If
you but bite your thumb at an upholder of your opposing house you have
work cut out for your steel. On Broadway you may drag your man along a
dozen blocks by his nose, and he will only bawl for the watch; but in
the domain of the East Side Tybalts and Mercutios you must observe the
niceties of deportment to the wink of any eyelash and to an inch of
elbow room at the bar when its patrons include foes of your house and
kin.
So, when Eddie McManus, known to the Capulets as Cork McManus, drifted
into Dutch Mike's for a stein of beer, and came upon a bunch of
Montagus making merry with the suds, he began to observe the strictest
parliamentary rules. Courtesy forbade his leaving the saloon with his
thirst unslaked; caution steered him to a place at the bar where the
mirror supplied the cognizance of the enemy's movements that his
indifferent gaze seemed to disdain; experience whispered to him that the
finger of trouble would be busy among the chattering steins at Dutch
Mike's that night. Close by his side drew Brick Cleary, his Mercutio,
companion of his perambulations. Thus they stood, four of the Mulberry
Hill Gang and two of the Dry Dock Gang, minding their P's and Q's so
solicitously that Dutch Mike kept one eye on his customers and the other
on an open space beneath his bar in which it was his custom to seek
safety whenever the ominous politeness of the rival associations
congealed into the shapes of bullets and cold steel.
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