
                                 Stephen Crane

                         Maggie, a Girl of the Streets

                                Publisher's Note

The interest which has been shown in The Red Badge of Courage has been most
gratifying, but it has also involved a few inaccuracies of statement in regard
to the history of Mr. Crane's literary work. The Red Badge of Courage was
offered to and accepted by the publishers in December, 1894, and it was
published in October, 1895. As it happened, the actual publication in England
came some two months later. By that time the American press had appreciated the
quality of the book so cordially and unanimously as to dispose of the lingering
tradition that only a well-known author, or an author with the hall mark of
foreign approval, is recognised by our reviewers.
    As to the book which succeeds The Red Badge of Courage, it should be said
that Maggie has never been published before, even in serial form. The story was
put into type and copyrighted by Mr. Crane three years ago, but this real and
strenuous tale of New York life is now given to the public for the first time.
 

                                An Appreciation

I think that what strikes me most in the story of »Maggie« is that quality of
fatal necessity which dominates Greek tragedy. From the conditions it all had to
be, and there were the conditions. I felt this in Mr. Hardy's »Jude,« where the
principle seems to become conscious in the writer; but there is apparently no
consciousness of any such motive in the author of »Maggie.« Another effect is
that of an ideal of artistic beauty which is as present in the working out of
this poor girl's squalid romance as in any classic fable. This will be
foolishness, I know, to the many foolish people who cannot discriminate between
the material and the treatment in art, and think that beauty is inseparable from
daintiness and prettiness, but I do not speak to them. I appeal rather to such
as feel themselves akin with every kind of human creature, and find neither high
nor low when it is a question of inevitable suffering, or of a soul struggling
vainly with an inexorable fate.
    My rhetoric scarcely suggests the simple terms the author uses to produce
the effect which I am trying to repeat again. They are simple, but always most
graphic, especially when it comes to the personalities of the story; the girl
herself, with her bewildered wish to be right and good, with her distorted
perspective, her clinging and generous affections, her hopeless environments;
the horrible old drunken mother, a cyclone of violence and volcano of vulgarity;
the mean and selfish lover, dandy, rowdy, with his gross ideals and ambitions;
her brother, an Ishmaelite from the cradle, who with his warlike instincts
beaten back into cunning, is what the b'hoy of former times has become in our
more strenuously policed days. He is, indeed, a wonderful figure in a group
which betrays no faltering in the artist's hand. He, with his dull hates, his
warped good-will, his cowed ferocity, is almost as fine artistically as Maggie,
but he could not have been so hard to do, for all the pathos of her fate is
rendered without one maudlin touch. So is that of the simple-minded and devoted
and tedious old woman who is George's mother in the book of that name. This is
scarcely a study at all, while Maggie is really and fully so. It is the study of
a situation merely; a poor inadequate woman, of a commonplace religiosity, whose
son goes to the bad. The wonder of it is the courage which deals with persons so
absolutely average, and the art which graces them with the beauty of the
author's compassion for everything that errs and suffers. Without this feeling
the effects of his mastery would be impossible, and if it went further, or put
itself into the pitying phrases, it would annul the effects. But it never does
this; it is notable how in all respects the author keeps himself well in hand.
He is quite honest with his reader. He never shows his characters or his
situations in any sort of sentimental glamour; if you will be moved by the
sadness of common fates you will feel his intention; but he does not flatter his
portraits of people on conditions to take your fancy.
                                                                    W.D. HOWELLS
 

                                   Chapter I

A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honour of Rum Alley. He was
throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's Row who were circling madly
about the heap and pelting him.
    His infantile countenance was livid with the fury of battle. His small body
was writhing in the delivery of oaths.
    »Run, Jimmie, run! Dey'll git yehs!« screamed a retreating Rum Alley child.
    »Naw,« responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, »dese micks can't make me run.«
    Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil's Row throats. Tattered gamins on
the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. On their small, convulsed
faces 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 other side.
His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had
bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut in his
head. His wan features looked like those of a tiny, 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 with madness. The
little boys ran to and fro, dodging, hurling stones and swearing in barbaric
trebles.
    From a window of an apartment house that uprose from amid squat, ignorant
stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some labourers, unloading a scow at a dock
at the river, paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a
passive tugboat hung lazily over a railing and watched. Over on the Island, a
worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a grey ominous building and
crawled slowly along the river's bank.
    A stone had smashed in Jimmie's mouth. Blood was bubbling over his chin and
down upon his ragged shirt. Tears made furrows on his dirt-stained cheeks. His
thin legs had begun to tremble and turn weak, causing his small body to reel.
His roaring curses of the first part of the fight had changed to a blasphemous
chatter.
    In the yells of the whirling mob of Devil's Row children there were notes of
joy like songs of triumphant savagery. The little boys seemed to 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 his lips. His hat was
tipped over his eye with an air of challenge. Between his teeth, a cigar stump
was tilted at the angle of defiance. He walked with a certain swing of the
shoulders which appalled the timid. He glanced over into the vacant lot in which
the little raving boys from Devil's Row seethed about the shrieking and tearful
child from Rum Alley.
    »Gee!« he murmured with interest. »A scrap. Gee!«
    He strode over to the cursing circle, swinging his shoulders in a manner
which denoted that he held victory in his fists. He approached at the back of
one of the most deeply engaged of the Devil's Row children.
    »Ah, what d' hell,« he said, and smote the deeply-engaged one on the back of
the head. The little boy fell to the ground and gave a tremendous howl. He
scrambled to his feet, and perceiving, evidently, the size of his assailant, ran
quickly off, shouting alarms. The entire Devil's Row party followed him. They
came to a stand a short distance away and yelled taunting oaths at the boy with
the chronic sneer. The latter, momentarily, paid no attention to them.
    »What d' 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' t' lick dat Riley kid and dey
all pitched on me.«
    Some Rum Alley children now came forward. The party stood for a moment
exchanging vainglorious remarks with Devil's Row. A few stones were thrown at
long distances, and words of challenge passed between small warriors. Then the
Rum Alley contingent turned slowly in the direction of their home street. They
began to give, each to each, distorted versions of the fight. Causes of retreat
in particular cases were magnified. Blows dealt in the fight were enlarged to
catapultian power, and stones thrown were alleged to have hurtled with infinite
accuracy. Valor grew strong again, and the little boys began to brag with great
spirit.
    »Ah, we blokies kin lick d' hull damn Row,« said a child, swaggering.
    Little Jimmie was striving to stanch the flow of blood from his cut lips.
Scowling, he turned upon the speaker.
    »Ah, where d' hell was yehs when I was doing' all d' fighting'?« he demanded.
»Youse kids makes me tired.«
    »Ah, go ahn,« replied the other argumentatively.
    Jimmie replied with heavy contempt. »Ah, youse can't fight, Blue Billie! 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 cobble stones.
    »Smash 'im, Jimmie, kick d' damn guts out of 'im,« yelled Pete, the lad with
the chronic sneer, in tones of delight.
    The small combatants pounded and kicked, scratched and tore. They began to
weep and their curses struggled in their throats with sobs. The other little
boys clasped their hands and wriggled their legs in excitement. 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 waited in
ecstatic awe for that which was about to happen. The two little boys fighting in
the modes of four thousand years ago, did not hear the warning.
    Up the avenue there plodded slowly a man with sullen eyes. He was carrying a
dinner-pail and smoking an apple-wood pipe.
    As he neared the spot where the little boys strove, he regarded them
listlessly. But suddenly he roared an oath and advanced upon the rolling
fighters.
    »Here, you Jim, git up, now, while I belt yer life out, yeh damned
disorderly brat.«
    He began to kick into the chaotic mass on the ground. The boy Billie felt a
heavy boot strike his head. He made a furious effort and disentangled 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,« he cried, »an' stop yer
jawin', er I'll lam the everlasting head off yehs.«
    They departed. The man paced placidly along with the apple-wood emblem of
serenity between his teeth. The boy followed a dozen feet in the rear. He swore
luridly, for he felt that it was degradation for one who aimed to be some vague
kind of a soldier, or a man of blood with a sort of sublime license, to be taken
home by a father.
 

                                   Chapter II

Eventually they entered into a dark region where, from a careening building, a
dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies to the street and the gutter. A
wind of early autumn raised yellow dust from cobbles and swirled it against an
hundred windows. Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all
unhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags and bottles. In the street
infants played or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of
vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped
while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons, in
curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure
corners. A thousand odours of cooking food came forth to the street. The building
quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels.
    A small ragged girl dragged a red, bawling infant along the crowded ways. He
was hanging back, baby-like, bracing his wrinkled, bare legs.
    The little girl cried out: »Ah, Tommie, come ahn. Dere's Jimmie and fader.
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. With the obstinacy of
his order, he protested against being dragged in a chosen direction. He made
heroic endeavours to keep on his legs, denounced his sister and consumed a bit of
orange peeling which he chewed between 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 bin fighting' again.«
    The urchin swelled disdainfully.
    »Ah, what d' hell, Mag. See?«
    The little girl upbraided him. »Youse allus fighting', Jimmie, an' yeh knows
it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead, an' it's like we'll all get a
poundin'.«
    She began to weep. The babe threw back his head and roared at his prospects.
    »Ah, what d' hell!« cried Jimmie. »Shut up er I'll smack yer mout'. See?«
    As his sister continued her lamentations, he suddenly struck her. The little
girl reeled and, recovering herself, burst into tears and quaveringly cursed
him. As she slowly retreated her brother advanced 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 his
attacks. 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. They
crawled up dark stairways and along cold, gloomy halls. At last the father
pushed open a door and they entered a lighted room in which a large 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 fighting' again, by Gawd!« She threw herself upon Jimmie. The
urchin tried to dart behind the others and in the scuffle the babe, Tommie, was
knocked down. He protested with his usual vehemence, because they had bruised
his tender shins against a table leg.
    The mother's massive shoulders heaved with anger. Grasping the urchin by the
neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled. She dragged him to an unholy
sink, and, soaking a rag in water, began to scrub his lacerated face with it.
Jimmie screamed in pain and tried to twist his shoulders out of the clasp of the
huge arms.
    The babe sat on the floor watching the scene, his face in contortions like
that of a woman at a tragedy. The father, with a newly-ladened pipe in his
mouth, sat in 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 allus poundin'
'im. When I come nights I can't git no rest 'cause yer allus poundin' 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 weeping.
    The wife put her immense hands on her hips, and with a chieftain-like stride
approached her husband.
    »Ho,« she said, with a great grunt of contempt. »An' what in the devil are
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 legs carefully
beneath him.
    The man puffed his pipe calmly and put his great muddied boots on the back
part of the stove.
    »Go t' hell,« he said tranquilly.
    The woman screamed and shook her fists before her husband's eyes. The rough
yellow of her face and neck flared suddenly crimson. She began to howl.
    He puffed imperturbably at his pipe for a time, but finally arose and went
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 the bot', 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 souls with frequence.
    The babe was staring out from under the table, his small face working in 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 d' 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 man
seized his hat and rushed from the room, apparently determined upon a vengeful
drunk. She followed to the door and thundered at him as he made his way down
stairs.
    She returned and stirred up the room until her children were bobbing about
like bubbles.
    »Git outa d' way,« she persistently bawled, waving feet with their
dishevelled shoes near the heads of her children. She shrouded herself, puffing
and snorting, in a cloud of steam at the stove, and eventually extracted a
frying-pan full of potatoes that hissed.
    She flourished it. »Come t' yer suppers, now,« she cried with sudden
exasperation. »Hurry up, now, er I'll help yeh!«
    The children scrambled hastily. With prodigious clatter they arranged
themselves at table. The babe sat with his feet dangling high from a precarious
infant chair and gorged his small stomach. Jimmie forced, with feverish
rapidity, the grease-enveloped pieces between his wounded lips. Maggie, with
side glances of fear of interruption, ate like a small pursued tigress.
    The mother sat blinking at them. She delivered reproaches, swallowed
potatoes and drank from a yellow-brown bottle. After a time her mood changed and
she wept as she carried little Tommie into another room and laid him to sleep,
with his fists doubled, in an old quilt of faded red and green grandeur. Then
she came and moaned by the stove. She rocked to and fro upon a chair, shedding
tears and crooning miserably to the two children about their poor mother and yer
fader, damn 'is soul.
    The little girl plodded between the table and the chair with a dish-pan on
it. She tottered on her small legs beneath burdens of dishes.
    Jimmie sat nursing his various wounds. He cast furtive glances at his
mother. His practised eye perceived her gradually emerge from a muddled mist of
sentiment until her brain burned in drunken heat. He sat breathless.
    Maggie broke a plate.
    The mother started to her feet as if propelled.
    »Good Gawd,« she howled. Her glittering eyes fastened on her child with
sudden hatred. The fervent red of her face turned almost to purple. The little
boy ran to the halls, shrieking like a monk in an earthquake.
    He floundered about in darkness until he found the stairs. He stumbled,
panic-stricken, to the next floor. An old woman opened a door. A light behind
her threw a flare on the urchin's face.
    »Eh, Gawd, child, what is it dis time? Is yer fader beatin' yer mudder, or
yer mudder beatin' yer fader?«
 

