Galvin had the social and moral point of view of both the hawk10 and the buzzard. According to Wood, who early made friends with him quite as he did with the Chinese and others for purposes of study, he was identified with some houses of prostitution in which he had a small financial interest, as well as various political schemes then being locally fostered by one and another group of low politicians who were constantly getting up one scheme and another to mulct the city in some underhanded way. He was a species of political and social grafter11, having all the high ideals of a bagnio detective: he began to interest Mr. Tobias Mitchell, who was a creature of an allied12 if slightly higher type, and the pair became reasonably good friends. Mitchell used him as an assistant to Hazard, Bellairs, Bennett, Hartung and myself: he supplied the paper with stories which we would rewrite. I used to laugh at him, more or less to his face, as being a freak, which of course generated only the kindliest of feelings between us. He always suggested to me the type of detective or plain-clothes man who would take money from street-girls, prey13 on them, as indeed I suspected him of doing.
I wondered how he could make anything out of this newspaper connection since, as Hartung and others told me, he could not write. It was necessary to rewrite his stuff almost entirely14. But his great recommendation to Mitchell and others was that he could get news of things where other reporters could not, among the police, detectives and politicians, with whom he was evidently hand-in-hand. By reason of his underworld connections many amazing details as to one form and another of political and social jobbery came to light, which doubtless made him invaluable15 to a city editor.
When some of his stories were given to me to rewrite we were thrown into immediate16 and clashing contact. Because of his leers and bravado17, when he knew he could not write two good sentences in order, I frequently wanted to brain him but took it out in smiles and dry cynical18 comments. His favorite expressions were “See?” and “I sez tuh him” or “He sez tuh me,” always accompanied by a contemptuous wave of a hand or a pugnaciously20 protruded21 chin. One of the chief reasons why I hated him was that Dick Wood told me he had once remarked that newspaper work was a beggar’s game at best and that writers grew on trees, meaning that they were so numerous as to be negligible and not worth considering.
I made the best of these trying situations when I had to do over a story of his, extracting all the information I could and then writing it out, which resulted in some of his stories receiving excellent space in the day’s news and made him all the more pugnacious19 and sure of himself. And at the same time these made him of more value to the paper. However, in due time I left the Globe-Democrat, and one day, greatly to my astonishment22 and irritation23, he appeared at the North Seventh Street station as a full-fledged reporter, having been given a regular position by Mitchell and set to doing police work—out of which task at the Four Courts, if I remember rightly, he finally ousted24 Jock Bellairs, who was given to too much drinking.
To my surprise and chagrin25 I noticed at once that he was, as if by reason of past intimacies26 of which I had not the slightest idea, far more en rapport27 with the sergeants28 and the captain than I had ever dreamed of being. It was “Charlie” here and “Cap” there. But what roiled29 me most was that he gave himself all the airs of a newspaper man, swaggering about and talking of this, that and the other story he had written (I having done some of them myself!). The crowning blow was that he was soon closeted with the captain in his room, strolling in and out of that sanctum as if it were his private demesne30 and giving me the impression of being in touch with realms and deeds of which I was never to have the slightest knowledge. This made me apprehensive31 lest in these intimacies tales and mysteries should be unfolded that would have their first light in the pages of the Globe-Democrat and so leave me to be laughed at as one who could not get the news. I watched the Globe-Democrat more closely than ever before for evidence of such treachery on the part of the police as would result in a “scoop” for him, at the same time redoubling my interest in such items as might appear. The consequence was that on more than one occasion I made good stories out of things which Mr. Galvin had evidently dismissed as worthless; and now and then a case into which I had inquired at the stationhouse appeared in the Globe-Democrat with details which I had not been able to obtain and concerning which the police had insisted they knew nothing.
