y of them. There is
but scant account kept of cracked heads in back of the yards, for men
who have to crack the heads of animals all day seem to get into the
habit, and to practice on their friends, and even on their families,
between times. This makes it a cause for congratulation that by
modern methods a very few men can do the painfully necessary work of
head-cracking for the whole of the cultured world.

There is no fight that night--perhaps because Jurgis, too, is
watchful--even more so than the policeman. Jurgis has drunk a great
deal, as any one naturally would on an occasion when it all has to be
paid for, whether it is drunk or not; but he is a very steady man, and
does not easily lose his temper. Only once there is a tight shave--and
that is the fault of Marija Berczynskas. Marija has apparently concluded
about two hours ago that if the altar in the corner, with the deity in
soiled white, be not the true home of the muses, it is, at any rate,
the nearest substitute on earth attainable. And Marija is just fighting
drunk when there come to her ears the facts about the villains who have
not paid that night. Marija goes on the warpath straight off, without
even the preliminary of a good cursing, and when she is pulled off it
is with the coat collars of two villains in her hands. Fortunately, the
policeman is disposed to be reasonable, and so it is not Marija who is
flung out of the place.

All this interrupts the music for not more than a minute or two. Then
again the merciless tune begins--the tune that has been played for the
last half-hour without one single change. It is an American tune this
time, one which they have picked up on the streets; all seem to know the
words of it--or, at any rate, the first line of it, which they hum
to themselves, over and over again without rest: "In the good old
summertime--in the good old summertime! In the good old summertime--in
the good old summertime!" There seems to be something hypnotic about
this, with its endlessly recurring dominant. It has put a stupor upon
every one who hears it, as well as upon the men who are playing it. No
one can get away from it, or even think of getting away from it; it is
three o'clock in the morning, and they have danced out all their joy,
and danced out all their strength, and all the strength that unlimited
drink can lend them--and still there is no one among them who has the
power to think of stopping. Promptly at seven o'clock this same