                                  Chapter III

Jimmie and the old woman listened long in the hall. Above the muffled roar of
conversation, the dismal wailings of babies at night, the thumping of feet in
unseen corridors and rooms, and the sound of varied hoarse shoutings in the
street and the rattling of wheels over cobbles, they heard the screams of the
child and the roars of the mother die away to a feeble moaning and a subdued
bass muttering.
    The old woman was a gnarled and leathery personage who could don, at will,
an expression of great virtue. She possessed a small music box capable of one
tune, and a collection of God bless yehs pitched in assorted keys of fervency.
Each day she took a position upon the stones of Fifth Avenue, where she crooked
her legs under her and crouched immovable and hideous, like an idol. She
received daily a small sum in pennies. It was contributed, for the most part, by
persons who did not make their homes in that vicinity.
    Once, when a lady had dropped her purse on the sidewalk, the gnarled woman
had grabbed it and smuggled it with great dexterity beneath her cloak. When she
was arrested she had cursed the lady into a partial swoon, and with her aged
limbs, twisted from rheumatism, had almost kicked the stomach out of a huge
policeman whose conduct upon that occasion 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 sleep here.«
    Jimmie took a tendered tin-pail and seven pennies and departed. He passed
into the side door of a saloon and went to the bar. Straining up on his toes he
raised the pail and pennies as high as his arms would let him. He saw two hands
thrust down to take them. Directly the same hands let down the filled pail and
he left.
    In front of the gruesome doorway he met a lurching figure. It was his
father, swaying about on uncertain legs.
    »Give me d' can. See?« said the man.
    »Ah, come off! I got dis can fer dat ol' woman an' it 'ud be dirt t' swipe
it. See?« cried Jimmie.
    The father wrenched the pail from the urchin. He grasped it in both hands
and lifted it to his mouth. He glued his lips to the under edge and tilted his
head. His throat swelled until it seemed to grow near his chin. There was a
tremendous gulping movement and the beer was gone.
    The man caught his breath and laughed. He hit his son on the head with the
empty pail. As it rolled clanging into the street, Jimmie began to scream and
kicked repeatedly at his father's shins.
    »Look at d' dirt what yeh done me,« he yelled. »D' ol' woman 'ill be raisin'
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 whiskies and
declaring to all comers, confidentially: »My home reg'lar living' hell! Damndes'
place! Reg'lar hell! Why do I come an' drin' whisk' here thish way? 'Cause home
reg'lar living' hell!«
    Jimmie waited a long time in the street and then crept warily up through the
building. He passed with great caution the door of the gnarled woman, and
finally stopped outside his home and listened.
    He could hear his mother moving heavily about among the furniture of the
room. She was chanting in a mournful voice, occasionally interjecting bursts of
volcanic wrath at the father, who, Jimmie judged, had sunk down on the floor or
in a corner.
    »Why d' blazes don' chere try t' keep Jim from fighting'? I'll break yer
jaw,« she suddenly bellowed.
    The man mumbled with drunken indifference. »Ah, what' d' hell. W'a's odds?
Wha' makes kick?«
    »Because he tears 'is clothes, yeh damn fool,« cried the woman in supreme
wrath.
    The husband seemed to become aroused. »Go t' hell,« he thundered fiercely in
reply. There was a crash against the door and something broke into clattering
fragments. Jimmie partially suppressed a yell and darted down the stairway.
Below he paused and listened. He heard howls and curses, groans and shrieks - a
confused chorus as if a battle were raging. With it all there was the crash of
splintering furniture. The eyes of the urchin glared in his fear that one of
them would discover him.
    Curious faces appeared in doorways, and whispered comments passed to and
fro. »Ol' Johnson's raisin' hell again.«
    Jimmie stood until the noises ceased and the other inhabitants of the
tenement had all yawned and shut their doors. Then he crawled up stairs with the
caution of an invader of a panther den. Sounds of laboured breathing came through
the broken door-panels. He pushed the door open and entered, quaking.
    A glow from the fire threw red hues over the bare floor, the cracked and
soiled plastering, and the overturned and broken furniture.
    In the middle of the floor lay his mother asleep. In one corner of the room
his father's limp body hung across the seat of a chair.
    The urchin stole forward. He began to shiver in dread of awakening his
parents. His mother's great chest was heaving painfully. Jimmie paused and
looked down at her. Her face was inflamed and swollen from drinking. Her yellow
brows shaded eye-lids that had grown blue. Her tangled hair tossed in waves over
her forehead. Her mouth was set in the same lines of vindictive hatred that it
had, perhaps, borne during the fight. Her bare, red arms were thrown out above
her head in an attitude of exhaustion, something, mayhap, like that of a sated
villain.
    The urchin bended over his mother. He was fearful lest she should open her
eyes, and the dread within him was so strong, that he could not forbear to
stare, but hung as if fascinated over the woman's grim face.
    Suddenly her eyes opened. The urchin found himself looking straight into an
expression, which, it would seem, had the power to change his blood to salt. He
howled piercingly and fell backward.
    The woman floundered for a moment, tossed her arms about her head as if in
combat, and again began to snore.
    Jimmie crawled back into the shadows and waited. A noise in the next room
had followed his cry at the discovery that his mother was awake. He grovelled in
the gloom, his eyes riveted upon 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 doorway of the other room. She crept to him
across the floor.
    The father had not moved, but lay in the same death-like sleep. The mother
writhed in uneasy slumber, her chest wheezing as if she were in the agonies of
strangulation. Out at the window a florid moon was peering over dark roofs, and
in the distance the waters of a river glimmered pallidly.
    The small frame of the ragged girl was quivering. Her features were haggard
from weeping, and her eyes gleamed with fear. She grasped the urchin's arm in
her little trembling hands and they huddled in a corner. The eyes of both were
drawn, by some force, to stare at the woman's face, for they thought she need
only to awake and all the fiends would 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, heaving body of the mother.
 

                                   Chapter IV

The babe, Tommie, died. He went away in an insignificant coffin, his small waxen
hand clutching a flower that the girl, Maggie, had stolen from an Italian.
    She and Jimmie lived.
    The inexperienced fibres of the boy's eyes were hardened at an early age. He
became a young man of leather. He lived some red years without labouring. During
that time his sneer became chronic. He studied human nature in the gutter, and
found it no worse than he thought he had reason to believe it. He never
conceived a respect for the world, because he had begun with no idols that it
had smashed.
    He clad his soul in armour by means of happening hilariously in at a mission
church where a man composed his sermons of you's. Once a philosopher asked this
man why he did not say we instead of you. The man replied, »What?«
    While they got warm at the stove, he told his hearers just where he
calculated they stood with the Lord. Many of the sinners were impatient over the
pictured depths of their degradation. They were waiting for soup-tickets.
    A reader of words of wind-demons might have been able to see the portions of
a dialogue pass to and fro between the exhorter and his hearers.
    »You are damned,« said the preacher. And the reader of sounds might have
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 things that
didn't concern them, with all the freedom of English tourists. When they grew
thirsty and went out their minds confused the speaker with Christ.
    Momentarily, Jimmie was sullen with thoughts of a hopeless altitude where
grew fruit. His companion said that if he should ever meet God he would ask for
a million dollars and a bottle of beer.
    Jimmie's occupation for a long time was to stand on street-corners and watch
the world go by, dreaming blood-red dreams at the passing of pretty women. He
menaced mankind at the intersections of streets.
    On the corners he was in life and of life. The world was going on and he was
there to perceive it.
    He maintained a belligerent attitude toward all well-dressed men. To him
fine raiment was allied to weakness, and all good coats covered faint hearts. He
and his order were kings, to a certain extent, over the 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 the
chrysanthemums of aristocracy in their button-holes. He considered himself above
both of these classes. He was afraid of nothing.
    When he had a dollar in his pocket his satisfaction with existence was the
greatest thing in the world. So, eventually, he felt obliged to work. His father
died and his mother's years were divided up into periods of thirty days.
    He became a truck driver. There was given to him the charge of a
pains-taking pair of horses and a large rattling truck. He invaded the turmoil
and tumble of the down-town streets and learned to breathe maledictory defiance
at the police who occasionally used to climb up, drag him from his perch and
punch him.
    In the lower part of the city he daily involved himself in hideous tangles.
If he and his team chanced to be in the rear he preserved a demeanour of
serenity, crossing his legs and bursting forth into yells when foot passengers
took dangerous dives beneath the noses of his champing horses. He smoked his
pipe calmly for he knew that his pay was marching on.
    If his charge was in the front and if it became the key-truck of chaos, he
entered terrifically into the quarrel that was raging to and fro among the
drivers on their high seats, and sometimes roared oaths and violently got
himself arrested.
    After a time his sneer grew so that it turned its glare upon all things. He
became so sharp that he believed in nothing. To him the police were always
actuated by malignant impulses and the rest of the world was composed, for the
most part, of despicable creatures who were all trying to take advantage of him
and with whom, in defence, he was obliged to quarrel on all possible occasions.
He himself occupied a down-trodden position which had a private but distinct
element of grandeur in its isolation.
    The greatest cases of aggravated idiocy were, to his mind, rampant upon the
front platforms of all of the street cars. At first his tongue strove with these
beings, but he eventually became superior. In him grew a majestic contempt for
those strings of street cars that followed him like intent bugs.
    He fell into the habit, when starting on a long journey, of fixing his eye
on a high and distant object, commanding his horses to start and then going into
a trance of observation. Multitudes of drivers might howl in his rear, and
passengers might load him with opprobrium, but he would not awaken until some
blue policeman turned red and began to frenziedly seize bridles and beat the
soft noses of the responsible horses.
    When he paused to contemplate the attitude of the police toward himself and
his fellows, he believed that they were the only men in the city who had no
rights. When driving about, he felt that he was held liable by the police for
anything that might occur in the streets, and that he was the common prey of all
energetic officials. In revenge, he resolved never to move out of the way of
anything, until formidable circumstances, or a much larger man than himself
forced him to it.
    Foot passengers were mere pestering flies with an insane disregard for their
legs and his convenience. He could not comprehend their desire to cross the
streets. Their madness smote him with eternal amazement. He was continually
storming at them from his throne. He sat aloft and denounced their frantic
leaps, plunges, dives and straddles.
    When they would thrust at, or parry, the noses of his champing horses,
making them swing their heads and move their feet, and thus disturbing a stolid
dreamy repose, he swore at the men as fools, for he himself could perceive that
Providence had caused it clearly to be written, that he and his team had the
unalienable right to stand in the proper path of the sun chariot, and if they so
minded, obstruct its mission or take a wheel off.
    And if the god-driver had had a desire to step down, put up his
flame-coloured fists and manfully dispute the right of way, he would have
probably been immediately opposed by a scowling mortal with two sets of hard
knuckles.
    It is possible, perhaps, that this young man would have derided, in an
axle-wide alley, the approach of a flying ferry boat. Yet he achieved a respect
for a fire engine. As one charged toward his truck, he would drive fearfully
upon a sidewalk, threatening untold people with annihilation. When an engine
struck 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 whole wheels, on the sidewalk. The fearful coming of the engine could
break up the most intricate muddle of heavy vehicles at which the police had
been swearing for the half of an hour.
    A fire engine was enshrined in his heart as an appalling thing that he loved
with a distant dog-like devotion. It had been known to overturn a street car.
Those leaping horses, striking sparks from the cobbles 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 he reached a
great age, he had a fair record.
    He developed too great a tendency to climb down from his truck and fight
with other drivers. He had been in quite a number of miscellaneous fights, and
in some general barroom rows that had become known to the police. Once he had
been arrested for assaulting a Chinaman. Two women in different parts of the
city, and entirely unknown to each other, caused him considerable annoyance by
breaking forth, simultaneously, at fateful intervals, into wailings about
marriage and support and infants.
    Nevertheless, he had, on a certain star-lit evening, said wonderingly and
quite reverently: »D' moon looks like hell, don't it?«
 

