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John Barleycorn by Jack London
page 15 of 225 (06%)

My mother had theories. First, she steadfastly maintained that
brunettes and all the tribe of dark-eyed humans were deceitful.
Needless to say, my mother was a blonde. Next, she was convinced
that the dark-eyed Latin races were profoundly sensitive,
profoundly treacherous, and profoundly murderous. Again and
again, drinking in the strangeness and the fearsomeness of the
world from her lips, I had heard her state that if one offended an
Italian, no matter how slightly and unintentionally, he was
certain to retaliate by stabbing one in the back. That was her
particular phrase--"stab you in the back."

Now, although I had been eager to see Black Matt kill Tom Morrisey
that morning, I did not care to furnish to the dancers the
spectacle of a knife sticking in my back. I had not yet learned
to distinguish between facts and theories. My faith was implicit
in my mother's exposition of the Italian character. Besides, I
had some glimmering inkling of the sacredness of hospitality.
Here was a treacherous, sensitive, murderous Italian, offering me
hospitality. I had been taught to believe that if I offended him
he would strike at me with a knife precisely as a horse kicked out
when one got too close to its heels and worried it. Then, too,
this Italian, Peter, had those terrible black eyes I had heard my
mother talk about. They were eyes different from the eyes I knew,
from the blues and greys and hazels of my own family, from the
pale and genial blues of the Irish. Perhaps Peter had had a few
drinks. At any rate, his eyes were brilliantly black and
sparkling with devilry. They were the mysterious, the unknown,
and who was I, a seven-year-old, to analyse them and know their
prankishness? In them I visioned sudden death, and I declined the
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