MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS

BY

STEPHEN CRANE

Chapter I

A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of RumAlley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's Row whowere circling madly about the heap and pelting at him. 

His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body waswrithing in the delivery of great, crimson oaths. 

"Run, Jimmie, run! Dey'll get yehs, " screamed a retreating Rum Alleychild. 

"Naw, " responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, "dese micks can't make merun. "

Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil's Row throats. Tatteredgamins on the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. Ontheir small, convulsed faces there shone the grins of true assassins. As they charged, they threw stones and cursed in shrill chorus. 

The little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the otherside. His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat wasgone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood wasdripping from a cut in his head. His wan features wore a look of atiny, insane demon. 

On the ground, children from Devil's Row closed in on their antagonist. He crooked his left arm defensively about his head and fought withcursing fury. The little boys ran to and fro, dodging, hurling stonesand swearing in barbaric trebles. 

From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amidsquat, ignorant stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers, unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment andregarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat hung lazily to arailing and watched. Over on the Island, a worm of yellow convictscame from the shadow of a building and crawled slowly along the river'sbank. 

A stone had smashed into Jimmie's mouth. Blood was bubbling over hischin and down upon his ragged shirt. Tears made furrows on hisdirt-stained cheeks. His thin legs had begun to tremble and turn weak, causing his small body to reel. His roaring curses of the first partof the fight had changed to a blasphemous chatter. 

In the yells of the whirling mob of Devil's Row children there werenotes of joy like songs of triumphant savagery. The little boys seemedto leer gloatingly at the blood upon the other child's face. 

Down the avenue came boastfully sauntering a lad of sixteen years, although the chronic sneer of an ideal manhood already sat upon hislips. His hat was tipped with an air of challenge over his eye. Between his teeth, a cigar stump was tilted at the angle of defiance. He walked with a certain swing of the shoulders which appalled thetimid. He glanced over into the vacant lot in which the little ravingboys from Devil's Row seethed about the shrieking and tearful childfrom Rum Alley. 

"Gee!" he murmured with interest. "A scrap. Gee!"

He strode over to the cursing circle, swinging his shoulders in amanner which denoted that he held victory in his fists. He approachedat the back of one of the most deeply engaged of the Devil's Rowchildren. 

"Ah, what deh hell, " he said, and smote the deeply-engaged one on theback of the head. The little boy fell to the ground and gave a hoarse, tremendous howl. He scrambled to his feet, and perceiving, evidently, the size of his assailant, ran quickly off, shouting alarms. Theentire Devil's Row party followed him. They came to a stand a shortdistance away and yelled taunting oaths at the boy with the chronicsneer. The latter, momentarily, paid no attention to them. 

"What deh hell, Jimmie?" he asked of the small champion. 

Jimmie wiped his blood-wet features with his sleeve. 

"Well, it was dis way, Pete, see! I was goin' teh lick dat Riley kidand dey all pitched on me. "

Some Rum Alley children now came forward. The party stood for a momentexchanging vainglorious remarks with Devil's Row. A few stones werethrown at long distances, and words of challenge passed between smallwarriors. Then the Rum Alley contingent turned slowly in the directionof their home street. They began to give, each to each, distortedversions of the fight. Causes of retreat in particular cases weremagnified. Blows dealt in the fight were enlarged to catapultianpower, and stones thrown were alleged to have hurtled with infiniteaccuracy. Valor grew strong again, and the little boys began to swearwith great spirit. 

"Ah, we blokies kin lick deh hull damn Row, " said a child, swaggering. 

Little Jimmie was striving to stanch the flow of blood from his cutlips. Scowling, he turned upon the speaker. 

"Ah, where deh hell was yeh when I was doin' all deh fightin?" hedemanded. "Youse kids makes me tired. "

"Ah, go ahn, " replied the other argumentatively. 

Jimmie replied with heavy contempt. "Ah, youse can't fight, BlueBillie! I kin lick yeh wid one han'. "

"Ah, go ahn, " replied Billie again. 

"Ah, " said Jimmie threateningly. 

"Ah, " said the other in the same tone. 

They struck at each other, clinched, and rolled over on the cobblestones. 

"Smash 'im, Jimmie, kick deh damn guts out of 'im, " yelled Pete, thelad with the chronic sneer, in tones of delight. 

The small combatants pounded and kicked, scratched and tore. Theybegan to weep and their curses struggled in their throats with sobs. The other little boys clasped their hands and wriggled their legs inexcitement. They formed a bobbing circle about the pair. 

A tiny spectator was suddenly agitated. 

"Cheese it, Jimmie, cheese it! Here comes yer fader, " he yelled. 

The circle of little boys instantly parted. They drew away and waitedin ecstatic awe for that which was about to happen. The two littleboys fighting in the modes of four thousand years ago, did not hear thewarning. 

Up the avenue there plodded slowly a man with sullen eyes. He wascarrying a dinner pail and smoking an apple-wood pipe. 

As he neared the spot where the little boys strove, he regarded themlistlessly. But suddenly he roared an oath and advanced upon therolling fighters. 

"Here, you Jim, git up, now, while I belt yer life out, you damneddisorderly brat. "

He began to kick into the chaotic mass on the ground. The boy Billiefelt a heavy boot strike his head. He made a furious effort anddisentangled himself from Jimmie. He tottered away, damning. 

Jimmie arose painfully from the ground and confronting his father, began to curse him. His parent kicked him. "Come home, now, " hecried, "an' stop yer jawin', er I'll lam the everlasting head off yehs. "

They departed. The man paced placidly along with the apple-wood emblemof serenity between his teeth. The boy followed a dozen feet in therear. He swore luridly, for he felt that it was degradation for onewho aimed to be some vague soldier, or a man of blood with a sort ofsublime license, to be taken home by a father. 

Chapter II

Eventually they entered into a dark region where, from a careeningbuilding, a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies to thestreet and the gutter. A wind of early autumn raised yellow dust fromcobbles and swirled it against an hundred windows. Long streamers ofgarments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all unhandy places there werebuckets, brooms, rags and bottles. In the street infants played orfought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossipedwhile leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Witheredpersons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smokingpipes in obscure corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forthto the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight ofhumanity stamping about in its bowels. 

A small ragged girl dragged a red, bawling infant along the crowdedways. He was hanging back, baby-like, bracing his wrinkled, bare legs. 

The little girl cried out: "Ah, Tommie, come ahn. Dere's Jimmie andfader. Don't be a-pullin' me back. "

She jerked the baby's arm impatiently. He fell on his face, roaring. With a second jerk she pulled him to his feet, and they went on. Withthe obstinacy of his order, he protested against being dragged in achosen direction. He made heroic endeavors to keep on his legs, denounce his sister and consume a bit of orange peeling which he chewedbetween the times of his infantile orations. 

As the sullen-eyed man, followed by the blood-covered boy, drew near, the little girl burst into reproachful cries. "Ah, Jimmie, youse binfightin' agin. "

The urchin swelled disdainfully. 

"Ah, what deh hell, Mag. See?"

The little girl upbraided him, "Youse allus fightin', Jimmie, an' yehknows it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead, an' it's likewe'll all get a poundin'. "

She began to weep. The babe threw back his head and roared at hisprospects. 

"Ah, what deh hell!" cried Jimmie. "Shut up er I'll smack yer mout'. See?"

As his sister continued her lamentations, he suddenly swore and struckher. The little girl reeled and, recovering herself, burst into tearsand quaveringly cursed him. As she slowly retreated her brotheradvanced dealing her cuffs. The father heard and turned about. 

"Stop that, Jim, d'yeh hear? Leave yer sister alone on the street. It's like I can never beat any sense into yer damned wooden head. "

The urchin raised his voice in defiance to his parent and continued hisattacks. The babe bawled tremendously, protesting with great violence. During his sister's hasty manoeuvres, he was dragged by the arm. 

Finally the procession plunged into one of the gruesome doorways. Theycrawled up dark stairways and along cold, gloomy halls. At last thefather pushed open a door and they entered a lighted room in which alarge woman was rampant. 

She stopped in a career from a seething stove to a pan-covered table. As the father and children filed in she peered at them. 

"Eh, what? Been fightin' agin, by Gawd!" She threw herself uponJimmie. The urchin tried to dart behind the others and in the scufflethe babe, Tommie, was knocked down. He protested with his usualvehemence, because they had bruised his tender shins against a tableleg. 

The mother's massive shoulders heaved with anger. Grasping the urchinby the neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled. She draggedhim to an unholy sink, and, soaking a rag in water, began to scrub hislacerated face with it. Jimmie screamed in pain and tried to twist hisshoulders out of the clasp of the huge arms. 

The babe sat on the floor watching the scene, his face in contortionslike that of a woman at a tragedy. The father, with a newly-ladenedpipe in his mouth, crouched on a backless chair near the stove. Jimmie's cries annoyed him. He turned about and bellowed at his wife:

"Let the damned kid alone for a minute, will yeh, Mary? Yer alluspoundin' 'im. When I come nights I can't git no rest 'cause yer alluspoundin' a kid. Let up, d'yeh hear? Don't be allus poundin' a kid. "

The woman's operations on the urchin instantly increased in violence. At last she tossed him to a corner where he limply lay cursing andweeping. 

The wife put her immense hands on her hips and with a chieftain-likestride approached her husband. 

"Ho, " she said, with a great grunt of contempt. "An' what in the devilare you stickin' your nose for?"

The babe crawled under the table and, turning, peered out cautiously. The ragged girl retreated and the urchin in the corner drew his legscarefully beneath him. 

The man puffed his pipe calmly and put his great mudded boots on theback part of the stove. 

"Go teh hell, " he murmured, tranquilly. 

The woman screamed and shook her fists before her husband's eyes. Therough yellow of her face and neck flared suddenly crimson. She beganto howl. 

He puffed imperturbably at his pipe for a time, but finally arose andbegan to look out at the window into the darkening chaos of back yards. 

"You've been drinkin', Mary, " he said. "You'd better let up on thebot', ol' woman, or you'll git done. "

"You're a liar. I ain't had a drop, " she roared in reply. 

They had a lurid altercation, in which they damned each other's soulswith frequence. 

The babe was staring out from under the table, his small face workingin his excitement. 

The ragged girl went stealthily over to the corner where the urchin lay. 

"Are yehs hurted much, Jimmie?" she whispered timidly. 

"Not a damn bit! See?" growled the little boy. 

"Will I wash deh blood?"

"Naw!"

"Will I--"

"When I catch dat Riley kid I'll break 'is face! Dat's right! See?"

He turned his face to the wall as if resolved to grimly bide his time. 

In the quarrel between husband and wife, the woman was victor. The mangrabbed his hat and rushed from the room, apparently determined upon avengeful drunk. She followed to the door and thundered at him as hemade his way down stairs. 

She returned and stirred up the room until her children were bobbingabout like bubbles. 

"Git outa deh way, " she persistently bawled, waving feet with theirdishevelled shoes near the heads of her children. She shroudedherself, puffing and snorting, in a cloud of steam at the stove, andeventually extracted a frying-pan full of potatoes that hissed. 

She flourished it. "Come teh yer suppers, now, " she cried with suddenexasperation. "Hurry up, now, er I'll help yeh!"

The children scrambled hastily. With prodigious clatter they arrangedthemselves at table. The babe sat with his feet dangling high from aprecarious infant chair and gorged his small stomach. Jimmie forced, with feverish rapidity, the grease-enveloped pieces between his woundedlips. Maggie, with side glances of fear of interruption, ate like asmall pursued tigress. 

The mother sat blinking at them. She delivered reproaches, swallowedpotatoes and drank from a yellow-brown bottle. After a time her moodchanged and she wept as she carried little Tommie into another room andlaid him to sleep with his fists doubled in an old quilt of faded redand green grandeur. Then she came and moaned by the stove. She rockedto and fro upon a chair, shedding tears and crooning miserably to thetwo children about their "poor mother" and "yer fader, damn 'is soul. "

The little girl plodded between the table and the chair with a dish-panon it. She tottered on her small legs beneath burdens of dishes. 

Jimmie sat nursing his various wounds. He cast furtive glances at hismother. His practised eye perceived her gradually emerge from amuddled mist of sentiment until her brain burned in drunken heat. Hesat breathless. 

Maggie broke a plate. 

The mother started to her feet as if propelled. 

"Good Gawd, " she howled. Her eyes glittered on her child with suddenhatred. The fervent red of her face turned almost to purple. Thelittle boy ran to the halls, shrieking like a monk in an earthquake. 

He floundered about in darkness until he found the stairs. Hestumbled, panic-stricken, to the next floor. An old woman opened adoor. A light behind her threw a flare on the urchin's quivering face. 

"Eh, Gawd, child, what is it dis time? Is yer fader beatin' yermudder, or yer mudder beatin' yer fader?"

Chapter III

Jimmie and the old woman listened long in the hall. Above the muffledroar of conversation, the dismal wailings of babies at night, thethumping of feet in unseen corridors and rooms, mingled with the soundof varied hoarse shoutings in the street and the rattling of wheelsover cobbles, they heard the screams of the child and the roars of themother die away to a feeble moaning and a subdued bass muttering. 

The old woman was a gnarled and leathery personage who could don, atwill, an expression of great virtue. She possessed a small music-boxcapable of one tune, and a collection of "God bless yehs" pitched inassorted keys of fervency. Each day she took a position upon thestones of Fifth Avenue, where she crooked her legs under her andcrouched immovable and hideous, like an idol. She received daily asmall sum in pennies. It was contributed, for the most part, bypersons who did not make their homes in that vicinity. 

Once, when a lady had dropped her purse on the sidewalk, the gnarledwoman had grabbed it and smuggled it with great dexterity beneath hercloak. When she was arrested she had cursed the lady into a partialswoon, and with her aged limbs, twisted from rheumatism, had almostkicked the stomach out of a huge policeman whose conduct upon thatoccasion she referred to when she said: "The police, damn 'em. "

"Eh, Jimmie, it's cursed shame, " she said. "Go, now, like a dear an'buy me a can, an' if yer mudder raises 'ell all night yehs can sleephere. "

Jimmie took a tendered tin-pail and seven pennies and departed. Hepassed into the side door of a saloon and went to the bar. Strainingup on his toes he raised the pail and pennies as high as his arms wouldlet him. He saw two hands thrust down and take them. Directly thesame hands let down the filled pail and he left. 

In front of the gruesome doorway he met a lurching figure. It was hisfather, swaying about on uncertain legs. 

"Give me deh can. See?" said the man, threateningly. 

"Ah, come off! I got dis can fer dat ol' woman an' it 'ud be dirt tehswipe it. See?" cried Jimmie. 

The father wrenched the pail from the urchin. He grasped it in bothhands and lifted it to his mouth. He glued his lips to the under edgeand tilted his head. His hairy throat swelled until it seemed to grownear his chin. There was a tremendous gulping movement and the beerwas gone. 

The man caught his breath and laughed. He hit his son on the head withthe empty pail. As it rolled clanging into the street, Jimmie began toscream and kicked repeatedly at his father's shins. 

"Look at deh dirt what yeh done me, " he yelled. "Deh ol' woman 'ill beraisin' hell. "

He retreated to the middle of the street, but the man did not pursue. He staggered toward the door. 

"I'll club hell outa yeh when I ketch yeh, " he shouted, and disappeared. 

During the evening he had been standing against a bar drinking whiskiesand declaring to all comers, confidentially: "My home reg'lar livin'hell! Damndes' place! Reg'lar hell! Why do I come an' drin' whisk'here thish way? 'Cause home reg'lar livin' hell!"

Jimmie waited a long time in the street and then crept warily upthrough the building. He passed with great caution the door of thegnarled woman, and finally stopped outside his home and listened. 

He could hear his mother moving heavily about among the furniture ofthe room. She was chanting in a mournful voice, occasionallyinterjecting bursts of volcanic wrath at the father, who, Jimmiejudged, had sunk down on the floor or in a corner. 

