.
Frankly, neither did Fred Starratt, but he held his peace. He was thinking just where he would gather enough money together to pay Mrs. Finn's questionable substitute. The guests arrived shortly and there were the usual stiff, bromidic greetings. Mrs. Hilmer had been presented to Fred first ... a little, spotless, homey Scandinavian type, who radiated competent housekeeping and flawless cooking.
At the moment when the Hilmer shipyard insurance had been turned over to Fred Starratt he had at once made a move toward a reduction in the rate. Having gone over the schedule at the Board of Fire Underwriters, he had discovered that they had failed to give Hilmer credit in the rating for certain fire protection.
"I'm coming as quickly as I can," Starratt retorted. He was answered by a hard-fisted blow in the pit of the stomach. He doubled up with a gasping groan. A crowd began to gather. Presently he recovered his breath. The blow had completely sobered and calmed him. He felt that he could face anything now. The jail was just across the street, so they walked, pursued by a knot of curious idlers.
"Well, if a man is starving he'll do almost anything, I guess," Fred returned, significantly. "Do you mean that you would if you were starving?" "I'm starving now!" escaped Fred Starratt, almost involuntarily. "I thought so," said the other, quietly. "Why?" "I've seen plenty of starving men in my day. I know the look. And you're suffering in the bargain. Not physically.
Fred Starratt did not have the heart to complain. Helen had earned every stitch of clothing that she was buying there was no doubt about that; still, he would have liked to be less hasty in her expenditures. He had been too long in business to count much on prospects. He disliked borrowing more money from Brauer, but there was no alternative.
Starratt couldn't remember anything in the recital of Hilmer's past performance or his present attitude that dovetailed with benevolence... He retreated, baffled from these speculative tilts, to the refuge of a comforting conviction that fortunately no man was thoroughly consistent.
No, that could not account for his acquired suavity, for silence is very often much more awkward than even clumsy attempts at speech. As the dinner progressed, Fred Starratt began to wonder just what had tempted Helen to arrange this little dinner party for the Hilmers. When she had broached the matter, her words had scarcely conveyed their type.
Sitting over a generous platter of pot roast and spaghetti at Hjul's, with Brauer's pallid face staring up at him, Fred Starratt had the realization that there was at least one mouselike human to whom he could play the role of cat. Brauer did not need to be prodded to speech. He told everything with the eagerness of a child caught in a fault and seeking to curry the favor of his questioner.
Girls in factories should not come to work all tired out on Monday morning. They would find it much more restful to spend the time upon their knees." It was not what they said, but the tone of it, that made Fred Starratt shudder. Their laughter was the terrible laughter of sober men without either the wit or circumstance to escape into a temperate gayety of spirit.
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