                                   Chapter V

The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle. She grew to be a most rare and
wonderful production of a tenement district, a pretty girl.
    None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins. The philosophers up
stairs, down stairs and on the same floor, puzzled over it.
    When a child, playing and fighting with gamins in the street, dirt disguised
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 her brother remarked to
her: »Mag, I'll tell yeh dis! See? Yeh've edder got t' go t' hell er go t'
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 made collars
and cuffs. She received a stool and a machine in a room where sat twenty girls
of various shades of yellow discontent. She perched on the stool and treadled at
her machine all day, turning out collars with a name which might have been noted
for its irrelevancy to anything connected with collars. At night she returned
home to her mother.
    Jimmie grew large enough to take the vague position of head of the family.
As incumbent of that office, he stumbled up stairs late at night, 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 such a degree of fame that she could
bandy words with her acquaintances among the police-justices. Court-officials
called her by her first name. When she appeared they pursued a course which had
been theirs for months. They invariably grinned and cried out: »Hello, Mary, you
here again?« Her grey head wagged in many courts. She always besieged the bench
with voluble excuses, explanations, apologies and prayers. Her flaming face and
rolling eyes were a familiar sight on the Island. She measured time 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 Row urchin
in the back of the head and put to flight the antagonists of his friend, Jimmie,
strutted upon the scene. He met Jimmie one day on the street, promised to take
him to a boxing match in Williamsburg, and called for him in the evening.
    Maggie observed Pete.
    He sat on a table in the Johnson home and dangled his checked legs with an
enticing nonchalance. His hair was curled down over his forehead in an oiled
bang. His pugged nose seemed to revolt from contact with a bristling moustache
of short, wire-like hairs. His blue double-breasted coat, edged with black
braid, was buttoned close to a red puff tie, and his patent-leather shoes looked
like weapons.
    His mannerisms stamped him as a man who had a correct sense of his personal
superiority. There was valor and contempt for circumstances in the glance of his
eye. He waved his hands like a man of the world, who dismisses religion and
philosophy, and says »Rats!« He had certainly seen everything and with each curl
of his lip, he declared that it amounted to nothing. Maggie thought he must be a
very elegant bartender.
    He was telling tales to Jimmie.
    Maggie watched him furtively, with half-closed eyes, lit with a vague
interest.
    »Hully gee! Dey makes me tired,« he said. »Mos' e'ry day some farmer comes
in an' tries t' run d' shop. See? But dey gits t'rowed right out! I jolt dem
right out in d' street before dey knows where dey is! See?«
    »Sure,« said Jimmie.
    »Dere was a mug come in d' place d' odder day wid an idear he wus goin' t'
own d' place! Hully gee, he wus goin' t' own d' place! I see he had a still on
an' I didn' wanna giv 'im no stuff, so I says: Git d' hell outa here an' don'
make no trouble, I says like dat! See? Git d' hell outa here an' don' make no
trouble; like dat. Git d' hell outa here, I says. See?«
    Jimmie nodded understandingly. Over his features played an eager desire to
state the amount of his valor in a similar crisis, but the narrator proceeded.
    »Well, d' blokie he says: T' hell wid it! I ain' looking' for no scrap, he
says - see? But, he says, I'm 'spectable cit'zen an' I wanna drink an'
purtydamnsoon, too. See? D' hell, I says. Like dat! D' hell, I says. See? Don'
make no trouble, I says. Like dat. Don' make no trouble. See? Den d' mug he
squared off an' said he was fine as silk wid his dukes - see? An' he wanned a
drink damnquick. Dat's what he said. See?«
    »Sure,« repeated Jimmie.
    Pete continued. »Say, I jes' jumped d' bar an' d' way I plunked dat blokie
was outa sight. See? Dat's right! In d' jaw! See? Hully gee, he t'rowed a
spittoon t'ru d' front windee. Say, I t'aut I'd drop dead. But d' 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 all right, 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' oughta made
no trouble. Dat's what I says t' 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 and rather
wistfully upon Pete's face. The broken furniture, grimy walls, and general
disorder and dirt of her home of a sudden appeared before her and began to take
a potential aspect. Pete's aristocratic person looked as if it might soil. She
looked keenly at him, occasionally, wondering if he was feeling contempt. But
Pete seemed to be enveloped in reminiscence.
    »Hully gee,« said he, »dose mugs can't phase me. Dey knows I kin wipe up d'
street wid any t'ree of dem.«
    When he said, »Ah, what d' hell!« his voice was burdened with disdain for
the inevitable and contempt for anything that fate might compel him to endure.
    Maggie perceived that here was the ideal man. Her dim thoughts were often
searching for far away lands where, as God says, the little hills sing together
in the morning. Under the trees of her dream-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 more
eloquent in his descriptions of various happenings in his career. It appeared
that he was invincible in fights.
    »Why,« he said, referring to a man with whom he had had a misunderstanding,
»dat mug scrapped like a damned dago. Dat's right. He was dead easy. See? He
t'aut he was a scrapper! But he foun' out diff'ent! Hully gee.«
    He walked to and fro in the small room, which seemed then to grow even
smaller and unfit to hold his dignity, the attribute of a supreme warrior. That
swing of the shoulders which had frozen the timid when he was but a lad had
increased with his growth and education at the ratio of ten to one. It, combined
with the sneer upon his mouth, told mankind that there was nothing in space
which could appall him. Maggie marvelled at him and surrounded him with
greatness. She vaguely tried to calculate the altitude of the pinnacle from
which he must have looked down upon her.
    »I met a chump d' odder day way up in d' city,« he said. »I was goin' t' see
a frien' of mine. When I was a-crossin' d' street d' chump runned plump inteh
me, an' den he turns aroun' an' says, Yer insolen' ruffin, he says, like dat.
Oh, gee, I says, oh, gee, go t' hell an' git off d' eart'! I says, like dat.
See? Go t' hell an' git off d' eart', like dat. Den d' blokie he got wild. He
says I was a contempt'ble scoun'el, er something' like dat, an' he says I was
doom' t' everlastin' pe'dition, er something' like dat. Gee, I says, gee! D' hell
I am, I says. D' 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 glory from
the Johnson home. Maggie, leaning from the window, watched him as he walked down
the street.
    Here was a formidable man who disdained the strength of a world full of
fists. Here was one who had contempt for brass-clothed power; one whose knuckles
could defiantly ring against the granite of law. He was a knight.
    The two men went from under the glimmering street-lamp and passed into
shadows.
    Turning, Maggie contemplated the dark, dust-stained walls, and the scant and
crude furniture of her home. A clock, in a splintered and battered oblong box of
varnished wood, she suddenly regarded as an abomination. She noted that it
ticked raspingly. The almost vanished flowers in the carpet-pattern, she
conceived to be newly hideous. Some faint attempts which she had made with blue
ribbon, to freshen the appearance of 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 to her
mind as a dreary place of endless grinding. Pete's elegant occupation brought
him, no doubt, into contact with people who had money and manners. It was
probable that he had a large acquaintance of pretty girls. He must have great
sums of money to spend.
    To her the earth was composed of hardships and insults. She felt instant
admiration for a man who openly defied it. She thought that if the grim angel of
death should clutch his heart, Pete would shrug his shoulders and say, »Oh,
ev'ryt'ing goes.«
    She anticipated that he would come again shortly. She spent some of her
week's pay in the purchase of flowered cretonne for a lambrequin. She made it
with infinite care and hung it to the slightly-careening mantel, over the stove,
in the kitchen. She studied it with painful anxiety from different points in the
room. She wanted it to look well on Sunday night when, perhaps, Jimmie's friend
would come. On Sunday night, however, Pete did not appear.
    Afterward the girl looked at it with a sense of humiliation. She was now
convinced that Pete was superior to admiration for lambrequins.
    A few evenings later Pete entered with fascinating innovations in his
apparel. As she had seen him twice and he wore a different suit each time,
Maggie had a dim impression that his wardrobe was prodigious.
    »Say, Mag,« he said, »put on yer bes' duds Friday night an' I'll take yehs
t' d' 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 most of
three days in making imaginary sketches of Pete and his daily environment. She
imagined some half dozen women in love with him and thought he must lean
dangerously toward an indefinite one, whom she pictured as endowed with great
charms of person, but with an altogether contemptible disposition.
    She thought he must live in a blare of pleasure. He had friends, and people
who were afraid of him.
    She saw the golden glitter of the place where Pete was to take her. It would
be an entertainment of many hues and many melodies where she was afraid she
might appear small and mouse-coloured.
    Her mother drank whiskey all Friday morning. With lurid face and tossing
hair she cursed and destroyed furniture all Friday afternoon. When Maggie came
home at half-past six her mother lay asleep amidst the wreck of chairs and a
table. Fragments of various household utensils were scattered about the floor.
She had vented some phase of drunken fury upon the lambrequin. It lay in a
bedraggled heap in the corner.
    »Hah,« she snorted, sitting up suddenly, »where d' hell yeh been? Why d'
hell don' yeh come home earlier? Been loafin' 'round d' streets. Yer getting' t'
be a reg'lar devil.«
    When Pete arrived Maggie, in a worn black dress, was waiting for him in the
midst of a floor strewn with wreckage. The curtain at the window had been pulled
by a heavy hand and hung by one tack, dangling to and fro in the draft through
the cracks at the sash. The knots of blue ribbons appeared like violated
flowers. The fire in the stove had gone out. The displaced lids and open doors
showed heaps of sullen grey ashes. The remnants of a meal, ghastly, lay in a
corner. Maggie's mother, stretched on the floor, blasphemed and gave her
daughter a bad name.
 

