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"Not on yer life," replied Billy Byrne. "I'm from good ol' Chi; but I been to Noo York

twict wit de Goose Island Kid, an' so I knows all about it. De roughnecks belongs

on de Bowery, so dat's wot we'll call my dump down by de river. You're a

highbrow, so youse gotta live on Riverside Drive, see?" and the mucker laughed at

his little pleasantry.

But the girl did not laugh with him. Instead she looked troubled.

Wouldn't you rather be a 'highbrow' too?" she asked, "and live up on Riverside

Drive, right across the street from me?"

"I don't belong," said the mucker gruffly.

"Wouldn't you rather belong?" insisted the girl.

All his life Billy had looked with contempt upon the hated, pusillanimous

highbrows, and now to be asked if he would not rather be one! It was

unthinkable, and yet, strange to relate, he realized an odd longing to be like

Theriere, and Billy Mallory; yes, in some respects like Divine, even. He wanted to

be more like the men that the woman he loved knew best.

"It's too late fer me ever to belong, now," he said ruefully. "Yeh gotta be borned to

it. Gee! Wouldn't I look funny in wite pants, an' one o' dem dinky, little 'Willie-off-

de-yacht' lids?"

Even Barbara had to laugh at the picture the man's words raised to her

imagination.

"I didn't mean that," she hastened to explain. "I didn't mean that you must

necessarily dress like them; but BE like them--act like them--talk like them, as

Mr. Theriere did, you know. He was a gentleman."

An' I'm not," said Billy.

Oh, I didn't mean THAT," the girl hastened to explain.

Well, whether youse meant it or not, it's so," said the mucker. "I ain't no gent--

I'm a mucker. I have your word for it, you know--yeh said so that time on de

Halfmoon, an' I ain't fergot it; but youse was right--I am a mucker. I ain't never

learned how to be anything else. I ain't never wanted to be anything else until

today. Now, I'd like to be a gent; but it's too late."

Won't you try?" asked the girl. "For my sake?"

Go to't," returned the mucker cheerfully; "I'd even wear side whiskers fer youse."

114

The Mucker