The Secret,

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 14, 9 June 1911, Page 14

The Secret,

By GE-ORGE ALLAN ENGLAND (i:

IN SEVEN CHAPTERS—CHAPTER

ONE

Dan Quigley's mood, that afternoon, was venomous. His muscles ached with toil, his mouth parched for a drink, his dull mind glowered into hate of his mean, miserablo life. Even his grub disgusted him. Tho sloppy, tasteless atew, chalky broad and rank boiled tea had never raised his gorge as now. Visions of froo lunch (spicy and savorous, washed down with a tangling schooner of iced bock) tantalised him. For Dan had not one solitary nickel to his name. He grimaced as lio spat upon the floor, then with petulance thrust his dishes back across the dirty oil-cloth. Maggie, elbow-deep in her tub, side-glanced him with ill favor, never stopping the rhythm of her loose, formless shoulders. " Rhotten, I call ut '. " Dan snarled. " Doin' mc ton hours regular fer youse an' th' brats —an' yex send mc off on liawg-wash ! Not aven th' prico ay a beer in mo clo'es, an mo way to that mortal, bleedin' hell o' mine, firm' thenbloody b'ilers all night down to th' gaashouso 1 Arrh ! "

His chair scraped, then clattered over as he rose. Ho did not pick it upj but slouched toward the door, swiping a paw across his wiry red moustache, and plucked his old felt from tho nail. " Well ? Nothin' to saay ? " he baited her, his fingers clutching the door-knob. He was perishing for fight, and so was she; but there was Mrs. Connor's clothes to finish up by six, and time was short. So she kept a close jaw and translated anger into washboard energjr. Dan snorted with pent ugliness. He glared loathingly at tho cluttered unclean room, wliich even tho early midwinter twilight could not soften into images of home. His roving eyes, red through much staring into furnace mouths, slipped over the great heap of unwashed clothes in tho far corner ; touched the rust-pifctcd stove where boiler jostled teapot ; recoiled from the tousley bed on which tho baby—latest and most unwelcome of five —was squalling its dreary, fruitless appeal ; and finally past the

Or " Breaking \Jp the Home."

n th_ " Chic__-o Daily Sasialist")

slattern table, came to rest upon that shapeless, toiling creature at his tub— his wedded wife.

" Rhotten ! " he barked at her, an oath thereto. " Slave all night, lay awake all day—for I get little slape bechune yer scrubbin' an' that dam' brat's meaunderin' ! Slave like hell, an' no thin' to show -—not aven a dacent bite ncr sup ! Per a brass fardin I'd duck out—hear mc ? "

The threat fell answerlcss. Ever since the second year of marriage Dan's wife had heard desertion mouthed at her. She took it stolidly, like oaths and fisticuffs, as simply part of their regime. Secretly, she almost understood. She felt, at times, that in Dan's place she might perhaps do worso. At nny rate, there was nothing to discuss, " nothing to arbitrate." So sho kept quiet and wished Dan well away to his work that she might finish out in peace her own.

Dan jerked the door. An arctic draught from the tenement hall swept in, battled the humid, overheated air into sudden swirls of vapour, -which writhe d billowing, down across the floor. The baby's wail broke with a stifled sneezeDan launched a final curse, blustered out and shivered the door to behind him. Maggie heard his coarse feet clodding down the stair.

" He's out o' mc way till marnin', anyway ! " sho sighed in relief as -she straightened her cramped back and glanced at the .little brass clock, relic of other days. Then she dug back harder than ever at her everlasting toil. The baby wailed on and on, its voice all raw and tired. " Wait till I get this mess wrung out," she angrily apostrophized, " an' youse'll get something t' kape youse quiet ! " Her watery eyes blinked toward the shelf on which, shoulder to shoulder with a file of bottle, tho soothing-syrup stood.

Far below she heard the banging of a door, as Dan lurched savagely into the street.

" That's right ! " sho jibed with ugly laughter. "Go ut ! Take ut out that way, ould man, an* on tho coal ! There'll be tho' less of it fer mc ! "

{Chapter II next wee/.*.)