                                  Chapter VII

An orchestra of yellow silk women and bald-headed men on an elevated stage near
the centre of a great green-hued hall, played a popular waltz. The place was
crowded with people grouped about little tables. A battalion of waiters slid
among the throng, carrying trays of beer glasses and making change from the
inexhaustible vaults of their trousers pockets. Little boys, in the costumes of
French chefs, paraded up and down the irregular aisles vending fancy cakes.
There was a low rumble of conversation and a subdued clinking of glasses. Clouds
of tobacco smoke rolled and wavered high in air about the dull gilt of the
chandeliers.
    The vast crowd had an air throughout of having just quitted labour. Men with
calloused hands and attired in garments that showed the wear of an endless
drudging for a living, smoked their pipes contentedly and spent five, ten, or
perhaps fifteen cents for beer. There was a mere sprinkling of men who smoked
cigars purchased elsewhere. The great body of the crowd was composed of people
who showed that all day they strove with their hands. Quiet Germans, with maybe
their wives and two or three children, sat listening to the music, with the
expressions of happy cows. An occasional party of sailors from a war-ship, their
faces pictures of sturdy health, spent the earlier hours of the evening at the
small round tables. Very infrequent tipsy men, swollen with the value of their
opinions, engaged their companions in earnest and confidential conversation. In
the balcony, and here and there below, shone the impassive faces of women. The
nationalities of the Bowery beamed upon the stage from all directions.
    Pete aggressively walked up a side aisle and took seats with Maggie at a
table beneath the balcony.
    »Two beehs!«
    Leaning back he regarded with eyes of superiority the scene before them.
This attitude affected Maggie strongly. A man who could regard such a sight with
indifference must be accustomed to very great things.
    It was obvious that Pete had visited this place many times before, and was
very familiar with it. A knowledge of this fact made Maggie feel little and new.
    He was extremely gracious and attentive. He displayed the consideration of a
cultured gentleman who knew what was due.
    »Say, what d' hell? Bring d' lady a big glass! What d' hell use is dat
pony?«
    »Don't be fresh, now,« said the waiter, with some warmth, as he departed.
    »Ah, git off d' eart',« said Pete, after the other's retreating form.
    Maggie perceived that Pete brought forth all his elegance and all his
knowledge of high-class customs for her benefit. Her heart warmed as she
reflected upon his condescension.
    The orchestra of yellow silk women and bald-headed men gave vent to a few
bars of anticipatory music and a girl, in a pink dress with short skirts,
galloped upon the stage. She smiled upon the throng as if in acknowledgement of a
warm welcome, and began to walk to and fro, making profuse gesticulations and
singing, in brazen soprano tones, a song, the words of which were inaudible.
When she broke into the swift rattling measures of a chorus some half-tipsy men
near the stage joined in the rollicking refrain and glasses were pounded
rhythmically upon the tables. People leaned forward to watch her and to try to
catch the words of the song. When she vanished there were long rollings of
applause.
    Obedient to more anticipatory bars, she reappeared amidst the
half-suppressed cheering of the tipsy men. The orchestra plunged into dance
music and the laces of the dancer fluttered and flew in the glare of gas jets.
She divulged the fact that she was attired in some half dozen skirts. It was
patent that any one of them would have proved adequate for the purpose for which
skirts are intended. An occasional man bent forward, intent upon the pink
stockings. Maggie wondered at the splendour of the costume and lost herself in
calculations of the cost of the silks and laces.
    The dancer's smile of enthusiasm was turned for ten minutes upon the faces
of her audience. In the finale she fell into some of those grotesque attitudes
which were at the time popular among the dancers in the theatres up-town, giving
to the Bowery public the diversions 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 on his
knees. He made them sing mournful ditties and say funny things about geography
and Ireland.
    »Do dose little men talk?« asked Maggie.
    »Naw,« said Pete, »it's some damn fake. See?«
    Two girls, set down on the bills as sisters, came forth and sang a duet
which is heard occasionally at concerts given under church auspices. They
supplemented it with a dance which of course can never be seen at concerts given
under church auspices.
    After they had retired, a woman of debatable age sang a negro melody. The
chorus necessitated some grotesque waddlings supposed to be an imitation of a
plantation darkey, under the influence, probably, of music and the moon. The
audience was just enthusiastic enough over it to have her return and sing a
sorrowful lay, whose lines told of a mother's love, and a sweetheart who waited
and a young man who was lost at sea under harrowing circumstances. From the
faces of a score or so in the crowd, the self-contained look faded. Many heads
were bent forward with eagerness and sympathy. As the last distressing sentiment
of the piece was brought forth, it was greeted by the kind of applause which
rings as sincere.
    As a final effort, the singer rendered some verses which described a vision
of Britain annihilated by America, and Ireland bursting her bonds. A carefully
prepared climax was reached in the last line of the last verse, when the singer
threw out her arms and cried, »The star-spangled banner.« Instantly a great
cheer swelled from the throats of this assemblage of the masses, most of them of
foreign birth. There was a heavy rumble of booted feet thumping the floor. Eyes
gleamed with sudden fire, and calloused hands waved frantically in the air.
    After a few moments' rest, the orchestra played noisily, and a small fat man
burst out upon the stage. He began to roar a song and stamp back and forth
before the foot-lights, wildly waving a silk hat and throwing leers broadcast.
He made his face into fantastic grimaces until he looked like a devil on a
Japanese kite. The crowd laughed gleefully. His short, fat legs were never still
a moment. He shouted and roared and bobbed his shock of red wig until the
audience broke out in excited applause.
    Pete did not pay much attention to the progress of events upon the stage. 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 of the collar and
cuff factory came to her.
    With the final crash of the orchestra they jostled their way to the sidewalk
in the crowd. Pete took Maggie's arm and pushed a way for her, offering to fight
with a man or two. They reached Maggie's home at a late hour and stood for a
moment in front of the gruesome doorway.
    »Say, Mag,« said Pete, »give us a kiss for taken' yeh t' d' show, will yer?«
    Maggie laughed, as if startled, and drew away from him.
    »Naw, Pete,« she said, »dat wasn't't in it.«
    »Ah, what d' hell?« urged Pete.
    The girl retreated nervously.
    »Ah, what d' hell?« repeated he.
    Maggie darted into the hall, and up the stairs. She turned and smiled at
him, then disappeared.
    Pete walked slowly down the street. He had something of an astonished
expression upon his features. He paused under a lamp-post and breathed a 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 intense dislike
for all of her dresses.
    »What d'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 met on the
avenues. She envied elegance and soft palms. She craved those adornments of
person which she saw every day on the street, conceiving them to be allies of
vast importance to women.
    Studying faces, she thought many of the women and girls she chanced to meet,
smiled with serenity as though forever cherished and watched over by those they
loved.
    The air in the collar and cuff establishment strangled her. She knew she was
gradually and surely shriveling in the hot, stuffy room. The begrimed windows
rattled incessantly from the passing of elevated trains. The place was filled
with a whirl of noises and odours.
    She became lost in thought as she looked at some of the grizzled women in
the room, mere mechanical contrivances sewing seams and grinding out, with heads
bended over their work, tales of imagined or real girl-hood happiness, or of
past drunks, or the baby at home, and unpaid wages. She wondered how long her
youth would endure. She began to see the bloom upon her cheeks as something of
value.
    She imagined herself, in an exasperating future, as a scrawny woman with an
eternal grievance. She thought Pete to be a very fastidious person concerning
the appearance of women.
    She felt that she should love to see somebody entangle their fingers in the
oily beard of the fat foreigner who owned the establishment. He was a detestable
creature. He wore white socks with low shoes. He sat all day delivering
orations, in the depths of a cushioned chair. His pocketbook deprived them of
the power of retort.
    »What een hell do you sink I pie fife dolla a week for? Play? No, py tamn!«
    Maggie was anxious for a friend to whom she could talk about Pete. She would
have liked to discuss his admirable mannerisms with a reliable mutual friend. At
home, she found her mother often drunk and always raving. It seemed that the
world had treated this woman very badly, and she took a deep revenge upon such
portions of it as came within her reach. She broke furniture as if she were at
last getting her rights. She swelled with virtuous indignation as she carried
the lighter articles of household use, one by one, under the shadows of the
three gilt balls, where Hebrews chained them with chains of interest.
    Jimmie came when he was obliged to by circumstances over which he had no
control. His well-trained legs brought him staggering home and put him to bed
some nights when he would rather have gone elsewhere.
    Swaggering Pete loomed like a golden sun to Maggie. He took her to a dime
museum where rows of meek freaks astonished her. She contemplated their
deformities with awe and thought them a sort of chosen tribe.
    Pete, racking his brains for amusement, discovered the Central Park
Menagerie and the Museum of Arts. Sunday afternoons would sometimes find them at
these places. Pete did not appear to be particularly interested in what he saw.
He stood around looking heavy, while Maggie giggled in glee.
    Once at the Menagerie he went into a trance of admiration before the
spectacle of a very small monkey threatening to thrash a cageful because one of
them had pulled his tail and he had not wheeled about quickly enough to discover
who did it. Ever after Pete knew that monkey by sight and winked at him, trying
to induce him to fight with other and larger monkeys.
    At the Museum, Maggie said, »Dis is outa sight.«
    »Oh hell,« said Pete, »wait till next summer an' I'll take yehs to a
picnic.«
    While the girl wandered in the vaulted rooms, Pete occupied himself in
returning stony stare for stony stare, the appalling scrutiny of the watch-dogs
of the treasures. Occasionally he would remark in loud tones: »Dat jay has got
glass eyes,« and sentences of the sort. When he tired of this amusement he would
go to the mummies and moralize over them.
    Usually he submitted with silent dignity to all that he had to go through,
but, at times, he was goaded into comment.
    »What d' 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 d' blazes use
is dem?«
    In the evenings of week days he often took her to see plays in which the
dazzling heroine was rescued from the palatial home of her treacherous guardian
by the hero with the beautiful sentiments. The latter spent most of his time out
at soak in pale-green snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated revolver, rescuing
aged strangers from villains.
    Maggie lost herself in sympathy with the wanderers swooning in snow storms
beneath happy-hued church windows, while a choir within sang Joy to the World.
To Maggie and the rest of the audience this was transcendental realism. Joy
always within, and they, like the actor, inevitably without. Viewing it, they
hugged themselves in ecstatic pity of their imagined or real condition.
    The girl thought the arrogance and granite-heartedness of the magnate of the
play was very accurately drawn. She echoed the maledictions that the occupants
of the gallery showered on this individual when his lines compelled him to
expose his extreme selfishness.
    Shady persons in the audience revolted from the pictured villainy of the
drama. With untiring zeal they hissed vice and applauded virtue. Unmistakably
bad men evinced an apparently sincere admiration for virtue. The loud gallery
was overwhelmingly with the unfortunate and the oppressed. They encouraged the
struggling hero with cries, and jeered the villain, hooting and calling
attention to his whiskers. When anybody died in the pale-green snow storms, the
gallery mourned. They sought out the painted misery and hugged it as akin.
    In the hero's erratic march from poverty in the first act, to wealth and
triumph in the final one, in which he forgives all the enemies that he has left,
he was assisted by the gallery, which applauded his generous and noble
sentiments and confounded the speeches of his opponents by making irrelevant but
very sharp remarks. Those actors who were cursed with the parts of villains were
confronted at every turn by the gallery. If one of them rendered lines
containing the most subtle distinctions between right and wrong, the gallery
was immediately aware that the actor meant wickedness, and denounced him
accordingly.
    The last act was a triumph for the hero, poor and of the masses, the
representative of the audience, over the villain and the rich man, his pockets
stuffed with bonds, his heart packed with tyrannical purposes, imperturbable
amid suffering.
    Maggie always departed with raised spirits from these melodramas. She
rejoiced at the way in which the poor and virtuous eventually overcame the
wealthy and wicked. The theatre made her think. She wondered if the culture and
refinement she had seen imitated, perhaps grotesquely, by the heroine on the
stage, could be acquired by a girl who lived in a tenement house and worked in a
shirt factory.
 

