THE OCTOPUS A Story of California by Frank Norris ... - Pink Monkey

outrage. Dyke, still a little dazed, sat down by one of the
tables, preoccupied, saying but little, and Caraher as a matter
of course set the whiskey bottle at his elbow.
It happened that at this same moment, Presley, returning to Los
Muertos from Bonneville, his pockets full of mail, stopped in at
the grocery to buy some black lead for his bicycle. In the
saloon, on the other side of the narrow partition, he overheard
the conversation between Dyke and Caraher. The door was open.
He caught every word distinctly.
"Tell us all about it, Dyke," urged Caraher.
For the fiftieth time Dyke told the story. Already it had
crystallised into a certain form. He used the same phrases with
each repetition, the same sentences, the same words. In his mind
it became set. Thus he would tell it to any one who would listen
from now on, week after week, year after year, all the rest of
his life--"And I based my calculations on a two-cent rate. So
soon as they saw I was to make money they doubled the tariff--all
the traffic would bear--and I mortgaged to S. Behrman--ruined me
with a turn of the hand--stuck, cinched, and not one thing to be
done."
As he talked, he drank glass after glass of whiskey, and the
honest rage, the open, above-board fury of his mind coagulated,
thickened, and sunk to a dull, evil hatred, a wicked, oblique
malevolence. Caraher, sure now of winning a disciple,
replenished his glass.
"Do you blame us now," he cried, "us others, the Reds? Ah, yes,
it's all very well for your middle class to preach moderation. I
could do it, too. You could do it, too, if your belly was fed,
if your property was safe, if your wife had not been murdered if
your children were not starving. Easy enough then to preach lawabiding
methods, legal redress, and all such rot. But how about
US?" he vociferated. "Ah, yes, I'm a loud-mouthed rum-seller,
ain't I? I'm a wild-eyed striker, ain't I? I'm a blood-thirsty
anarchist, ain't I? Wait till you've seen your wife brought home
to you with the face you used to kiss smashed in by a horse's
hoof--killed by the Trust, as it happened to me. Then talk about
moderation! And you, Dyke, black-listed engineer, discharged
employee, ruined agriculturist, wait till you see your little tad
and your mother turned out of doors when S. Behrman forecloses.
Wait till you see 'em getting thin and white, and till you hear