For a long time, by dint32 of energy and a rather plain indication to all concerned that I would not tolerate false dealing33, I managed not only to hold my own but occasionally to give my confrère a good beating—as when, for one instance, a negro girl in one of those crowded alleys35 was cut almost to shreds36 by an ex-lover armed with a razor, for reasons which, as my investigation37 proved, were highly romantic. Some seven or eight months before, this girl and her assailant had been living together in Cairo, Illinois, and the lover, who was wildly fond of her, became suspicious and finally satisfying himself that she was faithless set a trap to catch her. He was a coal passer or stevedore38, working now on one boat and now on another plying39 the Mississippi between New Orleans and St. Louis. And one day when she thought he was on a river steamer for a week or two he burst in upon her and found her with another man. Death would have been her portion, as well as that of her lover, had it not been for the interference of friends which permitted the pair to escape.
The man returned to his task as stevedore, working his way from one river city to another. When he came to Memphis, Natchez, New Orleans, Vicksburg or St. Louis, he disguised himself as a peddler selling trinkets and charms and in this capacity walked the crowded negro sections of these cities calling his wares40. One of these trips finally brought him to St. Louis, and here on a late August afternoon, ambling41 up this stifling42 little alley34 calling out his charms and trinkets, he had finally encountered her. The girl put her head out of the doorway43. Dropping his tray he drew a razor and slashed44 her cheeks and lips, arms, legs, back and sides, so that when I arrived at the City Hospital she was unconscious and her life despaired of. The lover, abandoning his tray of cheap jewelry45, which was later brought to the stationhouse and exhibited, had made good his escape and was not captured, during my stay in St. Louis at least. Her present paramour had also gone his way, leaving her to suffer alone.
Owing possibly to Galvin’s underestimate of its romance, this story received only a scant46 stick as a low dive cutting affray in the Globe-Democrat, while in the Republic I had turned it into a negro romance which filled all of a column. Into it I had tried to put the hot river waterfronts of the different cities which the lover had visited, the crowded negro quarters of Memphis, New Orleans, Cairo, the bold negro life which two truants47 such as the false mistress and her lover might enjoy. I had tried to suggest the sing-song sleepiness of the levee boat-landings, the stevedores48 at their lazy labors49, the idle, dreamy character of the slow-moving boats. Even an old negro refrain appropriate to a trinket peddler had been introduced:
The barbaric character of the alley in which it occurred, lined with rickety curtain-hung shacks52 and swarming53 with the idle, crooning, shuffling54 negro life of the South, appealed to me. An old black mammy with a yellow-dotted kerchief over her head, who kept talking of “disha Gawge” and “disha Sam” and “disha Maquatia” (the girl), moved me to a poetic55 frenzy56. From a crowd of blacks that hung about the vacated shack51 of the lovers after the girl had been taken away I picked up the main thread of the story, the varying characteristics of the girl and her lover, and then having visited the hospital and seen the victim I hurried to the office and endeavored to convince Wandell that I had an important story. At first he was not inclined to think so, negro life being a little too low for local consumption, but after I had entered upon some of the details he told me to go ahead. I wrote it out as well as I could, and it went in on the second page. The next day, meeting Galvin, having first examined the Globe to see what had been done there, I beamed on him cheerfully and was met with a snarl57 of rage.
“You think you’re a hell of a feller, dontcha, because yuh can sling58 a little ink? Yuh think yuh’ve pulled off sompin swell59. Well, say, yuh’re not near as much as yuh think yuh are. Wait an’ see. I’ve been up against wordy boys like yuh before, an’ I can work all around ’em. All you guys do is to get a few facts an’ then pad ’em up. Yuh never get the real stuff, never,” and he snapped his fingers under my nose. “Wait’ll we get a real case sometime, you an’ me, an’ I’ll show yuh sompin.”
He glared at me with hard, revengeful eyes, and he then and there put a fear into me from which I never recovered, although at the time I merely smiled.
“Is that so? That’s easy enough to say, now that you’re trimmed, but I guess I’ll be right there when the time comes.”
“Aw, go to hell!” he snarled60, and I walked off smiling but beginning to wonder nervously61 just what it was he was going to do to me, and how soon.
