Amazing Stories, Vol. 3, No. 2 — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

and come in again. Denton struck out, and was hit. ~ One of his eyes seemed to him to be demolished, and he felt a soft lip under his fist just before he was hit again—this time under the chin. A huge fan of fiery needles shot open. He had a momentary per- suasion that his head was knocked to pieces, and then something hit his head and back from behind, and the fight became an uninteresting, an impersonal thing. He was aware that time—seconds or minutes—had passed, abstract, uneventful time. He was lying with his head in a heap of ashes, and something wet and warm ran swiftly into his neck. The first shock broke up into discrete sensations. . All his head throbbed; his eye and his chin throbbed exceedingly, and the taste of blood was in his mouth. “He’s all right,” said a voice. “He’s opening his eyes,” “Serve him well right,” said a second. His mates were standing about him. He made an effort and sat up. He put his hand to the back of his head, and his hair was wet and full of cinders, A laugh greeted the gesture. His eye was partially closed. He perceived what had happened. His mo- mentary anticipation of a final victory had vanished. “Looks surprised,” said some one. “?’Ave any more?” said a wit; and then, imitating Denton’s refined accent. “No, thank you.” Denton perceived the swart man with a blood-stained handkerchief before his face, and somewhat in the background. “Where’s that bit of bread he’s got to eat?” said a little ferret-faced creature; and sought with his foot in the ashes of the adjacent bin. Denton had a moment of internal debate. He knew the code of honor requires a man to pursue a fight he has begun to the bitter end; but this was his first taste of the bitterness. He was resolved to rise again, but he felt no passionate impulse. It occurred to him— and the thought was no very violent spur—that he was perhaps after all a coward. For a moment his will was heavy, a lump of lead. Fre it is,” said the little ferret-faced man, and stooped to pick up a cindery cube. He looked at Den- ton, then at the others. Slowly, unwillingly, Denton stood up. A dirty-faced albino extended a hand to the ferret- faced man. ‘‘Gimme that toke,’* he said. He advanced threateningly, bread in hand, to Denton. “So you ain’t ’ad your bellyful yet, + he sad, “Hh? Now it was coming. “No, I haven't,” said Denton, with a catching of the breath, and resolved to try this brute behind the ear before he himself got stunned He was_ again. He knew he would be stunned again. astonished how ill he had judged himself beforehand. A few ridiculous lunges, and down he would go again. He watched the albino’s eyes. The albino was grin- ning confidently, like a man who plans an eee trick. A sudden perception of impending indignities stung Denton. “You leave ’im alone, Jim,” said the swart man sud- * Toke is\an English slang word meaning food, especially bread, A STORY OF THE DAYS TO COME 137 denly over the , blood- stained rag. “He ain’t done nothing to you,” The valbino! s grin vanished. He stopped. He looked from one to the other. It seemed to Denton that the swart man demanded the privilege of his destruction. The albino would have been better. “You leave ’im alone,” said the swart man. "E’s ’ad ’is licks.” “See? CLATTERING bell lifted up its voice and solved the situation. The albino hesitated. “Lucky for you,” he said, adding a foul metaphor, and turned with the others towards the press-room again. ‘Wait for the end of the spell, mate,” said the albino over his shoulder—an afterthought. The swart man waited for the albino to precede him. Denton realized that he had a reprieve. The men passed towards an open door. Denton be- came aware of his duties, and hurried to join the tail of the queue. At the doorway of the vaulted gallery of presses a yellow-uniformed labor policeman stood ticking a card. He had ignored the swart man’s hemor- rhage. “Hurry up there!” he said to Denton. “Hello!” he said, at the sight of his facial disarray. “Who's been hitting you?” “That’s my affair,” said Denton. “Not if it spiles your work, it ain’t,” in yellow. “You mind that.” Denton made no answer. He was a rough—a laborer. He wore the blue canvas. The laws of assault and battery, he knew, were not for the likes of him. He went to his press. He could feel the skin of his brow and chin and head lifting themselves to noble bruises, felt the throb and pain of each aspiring contusion. His nervous sys- tem slid down to lethargy; at each movement in his press adjustment he felt he lifted a weight. And as for his honor—that too throbbed and puffed. How did he stand? What precisely had happened in the last ten minutes? What would happen next? He knew that here was enormous matter for thought, and he could not think save in disordered snatches. His mood was a sort of stagnant astonishment. All his conceptions were overthrown. He had regarded his security from physical violence as inherent, as one of the conditions of life. So, indeed, it had been while he wore his middle-class costume, had his middle-class property to serve for his defense. But who would interfere among Labor roughs fighting together? And indeed in those days no man would. In the Under- world there was no law between man and man; the law and machinery of the state had become for them some- thing that held men down, fended them off from much desirable property and pleasure, and that was all. Violence, that ocean in which the brutes live forever, and from which a thousand dykes and contrivances have won our hazardous civilized life, had flowed in again upon the sinking underways and submerged them. The fist ruled. Denton had come right down at last to the elemental —fist and trick and the stubborn heart and fellowship— even as it was in the beginning. conmicloboolkks.conn said the man