Nowadays he would be sent to Blackwell's Island for
six months as a disturber of the peace or for healing without a license
from the County Medical Association!"
"Like Johann Most," he ventured. She blazed at the name.
"No jokes, please. Most, too, has suffered. But I am no worshipper of
bombs--and beer." This made him laugh, but as the laugh was not echoed
he stared about him.
"But Yetta,--we must begin somewhere. I wish to become--to
become--something like you.--"
She interrupted him roughly:
"To become--you an anarch! You are a sentimental rebel because your
stomach is not strong enough for the gourmands who waste their time at
your clubs. If your nerves were sound you might make a speech. But the
New England conscience of your forefathers--they were nearly all
clergymen, weren't they?--has ruined your strength. The best thing you
can do, my boy, is to enter a seminary and later go to China as a
missionary; else turn literary and edit an American edition of Who's Who
in Hell! But leave our East Side alone. Do you know what New York
reminds me of? Its centre is a strip of green and gold between two
smouldering red rivers of fire--the East and West Sides.
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