bitterness of his voice that at the end grew strident, high, and gasping from his effort to release in one explosive tirade the whole packed weight of misery, disappointment, and defeat that sweltered poisonously in his heart. Now, however, as he paused there, dark and hard and full of bitterness, surveying them balefully with toxic eyes, silenced by lack of breath rather than by lack of further curses, they gathered themselves together and went for him in a mass.
In another moment the last vestige of restraint, gentlemanly decorum, urbane and tolerant sophistication with which they had clothed themselves had vanished, and they were yelping, snarling, shouting, accusing and denying, inextricably mixed-up in one general and inglorious dogfight; taunts, curses, insults, and indictments filled the air, all of them were shouting at the same time, and out of that roaring brawl all one could decipher were the ragged barbs and ends of their abuse—a tumult of bitter and strident voices characterized by such phrases as—“You never belonged here in the first place!” “It’s fellows like you who give all the rest of us a bad name!” “Why the hell should the rest of us have to suffer for it because you talk and act like an East Side gangster?” “They think all Americans are a bunch of roughnecks because they meet a few like you.” “Ah, g’wan! youse guys! You give me a pain. You all feel the same way as I do but none of you has guts enough to say so!” “You’re just sore because these English boys never had anything to do with you—that’s all you’re sore about!” “Yeah? They had a hell of a lot to do wit’you, didn’t they?—even if you did try to talk wit’an English accent.” “You’re a damned liar! I never tried to talk with an English accent!” “Sure you did! Everybody hoid you! You coulda cut yoeh accent wit’a hatchet! You were tryin’to suck aroun’that gang at Christ’s the first year you were here!” “Who says I was?” “I say so—that’s who! You an’Tommy Woodson both—” “Don’t mix my name with Tommy Woodson, now! You’re not going to include me with that horse’s neck!” “Oh, yeah? Since when did you staht callin’him a horse’s neck?” “I always called him one! He is one!” “Sure he is—but you didn’t think so, did you, that first year that you was heah? You was pallin’around wit’him an’wouldn’t have anything to do wit’the rest of us! You thought it was goin’to get you somewhere, didn’t you? You saw how quick he dropped you after he got in wit’those guys at Christ’s! He gave you the big go-by then, didn’t he? That’s when you stahted callin’him a horse’s neck!” “It’s a lie! I didn’t!” “Sure you did!”
The snarling medley of bitter tongues rose, mounted; they vented their weight of insult, misery,