"Why deh blazes don' chere try teh keep Jim from fightin'? I'll breakher jaw, " she suddenly bellowed. 

The man mumbled with drunken indifference. "Ah, wha' deh hell. W'a'sodds? Wha' makes kick?"

"Because he tears 'is clothes, yeh damn fool, " cried the woman insupreme wrath. 

The husband seemed to become aroused. "Go teh hell, " he thunderedfiercely in reply. There was a crash against the door and somethingbroke into clattering fragments. Jimmie partially suppressed a howland darted down the stairway. Below he paused and listened. He heardhowls and curses, groans and shrieks, confusingly in chorus as if abattle were raging. With all was the crash of splintering furniture. The eyes of the urchin glared in fear that one of them would discoverhim. 

Curious faces appeared in doorways, and whispered comments passed toand fro. "Ol' Johnson's raisin' hell agin. "

Jimmie stood until the noises ceased and the other inhabitants of thetenement had all yawned and shut their doors. Then he crawled upstairswith the caution of an invader of a panther den. Sounds of laboredbreathing came through the broken door-panels. He pushed the door openand entered, quaking. 

A glow from the fire threw red hues over the bare floor, the crackedand soiled plastering, and the overturned and broken furniture. 

In the middle of the floor lay his mother asleep. In one corner of theroom his father's limp body hung across the seat of a chair. 

The urchin stole forward. He began to shiver in dread of awakening hisparents. His mother's great chest was heaving painfully. Jimmiepaused and looked down at her. Her face was inflamed and swollen fromdrinking. Her yellow brows shaded eyelids that had brown blue. Hertangled hair tossed in waves over her forehead. Her mouth was set inthe same lines of vindictive hatred that it had, perhaps, borne duringthe fight. Her bare, red arms were thrown out above her head inpositions of exhaustion, something, mayhap, like those of a satedvillain. 

The urchin bended over his mother. He was fearful lest she should openher eyes, and the dread within him was so strong, that he could notforbear to stare, but hung as if fascinated over the woman's grim face. 

Suddenly her eyes opened. The urchin found himself looking straightinto that expression, which, it would seem, had the power to change hisblood to salt. He howled piercingly and fell backward. 

The woman floundered for a moment, tossed her arms about her head as ifin combat, and again began to snore. 

Jimmie crawled back in the shadows and waited. A noise in the nextroom had followed his cry at the discovery that his mother was awake. He grovelled in the gloom, the eyes from out his drawn face rivetedupon the intervening door. 

He heard it creak, and then the sound of a small voice came to him. "Jimmie! Jimmie! Are yehs dere?" it whispered. The urchin started. The thin, white face of his sister looked at him from the door-way ofthe other room. She crept to him across the floor. 

The father had not moved, but lay in the same death-like sleep. Themother writhed in uneasy slumber, her chest wheezing as if she were inthe agonies of strangulation. Out at the window a florid moon waspeering over dark roofs, and in the distance the waters of a riverglimmered pallidly. 

The small frame of the ragged girl was quivering. Her features werehaggard from weeping, and her eyes gleamed from fear. She grasped theurchin's arm in her little trembling hands and they huddled in acorner. The eyes of both were drawn, by some force, to stare at thewoman's face, for they thought she need only to awake and all fiendswould come from below. 

They crouched until the ghost-mists of dawn appeared at the window, drawing close to the panes, and looking in at the prostrate, heavingbody of the mother. 

Chapter IV

The babe, Tommie, died. He went away in a white, insignificant coffin, his small waxen hand clutching a flower that the girl, Maggie, hadstolen from an Italian. 

She and Jimmie lived. 

The inexperienced fibres of the boy's eyes were hardened at an earlyage. He became a young man of leather. He lived some red yearswithout laboring. During that time his sneer became chronic. Hestudied human nature in the gutter, and found it no worse than hethought he had reason to believe it. He never conceived a respect forthe world, because he had begun with no idols that it had smashed. 

He clad his soul in armor by means of happening hilariously in at amission church where a man composed his sermons of "yous. " While theygot warm at the stove, he told his hearers just where he calculatedthey stood with the Lord. Many of the sinners were impatient over thepictured depths of their degradation. They were waiting forsoup-tickets. 

A reader of words of wind-demons might have been able to see theportions of a dialogue pass to and fro between the exhorter and hishearers. 

"You are damned, " said the preacher. And the reader of sounds mighthave seen the reply go forth from the ragged people: "Where's our soup?"

Jimmie and a companion sat in a rear seat and commented upon the thingsthat didn't concern them, with all the freedom of English gentlemen. When they grew thirsty and went out their minds confused the speakerwith Christ. 

Momentarily, Jimmie was sullen with thoughts of a hopeless altitudewhere grew fruit. His companion said that if he should ever meet Godhe would ask for a million dollars and a bottle of beer. 

Jimmie's occupation for a long time was to stand on streetcorners andwatch the world go by, dreaming blood-red dreams at the passing ofpretty women. He menaced mankind at the intersections of streets. 

On the corners he was in life and of life. The world was going on andhe was there to perceive it. 

He maintained a belligerent attitude toward all well-dressed men. Tohim fine raiment was allied to weakness, and all good coats coveredfaint hearts. He and his order were kings, to a certain extent, overthe men of untarnished clothes, because these latter dreaded, perhaps, to be either killed or laughed at. 

Above all things he despised obvious Christians and ciphers with thechrysanthemums of aristocracy in their button-holes. He consideredhimself above both of these classes. He was afraid of neither thedevil nor the leader of society. 

When he had a dollar in his pocket his satisfaction with existence wasthe greatest thing in the world. So, eventually, he felt obliged towork. His father died and his mother's years were divided up intoperiods of thirty days. 

He became a truck driver. He was given the charge of a painstakingpair of horses and a large rattling truck. He invaded the turmoil andtumble of the down-town streets and learned to breathe maledictorydefiance at the police who occasionally used to climb up, drag him fromhis perch and beat him. 

In the lower part of the city he daily involved himself in hideoustangles. If he and his team chanced to be in the rear he preserved ademeanor of serenity, crossing his legs and bursting forth into yellswhen foot passengers took dangerous dives beneath the noses of hischamping horses. He smoked his pipe calmly for he knew that his paywas marching on. 

If in the front and the key-truck of chaos, he entered terrificallyinto the quarrel that was raging to and fro among the drivers on theirhigh seats, and sometimes roared oaths and violently got himselfarrested. 

After a time his sneer grew so that it turned its glare upon allthings. He became so sharp that he believed in nothing. To him thepolice were always actuated by malignant impulses and the rest of theworld was composed, for the most part, of despicable creatures who wereall trying to take advantage of him and with whom, in defense, he wasobliged to quarrel on all possible occasions. He himself occupied adown-trodden position that had a private but distinct element ofgrandeur in its isolation. 

The most complete cases of aggravated idiocy were, to his mind, rampantupon the front platforms of all the street cars. At first his tonguestrove with these beings, but he eventually was superior. He becameimmured like an African cow. In him grew a majestic contempt for thosestrings of street cars that followed him like intent bugs. 

He fell into the habit, when starting on a long journey, of fixing hiseye on a high and distant object, commanding his horses to begin, andthen going into a sort of a trance of observation. Multitudes ofdrivers might howl in his rear, and passengers might load him withopprobrium, he would not awaken until some blue policeman turned redand began to frenziedly tear bridles and beat the soft noses of theresponsible horses. 

When he paused to contemplate the attitude of the police toward himselfand his fellows, he believed that they were the only men in the citywho had no rights. When driving about, he felt that he was held liableby the police for anything that might occur in the streets, and was thecommon prey of all energetic officials. In revenge, he resolved neverto move out of the way of anything, until formidable circumstances, ora much larger man than himself forced him to it. 

Foot-passengers were mere pestering flies with an insane disregard fortheir legs and his convenience. He could not conceive their maniacaldesires to cross the streets. Their madness smote him with eternalamazement. He was continually storming at them from his throne. Hesat aloft and denounced their frantic leaps, plunges, dives andstraddles. 

When they would thrust at, or parry, the noses of his champing horses, making them swing their heads and move their feet, disturbing a soliddreamy repose, he swore at the men as fools, for he himself couldperceive that Providence had caused it clearly to be written, that heand his team had the unalienable right to stand in the proper path ofthe sun chariot, and if they so minded, obstruct its mission or take awheel off. 

And, perhaps, if the god-driver had an ungovernable desire to stepdown, put up his flame-colored fists and manfully dispute the right ofway, he would have probably been immediately opposed by a scowlingmortal with two sets of very hard knuckles. 

It is possible, perhaps, that this young man would have derided, in anaxle-wide alley, the approach of a flying ferry boat. Yet he achieveda respect for a fire engine. As one charged toward his truck, he woulddrive fearfully upon a sidewalk, threatening untold people withannihilation. When an engine would strike a mass of blocked trucks, splitting it into fragments, as a blow annihilates a cake of ice, Jimmie's team could usually be observed high and safe, with wholewheels, on the sidewalk. The fearful coming of the engine could breakup the most intricate muddle of heavy vehicles at which the police hadbeen swearing for the half of an hour. 

A fire engine was enshrined in his heart as an appalling thing that heloved with a distant dog-like devotion. They had been known tooverturn street-cars. Those leaping horses, striking sparks from thecobbles in their forward lunge, were creatures to be ineffably admired. The clang of the gong pierced his breast like a noise of remembered war. 

When Jimmie was a little boy, he began to be arrested. Before hereached a great age, he had a fair record. 

He developed too great a tendency to climb down from his truck andfight with other drivers. He had been in quite a number ofmiscellaneous fights, and in some general barroom rows that had becomeknown to the police. Once he had been arrested for assaulting aChinaman. Two women in different parts of the city, and entirelyunknown to each other, caused him considerable annoyance by breakingforth, simultaneously, at fateful intervals, into wailings aboutmarriage and support and infants. 

Nevertheless, he had, on a certain star-lit evening, said wonderinglyand quite reverently: "Deh moon looks like hell, don't it?"

Chapter V

The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle. She grew to be a mostrare and wonderful production of a tenement district, a pretty girl. 

None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins. Thephilosophers up-stairs, down-stairs and on the same floor, puzzled overit. 

When a child, playing and fighting with gamins in the street, dirtdisguised her. Attired in tatters and grime, she went unseen. 

There came a time, however, when the young men of the vicinity said:"Dat Johnson goil is a puty good looker. " About this period herbrother remarked to her: "Mag, I'll tell yeh dis! See? Yeh've eddergot teh go teh hell or go teh work!" Whereupon she went to work, having the feminine aversion of going to hell. 

By a chance, she got a position in an establishment where they madecollars and cuffs. She received a stool and a machine in a room wheresat twenty girls of various shades of yellow discontent. She perchedon the stool and treadled at her machine all day, turning out collars, the name of whose brand could be noted for its irrelevancy to anythingin connection with collars. At night she returned home to her mother. 

Jimmie grew large enough to take the vague position of head of thefamily. As incumbent of that office, he stumbled up-stairs late atnight, as his father had done before him. He reeled about the room, swearing at his relations, or went to sleep on the floor. 

The mother had gradually arisen to that degree of fame that she couldbandy words with her acquaintances among the police-justices. Court-officials called her by her first name. When she appeared theypursued a course which had been theirs for months. They invariablygrinned and cried out: "Hello, Mary, you here again?" Her grey headwagged in many a court. She always besieged the bench with volubleexcuses, explanations, apologies and prayers. Her flaming face androlling eyes were a sort of familiar sight on the island. She measuredtime by means of sprees, and was eternally swollen and dishevelled. 

One day the young man, Pete, who as a lad had smitten the Devil's Rowurchin in the back of the head and put to flight the antagonists of hisfriend, Jimmie, strutted upon the scene. He met Jimmie one day on thestreet, promised to take him to a boxing match in Williamsburg, andcalled for him in the evening. 

Maggie observed Pete. 

He sat on a table in the Johnson home and dangled his checked legs withan enticing nonchalance. His hair was curled down over his forehead inan oiled bang. His rather pugged nose seemed to revolt from contactwith a bristling moustache of short, wire-like hairs. His bluedouble-breasted coat, edged with black braid, buttoned close to a redpuff tie, and his patent-leather shoes looked like murder-fittedweapons. 

His mannerisms stamped him as a man who had a correct sense of hispersonal superiority. There was valor and contempt for circumstancesin the glance of his eye. He waved his hands like a man of the world, who dismisses religion and philosophy, and says "Fudge. " He hadcertainly seen everything and with each curl of his lip, he declaredthat it amounted to nothing. Maggie thought he must be a very elegantand graceful bartender. 

He was telling tales to Jimmie. 

Maggie watched him furtively, with half-closed eyes, lit with a vagueinterest. 

"Hully gee! Dey makes me tired, " he said. "Mos' e'ry day some farmercomes in an' tries teh run deh shop. See? But dey gits t'rowed rightout! I jolt dem right out in deh street before dey knows where dey is!See?"

"Sure, " said Jimmie. 

"Dere was a mug come in deh place deh odder day wid an idear he wusgoin' teh own deh place! Hully gee, he wus goin' teh own deh place! Isee he had a still on an' I didn' wanna giv 'im no stuff, so I says:'Git deh hell outa here an' don' make no trouble, ' I says like dat!See? 'Git deh hell outa here an' don' make no trouble'; like dat. 'Git deh hell outa here, ' I says. See?"

Jimmie nodded understandingly. Over his features played an eagerdesire to state the amount of his valor in a similar crisis, but thenarrator proceeded. 

"Well, deh blokie he says: 'T'hell wid it! I ain' lookin' for noscrap, ' he says (See?), 'but' he says, 'I'm 'spectable cit'zen an' Iwanna drink an' purtydamnsoon, too. ' See? 'Deh hell, ' I says. Likedat! 'Deh hell, ' I says. See? 'Don' make no trouble, ' I says. Likedat. 'Don' make no trouble. ' See? Den deh mug he squared off an'said he was fine as silk wid his dukes (See?) an' he wanned a drinkdamnquick. Dat's what he said. See?"

"Sure, " repeated Jimmie. 

Pete continued. "Say, I jes' jumped deh bar an' deh way I plunked datblokie was great. See? Dat's right! In deh jaw! See? Hully gee, het'rowed a spittoon true deh front windee. Say, I taut I'd drop dead. But deh boss, he comes in after an' he says, 'Pete, yehs done jes'right! Yeh've gota keep order an' it's all right. ' See? 'It's allright, ' he says. Dat's what he said. "

The two held a technical discussion. 

"Dat bloke was a dandy, " said Pete, in conclusion, "but he hadn' oughtamade no trouble. Dat's what I says teh dem: 'Don' come in here an'make no trouble, ' I says, like dat. 'Don' make no trouble. ' See?"

As Jimmie and his friend exchanged tales descriptive of their prowess, Maggie leaned back in the shadow. Her eyes dwelt wonderingly andrather wistfully upon Pete's face. The broken furniture, grimey walls, and general disorder and dirt of her home of a sudden appeared beforeher and began to take a potential aspect. Pete's aristocratic personlooked as if it might soil. She looked keenly at him, occasionally, wondering if he was feeling contempt. But Pete seemed to be envelopedin reminiscence. 

"Hully gee, " said he, "dose mugs can't phase me. Dey knows I kin wipeup deh street wid any t'ree of dem. "

When he said, "Ah, what deh hell, " his voice was burdened with disdainfor the inevitable and contempt for anything that fate might compel himto endure. 

Maggie perceived that here was the beau ideal of a man. Her dimthoughts were often searching for far away lands where, as God says, the little hills sing together in the morning. Under the trees of herdream-gardens there had always walked a lover. 

Chapter VI

Pete took note of Maggie. 

"Say, Mag, I'm stuck on yer shape. It's outa sight, " he said, parenthetically, with an affable grin. 

As he became aware that she was listening closely, he grew still moreeloquent in his descriptions of various happenings in his career. Itappeared that he was invincible in fights. 