                                   Chapter IX

A group of urchins were intent upon the side door of a saloon. Expectancy
gleamed from their eyes. They were twisting their fingers in excitement.
    »Here she comes,« yelled one of them suddenly.
    The group of urchins burst instantly asunder and its individual fragments
were spread in a wide, respectable half-circle about the point of interest. The
saloon door opened with a crash, and the figure of a woman appeared upon the
threshold. Her grey hair fell in knotted masses about her shoulders. Her face
was crimsoned and wet with perspiration. 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 sell me 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 woman lurched
heavily out on the sidewalk.
    The gamins in the half-circle became violently agitated. They began to dance
about and hoot and yell and jeer. Wide dirty grins spread over each face.
    The woman made a furious dash at a particularly outrageous cluster of little
boys. They laughed delightedly and scampered off a short distance, calling out
over their shoulders to her. She stood tottering on the curb-stone and thundered
at them.
    »Yeh devil's kids,« she howled, shaking her fists. The little boys whooped
in glee. As she started up the street they fell in behind and marched
uproariously. Occasionally she wheeled about and made charges on 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 red 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 off quietly in the way they had come.
    The woman floundered about in the lower hall of the tenement house and
finally stumbled up the stairs. On an upper hall a door was opened and a
collection of heads peered curiously out, watching her. With a wrathful snort
the woman confronted the door, but it was slammed hastily in her face and the
key was turned.
    She stood for a few minutes, delivering a frenzied challenge at the panels.
    »Come out in d' hall, Mary Murphy, damn yeh, if yehs want a scrap. Come ahn,
yeh overgrown terrier, come ahn.«
    She began to kick the door. She shrilly defied the universe to appear and do
battle. Her cursing trebles brought heads from all doors save the one she
threatened. Her eyes glared in every direction. The air was full of her tossing
fists.
    »Come ahn, d' hull damn gang of yehs, come ahn,« she roared at the
spectators. An oath or two, cat-calls, jeers and bits of facetious advice were
given in reply. Missiles clattered about her feet.
    »What d' hell's d' matter wid yeh?« said a voice in the gathered gloom, and
Jimmie came forward. He carried a tin dinner-pail in his hand and under his arm
a truckman's brown apron done in a bundle. »What d' hell's wrong?« he demanded.
    »Come out, all of yehs, come out,« his mother was howling. »Come ahn an'
I'll stamp yer damn brains under me feet.«
    »Shet yer face, an' come home, yeh damned old fool,« roared Jimmie at her.
She strided up to him and twirled her fingers in his face. Her eyes were darting
flames of unreasoning rage and her frame trembled with eagerness for a fight.
    »T' hell wid yehs! An' who d' hell are yehs? I ain't givin' a snap of me
fingers fer yehs,« she bawled at him. She turned her huge back in tremendous
disdain and climbed the stairs to the next floor.
    Jimmie followed, cursing blackly. At the top of the flight he seized his
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,« he
gritted again. He threw out his left hand and writhed his fingers about her
middle arm. The mother and the son began to sway and struggle like gladiators.
    »Whoop!« said the Rum Alley tenement house. The hall filled with interested
spectators.
    »Hi, ol' lady, dat was a dandy!«
    »T'ree t' one on d' red!«
    »Ah, quit yer damn scrappin'!«
    The door of the Johnson home opened and Maggie looked out. Jimmie made a
supreme cursing effort and hurled his mother into the room. He quickly followed
and closed the door. The Rum Alley tenement swore disappointedly and retired.
    The mother slowly gathered herself up from the floor. Her eyes glittered
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 ran into the
other room. To her there came the sound of a storm of crashes and curses. There
was a great final thump and Jimmie's voice cried: »Dere, damn yeh, stay still.«
Maggie opened the door now, and went warily out. »Oh, Jimmie!«
    He was leaning against the wall and swearing. Blood stood upon bruises on
his knotty fore-arms where they had scraped against the floor or the walls in
the scuffle. The mother lay screeching on the floor, the tears running down her
furrowed face.
    Maggie, standing in the middle of the room, gazed about her. The usual
upheaval of the tables and chairs had taken place. Crockery was strewn broadcast
in fragments. The stove had been disturbed on its legs, and now leaned
idiotically to one side. A pail had been upset and water spread 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 d' 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.
    »T' hell wid him and you,« she said, glowering at her daughter in the gloom.
Her eyes seemed to burn balefully. »Yeh've gone t' d' devil, Mag Johnson, yehs
knows yehs have gone t' d' devil. Yer a disgrace t' yer people, damn yeh. An'
now, git out an' go ahn wid dat doe-faced jude of yours. Go t' hell wid him,
damn yeh, an' a good riddance. Go t' hell an' see how yeh likes it.«
    Maggie gazed long at her mother.
    »Go t' hell now, an' see how yeh likes it. Git out. I won't have sech as
yehs in me house! Git out, d'yeh hear! Damn yeh, git out!«
    The girl began to tremble.
    At this instant Pete came forward. »Oh, what d' hell, Mag, see,« whispered
he softly in her ear. »Dis all blows over. See? D' ol' woman 'ill be all right
in d' mornin'. Come ahn out wid me! We'll have a hell of a time.«
    The woman on the floor cursed. Jimmie was intent upon his bruised fore-arms.
The girl cast a glance about the room filled with a chaotic mass of debris, and
at the writhing body of her mother.
    »Go t' hell an' good riddance.«
    Maggie went.
 

                                   Chapter X

Jimmie had an idea it wasn't't common courtesy for a friend to come to one's home
and ruin one's sister. But he was not sure how much Pete knew about the rules of
politeness.
    The following night he returned home from work at rather a late hour in the
evening. In passing through the halls he came upon the gnarled and leathery old
woman who possessed the music box. She was grinning in the dim light that
drifted through dust-stained panes. She beckoned to him with a smudged
forefinger.
    »Ah, Jimmie, what do yehs t'ink I tumbled to, las' night. It was d' funnies'
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 door las' night when yer sister
and her jude feller came in late, oh, very late. An' she, the dear, she was
a-cryin' as if her heart would break, she was. It was d' funnies' t'ing I ever
saw. An' right out here by me door she asked him did he love her, did he. An'
she was a-cryin' as if her heart would break, poor t'ing. An' him, I could see
by d' way what 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 leathery old
woman and plodded on up stairs.
    »Oh, hell, yes,« she called after him. She laughed a laugh that was like 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 been made at
tidying them. Parts of the wreckage of the day before had been repaired by an
unskillful hand. A chair or two and the table stood uncertainly upon legs. The
floor had been newly swept. The blue ribbons had been restored to the curtains,
and the lambrequin, with its immense sheaves of yellow wheat and red roses of
equal size, had been returned, in a worn and sorry state, to its place 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 blurred glass. It
occurred to him to vaguely wonder, for an instant, if some of the women of his
acquaintance had brothers.
    Suddenly, however, he began to swear.
    »But he was me frien'! I brought 'im here! Dat's d' hell of it!«
    He fumed about the room, his anger gradually rising to the furious pitch.
    »I'll kill d' jay! Dat's what I'll do! I'll kill d' jay!«
    He clutched his hat and sprang toward the door. But it opened and his
mother's great form blocked the passage.
    »What d' hell's d' matter wid yeh?« exclaimed she, coming into the rooms.
    Jimmie gave vent to a sardonic curse and then laughed heavily.
    »Well, Maggie's gone t' d' devil! Dat's what! See?«
    »Eh?« said his mother.
    »Maggie's gone t' d' devil! Are yehs deaf?« roared Jimmie, impatiently.
    »D' hell she has,« murmured the mother, astounded.
    Jimmie grunted, and then began to stare out at the window. His mother sat
down in a chair, but a moment later sprang erect and delivered a maddened whirl
of oaths. Her son turned to look at her as she reeled and swayed in the middle
of the room, her fierce face convulsed with passion, her blotched arms raised
high in imprecation.
    »May Gawd curse her forever,« she shrieked. »May she eat nothing' but stones
and d' dirt in d' street. May she sleep in d' gutter an' never see d' sun shine
again. D' damn --«
    »Here, now,« said her son. »Take a drop on yerself, an' quit dat.«
    The mother raised lamenting eyes to the ceiling.
    »She's d' devil's own chil', Jimmie,« she whispered. »Ah, who would t'ink
such a bad girl could grow up in our fambly, Jimmie, me son. Many d' hour I've
spent in talk wid dat girl an' tol' her if she ever went on d' streets I'd see
her damned. An' after all her bringin' up an' what I tol' her and talked wid
her, she goes t' d' bad, like a duck t' water.«
    The tears rolled down her furrowed face. Her hands trembled.
    »An' den when dat Sadie MacMallister next door to us was sent t' d' devil by
dat feller what worked in d' soap-factory, didn't I tell our Mag dat if she --«
    »Ah, dat's anudder story,« interrupted the brother. »Of course, dat Sadie
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 unconsciously held,
that all sisters, excepting his own, could advisedly be ruined.
    He suddenly broke out again. »I'll go t'ump hell out a d' mug what done her
d' harm. I'll kill 'im! He t'inks he kin scrap, but when he gits me a-chasin'
'im he'll fin' out where he's wrong, d' damned duffer. I'll wipe up d' street
wid 'im.«
    In a fury he plunged out of the doorway. As he vanished the mother raised
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 talking
volubly. When he strode by they paid no attention to him.
    »She allus was a bold thing,« he heard one of them cry in an eager voice.
»Dere wasn't't a feller come t' d' house but she'd try t' mash 'im. My Annie says
d' shameless t'ing tried t' ketch her feller, her own feller, what we useter
know his fader.«
    »I could a' tol' yehs dis two years ago,« said a woman, in a key of triumph.
»Yessir, it was over two years ago dat I says t' my ol' man, I says, Dat Johnson
girl ain't straight, I says. Oh, hell, he says. Oh, hell. Dat's all right, I
says, but I know what I knows, I says, an' it 'ill come out later. You wait an'
see, I says, you see.«
    »Anybody what had eyes could see dat dere was something' wrong wid dat girl.
I didn't like her actions.«
    On the street Jimmie met a friend. »What d' hell?« asked the latter.
    Jimmie explained. »An' I'll t'ump 'im till he can't stand.«
    »Oh, what d' hell,« said the friend. »What's d' use! Yeh'll git pulled in!
Everybody 'ill be onto it! An' ten plunks! Gee!«
    Jimmie was determined. »He t'inks he kin scrap, but he'll fin' out
diff'ent.«
    »Gee!« remonstrated the friend. »What d' hell?«
 

