Lon
hated makeshift. He couldn't get the fun out of simplicity that I could.
He wanted to dress me up. He wanted a big house. Big. Everything big.
That was his undoing. That's what they called him in the Ring, I learned
later, 'Gentleman Lon.' And I never knew there was a Ring! Never knew
the filthy inside workings of the graft game existed. That's the way he
protected me from everything ugly--from poverty. Me, that had never been
protected from either. O God! if he'd only been truthful with me those
last few months. I--I can't talk about it--I--"
"Then don't, dear Mrs. Blair, I didn't mean to--"
"He began bringing home more money than was natural, but he always
explained it--a tip from a bucket shop on his beat--extra duty. If I had
been right strong those days I might have suspected. Once he walked the
floor all night, said it was a toothache, my poor boy! and let me fix a
hot-water bottle for him. Then two men came one evening and there was
some loud talk down in the parlor and I heard words like 'squeal' and
'gangsters.' He told me when he came upstairs that one of them was
Eckstein. But how was I to know who Eckstein was? Didn't, until I heard
it was he who had been--shot.
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