"Why, " he said, referring to a man with whom he had had amisunderstanding, "dat mug scrapped like a damn dago. Dat's right. Hewas dead easy. See? He tau't he was a scrapper. But he foun' outdiff'ent! Hully gee. "

He walked to and fro in the small room, which seemed then to grow evensmaller and unfit to hold his dignity, the attribute of a supremewarrior. That swing of the shoulders that had frozen the timid when hewas but a lad had increased with his growth and education at the ratioof ten to one. It, combined with the sneer upon his mouth, toldmankind that there was nothing in space which could appall him. Maggiemarvelled at him and surrounded him with greatness. She vaguely triedto calculate the altitude of the pinnacle from which he must havelooked down upon her. 

"I met a chump deh odder day way up in deh city, " he said. "I wasgoin' teh see a frien' of mine. When I was a-crossin' deh street dehchump runned plump inteh me, an' den he turns aroun' an' says, 'Yerinsolen' ruffin, ' he says, like dat. 'Oh, gee, ' I says, 'oh, gee, goteh hell and git off deh eart', ' I says, like dat. See? 'Go teh hellan' git off deh eart', ' like dat. Den deh blokie he got wild. He saysI was a contempt'ble scoun'el, er somet'ing like dat, an' he says I wasdoom' teh everlastin' pe'dition an' all like dat. 'Gee, ' I says, 'gee!Deh hell I am, ' I says. 'Deh hell I am, ' like dat. An' den I slugged'im. See?"

With Jimmie in his company, Pete departed in a sort of a blaze of gloryfrom the Johnson home. Maggie, leaning from the window, watched him ashe walked down the street. 

Here was a formidable man who disdained the strength of a world full offists. Here was one who had contempt for brass-clothed power; onewhose knuckles could defiantly ring against the granite of law. He wasa knight. 

The two men went from under the glimmering street-lamp and passed intoshadows. 

Turning, Maggie contemplated the dark, dust-stained walls, and thescant and crude furniture of her home. A clock, in a splintered andbattered oblong box of varnished wood, she suddenly regarded as anabomination. She noted that it ticked raspingly. The almost vanishedflowers in the carpet-pattern, she conceived to be newly hideous. Somefaint attempts she had made with blue ribbon, to freshen the appearanceof a dingy curtain, she now saw to be piteous. 

She wondered what Pete dined on. 

She reflected upon the collar and cuff factory. It began to appear toher mind as a dreary place of endless grinding. Pete's elegantoccupation brought him, no doubt, into contact with people who hadmoney and manners. It was probable that he had a large acquaintance ofpretty girls. He must have great sums of money to spend. 

To her the earth was composed of hardships and insults. She feltinstant admiration for a man who openly defied it. She thought that ifthe grim angel of death should clutch his heart, Pete would shrug hisshoulders and say: "Oh, ev'ryt'ing goes. "

She anticipated that he would come again shortly. She spent some ofher week's pay in the purchase of flowered cretonne for a lambrequin. She made it with infinite care and hung it to the slightly-careeningmantel, over the stove, in the kitchen. She studied it with painfulanxiety from different points in the room. She wanted it to look wellon Sunday night when, perhaps, Jimmie's friend would come. On Sundaynight, however, Pete did not appear. 

Afterward the girl looked at it with a sense of humiliation. She wasnow convinced that Pete was superior to admiration for lambrequins. 

A few evenings later Pete entered with fascinating innovations in hisapparel. As she had seen him twice and he had different suits on eachtime, Maggie had a dim impression that his wardrobe was prodigiouslyextensive. 

"Say, Mag, " he said, "put on yer bes' duds Friday night an' I'll takeyehs teh deh show. See?"

He spent a few moments in flourishing his clothes and then vanished, without having glanced at the lambrequin. 

Over the eternal collars and cuffs in the factory Maggie spent the mostof three days in making imaginary sketches of Pete and his dailyenvironment. She imagined some half dozen women in love with him andthought he must lean dangerously toward an indefinite one, whom shepictured with great charms of person, but with an altogethercontemptible disposition. 

She thought he must live in a blare of pleasure. He had friends, andpeople who were afraid of him. 

She saw the golden glitter of the place where Pete was to take her. Anentertainment of many hues and many melodies where she was afraid shemight appear small and mouse-colored. 

Her mother drank whiskey all Friday morning. With lurid face andtossing hair she cursed and destroyed furniture all Friday afternoon. When Maggie came home at half-past six her mother lay asleep amidst thewreck of chairs and a table. Fragments of various household utensilswere scattered about the floor. She had vented some phase of drunkenfury upon the lambrequin. It lay in a bedraggled heap in the corner. 

"Hah, " she snorted, sitting up suddenly, "where deh hell yeh been? Whydeh hell don' yeh come home earlier? Been loafin' 'round deh streets. Yer gettin' teh be a reg'lar devil. "

When Pete arrived Maggie, in a worn black dress, was waiting for him inthe midst of a floor strewn with wreckage. The curtain at the windowhad been pulled by a heavy hand and hung by one tack, dangling to andfro in the draft through the cracks at the sash. The knots of blueribbons appeared like violated flowers. The fire in the stove had goneout. The displaced lids and open doors showed heaps of sullen greyashes. The remnants of a meal, ghastly, like dead flesh, lay in acorner. Maggie's red mother, stretched on the floor, blasphemed andgave her daughter a bad name. 

Chapter VII

An orchestra of yellow silk women and bald-headed men on an elevatedstage near the centre of a great green-hued hall, played a popularwaltz. The place was crowded with people grouped about little tables. A battalion of waiters slid among the throng, carrying trays of beerglasses and making change from the inexhaustible vaults of theirtrousers pockets. Little boys, in the costumes of French chefs, paraded up and down the irregular aisles vending fancy cakes. Therewas a low rumble of conversation and a subdued clinking of glasses. Clouds of tobacco smoke rolled and wavered high in air about the dullgilt of the chandeliers. 

The vast crowd had an air throughout of having just quitted labor. Menwith calloused hands and attired in garments that showed the wear of anendless trudge for a living, smoked their pipes contentedly and spentfive, ten, or perhaps fifteen cents for beer. There was a meresprinkling of kid-gloved men who smoked cigars purchased elsewhere. The great body of the crowd was composed of people who showed that allday they strove with their hands. Quiet Germans, with maybe theirwives and two or three children, sat listening to the music, with theexpressions of happy cows. An occasional party of sailors from awar-ship, their faces pictures of sturdy health, spent the earlierhours of the evening at the small round tables. Very infrequent tipsymen, swollen with the value of their opinions, engaged their companionsin earnest and confidential conversation. In the balcony, and here andthere below, shone the impassive faces of women. The nationalities ofthe Bowery beamed upon the stage from all directions. 

Pete aggressively walked up a side aisle and took seats with Maggie ata table beneath the balcony. 

"Two beehs!"

Leaning back he regarded with eyes of superiority the scene beforethem. This attitude affected Maggie strongly. A man who could regardsuch a sight with indifference must be accustomed to very great things. 

It was obvious that Pete had been to this place many times before, andwas very familiar with it. A knowledge of this fact made Maggie feellittle and new. 

He was extremely gracious and attentive. He displayed theconsideration of a cultured gentleman who knew what was due. 

"Say, what deh hell? Bring deh lady a big glass! What deh hell use isdat pony?"

"Don't be fresh, now, " said the waiter, with some warmth, as hedeparted. 

"Ah, git off deh eart', " said Pete, after the other's retreating form. 

Maggie perceived that Pete brought forth all his elegance and all hisknowledge of high-class customs for her benefit. Her heart warmed asshe reflected upon his condescension. 

The orchestra of yellow silk women and bald-headed men gave vent to afew bars of anticipatory music and a girl, in a pink dress with shortskirts, galloped upon the stage. She smiled upon the throng as if inacknowledgment of a warm welcome, and began to walk to and fro, makingprofuse gesticulations and singing, in brazen soprano tones, a song, the words of which were inaudible. When she broke into the swiftrattling measures of a chorus some half-tipsy men near the stage joinedin the rollicking refrain and glasses were pounded rhythmically uponthe tables. People leaned forward to watch her and to try to catch thewords of the song. When she vanished there were long rollings ofapplause. 

Obedient to more anticipatory bars, she reappeared amidst thehalf-suppressed cheering of the tipsy men. The orchestra plunged intodance music and the laces of the dancer fluttered and flew in the glareof gas jets. She divulged the fact that she was attired in some halfdozen skirts. It was patent that any one of them would have provedadequate for the purpose for which skirts are intended. An occasionalman bent forward, intent upon the pink stockings. Maggie wondered atthe splendor of the costume and lost herself in calculations of thecost of the silks and laces. 

The dancer's smile of stereotyped enthusiasm was turned for ten minutesupon the faces of her audience. In the finale she fell into some ofthose grotesque attitudes which were at the time popular among thedancers in the theatres up-town, giving to the Bowery public thephantasies of the aristocratic theatre-going public, at reduced rates. 

"Say, Pete, " said Maggie, leaning forward, "dis is great. "

"Sure, " said Pete, with proper complacence. 

A ventriloquist followed the dancer. He held two fantastic dolls onhis knees. He made them sing mournful ditties and say funny thingsabout geography and Ireland. 

"Do dose little men talk?" asked Maggie. 

"Naw, " said Pete, "it's some damn fake. See?"

Two girls, on the bills as sisters, came forth and sang a duet that isheard occasionally at concerts given under church auspices. Theysupplemented it with a dance which of course can never be seen atconcerts given under church auspices. 

After the duettists had retired, a woman of debatable age sang a negromelody. The chorus necessitated some grotesque waddlings supposed tobe an imitation of a plantation darkey, under the influence, probably, of music and the moon. The audience was just enthusiastic enough overit to have her return and sing a sorrowful lay, whose lines told of amother's love and a sweetheart who waited and a young man who was lostat sea under the most harrowing circumstances. From the faces of ascore or so in the crowd, the self-contained look faded. Many headswere bent forward with eagerness and sympathy. As the last distressingsentiment of the piece was brought forth, it was greeted by that kindof applause which rings as sincere. 

As a final effort, the singer rendered some verses which described avision of Britain being annihilated by America, and Ireland burstingher bonds. A carefully prepared crisis was reached in the last line ofthe last verse, where the singer threw out her arms and cried, "Thestar-spangled banner. " Instantly a great cheer swelled from thethroats of the assemblage of the masses. There was a heavy rumble ofbooted feet thumping the floor. Eyes gleamed with sudden fire, andcalloused hands waved frantically in the air. 

After a few moments' rest, the orchestra played crashingly, and a smallfat man burst out upon the stage. He began to roar a song and stampback and forth before the foot-lights, wildly waving a glossy silk hatand throwing leers, or smiles, broadcast. He made his face intofantastic grimaces until he looked like a pictured devil on a Japanesekite. The crowd laughed gleefully. His short, fat legs were neverstill a moment. He shouted and roared and bobbed his shock of red wiguntil the audience broke out in excited applause. 

Pete did not pay much attention to the progress of events upon thestage. He was drinking beer and watching Maggie. 

Her cheeks were blushing with excitement and her eyes were glistening. She drew deep breaths of pleasure. No thoughts of the atmosphere ofthe collar and cuff factory came to her. 

When the orchestra crashed finally, they jostled their way to thesidewalk with the crowd. Pete took Maggie's arm and pushed a way forher, offering to fight with a man or two. 

They reached Maggie's home at a late hour and stood for a moment infront of the gruesome doorway. 

"Say, Mag, " said Pete, "give us a kiss for takin' yeh teh deh show, will yer?"

Maggie laughed, as if startled, and drew away from him. 

"Naw, Pete, " she said, "dat wasn't in it. "

"Ah, what deh hell?" urged Pete. 

The girl retreated nervously. 

"Ah, what deh hell?" repeated he. 

Maggie darted into the hall, and up the stairs. She turned and smiledat him, then disappeared. 

Pete walked slowly down the street. He had something of an astonishedexpression upon his features. He paused under a lamp-post and breatheda low breath of surprise. 

"Gawd, " he said, "I wonner if I've been played fer a duffer. "

Chapter VIII

As thoughts of Pete came to Maggie's mind, she began to have an intensedislike for all of her dresses. 

"What deh hell ails yeh? What makes yeh be allus fixin' and fussin'?Good Gawd, " her mother would frequently roar at her. 

She began to note, with more interest, the well-dressed women she meton the avenues. She envied elegance and soft palms. She craved thoseadornments of person which she saw every day on the street, conceivingthem to be allies of vast importance to women. 

Studying faces, she thought many of the women and girls she chanced tomeet, smiled with serenity as though forever cherished and watched overby those they loved. 

The air in the collar and cuff establishment strangled her. She knewshe was gradually and surely shrivelling in the hot, stuffy room. Thebegrimed windows rattled incessantly from the passing of elevatedtrains. The place was filled with a whirl of noises and odors. 

She wondered as she regarded some of the grizzled women in the room, mere mechanical contrivances sewing seams and grinding out, with headsbended over their work, tales of imagined or real girlhood happiness, past drunks, the baby at home, and unpaid wages. She speculated howlong her youth would endure. She began to see the bloom upon hercheeks as valuable. 

She imagined herself, in an exasperating future, as a scrawny womanwith an eternal grievance. Too, she thought Pete to be a veryfastidious person concerning the appearance of women. 

She felt she would love to see somebody entangle their fingers in theoily beard of the fat foreigner who owned the establishment. He was adetestable creature. He wore white socks with low shoes. When hetired of this amusement he would go to the mummies and moralize overthem. 

Usually he submitted with silent dignity to all which he had to gothrough, but, at times, he was goaded into comment. 

"What deh hell, " he demanded once. "Look at all dese little jugs!Hundred jugs in a row! Ten rows in a case an' 'bout a t'ousand cases!What deh blazes use is dem?"

Evenings during the week he took her to see plays in which thebrain-clutching heroine was rescued from the palatial home of herguardian, who is cruelly after her bonds, by the hero with thebeautiful sentiments. The latter spent most of his time out at soak inpale-green snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver, rescuingaged strangers from villains. 

Maggie lost herself in sympathy with the wanderers swooning in snowstorms beneath happy-hued church windows. And a choir within singing"Joy to the World. " To Maggie and the rest of the audience this wastranscendental realism. Joy always within, and they, like the actor, inevitably without. Viewing it, they hugged themselves in ecstaticpity of their imagined or real condition. 

The girl thought the arrogance and granite-heartedness of the magnateof the play was very accurately drawn. She echoed the maledictionsthat the occupants of the gallery showered on this individual when hislines compelled him to expose his extreme selfishness. 

Shady persons in the audience revolted from the pictured villainy ofthe drama. With untiring zeal they hissed vice and applauded virtue. Unmistakably bad men evinced an apparently sincere admiration forvirtue. 

The loud gallery was overwhelmingly with the unfortunate and theoppressed. They encouraged the struggling hero with cries, and jeeredthe villain, hooting and calling attention to his whiskers. Whenanybody died in the pale-green snow storms, the gallery mourned. Theysought out the painted misery and hugged it as akin. 

In the hero's erratic march from poverty in the first act, to wealthand triumph in the final one, in which he forgives all the enemies thathe has left, he was assisted by the gallery, which applauded hisgenerous and noble sentiments and confounded the speeches of hisopponents by making irrelevant but very sharp remarks. Those actorswho were cursed with villainy parts were confronted at every turn bythe gallery. If one of them rendered lines containing the most subtiledistinctions between right and wrong, the gallery was immediately awareif the actor meant wickedness, and denounced him accordingly. 

The last act was a triumph for the hero, poor and of the masses, therepresentative of the audience, over the villain and the rich man, hispockets stuffed with bonds, his heart packed with tyrannical purposes, imperturbable amid suffering. 

Maggie always departed with raised spirits from the showing places ofthe melodrama. She rejoiced at the way in which the poor and virtuouseventually surmounted the wealthy and wicked. The theatre made herthink. She wondered if the culture and refinement she had seenimitated, perhaps grotesquely, by the heroine on the stage, could beacquired by a girl who lived in a tenement house and worked in a shirtfactory. 