                                   Chapter XI

On a corner a glass-fronted building shed a yellow glare upon the pavements. The
open mouth of a saloon called seductively to passengers to enter and annihilate
sorrow or create rage.
    The interior of the place was papered in olive and bronze tints of imitation
leather. A shining bar of counterfeit massiveness extended down the side of the
room. Behind it a great mahogany-imitation sideboard reached the ceiling. Upon
its shelves rested pyramids of shimmering glasses that were never disturbed.
Mirrors set in the face of the sideboard multiplied them. Lemons, oranges and
paper napkins, arranged with mathematical precision, sat among the glasses.
Many-hued decanters of liquor perched at regular intervals on the lower shelves.
A nickel-plated cash register occupied a place in the exact centre of the
general effect. The elementary senses of it all seemed to be opulence and
geometrical accuracy.
    Across from the bar a smaller counter held a collection of plates upon which
swarmed frayed fragments of crackers, slices of boiled ham, dishevelled bits of
cheese, and pickles swimming in vinegar. An odour of grasping, begrimed hands and
munching mouths pervaded all.
    Pete, in a white jacket, was behind the bar bending expectantly toward a
quiet stranger. »A beeh,« said the man. Pete drew a foam-topped glassful and set
it dripping upon the bar.
    At this moment the light bamboo doors at the entrance swung open and crashed
against the wall. Jimmie and a companion entered. They swaggered unsteadily but
belligerently toward the bar and looked at Pete 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 head
sideways as he assiduously polished away with a napkin at the gleaming wood. He
wore a look of watchfulness.
    Jimmie and his companion kept their eyes upon the bartender and conversed
loudly in tones of contempt.
    »He's a dindy masher, ain't he, by Gawd?« laughed Jimmie.
    »Oh, hell, yes,« said the companion, sneering. »He's great, he is. Git onto
d' mug on d' blokie. Dat's enough to make a feller turn hand-springs in 'is
sleep.«
    The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle further away and
maintained an attitude of obliviousness.
    »Gee! ain't he hot stuff!«
    »Git onto his shape! Great Gawd!«
    »Hey,« cried Jimmie, in tones of command. Pete came along slowly, with a
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 laughed in his
face. Jimmie's companion, evidently overcome with merriment, pointed a grimy
forefinger in Pete's direction.
    »Say, Jimmie,« demanded he, »what d' hell is dat behind d' bar?«
    »Damned if I knows,« replied Jimmie. They laughed loudly. Pete put down a
bottle with a bang and turned a formidable face toward them. He disclosed his
teeth and his shoulders heaved restlessly.
    »You fellows 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 and expressions
of offended dignity immediately came.
    »Who d' hell has said anyt'ing t' 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 no jay.
Drink yer rum an' git out an' don' make no trouble.«
    »Oh, d' hell,« airily cried Jimmie.
    »Oh, d' 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 snarled like a
wild animal.
    »Well, what if we does? See?« said he.
    Hot blood flushed into Pete's face, and he shot a lurid glance at Jimmie.
    »Well, den we'll see who's d' 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 tackles one of
d' bes' men in d' city. See? I'm a scrapper, I am. Ain't dat 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 d' hell is dat talking'?« cried the companion.
    »Damned if I knows,« replied Jimmie with exaggerated contempt.
    Pete made a furious gesture. »Git outa here now, an' don' make no trouble.
See? Youse fellows er looking' fer a scrap an' it's damn likely yeh'll fin' one
if yeh keeps on shootin' off yer mout's. I know yehs! 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 jolted out in d' street before yeh knows where yeh is. When I
comes from behind dis bar, I t'rows yehs bote inteh d' 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 upon the
two men. They stepped promptly forward and crowded close to him.
    They bristled like three roosters. They moved their heads pugnaciously and
kept their shoulders braced. The nervous muscles about each mouth twitched with
a forced smile of mockery.
    »Well, what d' hell yer goin' t' do?« gritted Jimmie.
    Pete stepped warily back, waving his hands before him to keep the men from
coming too near.
    »Well, what d' hell yer goin' t' do?« repeated Jimmie's ally. They kept
close to him, taunting and leering. They strove to make him attempt 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 like frigates
contemplating battle.
    »Well, why d' hell don' yeh try t' t'row us out?« cried Jimmie and his ally
with copious sneers.
    The bravery of bull-dogs sat upon the faces of the men. Their clenched fists
moved like eager weapons.
    The allied two jostled the bartender's elbows, glaring at him with feverish
eyes and forcing him toward the wall.
    Suddenly Pete swore furiously. The flash of action gleamed from his eyes. He
threw back his arm and aimed a tremendous, lightning-like blow at Jimmie's face.
His foot swung a step forward and the weight of his body was behind his fist.
Jimmie ducked his head, Bowery-like, with the quickness of a cat. The fierce,
answering blows of Jimmie and his ally crushed on Pete's bowed head.
    The quiet stranger vanished.
    The arms of the combatants whirled in the air like flails. The faces of the
men, at first flushed to flame-coloured anger, now began to fade to the pallor of
warriors in the blood and heat of a battle. Their lips curled back and stretched
tightly over the gums in ghoul-like grins. Through their white, gripped teeth
struggled hoarse whisperings of oaths. Their eyes glittered with murderous fire.
    Each head was huddled between its owner's shoulders, and arms were swinging
with marvellous rapidity. Feet scraped to and fro with a loud scratching sound
upon the sanded floor. Blows left crimson blotches upon pale skin. The curses of
the first quarter minute of the fight died away. The breaths of the fighters
came wheezingly from their lips and the three chests were straining and heaving.
Pete at intervals gave vent to low, laboured hisses, that sounded like a desire
to kill. Jimmie's ally gibbered at times like a wounded maniac. Jimmie was
silent, fighting with the face of a sacrificial priest. The rage of fear shone
in all their eyes and their blood-coloured fists whirled.
    At a critical moment a blow from Pete's hand struck the ally and he crashed
to the floor. He wriggled instantly to his feet and grasping the 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 in all
directions. Then missiles came to every man's hand. The place had heretofore
appeared free of things to throw, but suddenly glasses and bottles went singing
through the air. They were thrown point-blank at bobbing heads. The pyramid of
shimmering glasses, that had never been disturbed, 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 frenzy for
blood. There followed in the wake of missiles and fists some unknown prayers,
perhaps for death.
    The quiet stranger had sprawled very pyrotechnically out on the sidewalk. A
laugh ran up and down the avenue for the half of a block.
    »Dey've t'rowed a bloke inteh d' street.«
    People heard the sound of breaking glass and shuffling feet within the
saloon and came running. A small group, bending down to look under the bamboo
doors, and watching the fall of glass and three pairs of violent legs, changed
in a moment to a crowd.
    A policeman came charging down the sidewalk and bounced through the doors
into the saloon. The crowd bended and surged in absorbing anxiety to see.
    Jimmie caught first sight of the on-coming interruption. On his feet he had
the same regard for a policeman that, when on his truck, he had for a fire
engine. He howled and ran for the side door.
    The officer made a terrific advance, club in hand. One comprehensive sweep
of the long night stick threw the ally to the floor and forced Pete to a corner.
With his disengaged hand he made a furious effort at Jimmie's coat-tails. Then
he regained his balance and paused.
    »Well, well, you are a pair of pictures. What in hell have 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 excited individuals of the
crowd.
    Later, from a safe dark corner, he saw the policeman, the ally and the
bartender emerge from the saloon. Pete locked the doors and then followed up the
avenue in the rear of the crowd-encompassed policeman and his charge.
    At first Jimmie, with his heart throbbing at battle heat, started to go
desperately to the rescue of his friend, but he halted.
    »Ah, what d' hell?« he demanded of himself.
 

                                  Chapter XII

In a hall of irregular shape sat Pete and Maggie drinking beer. A submissive
orchestra dictated to by a spectacled man with frowzy hair and in soiled evening
dress, industriously followed the bobs of his head and the waves of his baton. A
ballad singer, in a gown of flaming scarlet, sang in the inevitable voice of
brass. When she vanished, men seated at the tables near the front applauded
loudly, pounding the polished wood with their beer glasses. She returned attired
in less gown, and sang again. She received another enthusiastic encore. She
reappeared in still less gown and danced. The deafening rumble of glasses and
clapping of hands that followed her exit indicated an overwhelming desire to
have her come on for the fourth time, but the curiosity of the audience was not
gratified.
    Maggie was pale. From her eyes had been plucked all look of self-reliance.
She leaned with a dependent air toward her companion. She was timid, as if
fearing his anger or displeasure. She seemed to beseech tenderness of him.
    Pete's air of distinguished valor had grown upon him until it threatened to
reach stupendous dimensions. He was infinitely gracious to the girl. It was
apparent to her that his condescension was a marvel.
    He could appear to strut even while sitting still and he showed that he was
a lion of lordly characteristics by the air with which he spat.
    With Maggie gazing at him wonderingly, he took pride in commanding the
waiters who were, however, indifferent or deaf.
    »Hi, you, git a russle on yehs! What d' hell yehs looking' at? Two more
beehs, d'yeh hear?«
    He leaned back and critically regarded the person of a girl with a
straw-coloured wig who upon the stage was flinging her heels about in somewhat
awkward imitation of a well-known danseuse.
    At times Maggie told Pete long confidential tales of her former home life,
dwelling upon the escapades of the other members of the family and the
difficulties she had had to combat in order to obtain a degree of comfort. He
responded in the accents of philanthropy. He pressed her arm with an air of
reassuring proprietorship.
    »Dey was damn jays,« he said, denouncing the mother and brother.
    The sound of the music which, through the efforts of the frowzy-headed
leader, drifted to her ears in the smoke-filled atmosphere, made the girl dream.
She thought of her former Rum Alley environment and turned to regard Pete's
strong protecting fists. She thought of a collar and cuff manufactory and the
eternal moan of the proprietor: »What een hale do you sink I pie fife dolla a
week for? Play? No, py tamn!« She contemplated Pete's man-subduing eyes and
noted that wealth and prosperity was indicated by his clothes. She imagined a
future, rose-tinted, because of its distance from all that she had experienced
before.
    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. She would be disturbed
by no particular apprehensions, so long as Pete adored 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, aware of it,
nodded at her and grinned. He felt proud.
    »Mag, yer a bloomin' good-looker,« he remarked, studying her face through
the haze. The men made Maggie fear, but she blushed at Pete's words as it became
apparent to her that she was the apple of his eye.
    Grey-headed men, wonderfully pathetic in their dissipation, stared at her
through clouds. Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with faces of stone and mouths
of sin, not nearly so pathetic as the grey heads, tried to find the girl's eyes
in the smoke wreaths. Maggie considered she was not what they thought her. She
confined her glances to Pete and 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 some men.
They were painted and their cheeks had lost their roundness. As she passed them
the girl, with a shrinking movement, drew back her skirts.
 

