Tumblin' Taylor

But Mrs. Wire uses their economic misfortune as an excuse to attack their moral choices. First she calls them “dead beats,” but her name-calling does not stop there, nor is its ultimate emphasis on their refusal to settle their accounts. Rather, her denunciation takes on a self-righteous tone when she declares her disgust with “all you Quarter rats, half-breeds, drunkards, degenerates, who try to get by on promises, lies, delusions!”