Chapter IX

A group of urchins were intent upon the side door of a saloon. Expectancy gleamed from their eyes. They were twisting their fingersin excitement. 

"Here she comes, " yelled one of them suddenly. 

The group of urchins burst instantly asunder and its individualfragments were spread in a wide, respectable half circle about thepoint of interest. The saloon door opened with a crash, and the figureof a woman appeared upon the threshold. Her grey hair fell in knottedmasses about her shoulders. Her face was crimsoned and wet withperspiration. Her eyes had a rolling glare. 

"Not a damn cent more of me money will yehs ever get, not a damn cent. I spent me money here fer t'ree years an' now yehs tells me yeh'll sellme no more stuff! T'hell wid yeh, Johnnie Murckre! 'Disturbance'?Disturbance be damned! T'hell wid yeh, Johnnie--"

The door received a kick of exasperation from within and the womanlurched heavily out on the sidewalk. 

The gamins in the half-circle became violently agitated. They began todance about and hoot and yell and jeer. Wide dirty grins spread overeach face. 

The woman made a furious dash at a particularly outrageous cluster oflittle boys. They laughed delightedly and scampered off a shortdistance, calling out over their shoulders to her. She stood totteringon the curb-stone and thundered at them. 

"Yeh devil's kids, " she howled, shaking red fists. The little boyswhooped in glee. As she started up the street they fell in behind andmarched uproariously. Occasionally she wheeled about and made chargeson them. They ran nimbly out of reach and taunted her. 

In the frame of a gruesome doorway she stood for a moment cursing them. Her hair straggled, giving her crimson features a look of insanity. Her great fists quivered as she shook them madly in the air. 

The urchins made terrific noises until she turned and disappeared. Then they filed quietly in the way they had come. 

The woman floundered about in the lower hall of the tenement house andfinally stumbled up the stairs. On an upper hall a door was opened anda collection of heads peered curiously out, watching her. With awrathful snort the woman confronted the door, but it was slammedhastily in her face and the key was turned. 

She stood for a few minutes, delivering a frenzied challenge at thepanels. 

"Come out in deh hall, Mary Murphy, damn yeh, if yehs want a row. Comeahn, yeh overgrown terrier, come ahn. "

She began to kick the door with her great feet. She shrilly defied theuniverse to appear and do battle. Her cursing trebles brought headsfrom all doors save the one she threatened. Her eyes glared in everydirection. The air was full of her tossing fists. 

"Come ahn, deh hull damn gang of yehs, come ahn, " she roared at thespectators. An oath or two, cat-calls, jeers and bits of facetiousadvice were given in reply. Missiles clattered about her feet. 

"What deh hell's deh matter wid yeh?" said a voice in the gatheredgloom, and Jimmie came forward. He carried a tin dinner-pail in hishand and under his arm a brown truckman's apron done in a bundle. "What deh hell's wrong?" he demanded. 

"Come out, all of yehs, come out, " his mother was howling. "Come ahnan' I'll stamp her damn brains under me feet. "

"Shet yer face, an' come home, yeh damned old fool, " roared Jimmie ather. She strided up to him and twirled her fingers in his face. Hereyes were darting flames of unreasoning rage and her frame trembledwith eagerness for a fight. 

"T'hell wid yehs! An' who deh hell are yehs? I ain't givin' a snap ofme fingers fer yehs, " she bawled at him. She turned her huge back intremendous disdain and climbed the stairs to the next floor. 

Jimmie followed, cursing blackly. At the top of the flight he seizedhis mother's arm and started to drag her toward the door of their room. 

"Come home, damn yeh, " he gritted between his teeth. 

"Take yer hands off me! Take yer hands off me, " shrieked his mother. 

She raised her arm and whirled her great fist at her son's face. Jimmie dodged his head and the blow struck him in the back of the neck. "Damn yeh, " gritted he again. He threw out his left hand and writhedhis fingers about her middle arm. The mother and the son began to swayand struggle like gladiators. 

"Whoop!" said the Rum Alley tenement house. The hall filled withinterested spectators. 

"Hi, ol' lady, dat was a dandy!"

"T'ree to one on deh red!"

"Ah, stop yer damn scrappin'!"

The door of the Johnson home opened and Maggie looked out. Jimmie madea supreme cursing effort and hurled his mother into the room. Hequickly followed and closed the door. The Rum Alley tenement sworedisappointedly and retired. 

The mother slowly gathered herself up from the floor. Her eyesglittered menacingly upon her children. 

"Here, now, " said Jimmie, "we've had enough of dis. Sit down, an' don'make no trouble. "

He grasped her arm, and twisting it, forced her into a creaking chair. 

"Keep yer hands off me, " roared his mother again. 

"Damn yer ol' hide, " yelled Jimmie, madly. Maggie shrieked and raninto the other room. To her there came the sound of a storm of crashesand curses. There was a great final thump and Jimmie's voice cried:"Dere, damn yeh, stay still. " Maggie opened the door now, and wentwarily out. "Oh, Jimmie. "

He was leaning against the wall and swearing. Blood stood upon bruiseson his knotty fore-arms where they had scraped against the floor or thewalls in the scuffle. The mother lay screeching on the floor, thetears running down her furrowed face. 

Maggie, standing in the middle of the room, gazed about her. The usualupheaval of the tables and chairs had taken place. Crockery was strewnbroadcast in fragments. The stove had been disturbed on its legs, andnow leaned idiotically to one side. A pail had been upset and waterspread in all directions. 

The door opened and Pete appeared. He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, Gawd, " he observed. 

He walked over to Maggie and whispered in her ear. "Ah, what deh hell, Mag? Come ahn and we'll have a hell of a time. "

The mother in the corner upreared her head and shook her tangled locks. 

"Teh hell wid him and you, " she said, glowering at her daughter in thegloom. Her eyes seemed to burn balefully. "Yeh've gone teh deh devil, Mag Johnson, yehs knows yehs have gone teh deh devil. Yer a disgraceteh yer people, damn yeh. An' now, git out an' go ahn wid datdoe-faced jude of yours. Go teh hell wid him, damn yeh, an' a goodriddance. Go teh hell an' see how yeh likes it. "

Maggie gazed long at her mother. 

"Go teh hell now, an' see how yeh likes it. Git out. I won't havesech as yehs in me house! Get out, d'yeh hear! Damn yeh, git out!"

The girl began to tremble. 

At this instant Pete came forward. "Oh, what deh hell, Mag, see, "whispered he softly in her ear. "Dis all blows over. See? Deh ol'woman 'ill be all right in deh mornin'. Come ahn out wid me! We'llhave a hell of a time. "

The woman on the floor cursed. Jimmie was intent upon his bruisedfore-arms. The girl cast a glance about the room filled with a chaoticmass of debris, and at the red, writhing body of her mother. 

"Go teh hell an' good riddance. "

She went. 

Chapter X

Jimmie had an idea it wasn't common courtesy for a friend to come toone's home and ruin one's sister. But he was not sure how much Peteknew about the rules of politeness. 

The following night he returned home from work at rather a late hour inthe evening. In passing through the halls he came upon the gnarled andleathery old woman who possessed the music box. She was grinning inthe dim light that drifted through dust-stained panes. She beckoned tohim with a smudged forefinger. 

"Ah, Jimmie, what do yehs t'ink I got onto las' night. It was dehfunnies' t'ing I ever saw, " she cried, coming close to him and leering. She was trembling with eagerness to tell her tale. "I was by me doorlas' night when yer sister and her jude feller came in late, oh, verylate. An' she, the dear, she was a-cryin' as if her heart would break, she was. It was deh funnies' t'ing I ever saw. An' right out here byme door she asked him did he love her, did he. An' she was a-cryin' asif her heart would break, poor t'ing. An' him, I could see by deh waywhat he said it dat she had been askin' orften, he says: 'Oh, hell, yes, ' he says, says he, 'Oh, hell, yes. '"

Storm-clouds swept over Jimmie's face, but he turned from the leatheryold woman and plodded on up-stairs. 

"Oh, hell, yes, " called she after him. She laughed a laugh that waslike a prophetic croak. "'Oh, hell, yes, ' he says, says he, 'Oh, hell, yes. '"

There was no one in at home. The rooms showed that attempts had beenmade at tidying them. Parts of the wreckage of the day before had beenrepaired by an unskilful hand. A chair or two and the table, stooduncertainly upon legs. The floor had been newly swept. Too, the blueribbons had been restored to the curtains, and the lambrequin, with itsimmense sheaves of yellow wheat and red roses of equal size, had beenreturned, in a worn and sorry state, to its position at the mantel. Maggie's jacket and hat were gone from the nail behind the door. 

Jimmie walked to the window and began to look through the blurredglass. It occurred to him to vaguely wonder, for an instant, if someof the women of his acquaintance had brothers. 

Suddenly, however, he began to swear. 

"But he was me frien'! I brought 'im here! Dat's deh hell of it!"

He fumed about the room, his anger gradually rising to the furiouspitch. 

"I'll kill deh jay! Dat's what I'll do! I'll kill deh jay!"

He clutched his hat and sprang toward the door. But it opened and hismother's great form blocked the passage. 

"What deh hell's deh matter wid yeh?" exclaimed she, coming into therooms. 

Jimmie gave vent to a sardonic curse and then laughed heavily. 

"Well, Maggie's gone teh deh devil! Dat's what! See?"

"Eh?" said his mother. 

"Maggie's gone teh deh devil! Are yehs deaf?" roared Jimmie, impatiently. 

"Deh hell she has, " murmured the mother, astounded. 

Jimmie grunted, and then began to stare out at the window. His mothersat down in a chair, but a moment later sprang erect and delivered amaddened whirl of oaths. Her son turned to look at her as she reeledand swayed in the middle of the room, her fierce face convulsed withpassion, her blotched arms raised high in imprecation. 

"May Gawd curse her forever, " she shrieked. "May she eat nothin' butstones and deh dirt in deh street. May she sleep in deh gutter an'never see deh sun shine agin. Deh damn--"

"Here, now, " said her son. "Take a drop on yourself. "

The mother raised lamenting eyes to the ceiling. 

"She's deh devil's own chil', Jimmie, " she whispered. "Ah, who wouldt'ink such a bad girl could grow up in our fambly, Jimmie, me son. Many deh hour I've spent in talk wid dat girl an' tol' her if she everwent on deh streets I'd see her damned. An' after all her bringin' upan' what I tol' her and talked wid her, she goes teh deh bad, like aduck teh water. "

The tears rolled down her furrowed face. Her hands trembled. 

"An' den when dat Sadie MacMallister next door to us was sent teh dehdevil by dat feller what worked in deh soap-factory, didn't I tell ourMag dat if she--"

"Ah, dat's annuder story, " interrupted the brother. "Of course, datSadie was nice an' all dat--but--see--it ain't dessame as if--well, Maggie was diff'ent--see--she was diff'ent. "

He was trying to formulate a theory that he had always unconsciouslyheld, that all sisters, excepting his own, could advisedly be ruined. 

He suddenly broke out again. "I'll go t'ump hell outa deh mug what didher deh harm. I'll kill 'im! He t'inks he kin scrap, but when he gitsme a-chasin' 'im he'll fin' out where he's wrong, deh damned duffer. I'll wipe up deh street wid 'im. "

In a fury he plunged out of the doorway. As he vanished the motherraised her head and lifted both hands, entreating. 

"May Gawd curse her forever, " she cried. 

In the darkness of the hallway Jimmie discerned a knot of women talkingvolubly. When he strode by they paid no attention to him. 

"She allus was a bold thing, " he heard one of them cry in an eagervoice. "Dere wasn't a feller come teh deh house but she'd try teh mash'im. My Annie says deh shameless t'ing tried teh ketch her feller, herown feller, what we useter know his fader. "

"I could a' tol' yehs dis two years ago, " said a woman, in a key oftriumph. "Yessir, it was over two years ago dat I says teh my ol' man, I says, 'Dat Johnson girl ain't straight, ' I says. 'Oh, hell, ' hesays. 'Oh, hell. ' 'Dat's all right, ' I says, 'but I know what Iknows, ' I says, 'an' it 'ill come out later. You wait an' see, ' Isays, 'you see. '"

"Anybody what had eyes could see dat dere was somethin' wrong wid datgirl. I didn't like her actions. "

On the street Jimmie met a friend. "What deh hell?" asked the latter. 

Jimmie explained. "An' I'll t'ump 'im till he can't stand. "

"Oh, what deh hell, " said the friend. "What's deh use! Yeh'll gitpulled in! Everybody 'ill be onto it! An' ten plunks! Gee!"

Jimmie was determined. "He t'inks he kin scrap, but he'll fin' outdiff'ent. "

"Gee, " remonstrated the friend. "What deh hell?"

Chapter XI

On a corner a glass-fronted building shed a yellow glare upon thepavements. The open mouth of a saloon called seductively to passengersto enter and annihilate sorrow or create rage. 

The interior of the place was papered in olive and bronze tints ofimitation leather. A shining bar of counterfeit massiveness extendeddown the side of the room. Behind it a great mahogany-appearingsideboard reached the ceiling. Upon its shelves rested pyramids ofshimmering glasses that were never disturbed. Mirrors set in the faceof the sideboard multiplied them. Lemons, oranges and paper napkins, arranged with mathematical precision, sat among the glasses. Many-hueddecanters of liquor perched at regular intervals on the lower shelves. A nickel-plated cash register occupied a position in the exact centreof the general effect. The elementary senses of it all seemed to beopulence and geometrical accuracy. 

Across from the bar a smaller counter held a collection of plates uponwhich swarmed frayed fragments of crackers, slices of boiled ham, dishevelled bits of cheese, and pickles swimming in vinegar. An odorof grasping, begrimed hands and munching mouths pervaded. 

Pete, in a white jacket, was behind the bar bending expectantly towarda quiet stranger. "A beeh, " said the man. Pete drew a foam-toppedglassful and set it dripping upon the bar. 

At this moment the light bamboo doors at the entrance swung open andcrashed against the siding. Jimmie and a companion entered. Theyswaggered unsteadily but belligerently toward the bar and looked atPete with bleared and blinking eyes. 

"Gin, " said Jimmie. 

"Gin, " said the companion. 

Pete slid a bottle and two glasses along the bar. He bended his headsideways as he assiduously polished away with a napkin at the gleamingwood. He had a look of watchfulness upon his features. 

Jimmie and his companion kept their eyes upon the bartender andconversed loudly in tones of contempt. 

"He's a dindy masher, ain't he, by Gawd?" laughed Jimmie. 

"Oh, hell, yes, " said the companion, sneering widely. "He's great, heis. Git onto deh mug on deh blokie. Dat's enough to make a fellerturn hand-springs in 'is sleep. "

The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle further awayand maintained an attitude of oblivion. 

"Gee! ain't he hot stuff!"

"Git onto his shape! Great Gawd!"

"Hey, " cried Jimmie, in tones of command. Pete came along slowly, witha sullen dropping of the under lip. 

"Well, " he growled, "what's eatin' yehs?"

"Gin, " said Jimmie. 

"Gin, " said the companion. 

As Pete confronted them with the bottle and the glasses, they laughedin his face. Jimmie's companion, evidently overcome with merriment, pointed a grimy forefinger in Pete's direction. 

"Say, Jimmie, " demanded he, "what deh hell is dat behind deh bar?"

"Damned if I knows, " replied Jimmie. They laughed loudly. Pete putdown a bottle with a bang and turned a formidable face toward them. Hedisclosed his teeth and his shoulders heaved restlessly. 

"You fellers can't guy me, " he said. "Drink yer stuff an' git out an'don' make no trouble. "

Instantly the laughter faded from the faces of the two men andexpressions of offended dignity immediately came. 

"Who deh hell has said anyt'ing teh you, " cried they in the same breath. 

The quiet stranger looked at the door calculatingly. 

"Ah, come off, " said Pete to the two men. "Don't pick me up for nojay. Drink yer rum an' git out an' don' make no trouble. "

"Oh, deh hell, " airily cried Jimmie. 