点击收听单词发音
1 tout | |
v.推销,招徕;兜售;吹捧,劝诱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 purveyor | |
n.承办商,伙食承办商 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 uncouth | |
adj.无教养的,粗鲁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 racing | |
n.竞赛,赛马;adj.竞赛用的,赛马用的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 freckled | |
adj.雀斑;斑点;晒斑;(使)生雀斑v.雀斑,斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 touts | |
n.招徕( tout的名词复数 );(音乐会、体育比赛等的)卖高价票的人;侦查者;探听赛马的情报v.兜售( tout的第三人称单数 );招揽;侦查;探听赛马情报 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 hues | |
色彩( hue的名词复数 ); 色调; 信仰; 观点 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 sonorousness | |
n.圆润低沉;感人;堂皇;响亮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 glistening | |
adj.闪耀的,反光的v.湿物闪耀,闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 hawk | |
n.鹰,骗子;鹰派成员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 grafter | |
嫁接的人,贪污者,收贿者; 平铲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 allied | |
adj.协约国的;同盟国的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 prey | |
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 invaluable | |
adj.无价的,非常宝贵的,极为贵重的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 bravado | |
n.虚张声势,故作勇敢,逞能 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 cynical | |
adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的,不信世道向善的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 pugnacious | |
adj.好斗的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 pugnaciously | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 protruded | |
v.(使某物)伸出,(使某物)突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 astonishment | |
n.惊奇,惊异 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 irritation | |
n.激怒,恼怒,生气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 ousted | |
驱逐( oust的过去式和过去分词 ); 革职; 罢黜; 剥夺 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 chagrin | |
n.懊恼;气愤;委屈 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 intimacies | |
亲密( intimacy的名词复数 ); 密切; 亲昵的言行; 性行为 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 rapport | |
n.和睦,意见一致 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 sergeants | |
警官( sergeant的名词复数 ); (美国警察)警佐; (英国警察)巡佐; 陆军(或空军)中士 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 roiled | |
v.搅混(液体)( roil的过去式和过去分词 );使烦恼;使不安;使生气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 demesne | |
n.领域,私有土地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 apprehensive | |
adj.担心的,恐惧的,善于领会的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 dint | |
n.由于,靠;凹坑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 alley | |
n.小巷,胡同;小径,小路 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 alleys | |
胡同,小巷( alley的名词复数 ); 小径 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 shreds | |
v.撕碎,切碎( shred的第三人称单数 );用撕毁机撕毁(文件) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 investigation | |
n.调查,调查研究 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 stevedore | |
n.码头工人;v.装载货物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 plying | |
v.使用(工具)( ply的现在分词 );经常供应(食物、饮料);固定往来;经营生意 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 wares | |
n. 货物, 商品 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 ambling | |
v.(马)缓行( amble的现在分词 );从容地走,漫步 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 stifling | |
a.令人窒息的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 slashed | |
v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 );鞭打;割破;削减 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 jewelry | |
n.(jewllery)(总称)珠宝 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 scant | |
adj.不充分的,不足的;v.减缩,限制,忽略 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 truants | |
n.旷课的小学生( truant的名词复数 );逃学生;逃避责任者;懒散的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 stevedores | |
n.码头装卸工人,搬运工( stevedore的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 labors | |
v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 );苦干;详细分析;(指引擎)缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 buckles | |
搭扣,扣环( buckle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 shack | |
adj.简陋的小屋,窝棚 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 shacks | |
n.窝棚,简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 swarming | |
密集( swarm的现在分词 ); 云集; 成群地移动; 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 shuffling | |
adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 poetic | |
adj.富有诗意的,有诗人气质的,善于抒情的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 frenzy | |
n.疯狂,狂热,极度的激动 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 snarl | |
v.吼叫,怒骂,纠缠,混乱;n.混乱,缠结,咆哮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 sling | |
vt.扔;悬挂;n.挂带;吊索,吊兜;弹弓 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 swell | |
vi.膨胀,肿胀;增长,增强 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 snarled | |
v.(指狗)吠,嗥叫, (人)咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 );咆哮着说,厉声地说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 nervously | |
adv.神情激动地,不安地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |