第36章 THE EASTER OF THE SOUL(2)

"Say," said Mr. McQuirk, wheeling and shooting out a horizontal hand and a forty-five-degree chin, "you know your place only when it comes for givin' titles. I've changed me mind about drinkin -- see?

You got your money, ain't you? Wait till you get stung before you get the droop to your lip, will you?"

Thus Mr. Quirk added mutability of desires to the strange humors that had taken possession of him.

Leaving the saloon, he walked away twenty steps and leaned in the open doorway of Lutz, the barber.

He and Lutz were friends, masking their sentiments behind abuse and bludgeons of repartee.

"Irish loafer," roared Lutz, "how do you do?

So, not yet haf der bolicemans or der catcher of dogs done deir duty!"

"Hello, Dutch," said Mr. McQuirk. "Can't get your mind off of frankfurters, can you?"

"Bah!" exclaimed the German, coming and lean- ing in the door. "I haf a soul above frankfurters to-day. Dere is springtime in der air. I can feel it coming in ofer der mud of der streets and das ice in der river. Soon will dere be bienics in der islands, mit kegs of beer under der trees."

"Say," said Mr. McQuirk, setting his bat on one side, "is everybody kiddin' me about gentle Spring?

There ain't any more spring in the air than there is in a horsehair sofa in a Second Avenue furnished room. For me the winter underwear yet and the buckwheat cakes."

"You haf no boetry," said Lutz. True, it is yedt cold, und in der city we haf not many of der signs; but dere are dree kinds of beoble dot should always feel der'approach of spring first -- dey are boets, lovers and poor vidows."

Mr. McQuirk went on his way, still possessed by the strange perturbation that he did not understand.

Something was lacking to his comfort, and it made him half angry because be did not know what it was.

Two blocks away he came upon a foe, one Conover, whom he was bound in honor to engage in combat.

Mr. McQuirk made the attack with the charac- teristic suddenness and fierceness that had gained for him the endearing sobriquet of "Tiger." The de- fence of Mr. Conover was so prompt and admirable that the conflict was protracted until the onlookers un- selfishly gave the warning cry of "Cheese it -- the cop!" The principals escaped easily by running through the nearest open doors into the communi- cating backyards at the rear of the houses.

Mr. McQuirk emerged into another street. He stood by a lamp-post for a few minutes engaged in thought and then he turned and plunged into a small notion and news shop. A red-haired young woman, eating gum-drops, came and looked freezingly at him across the ice-bound steppes of the counter.

"Say, lady," he said, "have you got a song book with this in it. Let's see bow it leads off --

"When the springtime comes well wander in the dale, love, And whisper of those days of yore -- "

"I'm having a friend," explained Mr. McQuirk, "laid up with a broken leg, and he sent me after it. He's a devil for songs and poetry when he can't get out to drink."

"We have not," replied the young woman, with un- concealed contempt. "But there is a new song out that begins this way:

"'Let us sit together in the old armchair;

And while the firelight flickers we'll be comfortable there.'"

There will be no profit in following Mr. "Tiger" McQuirk through his further vagaries of that day until he comes to stand knocking at the door of Annie Maria Doyle. The goddess Eastre, it seems, had guided his footsteps aright at last.

"Is that you now, Jimmy McQuirk?" she cried, smiling through the opened door (Annie Maria had never accepted the "Tiger"). "Well, whatever!"

"Come out in the ball," said Mr. McQuirk. "I want to ask yer opinion of the weather - on the level."

"Are you crazy, sure?" said Annie Maria.

"I am," said the "Tiger." "They've been telling me all day there was spring in the air. Were they liars? Or am I?"

"Dear me!" said Annie Maria -- "haven't you no- ticed it? I can almost smell the violets. And the green grass. Of course, there ain't any yet -- it's just a kind of feeling, you know."

"That's what I'm getting at," said Mr. McQuirk.

I've had it. I didn't recognize it at first. I thought maybe it was en-wee, contracted the other day when I stepped above Fourteenth Street. But the katzenjammer I've got don't spell violets. It spells yer own name, Annie Maria, and it's you I want. I go to work next Monday, and I make four dollars a day. Spiel up, old girl -- do we make a team?"

"Jimmy," sighed Annie Maria, suddenly disap- pearing in his overcoat, "don't you see that spring is all over the world right this minute?"

But you yourself remember how that day ended.

Beginning with so fine a promise of vernal things, late in the afternoon the air chilled and an inch of snow fell -- even so late in March. On Fifth Ave- nue the ladies drew their winter furs close about them. Only in the florists' windows could be per- ceived any signs of the morning smile of the coming goddess Eastre.

At six o'clock Herr Lutz began to close his shop.

He beard a well-known shout: "Hello, Dutch!"

"Tiger" McQuirk, in his shirt-sleeves, with his hat on the back of his bead, stood outside in the whirling snow, puffing at a black cigar.

"Donnerwetter!" shouted Lutz, "der vinter, he has gome back again yet!"

"Yer a liar, Dutch," called back Mr. McQuirk, with friendly geniality, it's springtime, by the watch."