"Oh, deh hell, " airily repeated his companion. 

"We goes when we git ready! See!" continued Jimmie. 

"Well, " said Pete in a threatening voice, "don' make no trouble. "

Jimmie suddenly leaned forward with his head on one side. He snarledlike a wild animal. 

"Well, what if we does? See?" said he. 

Dark blood flushed into Pete's face, and he shot a lurid glance atJimmie. 

"Well, den we'll see whose deh bes' man, you or me, " he said. 

The quiet stranger moved modestly toward the door. 

Jimmie began to swell with valor. 

"Don' pick me up fer no tenderfoot. When yeh tackles me yeh tacklesone of deh bes' men in deh city. See? I'm a scrapper, I am. Ain'tdat right, Billie?"

"Sure, Mike, " responded his companion in tones of conviction. 

"Oh, hell, " said Pete, easily. "Go fall on yerself. "

The two men again began to laugh. 

"What deh hell is dat talkin'?" cried the companion. 

"Damned if I knows, " replied Jimmie with exaggerated contempt. 

Pete made a furious gesture. "Git outa here now, an' don' make notrouble. See? Youse fellers er lookin' fer a scrap an' it's damnlikely yeh'll fin' one if yeh keeps on shootin' off yer mout's. I knowyehs! See? I kin lick better men dan yehs ever saw in yer lifes. Dat's right! See? Don' pick me up fer no stuff er yeh might be joltedout in deh street before yeh knows where yeh is. When I comes frombehind dis bar, I t'rows yehs bote inteh deh street. See?"

"Oh, hell, " cried the two men in chorus. 

The glare of a panther came into Pete's eyes. "Dat's what I said!Unnerstan'?"

He came through a passage at the end of the bar and swelled down uponthe two men. They stepped promptly forward and crowded close to him. 

They bristled like three roosters. They moved their heads pugnaciouslyand kept their shoulders braced. The nervous muscles about each mouthtwitched with a forced smile of mockery. 

"Well, what deh hell yer goin' teh do?" gritted Jimmie. 

Pete stepped warily back, waving his hands before him to keep the menfrom coming too near. 

"Well, what deh hell yer goin' teh do?" repeated Jimmie's ally. Theykept close to him, taunting and leering. They strove to make himattempt the initial blow. 

"Keep back, now! Don' crowd me, " ominously said Pete. 

Again they chorused in contempt. "Oh, hell!"

In a small, tossing group, the three men edged for positions likefrigates contemplating battle. 

"Well, why deh hell don' yeh try teh t'row us out?" cried Jimmie andhis ally with copious sneers. 

The bravery of bull-dogs sat upon the faces of the men. Their clenchedfists moved like eager weapons. 

The allied two jostled the bartender's elbows, glaring at him withfeverish eyes and forcing him toward the wall. 

Suddenly Pete swore redly. The flash of action gleamed from his eyes. He threw back his arm and aimed a tremendous, lightning-like blow atJimmie's face. His foot swung a step forward and the weight of hisbody was behind his fist. Jimmie ducked his head, Bowery-like, withthe quickness of a cat. The fierce, answering blows of him and hisally crushed on Pete's bowed head. 

The quiet stranger vanished. 

The arms of the combatants whirled in the air like flails. The facesof the men, at first flushed to flame-colored anger, now began to fadeto the pallor of warriors in the blood and heat of a battle. Theirlips curled back and stretched tightly over the gums in ghoul-likegrins. Through their white, gripped teeth struggled hoarse whisperingsof oaths. Their eyes glittered with murderous fire. 

Each head was huddled between its owner's shoulders, and arms wereswinging with marvelous rapidity. Feet scraped to and fro with a loudscratching sound upon the sanded floor. Blows left crimson blotchesupon pale skin. The curses of the first quarter minute of the fightdied away. The breaths of the fighters came wheezingly from their lipsand the three chests were straining and heaving. Pete at intervalsgave vent to low, labored hisses, that sounded like a desire to kill. Jimmie's ally gibbered at times like a wounded maniac. Jimmie wassilent, fighting with the face of a sacrificial priest. The rage offear shone in all their eyes and their blood-colored fists swirled. 

At a tottering moment a blow from Pete's hand struck the ally and hecrashed to the floor. He wriggled instantly to his feet and graspingthe quiet stranger's beer glass from the bar, hurled it at Pete's head. 

High on the wall it burst like a bomb, shivering fragments flying inall directions. Then missiles came to every man's hand. The place hadheretofore appeared free of things to throw, but suddenly glass andbottles went singing through the air. They were thrown point blank atbobbing heads. The pyramid of shimmering glasses, that had never beendisturbed, changed to cascades as heavy bottles were flung into them. Mirrors splintered to nothing. 

The three frothing creatures on the floor buried themselves in a frenzyfor blood. There followed in the wake of missiles and fists someunknown prayers, perhaps for death. 

The quiet stranger had sprawled very pyrotechnically out on thesidewalk. A laugh ran up and down the avenue for the half of a block. 

"Dey've trowed a bloke inteh deh street. "

People heard the sound of breaking glass and shuffling feet within thesaloon and came running. A small group, bending down to look under thebamboo doors, watching the fall of glass, and three pairs of violentlegs, changed in a moment to a crowd. 

A policeman came charging down the sidewalk and bounced through thedoors into the saloon. The crowd bended and surged in absorbinganxiety to see. 

Jimmie caught first sight of the on-coming interruption. On his feethe had the same regard for a policeman that, when on his truck, he hadfor a fire engine. He howled and ran for the side door. 

The officer made a terrific advance, club in hand. One comprehensivesweep of the long night stick threw the ally to the floor and forcedPete to a corner. With his disengaged hand he made a furious effort atJimmie's coat-tails. Then he regained his balance and paused. 

"Well, well, you are a pair of pictures. What in hell yeh been up to?"

Jimmie, with his face drenched in blood, escaped up a side street, pursued a short distance by some of the more law-loving, or excitedindividuals of the crowd. 

Later, from a corner safely dark, he saw the policeman, the ally andthe bartender emerge from the saloon. Pete locked the doors and thenfollowed up the avenue in the rear of the crowd-encompassed policemanand his charge. 

On first thoughts Jimmie, with his heart throbbing at battle heat, started to go desperately to the rescue of his friend, but he halted. 

"Ah, what deh hell?" he demanded of himself. 

Chapter XII

In a hall of irregular shape sat Pete and Maggie drinking beer. Asubmissive orchestra dictated to by a spectacled man with frowsy hairand a dress suit, industriously followed the bobs of his head and thewaves of his baton. A ballad singer, in a dress of flaming scarlet, sang in the inevitable voice of brass. When she vanished, men seatedat the tables near the front applauded loudly, pounding the polishedwood with their beer glasses. She returned attired in less gown, andsang again. She received another enthusiastic encore. She reappearedin still less gown and danced. The deafening rumble of glasses andclapping of hands that followed her exit indicated an overwhelmingdesire to have her come on for the fourth time, but the curiosity ofthe audience was not gratified. 

Maggie was pale. From her eyes had been plucked all look ofself-reliance. She leaned with a dependent air toward her companion. She was timid, as if fearing his anger or displeasure. She seemed tobeseech tenderness of him. 

Pete's air of distinguished valor had grown upon him until itthreatened stupendous dimensions. He was infinitely gracious to thegirl. It was apparent to her that his condescension was a marvel. 

He could appear to strut even while sitting still and he showed that hewas a lion of lordly characteristics by the air with which he spat. 

With Maggie gazing at him wonderingly, he took pride in commanding thewaiters who were, however, indifferent or deaf. 

"Hi, you, git a russle on yehs! What deh hell yehs lookin' at? Twomore beehs, d'yeh hear?"

He leaned back and critically regarded the person of a girl with astraw-colored wig who upon the stage was flinging her heels in somewhatawkward imitation of a well-known danseuse. 

At times Maggie told Pete long confidential tales of her former homelife, dwelling upon the escapades of the other members of the familyand the difficulties she had to combat in order to obtain a degree ofcomfort. He responded in tones of philanthropy. He pressed her armwith an air of reassuring proprietorship. 

"Dey was damn jays, " he said, denouncing the mother and brother. 

The sound of the music which, by the efforts of the frowsy-headedleader, drifted to her ears through the smoke-filled atmosphere, madethe girl dream. She thought of her former Rum Alley environment andturned to regard Pete's strong protecting fists. She thought of thecollar and cuff manufactory and the eternal moan of the proprietor:"What een hell do you sink I pie fife dolla a week for? Play? No, pydamn. " She contemplated Pete's man-subduing eyes and noted that wealthand prosperity was indicated by his clothes. She imagined a future, rose-tinted, because of its distance from all that she previously hadexperienced. 

As to the present she perceived only vague reasons to be miserable. Her life was Pete's and she considered him worthy of the charge. Shewould be disturbed by no particular apprehensions, so long as Peteadored her as he now said he did. She did not feel like a bad woman. To her knowledge she had never seen any better. 

At times men at other tables regarded the girl furtively. Pete, awareof it, nodded at her and grinned. He felt proud. 

"Mag, yer a bloomin' good-looker, " he remarked, studying her facethrough the haze. The men made Maggie fear, but she blushed at Pete'swords as it became apparent to her that she was the apple of his eye. 

Grey-headed men, wonderfully pathetic in their dissipation, stared ather through clouds. Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with faces ofstone and mouths of sin, not nearly so pathetic as the grey heads, tried to find the girl's eyes in the smoke wreaths. Maggie consideredshe was not what they thought her. She confined her glances to Peteand the stage. 

The orchestra played negro melodies and a versatile drummer pounded, whacked, clattered and scratched on a dozen machines to make noise. 

Those glances of the men, shot at Maggie from under half-closed lids, made her tremble. She thought them all to be worse men than Pete. 

"Come, let's go, " she said. 

As they went out Maggie perceived two women seated at a table with somemen. They were painted and their cheeks had lost their roundness. Asshe passed them the girl, with a shrinking movement, drew back herskirts. 

Chapter XIII

Jimmie did not return home for a number of days after the fight withPete in the saloon. When he did, he approached with extreme caution. 

He found his mother raving. Maggie had not returned home. The parentcontinually wondered how her daughter could come to such a pass. Shehad never considered Maggie as a pearl dropped unstained into Rum Alleyfrom Heaven, but she could not conceive how it was possible for herdaughter to fall so low as to bring disgrace upon her family. She wasterrific in denunciation of the girl's wickedness. 

The fact that the neighbors talked of it, maddened her. When womencame in, and in the course of their conversation casually asked, "Where's Maggie dese days?" the mother shook her fuzzy head at them andappalled them with curses. Cunning hints inviting confidence sherebuffed with violence. 

"An' wid all deh bringin' up she had, how could she?" moaningly sheasked of her son. "Wid all deh talkin' wid her I did an' deh t'ings Itol' her to remember? When a girl is bringed up deh way I bringed upMaggie, how kin she go teh deh devil?"

Jimmie was transfixed by these questions. He could not conceive howunder the circumstances his mother's daughter and his sister could havebeen so wicked. 

His mother took a drink from a squdgy bottle that sat on the table. She continued her lament. 

"She had a bad heart, dat girl did, Jimmie. She was wicked teh dehheart an' we never knowed it. "

Jimmie nodded, admitting the fact. 

"We lived in deh same house wid her an' I brought her up an' we neverknowed how bad she was. "

Jimmie nodded again. 

"Wid a home like dis an' a mudder like me, she went teh deh bad, " criedthe mother, raising her eyes. 

One day, Jimmie came home, sat down in a chair and began to wriggleabout with a new and strange nervousness. At last he spokeshamefacedly. 

"Well, look-a-here, dis t'ing queers us! See? We're queered! An'maybe it 'ud be better if I--well, I t'ink I kin look 'er up an'--maybeit 'ud be better if I fetched her home an'--"

The mother started from her chair and broke forth into a storm ofpassionate anger. 

"What! Let 'er come an' sleep under deh same roof wid her mudder agin!Oh, yes, I will, won't I? Sure? Shame on yehs, Jimmie Johnson, forsayin' such a t'ing teh yer own mudder--teh yer own mudder! Little didI t'ink when yehs was a babby playin' about me feet dat ye'd grow upteh say sech a t'ing teh yer mudder--yer own mudder. I never taut--"

Sobs choked her and interrupted her reproaches. 

"Dere ain't nottin' teh raise sech hell about, " said Jimmie. "I on'ysays it 'ud be better if we keep dis t'ing dark, see? It queers us!See?"

His mother laughed a laugh that seemed to ring through the city and beechoed and re-echoed by countless other laughs. "Oh, yes, I will, won't I! Sure!"

"Well, yeh must take me fer a damn fool, " said Jimmie, indignant at hismother for mocking him. "I didn't say we'd make 'er inteh a little tinangel, ner nottin', but deh way it is now she can queer us! Don' chesee?"

"Aye, she'll git tired of deh life atter a while an' den she'll wannabe a-comin' home, won' she, deh beast! I'll let 'er in den, won' I?"

"Well, I didn' mean none of dis prod'gal bus'ness anyway, " explainedJimmie. 

"It wasn't no prod'gal dauter, yeh damn fool, " said the mother. "Itwas prod'gal son, anyhow. "

"I know dat, " said Jimmie. 

For a time they sat in silence. The mother's eyes gloated on a sceneher imagination could call before her. Her lips were set in avindictive smile. 

"Aye, she'll cry, won' she, an' carry on, an' tell how Pete, or someodder feller, beats 'er an' she'll say she's sorry an' all dat an' sheain't happy, she ain't, an' she wants to come home agin, she does. "

With grim humor, the mother imitated the possible wailing notes of thedaughter's voice. 

"Den I'll take 'er in, won't I, deh beast. She kin cry 'er two eyesout on deh stones of deh street before I'll dirty deh place wid her. She abused an' ill-treated her own mudder--her own mudder what lovedher an' she'll never git anodder chance dis side of hell. "

Jimmie thought he had a great idea of women's frailty, but he could notunderstand why any of his kin should be victims. 

"Damn her, " he fervidly said. 

Again he wondered vaguely if some of the women of his acquaintance hadbrothers. Nevertheless, his mind did not for an instant confusehimself with those brothers nor his sister with theirs. After themother had, with great difficulty, suppressed the neighbors, she wentamong them and proclaimed her grief. "May Gawd forgive dat girl, " washer continual cry. To attentive ears she recited the whole length andbreadth of her woes. 

"I bringed 'er up deh way a dauter oughta be bringed up an' dis is howshe served me! She went teh deh devil deh first chance she got! MayGawd forgive her. "

When arrested for drunkenness she used the story of her daughter'sdownfall with telling effect upon the police justices. Finally one ofthem said to her, peering down over his spectacles: "Mary, the recordsof this and other courts show that you are the mother of forty-twodaughters who have been ruined. The case is unparalleled in the annalsof this court, and this court thinks--"

The mother went through life shedding large tears of sorrow. Her redface was a picture of agony. 

Of course Jimmie publicly damned his sister that he might appear on ahigher social plane. But, arguing with himself, stumbling about inways that he knew not, he, once, almost came to a conclusion that hissister would have been more firmly good had she better known why. However, he felt that he could not hold such a view. He threw ithastily aside. 

Chapter XIV

In a hilarious hall there were twenty-eight tables and twenty-eightwomen and a crowd of smoking men. Valiant noise was made on a stage atthe end of the hall by an orchestra composed of men who looked as ifthey had just happened in. Soiled waiters ran to and fro, swoopingdown like hawks on the unwary in the throng; clattering along theaisles with trays covered with glasses; stumbling over women's skirtsand charging two prices for everything but beer, all with a swiftnessthat blurred the view of the cocoanut palms and dusty monstrositiespainted upon the walls of the room. A bouncer, with an immense load ofbusiness upon his hands, plunged about in the crowd, dragging bashfulstrangers to prominent chairs, ordering waiters here and there andquarreling furiously with men who wanted to sing with the orchestra. 

The usual smoke cloud was present, but so dense that heads and armsseemed entangled in it. The rumble of conversation was replaced by aroar. Plenteous oaths heaved through the air. The room rang with theshrill voices of women bubbling o'er with drink-laughter. The chiefelement in the music of the orchestra was speed. The musicians playedin intent fury. A woman was singing and smiling upon the stage, but noone took notice of her. The rate at which the piano, cornet andviolins were going, seemed to impart wildness to the half-drunkencrowd. Beer glasses were emptied at a gulp and conversation became arapid chatter. The smoke eddied and swirled like a shadowy riverhurrying toward some unseen falls. Pete and Maggie entered the halland took chairs at a table near the door. The woman who was seatedthere made an attempt to occupy Pete's attention and, failing, wentaway. 

Three weeks had passed since the girl had left home. The air ofspaniel-like dependence had been magnified and showed its direct effectin the peculiar off-handedness and ease of Pete's ways toward her. 

She followed Pete's eyes with hers, anticipating with smiles graciouslooks from him. 

A woman of brilliance and audacity, accompanied by a mere boy, cameinto the place and took seats near them. 

At once Pete sprang to his feet, his face beaming with glad surprise. 

"By Gawd, there's Nellie, " he cried. 

He went over to the table and held out an eager hand to the woman. 

"Why, hello, Pete, me boy, how are you, " said she, giving him herfingers. 

Maggie took instant note of the woman. She perceived that her blackdress fitted her to perfection. Her linen collar and cuffs werespotless. Tan gloves were stretched over her well-shaped hands. A hatof a prevailing fashion perched jauntily upon her dark hair. She woreno jewelry and was painted with no apparent paint. She lookedclear-eyed through the stares of the men. 

"Sit down, and call your lady-friend over, " she said cordially to Pete. At his beckoning Maggie came and sat between Pete and the mere boy. 

"I thought yeh were gone away fer good, " began Pete, at once. "Whendid yeh git back? How did dat Buff'lo bus'ness turn out?"

The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Well, he didn't have as many stampsas he tried to make out, so I shook him, that's all. "

"Well, I'm glad teh see yehs back in deh city, " said Pete, with awkwardgallantry. 

He and the woman entered into a long conversation, exchangingreminiscences of days together. Maggie sat still, unable to formulatean intelligent sentence upon the conversation and painfully aware of it. 

She saw Pete's eyes sparkle as he gazed upon the handsome stranger. Helistened smilingly to all she said. The woman was familiar with allhis affairs, asked him about mutual friends, and knew the amount of hissalary. 

She paid no attention to Maggie, looking toward her once or twice andapparently seeing the wall beyond. 

The mere boy was sulky. In the beginning he had welcomed withacclamations the additions. 

"Let's all have a drink! What'll you take, Nell? And you, Misswhat's-your-name. Have a drink, Mr. -----, you, I mean. "

He had shown a sprightly desire to do the talking for the company andtell all about his family. In a loud voice he declaimed on varioustopics. He assumed a patronizing air toward Pete. As Maggie wassilent, he paid no attention to her. He made a great show of lavishingwealth upon the woman of brilliance and audacity. 

"Do keep still, Freddie! You gibber like an ape, dear, " said the womanto him. She turned away and devoted her attention to Pete. 

"We'll have many a good time together again, eh?"

"Sure, Mike, " said Pete, enthusiastic at once. 

"Say, " whispered she, leaning forward, "let's go over to Billie's andhave a heluva time. "

"Well, it's dis way! See?" said Pete. "I got dis lady frien' here. "

"Oh, t'hell with her, " argued the woman. 

Pete appeared disturbed. 

"All right, " said she, nodding her head at him. "All right for you!We'll see the next time you ask me to go anywheres with you. "

Pete squirmed. 

"Say, " he said, beseechingly, "come wid me a minit an' I'll tell yerwhy. "

The woman waved her hand. 

"Oh, that's all right, you needn't explain, you know. You wouldn'tcome merely because you wouldn't come, that's all there is of it. "

To Pete's visible distress she turned to the mere boy, bringing himspeedily from a terrific rage. He had been debating whether it wouldbe the part of a man to pick a quarrel with Pete, or would he bejustified in striking him savagely with his beer glass without warning. But he recovered himself when the woman turned to renew her smilings. He beamed upon her with an expression that was somewhat tipsy andinexpressibly tender. 

"Say, shake that Bowery jay, " requested he, in a loud whisper. 

"Freddie, you are so droll, " she replied. 

Pete reached forward and touched the woman on the arm. 

"Come out a minit while I tells yeh why I can't go wid yer. Yer doin'me dirt, Nell! I never taut ye'd do me dirt, Nell. Come on, willyer?" He spoke in tones of injury. 

"Why, I don't see why I should be interested in your explanations, "said the woman, with a coldness that seemed to reduce Pete to a pulp. 

His eyes pleaded with her. "Come out a minit while I tells yeh. "

The woman nodded slightly at Maggie and the mere boy, "'Scuse me. "

The mere boy interrupted his loving smile and turned a shrivellingglare upon Pete. His boyish countenance flushed and he spoke, in awhine, to the woman:

"Oh, I say, Nellie, this ain't a square deal, you know. You aren'tgoin' to leave me and go off with that duffer, are you? I shouldthink--"

"Why, you dear boy, of course I'm not, " cried the woman, affectionately. She bended over and whispered in his ear. He smiledagain and settled in his chair as if resolved to wait patiently. 

As the woman walked down between the rows of tables, Pete was at hershoulder talking earnestly, apparently in explanation. The woman wavedher hands with studied airs of indifference. The doors swung behindthem, leaving Maggie and the mere boy seated at the table. 

Maggie was dazed. She could dimly perceive that something stupendoushad happened. She wondered why Pete saw fit to remonstrate with thewoman, pleading for forgiveness with his eyes. She thought she notedan air of submission about her leonine Pete. She was astounded. 

The mere boy occupied himself with cock-tails and a cigar. He wastranquilly silent for half an hour. Then he bestirred himself andspoke. 

"Well, " he said, sighing, "I knew this was the way it would be. " Therewas another stillness. The mere boy seemed to be musing. 

"She was pulling m'leg. That's the whole amount of it, " he said, suddenly. "It's a bloomin' shame the way that girl does. Why, I'vespent over two dollars in drinks to-night. And she goes off with thatplug-ugly who looks as if he had been hit in the face with a coin-die. I call it rocky treatment for a fellah like me. Here, waiter, bring mea cock-tail and make it damned strong. "

Maggie made no reply. She was watching the doors. "It's a mean pieceof business, " complained the mere boy. He explained to her how amazingit was that anybody should treat him in such a manner. "But I'll getsquare with her, you bet. She won't get far ahead of yours truly, youknow, " he added, winking. "I'll tell her plainly that it was bloomin'mean business. And she won't come it over me with any of her'now-Freddie-dears. ' She thinks my name is Freddie, you know, but ofcourse it ain't. I always tell these people some name like that, because if they got onto your right name they might use it sometime. Understand? Oh, they don't fool me much. "

Maggie was paying no attention, being intent upon the doors. The mereboy relapsed into a period of gloom, during which he exterminated anumber of cock-tails with a determined air, as if replying defiantly tofate. He occasionally broke forth into sentences composed ofinvectives joined together in a long string. 

The girl was still staring at the doors. After a time the mere boybegan to see cobwebs just in front of his nose. He spurred himselfinto being agreeable and insisted upon her having a charlotte-russe anda glass of beer. 

"They's gone, " he remarked, "they's gone. " He looked at her throughthe smoke wreaths. "Shay, lil' girl, we mightish well make bes' of it. You ain't such bad-lookin' girl, y'know. Not half bad. Can't come upto Nell, though. No, can't do it! Well, I should shay not! Nellfine-lookin' girl! F--i--n--ine. You look damn bad longsider her, butby y'self ain't so bad. Have to do anyhow. Nell gone. On'y you left. Not half bad, though. "

Maggie stood up. 

"I'm going home, " she said. 

The mere boy started. 

"Eh? What? Home, " he cried, struck with amazement. "I beg pardon, did hear say home?"

"I'm going home, " she repeated. 

"Great Gawd, what hava struck, " demanded the mere boy of himself, stupefied. 

In a semi-comatose state he conducted her on board an up-town car, ostentatiously paid her fare, leered kindly at her through the rearwindow and fell off the steps. 

Chapter XV

A forlorn woman went along a lighted avenue. The street was filledwith people desperately bound on missions. An endless crowd darted atthe elevated station stairs and the horse cars were thronged withowners of bundles. 

The pace of the forlorn woman was slow. She was apparently searchingfor some one. She loitered near the doors of saloons and watched menemerge from them. She scanned furtively the faces in the rushingstream of pedestrians. Hurrying men, bent on catching some boat ortrain, jostled her elbows, failing to notice her, their thoughts fixedon distant dinners. 

The forlorn woman had a peculiar face. Her smile was no smile. Butwhen in repose her features had a shadowy look that was like a sardonicgrin, as if some one had sketched with cruel forefinger indelible linesabout her mouth. 

Jimmie came strolling up the avenue. The woman encountered him with anaggrieved air. 

"Oh, Jimmie, I've been lookin' all over fer yehs--, " she began. 

Jimmie made an impatient gesture and quickened his pace. 

"Ah, don't bodder me! Good Gawd!" he said, with the savageness of aman whose life is pestered. 

The woman followed him along the sidewalk in somewhat the manner of asuppliant. 

"But, Jimmie, " she said, "yehs told me ye'd--"

Jimmie turned upon her fiercely as if resolved to make a last stand forcomfort and peace. 

"Say, fer Gawd's sake, Hattie, don' foller me from one end of deh cityteh deh odder. Let up, will yehs! Give me a minute's res', can'tyehs? Yehs makes me tired, allus taggin' me. See? Ain' yehs got nosense. Do yehs want people teh get onto me? Go chase yerself, ferGawd's sake. "

The woman stepped closer and laid her fingers on his arm. "But, look-a-here--"

Jimmie snarled. "Oh, go teh hell. "

He darted into the front door of a convenient saloon and a moment latercame out into the shadows that surrounded the side door. On thebrilliantly lighted avenue he perceived the forlorn woman dodging aboutlike a scout. Jimmie laughed with an air of relief and went away. 

When he arrived home he found his mother clamoring. Maggie hadreturned. She stood shivering beneath the torrent of her mother'swrath. 

"Well, I'm damned, " said Jimmie in greeting. 

His mother, tottering about the room, pointed a quivering forefinger. 

"Lookut her, Jimmie, lookut her. Dere's yer sister, boy. Dere's yersister. Lookut her! Lookut her!"

She screamed in scoffing laughter. 

The girl stood in the middle of the room. She edged about as if unableto find a place on the floor to put her feet. 

"Ha, ha, ha, " bellowed the mother. "Dere she stands! Ain' she purty?Lookut her! Ain' she sweet, deh beast? Lookut her! Ha, ha, lookuther!"

She lurched forward and put her red and seamed hands upon herdaughter's face. She bent down and peered keenly up into the eyes ofthe girl. 

"Oh, she's jes' dessame as she ever was, ain' she? She's her mudder'spurty darlin' yit, ain' she? Lookut her, Jimmie! Come here, ferGawd's sake, and lookut her. "

The loud, tremendous sneering of the mother brought the denizens of theRum Alley tenement to their doors. Women came in the hallways. Children scurried to and fro. 

"What's up? Dat Johnson party on anudder tear?"

"Naw! Young Mag's come home!"

"Deh hell yeh say?"

Through the open door curious eyes stared in at Maggie. Childrenventured into the room and ogled her, as if they formed the front rowat a theatre. Women, without, bended toward each other and whispered, nodding their heads with airs of profound philosophy. A baby, overcomewith curiosity concerning this object at which all were looking, sidledforward and touched her dress, cautiously, as if investigating ared-hot stove. Its mother's voice rang out like a warning trumpet. She rushed forward and grabbed her child, casting a terrible look ofindignation at the girl. 

Maggie's mother paced to and fro, addressing the doorful of eyes, expounding like a glib showman at a museum. Her voice rang through thebuilding. 

"Dere she stands, " she cried, wheeling suddenly and pointing withdramatic finger. "Dere she stands! Lookut her! Ain' she a dindy?An' she was so good as to come home teh her mudder, she was! Ain' shea beaut'? Ain' she a dindy? Fer Gawd's sake!"

The jeering cries ended in another burst of shrill laughter. 

The girl seemed to awaken. "Jimmie--"

He drew hastily back from her. 

"Well, now, yer a hell of a t'ing, ain' yeh?" he said, his lips curlingin scorn. Radiant virtue sat upon his brow and his repelling handsexpressed horror of contamination. 

Maggie turned and went. 

The crowd at the door fell back precipitately. A baby falling down infront of the door, wrenched a scream like a wounded animal from itsmother. Another woman sprang forward and picked it up, with achivalrous air, as if rescuing a human being from an oncoming expresstrain. 

As the girl passed down through the hall, she went before open doorsframing more eyes strangely microscopic, and sending broad beams ofinquisitive light into the darkness of her path. On the second floorshe met the gnarled old woman who possessed the music box. 

"So, " she cried, "'ere yehs are back again, are yehs? An' dey'vekicked yehs out? Well, come in an' stay wid me teh-night. I ain' gotno moral standin'. "

From above came an unceasing babble of tongues, over all of which rangthe mother's derisive laughter. 

Chapter XVI

Pete did not consider that he had ruined Maggie. If he had thoughtthat her soul could never smile again, he would have believed themother and brother, who were pyrotechnic over the affair, to beresponsible for it. 

Besides, in his world, souls did not insist upon being able to smile. "What deh hell?"

He felt a trifle entangled. It distressed him. Revelations and scenesmight bring upon him the wrath of the owner of the saloon, who insistedupon respectability of an advanced type. 

"What deh hell do dey wanna raise such a smoke about it fer?" demandedhe of himself, disgusted with the attitude of the family. He saw nonecessity for anyone's losing their equilibrium merely because theirsister or their daughter had stayed away from home. 

Searching about in his mind for possible reasons for their conduct, hecame upon the conclusion that Maggie's motives were correct, but thatthe two others wished to snare him. He felt pursued. 

The woman of brilliance and audacity whom he had met in the hilarioushall showed a disposition to ridicule him. 

"A little pale thing with no spirit, " she said. "Did you note theexpression of her eyes? There was something in them about pumpkin pieand virtue. That is a peculiar way the left corner of her mouth has oftwitching, isn't it? Dear, dear, my cloud-compelling Pete, what areyou coming to?"

Pete asserted at once that he never was very much interested in thegirl. The woman interrupted him, laughing. 

"Oh, it's not of the slightest consequence to me, my dear young man. You needn't draw maps for my benefit. Why should I be concerned aboutit?"

But Pete continued with his explanations. If he was laughed at for histastes in women, he felt obliged to say that they were only temporaryor indifferent ones. 

The morning after Maggie had departed from home, Pete stood behind thebar. He was immaculate in white jacket and apron and his hair wasplastered over his brow with infinite correctness. No customers werein the place. Pete was twisting his napkined fist slowly in a beerglass, softly whistling to himself and occasionally holding the objectof his attention between his eyes and a few weak beams of sunlight thathad found their way over the thick screens and into the shaded room. 

With lingering thoughts of the woman of brilliance and audacity, thebartender raised his head and stared through the varying cracks betweenthe swaying bamboo doors. Suddenly the whistling pucker faded from hislips. He saw Maggie walking slowly past. He gave a great start, fearing for the previously-mentioned eminent respectability of theplace. 

He threw a swift, nervous glance about him, all at once feeling guilty. No one was in the room. 

He went hastily over to the side door. Opening it and looking out, heperceived Maggie standing, as if undecided, on the corner. She wassearching the place with her eyes. 

As she turned her face toward him Pete beckoned to her hurriedly, intent upon returning with speed to a position behind the bar and tothe atmosphere of respectability upon which the proprietor insisted. 

Maggie came to him, the anxious look disappearing from her face and asmile wreathing her lips. 

"Oh, Pete--, " she began brightly. 

The bartender made a violent gesture of impatience. 

"Oh, my Gawd, " cried he, vehemently. "What deh hell do yeh wanna hangaroun' here fer? Do yeh wanna git me inteh trouble?" he demanded withan air of injury. 

Astonishment swept over the girl's features. "Why, Pete! yehs tol'me--"

Pete glanced profound irritation. His countenance reddened with theanger of a man whose respectability is being threatened. 

"Say, yehs makes me tired. See? What deh hell deh yeh wanna tagaroun' atter me fer? Yeh'll git me inteh trouble wid deh ol' man an'dey'll be hell teh pay! If he sees a woman roun' here he'll go crazyan' I'll lose me job! See? Yer brudder come in here an' raised hellan' deh ol' man hada put up fer it! An' now I'm done! See? I'm done. "

The girl's eyes stared into his face. "Pete, don't yeh remem--"

"Oh, hell, " interrupted Pete, anticipating. 

The girl seemed to have a struggle with herself. She was apparentlybewildered and could not find speech. Finally she asked in a lowvoice: "But where kin I go?"

The question exasperated Pete beyond the powers of endurance. It was adirect attempt to give him some responsibility in a matter that did notconcern him. In his indignation he volunteered information. 

"Oh, go teh hell, " cried he. He slammed the door furiously andreturned, with an air of relief, to his respectability. 

Maggie went away. 

She wandered aimlessly for several blocks. She stopped once and askedaloud a question of herself: "Who?"

A man who was passing near her shoulder, humorously took thequestioning word as intended for him. 

"Eh? What? Who? Nobody! I didn't say anything, " he laughingly said, and continued his way. 

Soon the girl discovered that if she walked with such apparentaimlessness, some men looked at her with calculating eyes. Shequickened her step, frightened. As a protection, she adopted ademeanor of intentness as if going somewhere. 

After a time she left rattling avenues and passed between rows ofhouses with sternness and stolidity stamped upon their features. Shehung her head for she felt their eyes grimly upon her. 

Suddenly she came upon a stout gentleman in a silk hat and a chasteblack coat, whose decorous row of buttons reached from his chin to hisknees. The girl had heard of the Grace of God and she decided toapproach this man. 

His beaming, chubby face was a picture of benevolence andkind-heartedness. His eyes shone good-will. 

But as the girl timidly accosted him, he gave a convulsive movement andsaved his respectability by a vigorous side-step. He did not risk itto save a soul. For how was he to know that there was a soul beforehim that needed saving?

Chapter XVII

Upon a wet evening, several months after the last chapter, twointerminable rows of cars, pulled by slipping horses, jangled along aprominent side-street. A dozen cabs, with coat-enshrouded drivers, clattered to and fro. Electric lights, whirring softly, shed a blurredradiance. A flower dealer, his feet tapping impatiently, his nose andhis wares glistening with rain-drops, stood behind an array of rosesand chrysanthemums. Two or three theatres emptied a crowd upon thestorm-swept pavements. Men pulled their hats over their eyebrows andraised their collars to their ears. Women shrugged impatient shouldersin their warm cloaks and stopped to arrange their skirts for a walkthrough the storm. People having been comparatively silent for twohours burst into a roar of conversation, their hearts still kindlingfrom the glowings of the stage. 

The pavements became tossing seas of umbrellas. Men stepped forth tohail cabs or cars, raising their fingers in varied forms of politerequest or imperative demand. An endless procession wended towardelevated stations. An atmosphere of pleasure and prosperity seemed tohang over the throng, born, perhaps, of good clothes and of having justemerged from a place of forgetfulness. 

In the mingled light and gloom of an adjacent park, a handful of wetwanderers, in attitudes of chronic dejection, was scattered among thebenches. 

A girl of the painted cohorts of the city went along the street. Shethrew changing glances at men who passed her, giving smilinginvitations to men of rural or untaught pattern and usually seemingsedately unconscious of the men with a metropolitan seal upon theirfaces. 

Crossing glittering avenues, she went into the throng emerging from theplaces of forgetfulness. She hurried forward through the crowd as ifintent upon reaching a distant home, bending forward in her handsomecloak, daintily lifting her skirts and picking for her well-shod feetthe dryer spots upon the pavements. 

The restless doors of saloons, clashing to and fro, disclosed animatedrows of men before bars and hurrying barkeepers. 

A concert hall gave to the street faint sounds of swift, machine-likemusic, as if a group of phantom musicians were hastening. 

A tall young man, smoking a cigarette with a sublime air, strolled nearthe girl. He had on evening dress, a moustache, a chrysanthemum, and alook of ennui, all of which he kept carefully under his eye. Seeingthe girl walk on as if such a young man as he was not in existence, helooked back transfixed with interest. He stared glassily for a moment, but gave a slight convulsive start when he discerned that she wasneither new, Parisian, nor theatrical. He wheeled about hastily andturned his stare into the air, like a sailor with a search-light. 

A stout gentleman, with pompous and philanthropic whiskers, wentstolidly by, the broad of his back sneering at the girl. 

A belated man in business clothes, and in haste to catch a car, bouncedagainst her shoulder. "Hi, there, Mary, I beg your pardon! Brace up, old girl. " He grasped her arm to steady her, and then was away runningdown the middle of the street. 

The girl walked on out of the realm of restaurants and saloons. Shepassed more glittering avenues and went into darker blocks than thosewhere the crowd travelled. 

A young man in light overcoat and derby hat received a glance shotkeenly from the eyes of the girl. He stopped and looked at her, thrusting his hands in his pockets and making a mocking smile curl hislips. "Come, now, old lady, " he said, "you don't mean to tel me thatyou sized me up for a farmer?"

A labouring man marched along; with bundles under his arms. To herremarks, he replied, "It's a fine evenin', ain't it?"

She smiled squarely into the face of a boy who was hurrying by with hishands buried in his overcoat pockets, his blonde locks bobbing on hisyouthful temples, and a cheery smile of unconcern upon his lips. Heturned his head and smiled back at her, waving his hands. 

"Not this eve--some other eve!"

A drunken man, reeling in her pathway, began to roar at her. "I ain' gano money!" he shouted, in a dismal voice. He lurched on up the street, wailing to himself: "I ain' ga no money. Ba' luck. Ain' ga no moremoney. "

The girl went into gloomy districts near the river, where the tallblack factories shut in the street and only occasional broad beams oflight fell across the pavements from saloons. In front of one of theseplaces, whence came the sound of a violin vigorously scraped, thepatter of feet on boards and the ring of loud laughter, there stood aman with blotched features. 

Further on in the darkness she met a ragged being with shifting, bloodshot eyes and grimy hands. 

She went into the blackness of the final block. The shutters of thetall buildings were closed like grim lips. The structures seemed tohave eyes that looked over them, beyond them, at other things. Afar offthe lights of the avenues glittered as if from an impossible distance. Street-car bells jingled with a sound of merriment. 

At the feet of the tall buildings appeared the deathly black hue of theriver. Some hidden factory sent up a yellow glare, that lit for amoment the waters lapping oilily against timbers. The varied sounds oflife, made joyous by distance and seeming unapproachableness, camefaintly and died away to a silence. 

Chapter XVIII. 

In a partitioned-off section of a saloon sat a man with a half dozenwomen, gleefully laughing, hovering about him. The man had arrived atthat stage of drunkenness where affection is felt for the universe. 

"I'm good f'ler, girls, " he said convincingly. "I'm good f'ler. An'bodytreats me right, I allus trea's zena right! See?"

The women nodded their heads approvingly. "To be sure, " they cried inhearty chorus. "You're the kind of a man we like, Pete. You're outasight! What yeh goin' to buy this time, dear?"

"An't'ing yehs wants!" said the man in an abandonment of good will. His countenance shone with the true spirit of benevolence. He was inthe proper mood of missionaries. He would have fraternized withobscure Hottentots. And above all, he was overwhelmed in tenderness forhis friends, who were all illustrious. 

"An't'ing yehs wants!" repeated he, waving his hands with beneficentrecklessness. "I'm good f'ler, girls, an' if an'body treats me rightI--here, " called he through an open door to a waiter, "bring girlsdrinks. What 'ill yehs have, girls? An't'ing yehs want. "

The waiter glanced in with the disgusted look of the man who servesintoxicants for the man who takes too much of them. He nodded his headshortly at the order from each individual, and went. 

"W'e havin' great time, " said the man. "I like you girls! Yer rightsort! See?"

He spoke at length and with feeling concerning the excellencies of hisassembled friends. 

"Don' try pull man's leg, but have a good time! Das right! Das way tehdo! Now, if I sawght yehs tryin' work me fer drinks, wouldn' buynot'ing! But yer right sort! Yehs know how ter treat a f'ler, an' Istays by yehs 'til spen' las' cent! Das right! I'm good f'ler an' Iknows when an'body treats me right!"

Between the times of the arrival and departure of the waiter, the mandiscoursed to the women on the tender regard he felt for all livingthings. He laid stress upon the purity of his motives in all dealingswith men in the world and spoke of the fervour of his friendship forthose who were amiable. Tears welled slowly from his eyes. His voicequavered when he spoke to his companions. 

Once when the waiter was about to depart with an empty tray, the mandrew a coin from his pocket and held it forth. 

"Here, " said he, quite magnificently, "here's quar'. "

The waiter kept his hands on his tray. 

"I don't want yer money, " he said. 

The other put forth the coin with tearful insistence. 

"Here's quar'!" cried he, "tak't! Yer goo' f'ler an' I wan' yehs tak't!"

"Come, come, now, " said the waiter, with the sullen air of a man who isforced into giving advice. "Put yer mon in yer pocket! Yer loaded an'yehs on'y makes a fool of yerself. "

As the latter passed out of the door the man turned pathetically to thewomen. 

"He don' know I'm goo' f'ler, " cried he, dismally. 

"Never you mind, Pete, dear, " said the woman of brilliance andaudacity, laying her hand with great affection upon his arm. "Neveryou mind, old boy! We'll stay by you, dear!"

"Das ri'!" cried the man, his face lighting up at the soothing tones ofthe woman's voice. "Das ri'; I'm goo' f'ler an' w'en any one trea's meri', I trea's zem ri'! Shee?"

"Sure!" cried the women. "And we're not goin' back on you, old man. "

The man turned appealing eyes to the woman. He felt that if he could beconvicted of a contemptible action he would die. 

"Shay, Nell, I allus trea's yehs shquare, didn' I? I allus been goo'f'ler wi' yehs, ain't I, Nell?"

"Sure you have, Pete, " assented the woman. She delivered an oration toher companions. "Yessir, that's a fact. Pete's a square fellah, he is. He never goes back on a friend. He's the right kind an' we stay by him, don't we, girls?"

"Sure!" they exclaimed. Looking lovingly at him they raised theirglasses and drank his health. 

"Girlsh, " said the man, bcsccchingly, "I allus trea's yehs ri', didn'I? I'm goo' f'ler, ain' I, girlsh?"

"Sure!" again they chorused. 

"Well, " said he finally, "le's have nozzer drink, zen. "

"That's right, " hailed a woman, "that's right. Yer no bloomin' jay! Yerspends yer money like a man. Dat's right. "

The man pounded the table with his quivering fists. 

"Yessir, " he cried, with deep earnestness, as if someone disputed him. "I'm goo' feler, an' w'en any one trea's me ri', I allus trea's--le'shave nozzer drink. "

He began to beat the wood with his glass. 

"Shay!" howled he, growing suddenly impatient. As the waiter did notthen come, the man swelled with wrath. 

"Shay!" howled he again. 

The waiter appeared at the door. 

"Bringsh drinksh, " said the man. 

The waiter disappeared with the orders. 

"Zat f'ler fool!" cried the man. "He insul' me! I'm ge'man! Can' stan'be insul'! I'm goin' lickim when comes!"

"No, no!" cried the women, crowding about and trying to subdue him. "He's all right! He didn't mean anything! Let it go! He's a goodfellah!"

"Din' he insul' me?" asked the man earnestly. 

"No, " said they. "Of course he didn't! He's all right!"

"Sure he didn' insul' me?" demanded the man, with deep anxiety in hisvoice. 

"No, no! We know him! He's a good fellah. He didn't mean anything. "

"Well, zen, " said the man, resolutely, "I'm go' 'pol'gize!"

When the waiter came, the man struggled to the middle of the floor. 

"Girlsh shed you insul' me! I shay ---- lie! I 'pol'gize!"

"All right, " said the waiter. 

The man sat down. He felt a sleepy but strong desire to straightenthings out and have a perfect understanding with everybody. 

"Nell, I allus trea's yeh shquare, din' I? Yeh likes me, don' yehs, Nell? I'm goo' f'ler?"

"Sure, " said the woman. 

"Yeh knows I'm stuck on yehs, don' yehs, Nell?"

"Sure, " she repeated, carelessly. 

Overwhelmed by a spasm of drunken adoration, he drew two or three billsfrom his pocket, and, with the trembling fingers of an offering priest, laid them on the table before the woman. 

"Yehs knows, damn it, yehs kin have all got, 'cause I'm stuck on yehs, Nell, damn't, I--I'm stuck on yehs, Nell--buy drinksh--damn't--we'rehavin' heluva time--w'en anyone trea's me ri'--I--damn't, Nell--we'rehavin' heluva--time. "

Shortly he went to sleep with his swollen face fallen forward on hischest. 

The women drank and laughed, not heeding the slumbering man in thecorner. Finally he lurched forward and fell groaning to the floor. 

The women screamed in disgust and drew back their skirts. 

"Come ahn, " cried one, starting up angrily, "let's get out of here. "

The woman of brilliance and audacity stayed behind, taking up the billsand stuffing them into a deep, irregularly-shaped pocket. A gutturalsnore from the recumbent man caused her to turn and look down at him. 

She laughed. "What a damn fool, " she said, and went. 

The smoke from the lamps settled heavily down in the littlecompartment, obscuring the way out. The smell of oil, stifling in itsintensity, pervaded the air. The wine from an overturned glass drippedsoftly down upon the blotches on the man's neck. 

She smiled squarely into the face of a boy who was hurrying by with hishands buried in his overcoat, his blonde locks bobbing on his youthfultemples, and a cheery smile of unconcern upon his lips. He turned hishead and smiled back at her, waving his hands. 

"Not this eve--some other eve!"

A drunken man, reeling in her pathway, began to roar at her. "I ain' gano money, dammit, " he shouted, in a dismal voice. He lurched on up thestreet, wailing to himself, "Dammit, I ain' ga no money. Damn ba' luck. Ain' ga no more money. "

The girl went into gloomy districts near the river, where the tallblack factories shut in the street and only occasional broad beams oflight fell across the pavements from saloons. In front of one of theseplaces, from whence came the sound of a violin vigorously scraped, thepatter of feet on boards and the ring of loud laughter, there stood aman with blotched features. 

"Ah, there, " said the girl. 

"I've got a date, " said the man. 

Further on in the darkness she met a ragged being with shifting, blood-shot eyes and grimey hands. "Ah, what deh hell? Tink I'm amillionaire?"

She went into the blackness of the final block. The shutters of thetall buildings were closed like grim lips. The structures seemed tohave eyes that looked over her, beyond her, at other things. Afar offthe lights of the avenues glittered as if from an impossible distance. Street car bells jingled with a sound of merriment. 

When almost to the river the girl saw a great figure. On going forwardshe perceived it to be a huge fat man in torn and greasy garments. Hisgray hair straggled down over his forehead. His small, bleared eyes, sparkling from amidst great rolls of red fat, swept eagerly over thegirl's upturned face. He laughed, his brown, disordered teeth gleamingunder a gray, grizzled moustache from which beer-drops dripped. Hiswhole body gently quivered and shook like that of a dead jelly fish. Chuckling and leering, he followed the girl of the crimson legions. 

At their feet the river appeared a deathly black hue. Some hiddenfactory sent up a yellow glare, that lit for a moment the waterslapping oilily against timbers. The varied sounds of life, made joyousby distance and seeming unapproachableness, came faintly and died awayto silence. 

In a partitioned-off section of a saloon sat a man with a half dozenwomen, gleefully laughing, hovering about him. The man had arrived atthat stage of drunkenness where affection is felt for the universe. 

"I'm good f'ler, girls, " he said, convincingly. "I'm damn good f'ler. An'body treats me right, I allus trea's zem right! See?"

The women nodded their heads approvingly. "To be sure, " they cried outin hearty chorus. "You're the kind of a man we like, Pete. You're outasight! What yeh goin' to buy this time, dear?"

"An't'ing yehs wants, damn it, " said the man in an abandonment of goodwill. His countenance shone with the true spirit of benevolence. He wasin the proper mode of missionaries. He would have fraternized withobscure Hottentots. And above all, he was overwhelmed in tenderness forhis friends, who were all illustrious. 

"An't'ing yehs wants, damn it, " repeated he, waving his hands withbeneficent recklessness. "I'm good f'ler, girls, an' if an'body treatsme right I--here, " called he through an open door to a waiter, "bringgirls drinks, damn it. What 'ill yehs have, girls? An't'ing yehs wants, damn it!"

The waiter glanced in with the disgusted look of the man who servesintoxicants for the man who takes too much of them. He nodded his headshortly at the order from each individual, and went. 

"Damn it, " said the man, "we're havin' heluva time. I like you girls!Damn'd if I don't! Yer right sort! See?"

He spoke at length and with feeling, concerning the excellencies of hisassembled friends. 

"Don' try pull man's leg, but have a heluva time! Das right! Das wayteh do! Now, if I sawght yehs tryin' work me fer drinks, wouldn' buydamn t'ing! But yer right sort, damn it! Yehs know how ter treat af'ler, an' I stays by yehs 'til spen' las' cent! Das right! I'm goodf'ler an' I knows when an'body treats me right!"

Between the times of the arrival and departure of the waiter, the mandiscoursed to the women on the tender regard he felt for all livingthings. He laid stress upon the purity of his motives in all dealingswith men in the world and spoke of the fervor of his friendship forthose who were amiable. Tears welled slowly from his eyes. His voicequavered when he spoke to them. 

Once when the waiter was about to depart with an empty tray, the mandrew a coin from his pocket and held it forth. 

"Here, " said he, quite magnificently, "here's quar'. "

The waiter kept his hands on his tray. 

"I don' want yer money, " he said. 

The other put forth the coin with tearful insistence. 

"Here, damn it, " cried he, "tak't! Yer damn goo' f'ler an' I wan' yehstak't!"

"Come, come, now, " said the waiter, with the sullen air of a man who isforced into giving advice. "Put yer mon in yer pocket! Yer loaded an'yehs on'y makes a damn fool of yerself. "

As the latter passed out of the door the man turned pathetically to thewomen. 

"He don' know I'm damn goo' f'ler, " cried he, dismally. 

"Never you mind, Pete, dear, " said a woman of brilliance and audacity, laying her hand with great affection upon his arm. "Never you mind, oldboy! We'll stay by you, dear!"

"Das ri', " cried the man, his face lighting up at the soothing tones ofthe woman's voice. "Das ri', I'm damn goo' f'ler an' w'en anyone trea'sme ri', I treats zem ri'! Shee!"

"Sure!" cried the women. "And we're not goin' back on you, old man. "

The man turned appealing eyes to the woman of brilliance and audacity. He felt that if he could be convicted of a contemptible action he woulddie. 

"Shay, Nell, damn it, I allus trea's yehs shquare, didn' I? I allusbeen goo' f'ler wi' yehs, ain't I, Nell?"

"Sure you have, Pete, " assented the woman. She delivered an oration toher companions. "Yessir, that's a fact. Pete's a square fellah, he is. He never goes back on a friend. He's the right kind an' we stay by him, don't we, girls?"

"Sure, " they exclaimed. Looking lovingly at him they raised theirglasses and drank his health. 

"Girlsh, " said the man, beseechingly, "I allus trea's yehs ri', didn'I? I'm goo' f'ler, ain' I, girlsh?"

"Sure, " again they chorused. 

"Well, " said he finally, "le's have nozzer drink, zen. "

"That's right, " hailed a woman, "that's right. Yer no bloomin' jay! Yerspends yer money like a man. Dat's right. "

The man pounded the table with his quivering fists. 

"Yessir, " he cried, with deep earnestness, as if someone disputed him. "I'm damn goo' f'ler, an' w'en anyone trea's me ri', I allustrea's--le's have nozzer drink. "

He began to beat the wood with his glass. 

"Shay, " howled he, growing suddenly impatient. As the waiter did notthen come, the man swelled with wrath. 

"Shay, " howled he again. 

The waiter appeared at the door. 

"Bringsh drinksh, " said the man. 

The waiter disappeared with the orders. 

"Zat f'ler damn fool, " cried the man. "He insul' me! I'm ge'man! Can'stan' be insul'! I'm goin' lickim when comes!"

"No, no, " cried the women, crowding about and trying to subdue him. "He's all right! He didn't mean anything! Let it go! He's a goodfellah!"

"Din' he insul' me?" asked the man earnestly. 

Chapter XVIII

In a partitioned-off section of a saloon sat a man with a half dozenwomen, gleefully laughing, hovering about him. The man had arrived atthat stage of drunkenness where affection is felt for the universe. 

"I'm good f'ler, girls, " he said, convincingly. "I'm damn good f'ler. An'body treats me right, I allus trea's zem right! See?"

The women nodded their heads approvingly. "To be sure, " they cried outin hearty chorus. "You're the kind of a man we like, Pete. You'reouta sight! What yeh goin' to buy this time, dear?"

"An't'ing yehs wants, damn it, " said the man in an abandonment of goodwill. His countenance shone with the true spirit of benevolence. Hewas in the proper mode of missionaries. He would have fraternized withobscure Hottentots. And above all, he was overwhelmed in tendernessfor his friends, who were all illustrious. 

"An't'ing yehs wants, damn it, " repeated he, waving his hands withbeneficent recklessness. "I'm good f'ler, girls, an' if an'body treatsme right I--here, " called he through an open door to a waiter, "bringgirls drinks, damn it. What 'ill yehs have, girls? An't'ing yehswants, damn it!"

The waiter glanced in with the disgusted look of the man who servesintoxicants for the man who takes too much of them. He nodded his headshortly at the order from each individual, and went. 

"Damn it, " said the man, "we're havin' heluva time. I like you girls!Damn'd if I don't! Yer right sort! See?"

He spoke at length and with feeling, concerning the excellencies of hisassembled friends. 

"Don' try pull man's leg, but have a heluva time! Das right! Das wayteh do! Now, if I sawght yehs tryin' work me fer drinks, wouldn' buydamn t'ing! But yer right sort, damn it! Yehs know how ter treat af'ler, an' I stays by yehs 'til spen' las' cent! Das right! I'm goodf'ler an' I knows when an'body treats me right!"

Between the times of the arrival and departure of the waiter, the mandiscoursed to the women on the tender regard he felt for all livingthings. He laid stress upon the purity of his motives in all dealingswith men in the world and spoke of the fervor of his friendship forthose who were amiable. Tears welled slowly from his eyes. His voicequavered when he spoke to them. 

Once when the waiter was about to depart with an empty tray, the mandrew a coin from his pocket and held it forth. 

"Here, " said he, quite magnificently, "here's quar'. "

The waiter kept his hands on his tray. 

"I don' want yer money, " he said. 

The other put forth the coin with tearful insistence. 

"Here, damn it, " cried he, "tak't! Yer damn goo' f'ler an' I wan' yehstak't!"

"Come, come, now, " said the waiter, with the sullen air of a man who isforced into giving advice. "Put yer mon in yer pocket! Yer loaded an'yehs on'y makes a damn fool of yerself. "

As the latter passed out of the door the man turned pathetically to thewomen. 

"He don' know I'm damn goo' f'ler, " cried he, dismally. 

"Never you mind, Pete, dear, " said a woman of brilliance and audacity, laying her hand with great affection upon his arm. "Never you mind, old boy! We'll stay by you, dear!"

"Das ri', " cried the man, his face lighting up at the soothing tones ofthe woman's voice. "Das ri', I'm damn goo' f'ler an' w'en anyonetrea's me ri', I treats zem ri'! Shee!"

"Sure!" cried the women. "And we're not goin' back on you, old man. "

The man turned appealing eyes to the woman of brilliance and audacity. He felt that if he could be convicted of a contemptible action he woulddie. 

"Shay, Nell, damn it, I allus trea's yehs shquare, didn' I? I allusbeen goo' f'ler wi' yehs, ain't I, Nell?"

"Sure you have, Pete, " assented the woman. She delivered an oration toher companions. "Yessir, that's a fact. Pete's a square fellah, heis. He never goes back on a friend. He's the right kind an' we stayby him, don't we, girls?"

"Sure, " they exclaimed. Looking lovingly at him they raised theirglasses and drank his health. 

"Girlsh, " said the man, beseechingly, "I allus trea's yehs ri', didn'I? I'm goo' f'ler, ain' I, girlsh?"

"Sure, " again they chorused. 

"Well, " said he finally, "le's have nozzer drink, zen. "

"That's right, " hailed a woman, "that's right. Yer no bloomin' jay!Yer spends yer money like a man. Dat's right. "

The man pounded the table with his quivering fists. 

"Yessir, " he cried, with deep earnestness, as if someone disputed him. "I'm damn goo' f'ler, an' w'en anyone trea's me ri', I allustrea's--le's have nozzer drink. "

He began to beat the wood with his glass. 

"Shay, " howled he, growing suddenly impatient. As the waiter did notthen come, the man swelled with wrath. 

"Shay, " howled he again. 

The waiter appeared at the door. 

"Bringsh drinksh, " said the man. 

The waiter disappeared with the orders. 

"Zat f'ler damn fool, " cried the man. "He insul' me! I'm ge'man!Can' stan' be insul'! I'm goin' lickim when comes!"

"No, no, " cried the women, crowding about and trying to subdue him. "He's all right! He didn't mean anything! Let it go! He's a goodfellah!"

"Din' he insul' me?" asked the man earnestly. 

"No, " said they. "Of course he didn't! He's all right!"

"Sure he didn' insul' me?" demanded the man, with deep anxiety in hisvoice. 

"No, no! We know him! He's a good fellah. He didn't mean anything. "

"Well, zen, " said the man, resolutely, "I'm go' 'pol'gize!"

When the waiter came, the man struggled to the middle of the floor. 

"Girlsh shed you insul' me! I shay damn lie! I 'pol'gize!"

"All right, " said the waiter. 

The man sat down. He felt a sleepy but strong desire to straightenthings out and have a perfect understanding with everybody. 

"Nell, I allus trea's yeh shquare, din' I? Yeh likes me, don' yehs, Nell? I'm goo' f'ler?"

"Sure, " said the woman of brilliance and audacity. 

"Yeh knows I'm stuck on yehs, don' yehs, Nell?"

"Sure, " she repeated, carelessly. 

Overwhelmed by a spasm of drunken adoration, he drew two or three billsfrom his pocket, and, with the trembling fingers of an offering priest, laid them on the table before the woman. 

"Yehs knows, damn it, yehs kin have all got, 'cause I'm stuck on yehs, Nell, damn't, I--I'm stuck on yehs, Nell--buy drinksh--damn't--we'rehavin' heluva time--w'en anyone trea's me ri'--I--damn't, Nell--we'rehavin' heluva--time. "

Shortly he went to sleep with his swollen face fallen forward on hischest. 

The women drank and laughed, not heeding the slumbering man in thecorner. Finally he lurched forward and fell groaning to the floor. 

The women screamed in disgust and drew back their skirts. 

"Come ahn, " cried one, starting up angrily, "let's get out of here. "

The woman of brilliance and audacity stayed behind, taking up the billsand stuffing them into a deep, irregularly-shaped pocket. A gutturalsnore from the recumbent man caused her to turn and look down at him. 

She laughed. "What a damn fool, " she said, and went. 

The smoke from the lamps settled heavily down in the littlecompartment, obscuring the way out. The smell of oil, stifling in itsintensity, pervaded the air. The wine from an overturned glass drippedsoftly down upon the blotches on the man's neck. 

Chapter XIX

In a room a woman sat at a table eating like a fat monk in a picture. 

A soiled, unshaven man pushed open the door and entered. 

"Well, " said he, "Mag's dead. "

"What?" said the woman, her mouth filled with bread. 

"Mag's dead, " repeated the man. 

"Deh hell she is, " said the woman. She continued her meal. When shefinished her coffee she began to weep. 

"I kin remember when her two feet was no bigger dan yer t'umb, and sheweared worsted boots, " moaned she. 

"Well, whata dat?" said the man. 

"I kin remember when she weared worsted boots, " she cried. 

The neighbors began to gather in the hall, staring in at the weepingwoman as if watching the contortions of a dying dog. A dozen womenentered and lamented with her. Under their busy hands the rooms tookon that appalling appearance of neatness and order with which death isgreeted. 

Suddenly the door opened and a woman in a black gown rushed in withoutstretched arms. "Ah, poor Mary, " she cried, and tenderly embracedthe moaning one. 

"Ah, what ter'ble affliction is dis, " continued she. Her vocabularywas derived from mission churches. "Me poor Mary, how I feel fer yehs!Ah, what a ter'ble affliction is a disobed'ent chil'. "

Her good, motherly face was wet with tears. She trembled in eagernessto express her sympathy. The mourner sat with bowed head, rocking herbody heavily to and fro, and crying out in a high, strained voice thatsounded like a dirge on some forlorn pipe. 

"I kin remember when she weared worsted boots an' her two feets was nobigger dan yer t'umb an' she weared worsted boots, Miss Smith, " shecried, raising her streaming eyes. 

"Ah, me poor Mary, " sobbed the woman in black. With low, coddlingcries, she sank on her knees by the mourner's chair, and put her armsabout her. The other women began to groan in different keys. 

"Yer poor misguided chil' is gone now, Mary, an' let us hope it's ferdeh bes'. Yeh'll fergive her now, Mary, won't yehs, dear, all herdisobed'ence? All her t'ankless behavior to her mudder an' all herbadness? She's gone where her ter'ble sins will be judged. "

The woman in black raised her face and paused. The inevitable sunlightcame streaming in at the windows and shed a ghastly cheerfulness uponthe faded hues of the room. Two or three of the spectators weresniffling, and one was loudly weeping. The mourner arose and staggeredinto the other room. In a moment she emerged with a pair of faded babyshoes held in the hollow of her hand. 

"I kin remember when she used to wear dem, " cried she. The women burstanew into cries as if they had all been stabbed. The mourner turned tothe soiled and unshaven man. 

"Jimmie, boy, go git yer sister! Go git yer sister an' we'll put dehboots on her feets!"

"Dey won't fit her now, yeh damn fool, " said the man. 

"Go git yer sister, Jimmie, " shrieked the woman, confronting himfiercely. 

The man swore sullenly. He went over to a corner and slowly began toput on his coat. He took his hat and went out, with a dragging, reluctant step. 

The woman in black came forward and again besought the mourner. 

"Yeh'll fergive her, Mary! Yeh'll fergive yer bad, bad, chil'! Herlife was a curse an' her days were black an' yeh'll fergive yer badgirl? She's gone where her sins will be judged. "

"She's gone where her sins will be judged, " cried the other women, likea choir at a funeral. 

"Deh Lord gives and deh Lord takes away, " said the woman in black, raising her eyes to the sunbeams. 

"Deh Lord gives and deh Lord takes away, " responded the others. 

"Yeh'll fergive her, Mary!" pleaded the woman in black. The mourneressayed to speak but her voice gave way. She shook her great shouldersfrantically, in an agony of grief. Hot tears seemed to scald herquivering face. Finally her voice came and arose like a scream of pain. 

"Oh, yes, I'll fergive her! I'll fergive her!"