The Coming-Out of Maggie (Henry)
Short summary
New York City's East Side, early 1900s. Every Saturday night, the Clover Leaf Social Club held dances at the Give and Take Athletic Association hall. Maggie Toole usually attended with her friend Anna and Anna's boyfriend Jimmy because she never had an escort of her own.
One Saturday, Maggie announced she had found a gentleman friend to escort her. She arrived with Terry O'Sullivan, a handsome, stylish man who charmed everyone at the dance.
However, Dempsey Donovan, the association's leader, became suspicious when 'Big Mike' O'Sullivan said he'd never seen Terry before.
Dempsey challenged Terry to a fight in the back room. Maggie rushed in just as Terry drew a stiletto—a weapon never before seen at the club. She confessed tearfully:
I never had a fellow in my life...I fixed it with him to call himself O'Sullivan...I knew there'd be nothin' doin' for him if he came as a Dago. I guess I'll resign from the club now.
Dempsey ordered Tony Spinelli out. Then he turned to Maggie and asked if she would come to next Saturday's dance with him. Maggie's eyes brightened as she eagerly accepted.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Maggies lonely Saturday nights and her surprising announcement
Every Saturday night, the Clover Leaf Social Club held dances in the hall of the Give and Take Athletic Association on the East Side. To attend, one had to be a member of the Give and Take or work at Rhinegold's paper-box factory. Members could bring outsiders to single dances, but mostly the young men brought their favorite paper-box girls.
Maggie Toole attended these dances with her best friend and fellow factory worker, along with the friend's escort.
On one Saturday afternoon when the factory closed at three, Anna told Maggie she and her fellow would pick her up at seven as usual. But instead of her customary grateful response, Maggie announced she had found a gentleman friend who would escort her to the dance. Anna was shocked and delighted, demanding details. Maggie promised to introduce him at the hall, describing him as stylish and two inches taller than Anna's escort.
Terry OSullivans triumphant entrance and social success
That evening, Anna and her escort arrived early, eagerly watching the door. At eight-thirty, Maggie swept in with her companion, who indeed justified her praise. He stood two inches taller than the average Give and Take athlete, with dark curling hair and flashing eyes and teeth.
The young men of the Clover Leaf Club valued physical prowess over personal graces, relying on bulging muscles and displays of male superiority rather than refined manners. They viewed this visitor's graceful poses with suspicion. Maggie introduced him as Terry O'Sullivan to each arriving Clover Leaf member.
Almost was she pretty now, with the unique luminosity in her eyes that comes to a girl with her first suitor and a kitten with its first mouse.
The paper-box girls buzzed about Maggie finally having a fellow, while the Give and Take members expressed indifferent contempt. Usually Maggie spent the evening against the wall, showing such gratitude when asked to dance that her partners' pleasure diminished. But tonight was different. Terry O'Sullivan proved a triumphant Prince Charming. The girls besieged Maggie for introductions, and the young men suddenly noticed her charms. Terry danced gracefully, introduced style and atmosphere, and his words came easily. He even waltzed twice in succession with the paper-box girl brought by the association's leader.
Dempsey was one of the lieutenants of the local political boss, and no police officer dared arrest him. At ten o'clock, the boss himself appeared briefly, smiled at the girls, and handed out cigars to the boys. Dempsey spoke rapidly to him, and the boss looked carefully at the dancers, smiled, shook his head, and departed.
Dempsey Donovans confrontation and the challenge to fight
When the music stopped, Terry O'Sullivan started back to find Maggie, but Dempsey intercepted him in the middle of the floor. Nearly everyone turned to watch, sensing that two gladiators had met. Dempsey asked where O'Sullivan lived. The two men were well matched in size and strength, both too splendid and mighty to share pre-eminence. O'Sullivan said he lived on Grand Street. Dempsey noted that the political boss had never seen him before, and O'Sullivans in the district usually knew one another. He demanded proof of O'Sullivan's family connections.
They were enemies by the law written when the rocks were molten. They were each too splendid, too mighty, too incomparable to divide pre-eminence. One only must survive.
When O'Sullivan suggested Dempsey mind his own business, Dempsey's eye brightened. He declared that O'Sullivan wasn't an O'Sullivan at all, but a ring-tailed monkey. O'Sullivan's eye flashed and he made a quick movement, but another member caught his arm. Dempsey and the club secretary walked rapidly toward a rear door, and other members joined them. Terry O'Sullivan was now in the hands of the Board of Rules and Social Referees, who conducted him through the same rear door. Behind the hall was a smaller room where personal difficulties were settled man to man, under the board's supervision. The transition was so smooth that many in the hall, including Maggie, didn't notice O'Sullivan's departure.
The stiletto, Tony Spinelli revealed, and Dempseys invitation
When Maggie learned that Dempsey had picked a fight with her escort and they had gone to the back room, she rushed through the dancers and burst through the door. She saw the Board standing with open watches, Dempsey in his shirt sleeves dancing light-footed with a pugilist's grace, and Terry O'Sullivan standing with folded arms and a murderous look. Without slowing, Maggie leaped forward with a scream and caught O'Sullivan's suddenly uplifted arm, whisking from it a long, bright stiletto he had drawn from his bosom.
Cold steel drawn in the rooms of the Give and Take Association! Such a thing had never happened before. Everyone stood motionless for a minute.
Dempsey looked at O'Sullivan without anger, as one looks at a stray dog, and nodded toward the door, calling him Giuseppe and telling him someone would pitch his hat down after him. Maggie walked up to Dempsey with tears running down her cheeks but looking him bravely in the eye. She confessed she knew he was Italian—his real name was Tony Spinelli. She had hurried in when she heard about the fight because Italians always carried knives. She explained she had never had a fellow in her life and got tired of coming with Anna and her escort every night, so she arranged for Tony to call himself O'Sullivan. She knew there would be nothing doing for him if he came as an Italian, and said she would resign from the club. Dempsey told another member to throw the knife out the window and tell everyone inside that O'Sullivan had received a telephone message to go to Tammany Hall. Then he turned back to Maggie and asked if he could see her home and if she would come to the next Saturday hop with him. Maggie's eyes quickly changed from dull to shining brown as she stammered her acceptance.