'So what? What does that prove? That it’s the one who gets most wacked up!.. you’ll all croak and feet first! That’s where your brains are! Not up there! Down there! I’m telling you!
And with shit on your kisser!’
'All right,’ he says, 'go on, work yourself up, Cascade! it does you good! I won’t get sore!. But take Berthe! I swear that’s all I’m asking!.. But then it’s definite, you know her! I’m putting her in your hands!.. It’s hell getting her to take care of herself but God knows she needs it!.. ’
It’s true she was dragging around a bad dose of syph, the kind you don’t see often… I knew all about it.. that she couldn’t get rid of it! The doctors, boy! they’d lap up her case! Sores all over ’er!.. Berthe had cost her weight in gold just for injections, buboes.. But that was his affair, wasn’t it!.. Sometimes three months easily in the hospital for a bubo. Times when she was rotting away everywhere, chancres even in her ears. Berthe and Picpus, they’re a whole world!.. Got to see how he handles her when there’s really an argument. He once broke three of her ribs!. Always because she’s stubborn and won’t go to the doctor. Women who don’t take care of themselves are repulsive!.. 'I don’t want to go for my blood test!’. What bellyaching!. W~ah!..Wah!
All blah!. What crap!. Me, I go to the doc all right!..And not since yesterday!.. for fifteen years! regular! I haven’t skipped a single time!. Health first!. Why the hell should the women get out of it? Because they just don’t feel like it? You listening? 'Ah! so I don’t wash my ass!. I’m pretty, people like me! ’.. What you get for picking up kitchen-maids! They’re plain filthy! They drag around!. get full of muck! never in a hurry! never put their ass in water!. I’m keeping the lot and that’s that! Syph and the rest!.. never see a bidet if their men weren’t always after ’em, rough with ’em. They’d rot from head to foot! Ah! the customers don’t realize the trouble a woman means!.. The way they’re so anxious to be sick and disgusting! Nice and veiled, all primped up, always natty! But when it comes to the squoosh! the hell with that!
they don’t give a good God damn!. Berthe’s worse than the others!.. Really got to have class, and more!.. It’s not every pimp! hmph! when it comes down to knowing his goods!
I’m telling you!. Picpus insists right off. 'Take my Berthe!’ He hands me a line. He’s dead set on it!. 'Take her on trial!.. She makes whatever she wants at the Empire. You won’t have trouble! Fifty-fifty!’ Still and all it hurts bad to see a pal leave that way when no one asked him for anything..
I argue with him all the same.
'What are you running away for, you poor dope? You want to leave your place to the others? There’s a real boom on now! You can rake in all you want!. It’s lousy with dough!.. Never had so much work in London! Ask Red!.. Been with us thirty years! Never saw the likes! You make a pile in a single day! furloughs all over the place! The girls come back loaded with dough!.. You’ll have your house in Nogent! You’ll be able to leave in six months. Just a little patience!
You’ve got your chance!. Now you beat it! It’s a gold mine! You’re getting dumb! dopey! You’re hurting me, Picpus! Go on, get your equipment! You disgust me! That’s what! You make me sick! ’
What else could I say? That’s how I talked!.. He wasn’t even listening!. He starts all over about his girl!. Both of them were there, Berthe and Picpus, on the sidewalk. They sure looked like dopes!. 'Go on!’ I said. 'Get away! That’ll do! you're crazy! It’s over!.. Let me have your punk! I don’t want to take advantage of your weakness!.. But be careful! No finagling and no monkey-business! If she doublecrosses me while you’re away, I’ll hand her over to Luigi!. He asked me for some!’
I knew she couldn’t stand him.
Luigi the Florentine! he knows how to train them!.. He sure can handle his women!.. Picpus is velvet compared to him. You’ve just got to see Luigi’s bunch! Both hands, all his fingers broken!. Smack!.. that’s it! At the edge of the sidewalk at the first slipup!.. Streetwalker! Smack! she gets it!. Penance!. Not a murmur!. You’ve just got to see his breadwinners. I assure you they watch their step! they’re on their toes. They don’t take their gloves off!. They do Tottenham. I assure you they don’t feel like laughing! Berthe! that burp! soon as you talk about Luigi… He almost pimped for her once! You can imagine!.. 'No! No! No! Cascade! I’ll be all right!.. I swear! I’ll never bother you! ’
'All right! All right, Berthe! We’ll see!’… That’s how I talked. I wasn’t very encouraging…
'Beat it, you! It’s agreed!. Only you’re just a worm! And don’t forget it! that’s all I’m saying!’
'I don’t give a damn as long as you give her back to me! I’m crazy about her! ’
It’s like dope, I tell you!
'When I get back it’ll be cushy!’ He was slobbering and raving. He talked to me like the Salvation Army!.. 'What we need is real Victory! Alsace-Lorraine, my boy! I want to see Berlin, you old sourpuss!
That’s how he talked!..
'Balls! that’s what you’ll see!. You’ll spit your little guts out..France has been getting along without you! There’re already seven or eight million over there getting smashed up! Ten thousand a day kicking the bucket, big dopes like you! A little pimp like you isn’t going to change things! Remember what I’m telling you!. You’ll be just a crap in the hay.. You won’t even be seen any more!. Your lousy war’s either lost or won. You’re just a blank!.. Glamor!. Do you have to die for that? Anybody asking your advice?’
'You’re talking crap, Cascade, you don’t know a thing!.. You going to keep her for me? Yes or no? My Berthe? My love?’
We’d have kept on arguing.
'Go on!’ I said. 'You’re raving! You’ve got it coming to you! Let the damned Fritzes knock hell out of you! ’
Another stripe on my arm!.. I get all the luck! I’m running a garage! Got all the chickens! I’ve got a head, etcetera!.. Where’m I going to put ’em?. It worries me!”
Big Angele was listening to it all, she could take his temper.. she saw her man getting worked up.. there were pros and cons. She could have put a word in. because after all she had a right to. being his woman and not since yesterday.. since always, practically.. The others?.. Just little understudies to the big-shot gals.. She’d come back from America just two weeks before with a nice roll of dollars and a cute little number she’d picked up in Vigo, just like that, at the port, a kid, a little flower girl, prettyish, but still shy, not used to it yet, she’d been pushed into it right away, the city, the mob, the cars, it was all too dark for her, the sky and the pavement, there wasn’t enough sun! It was hell and high water getting her out on the street.. Another complication.. The Portuguese was in the dumps. Cascade didn’t even look at her, just to see what she was like!.. He even wanted to ship her back!. ''I don’t want any wet blankets around!. I’m unlucky enough myself!”. And he blew up again!. He got sore at everyone again! at the war that screwed up everything! at the way things were done! at the cops! at people! at the little Portuguese! Big Angele, who hadn’t said anything, suddenly spoke up.
"You’re too good-natured, Cascade!.. You’re too good-natured!”
What was that she said?.. Boy! did that half-ass remark set him off! What a sock he took at her! Smack! Enough to stagger a donkey!. She sat down in a daze!..
"I do what I can, Cascade! I do what I can! ”
More wailing.
That made him scream at her! He was stamping with rage!
And since we were standing there and watching, we irritated him too. He yelled at us.
"There!” he says, "there’re my henchmen!. Indeed, gentlemen, indeed! I’m very kind. The gentlemen certainly think so, too!.. They’ve got good reason for running after me. The Queen!. Tootsy-wootsy Cascade! That’s how I am! Wait my little rascals! There’s some for you, too! You’ll get a look at the police! You’ll get a look at Matthew!. He’s coming back in a little while!. It’s a promise!. It’s agreed!. The Inspector from the Yard. Sergeant Matthew! Indeed! Indeed! That’s pretty! That’s fine! A scandal! The gentlemen make a scene right in Mile End! Ah! there’s going to be shit to pay in five minutes! Inspector Matthew hasn’t digested the hat!.. I might as well tell you.. Sergeant Matthew doesn’t like wise guys! Matthew the Bull, Sergeant Matthew of the Yard, Inspector Matthew, who does he come to see?.. Me, of course!