                                  Chapter XIII

Jimmie did not return home for a number of days after the fight with Pete in the
saloon. When he did, he approached with extreme caution.
    He found his mother raving. Maggie had not returned home. The parent
continually wondered how her daughter could come to such a pass. She had never
considered Maggie as a pearl dropped unstained into Rum Alley from Heaven, but
she could not conceive how it was possible for her daughter to fall so low as to
bring disgrace upon her family. She was terrific in denunciation of the girl's
wickedness.
    The fact that the neighbours talked of it, maddened her. When women came in,
and in the course of their conversation casually asked, »Where's Maggie dese
days?« the mother shook her fuzzy head at them and appalled them with curses.
Cunning hints inviting confidence she rebuffed with violence.
    »An' wid all d' bringin' up she had, how could she?« moaningly she asked of
her son. »Wid all d' talking' wid her I did an' d' t'ings I tol' her to remember?
When a girl is bringed up d' way I bringed up Maggie, how kin she go t' d'
devil?«
    Jimmie was transfixed by these questions. He could not conceive how under
the circumstances his mother's daughter and his sister could have been so
wicked.
    His mother took a drink from a bottle that sat on the table. She continued
her lament.
    »She had a bad heart, dat girl did, Jimmie. She was wicked t' d' heart an'
we never knew it.«
    Jimmie nodded, admitting the fact.
    »We lived in d' same house wid her an' I brought her up an' we never knew
how bad she was.«
    Jimmie nodded again.
    »Wid a home like dis an' a mudder like me, she went t' d' bad,« cried the
mother, raising her eyes.
    One day Jimmie came home, sat down in a chair and began to wriggle about
with a new and strange nervousness. At last he spoke shamefacedly.
    »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' - maybe it 'ud be
better if I fetched her home an' --«
    The mother started from her chair and broke forth into a storm of passionate
anger.
    »What! Let 'er come an' sleep under d' same roof wid her mudder again! Oh,
yes, I will, won't I? Sure? Shame on yehs, Jimmie Johnson, fer saying' such a
t'ing t' yer own mudder - t' yer own mudder! Little did I t'ink when yehs was a
babby playin' about me feet dat ye'd grow up t' say sech a t'ing t' yer mudder -
yer own mudder. I never t'aut --«
    Sobs choked her and interrupted her reproaches.
    »Dere ain't nottin' t' raise sech hell about,« said Jimmie. »I on'y says 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 be
echoed and re-echoed by countless other laughs. »Oh, yes, I will, won't I!
Sure!«
    »Well, yeh must take me for a damn fool,« said Jimmie, indignant at his
mother for mocking him. »I didn't say we'd make 'er inteh a little tin angel,
ner nottin', but d' way it is now she can queer us! Don' che see?«
    »Aye, she'll git tired of d' life after a while an' den she'll wanna be
a-comin' home, won' she, d' beast! I'll let 'er in den, won' I?«
    »Well, I didn' mean none of dis prod'gal bus'ness anyway,« explained Jimmie.
    »It wa'n't no prod'gal dauter, yeh damn fool,« said the mother. »It was
prod'gal son, anyhow.«
    »I know dat,« said Jimmie.
    For a time they sat in silence. The mother's eyes gloated on the scene which
her imagination called before her. Her lips were set in a vindictive smile.
    »Aye, she'll cry, won' she, an' carry on, an' tell how Pete, or some odder
feller, beats 'er an' she'll say she's sorry an' all dat an' she ain't happy,
she ain't, and she wants to come home again, she does.«
    With grim humour the mother imitated the possible wailing notes of the
daughter's voice.
    »Den I'll take 'er in, won't I? She kin cry 'er two eyes out on d' stones of
d' street before I'll dirty d' place wid her. She abused an' ill-treated her own
mudder - her own mudder what loved her 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 not
understand 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 had
brothers. Nevertheless, his mind did not for an instant confuse himself with
those brothers nor his sister with theirs. After the mother had, with great
difficulty, suppressed the neighbours, she went among them and proclaimed her
grief. »May Gawd forgive dat girl,« was her continual cry. To attentive ears she
recited the whole length and breadth of her woes.
    »I bringed 'er up d' way a dauter oughta be bringed up, an' dis is how she
served me! She went t' d' devil d' first chance she got! May Gawd forgive her.«
    When arrested for drunkenness she used the story of her daughter's downfall
with telling effect upon the police-justices. Finally one of them said to her,
peering down over his spectacles: »Mary, the records of this and other courts
show that you are the mother of forty-two daughters who have been ruined. The
case is unparalleled in the annals of this court, and this court thinks --«
    The mother went through life shedding large tears of sorrow. Her red face
was a picture of agony.
    Of course Jimmie publicly damned his sister that he might appear on a higher
social plane. But, arguing with himself, stumbling about in ways that he knew
not, he, once, almost came to a conclusion that his sister would have been more
firmly good had she better known why. However, he felt that he could not hold
such a view. He threw it hastily aside.
 

                                  Chapter XIV

In a hilarious hall there were twenty-eight tables and twenty-eight women and a
crowd of smoking men. Valiant noise was made on a stage at the end of the hall
by an orchestra composed of men who looked as if they had just happened in.
Soiled waiters ran to and fro, swooping down like hawks on the unwary in the
throng; clattering along the aisles with trays covered with glasses; stumbling
over women's skirts and charging two prices for everything but beer, all with a
swiftness that blurred the view of the cocoanut palms and dusty monstrosities
painted upon the walls of the room. A bouncer with an immense load of business
upon his hands, plunged about in the crowd, dragging bashful strangers to
prominent chairs, ordering waiters here and there and quarrelling furiously with
men who wanted to sing with the orchestra.
    The usual smoke cloud was present, but so dense that heads and arms seemed
entangled in it. The rumble of conversation was replaced by a roar. Plenteous
oaths heaved through the air. The room rang with the shrill voices of women
bubbling over with drink-laughter. The chief element in the music of the
orchestra was speed. The musicians played in intent fury. A woman was singing
and smiling upon the stage, but no one took notice of her. The rate at which the
piano, cornet and violins were going, seemed to impart wildness to the
half-drunken crowd. Beer glasses were emptied at a gulp and conversation became
a rapid chatter. The smoke eddied and swirled like a shadowy river hurrying
toward some unseen falls. Pete and Maggie entered the hall and took chairs at a
table near the door. The woman who was seated there made an attempt to occupy
Pete's attention and, failing, went away.
    Three weeks had passed since the girl had left home. The air of spaniel-like
dependence had been magnified and showed its direct effect in the peculiar
off-handedness and ease of Pete's ways toward her.
    She followed Pete's eyes with hers, anticipating with smiles gracious looks
from him.
    A woman of brilliance and audacity, accompanied by a mere boy, came into the
place and took seats near them.
    At once Pete sprang to his feet, his face beaming with glad surprise.
    »By Gawd, dere'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 her fingers.
    Maggie took instant note of the woman. She perceived that her black dress
fitted her to perfection. Her linen collar and cuffs were spotless. Tan gloves
were stretched over her well-shaped hands. A hat of a prevailing fashion perched
jauntily upon her dark hair. She wore no jewellery and was painted with no
apparent paint. She looked clear-eyed through the stares of the men.
    »Sit down, and call your lady-friend over,« she said 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. »When did yeh
git back? How did dat Buff'lo bus'ness turn out?«
    The woman shrugged her shoulders. »Well, he didn't have as many stamps as he
tried to make out, so I shook him, that's all.«
    »Well, I'm glad t' see yehs back in d' city,« said Pete, with gallantry.
    He and the woman entered into a long conversation, exchanging reminiscences
of days together. Maggie sat still, unable to formulate an intelligent sentence
as her addition to the conversation and painfully aware of it.
    She saw Pete's eyes sparkle as he gazed upon the handsome stranger. He
listened smilingly to all she said. The woman was familiar with all his affairs,
asked him about mutual friends, and knew the amount of his salary.
    She paid no attention to Maggie, looking toward her once or twice and
apparently seeing the wall beyond.
    The mere boy was sulky. In the beginning he had welcomed the additions with
acclamations.
    »Let's all have a drink! What'll you take, Nell? And you, Miss
What's-your-name. Have a drink, Mr. --, you, I mean.«
    He had shown a sprightly desire to do the talking for the company and tell
all about his family. In a loud voice he declaimed on various topics. He assumed
a patronizing air toward Pete. As Maggie was silent, he paid no attention to
her. He made a great show of lavishing wealth upon the woman of brilliance and
audacity.
    »Do keep still, Freddie! You talk like a clock,« said the woman to 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 and have 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 yer why.«
    The woman waved her hand.
    »Oh, that's all right, you needn't explain, you know. You wouldn't come
merely because you wouldn't come, that's all.«
    To Pete's visible distress she turned to the mere boy, bringing him speedily
out of a terrific rage. He had been debating whether it would be the part of a
man to pick a quarrel with Pete, or would he be justified 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 and inexpressibly tender.
    »Say, shake that Bowery jay,« requested he, in a loud whisper.
    »Freddie, you are so funny,« 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 doing' me
dirt, Nell! I never t'aut ye'd do me dirt, Nell. Come on, will yer?« 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. On d' level,
now.«
    The woman nodded slightly at Maggie and the mere boy, saying, »'Scuse me.«
    The mere boy interrupted his loving smile and turned a shriveling glare upon
Pete. His boyish countenance flushed and he spoke, in a whine, to the woman:
    »Oh, I say, Nellie, this ain't a square deal, you know. You aren't goin' to
leave me and go off with that duffer, are you? I should think --«
    »Why, you dear boy, of course I'm not,« cried the woman, affectionately. She
bended over and whispered in his ear. He smiled again and settled in his chair
as if resolved to wait patiently.
    As the woman walked down between the rows of tables, Pete was at her
shoulder talking earnestly, apparently in explanation. The woman waved her hands
with studied airs of indifference. The doors swung behind them, leaving Maggie
and the mere boy seated at the table.
    Maggie was dazed. She could dimly perceive that something stupendous had
happened. She wondered why Pete saw fit to remonstrate with the woman, pleading
for forgiveness with his eyes. She thought she noted an air of submission about
her leonine Pete. She was astounded.
    The mere boy occupied himself with cock-tails and a cigar. He was tranquilly
silent for half an hour. Then he bestirred himself and spoke.
    »Well,« he said sighing, »I knew this was the way it would be. They got cold
feet.« There was 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've spent over two dollars
in drinks to-night. And she goes off with that plug-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 me a cock-tail and make it damned strong.«
    Maggie made no reply. She was watching the doors. »It's a mean piece of
business,« complained the mere boy. He explained to her how amazing it was that
anybody should treat him in such a manner. »But I'll get square with her, you
bet. She won't get far ahead of yours truly, you know,« 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 of course 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 mere boy
relapsed into a period of gloom, during which he exterminated a number of
cock-tails with a determined air, as if replying defiantly to fate. He
occasionally broke forth into sentences composed of invectives joined together
in a long chain.
    The girl was still staring at the doors. After a time the mere boy began to
see cobwebs just in front of his nose. He spurred himself into being agreeable
and insisted upon her having a charlotte-russe and a glass of beer.
    »They's gone,« he remarked, »they's gone.« He looked at her through the
smoke wreaths. »Shay, lil' girl, we mightish well make bes' of it. You ain't
such bad-looking' girl, y'know. Not half bad. Can't come up to Nell, though. No,
can't do it! Well, I should shay not! Nell fine-looking' girl! F-i-n-ine. You
look damn bad longsider her, but by 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 hav'a struck?« demanded the mere boy of himself,
stupefied.
    In a semi-comatose state he conducted her on board an uptown car,
ostentatiously paid her fare, leered kindly at her through the rear window and
fell off the steps.
 

                                   Chapter XV

A forlorn woman went along a lighted avenue. The street was filled with people
desperately bound on missions. An endless crowd darted at the elevated station
stairs and the horse cars were thronged with owners of bundles.
    The pace of the forlorn woman was slow. She was apparently searching for
some one. She loitered near the doors of saloons and watched men emerge from
them. She furtively scanned the faces in the rushing stream of pedestrians.
Hurrying men, bent on catching some boat or train, jostled her elbows, failing
to notice her, their thoughts fixed on distant dinners.
    The forlorn woman had a peculiar face. Her smile was no smile. But when in
repose her features had a shadowy look that was like a sardonic grin, as if some
one had sketched with cruel forefinger indelible lines about her mouth.
    Jimmie came strolling up the avenue. The woman encountered him with an
aggrieved air.
    »Oh, Jimmie, I've been looking' 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 a man
whose life is pestered.
    The woman followed him along the sidewalk in somewhat the manner of a
suppliant.
    »But, Jimmie,« she said, »yehs told me yeh'd --«
    Jimmie turned upon her fiercely as if resolved to make a last stand for
comfort and peace.
    »Say, fer Gawd's sake, Hattie, don' foller me from one end of d' city t' d'
odder. Let up, will yehs! Give me a minute's res', can't yehs? Yehs makes me
tired, allus taggin' me. See? Ain' yehs got no sense? Do yehs want people t' get
onto me? Go chase yerself, fer Gawd's sake.«
    The woman stepped closer and laid her fingers on his arm. »But, look-a-here
--«
    Jimmie snarled. »Oh, go t' hell.«
    He darted into the front door of a convenient saloon and a moment later came
out into the shadows that surrounded the side door. On the brilliantly lighted
avenue he perceived the forlorn woman dodging about like a scout. Jimmie laughed
with an air of relief and went away.
    When he arrived home he found his mother clamouring. Maggie had returned. She
stood shivering beneath the torrent of her mother's wrath.
    »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 yer sister.
Lookut her! Lookut her!«
    She screamed at Maggie with scoffing laughter.
    The girl stood in the middle of the room. She edged about as if unable to
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, d' beast? Lookut her! Ha, ha! lookut her!«
    She lurched forward and put her red and seamed hands upon her daughter's
face. She bended down and peered keenly up into the eyes of the girl.
    »Oh, she's jes' dessame as she ever was, ain' she? She's her mudder's putty
darlin' yit, ain' she? Lookut her, Jimmie! Come here, fer Gawd's sake, and
lookut her.«
    The loud, tremendous railing of the mother brought the denizens of the Rum
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!«
    »D' hell yeh say?«
    Through the open doors curious eyes stared in at Maggie. Children ventured
into the room and ogled her, as if they formed the front row at a theatre.
Women, without, bended toward each other and whispered, nodding their heads with
airs of profound philosophy.
    A baby, overcome with curiosity concerning this object at which all were
looking, sidled forward and touched her dress, cautiously, as if investigating a
red-hot stove. Its mother's voice rang out like a warning trumpet. She rushed
forward and grabbed her child, casting a terrible look of indignation at the
girl.
    Maggie's mother paced to and fro, addressing the doorful of eyes, expounding
like a glib showman. Her voice rang through the building.
    »Dere she stands,« she cried, wheeling suddenly and pointing with dramatic
finger. »Dere she stands! Lookut her! Ain' she a dindy? An' she was so good as
to come home t' her mudder, she was! Ain' she a 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 curling in
scorn. Radiant virtue sat upon his brow and his repelling hands expressed horror
of contamination.
    Maggie turned and went.
    The crowd at the door fell back precipitately. A baby falling down in front
of the door, wrenched a scream like that of a wounded animal from its mother.
Another woman sprang forward and picked it up, with a chivalrous air, as if
rescuing a human being from an on-coming express train.
    As the girl passed down through the hall, she went before open doors framing
more eyes strangely microscopic, and sending broad beams of inquisitive light
into the darkness of her path. On the second floor she met the gnarled old woman
who possessed the music box.
    »So,« she cried, »'ere yehs are back again, are yehs? An' dey've kicked yehs
out? Well, come in an' stay wid me t'-night. I ain' got no moral standin'.«
    From above came an unceasing babble of tongues, over all of which rang the
mother's derisive laughter.
 

                                  Chapter XVI

Pete did not consider that he had ruined Maggie. If he had thought that her soul
could never smile again, he would have believed the mother and brother, who were
pyrotechnic over the affair, to be responsible for it.
    Besides, in his world, souls did not insist upon being able to smile. »What
d' hell?«
    He felt a trifle entangled. It distressed him. Revelations and scenes might
bring upon him the wrath of the owner of the saloon, who insisted upon
respectability of an advanced type.
    »What d' hell do dey wanna raise such a smoke about it fer?« demanded he of
himself, disgusted with the attitude of the family. He saw no necessity that
people should lose their equilibrium merely because their sister or their
daughter had stayed away from home.
    Searching about in his mind for possible reasons for their conduct, he came
upon the conclusion that Maggie's motives were correct, but that the two others
wished to snare him. He felt pursued.
    The woman whom he had met in the hilarious hall showed a disposition to
ridicule him.
    »A little pale thing with no spirit,« she said. »Did you note the expression
of her eyes? There was something in them about pumpkin pie and virtue. That is a
peculiar way the left corner of her mouth has of twitching, isn't it? Dear,
dear, Pete, what are you coming to?«
    Pete asserted at once that he never was very much interested in the girl.
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 about it?«
    But Pete continued with his explanations. If he was laughed at for his
tastes in women, he felt obliged to say that they were only temporary or
indifferent ones.
    The morning after Maggie had departed from home, Pete stood behind the bar.
He was immaculate in white jacket and apron and his hair was plastered over his
brow with infinite correctness. No customers were in the place. Pete was
twisting his napkined fist slowly in a beer glass, softly whistling to himself
and occasionally holding the object of his attention between his eyes and a few
weak beams of sunlight that found their way over the thick screens and into the
shaded room.
    With lingering thoughts of the woman of brilliance and audacity, the
bartender raised his head and stared through the varying cracks between the
swaying bamboo doors. Suddenly the whistling pucker faded from his lips. He saw
Maggie walking slowly past. He gave a great start, fearing for the
previously-mentioned eminent respectability of the place.
    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, he
perceived Maggie standing, as if undecided, on the corner. She was searching 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 to the atmosphere of
respectability upon which the proprietor insisted.
    Maggie came to him, the anxious look disappearing from her face and a smile
wreathing her lips.
    »Oh, Pete --« she began brightly.
    The bartender made a violent gesture of impatience.
    »Oh, my Gawd,« cried he, vehemently. »What d' hell do yeh wanna hang aroun'
here fer? Do yeh wanna git me inteh trouble?« he demanded with an air of injury.
    Astonishment swept over the girl's features. »Why, Pete! yehs tol' me --«
    Pete's glance expressed profound irritation. His countenance reddened with
the anger of a man whose respectability is being threatened.
    »Say, yehs makes me tired. See? What d' hell do yeh wanna tag aroun' atter
me fer? Yeh'll do me dirt wid d' ol' man an' dey'll be hell t' pay! If he sees a
woman roun' here he'll go crazy an' I'll lose me job! See? Ain' yehs got no
sense? Don' be allus bodderin' me. See? Yer brudder come in here an' raised hell
an' d' 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 apparently
bewildered and could not find speech. Finally she asked in a low voice: »But
where kin I go?«
    The question exasperated Pete beyond the powers of endurance. It was a
direct attempt to give him some responsibility in a matter that did not concern
him. In his indignation he volunteered information.
    »Oh, go t' hell,« cried he. He slammed the door furiously and returned, with
an air of relief, to his respectability.
    Maggie went away.
    She wandered aimlessly for several blocks. She stopped once and asked aloud
a question of herself: »Who?«
    A man who was passing near her shoulder, humorously took the questioning
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 apparent aimlessness,
some men looked at her with calculating eyes. She quickened her step,
frightened. As a protection, she adopted a demeanour of intentness as if going
somewhere.
    After a time she left rattling avenues and passed between rows of houses
with sternness and stolidity stamped upon their features. She hung her head for
she felt their eyes grimly upon her.
    Suddenly she came upon a stout gentleman in a silk hat and a chaste black
coat, whose decorous row of buttons reached from his chin to his knees. The girl
had heard of the Grace of God and she decided to approach this man.
    His beaming, chubby face was a picture of benevolence and kind-heartedness.
His eyes shone good-will.
    But as the girl timidly accosted him, he made a convulsive movement and
saved his respectability by a vigorous side-step. He did not risk it to save a
soul. For how was he to know that there was a soul before him that needed
saving?
 

                                  Chapter XVII

Upon a wet evening, several months after the last chapter, two interminable rows
of cars, pulled by slipping horses, jangled along a prominent side street. A
dozen cabs, with coat-enshrouded drivers, clattered to and fro. Electric lights,
whirring softly, shed a blurred radiance. A flower dealer, his feet tapping
impatiently, his nose and his wares glistening with rain-drops, stood behind an
array of roses and chrysanthemums. Two or three theatres emptied a crowd upon
the storm-swept pavements. Men pulled their hats over their eyebrows and raised
their collars to their ears. Women shrugged impatient shoulders in their warm
cloaks and stopped to arrange their skirts for a walk through the storm. People
who had been constrained to comparative silence for two hours burst into a roar
of conversation, their hearts still kindling from the glowings of the stage.
    The pavements became tossing seas of umbrellas. Men stepped forth to hail
cabs or cars, raising their fingers in varied forms of polite request or
imperative demand. An endless procession wended toward elevated stations. An
atmosphere of pleasure and prosperity seemed to hang over the throng, born,
perhaps, of good clothes and of two hours in a place of forgetfulness.
    In the mingled light and gloom of an adjacent park, a handful of wet
wanderers, in attitudes of chronic dejection, was scattered among the benches.
    A girl of the painted cohorts of the city went along the street. She threw
changing glances at men who passed her, giving smiling invitations to those of
rural or untaught pattern and usually seeming sedately unconscious of the men
with a metropolitan seal upon their faces.
    Crossing glittering avenues, she went into the throng emerging from the
places of forgetfulness. She hurried forward through the crowd as if intent upon
reaching a distant home, bending forward in her handsome cloak, daintily lifting
her skirts and picking for her well-shod feet the dryer spots upon the
pavements.
    The restless doors of saloons, clashing to and fro, disclosed animated rows
of men before bars and hurrying barkeepers.
    A concert hall gave to the street faint sounds of swift, machine-like music,
as if a group of phantom musicians were hastening.
    A tall young man, smoking a cigarette with a sublime air, strolled near the
girl. He had on evening dress, a moustache, a chrysanthemum, and a look of
ennui, all of which he kept carefully under his eye. Seeing the girl walk on as
if such a young man as he was not in existence, he looked back transfixed with
interest. He stared glassily for a moment, but gave a slight convulsive start
when he discerned that she was neither new, Parisian, nor theatrical. He wheeled
about hastily and turned his stare into the air, like a sailor with a
search-light.
    A stout gentleman, with pompous and philanthropic whiskers, went stolidly
by, the broad of his back sneering at the girl.
    A belated man in business clothes, and in haste to catch a car, bounced
against her shoulder. »Hi, there, Mary, I beg your pardon! Brace up, old girl.«
He grasped her arm to steady her, and then was away running down the middle of
the street.
    The girl walked on out of the realm of restaurants and saloons. She passed
more glittering avenues and went into darker blocks than those where the crowd
travelled.
    A young man in light overcoat and derby hat received a glance shot keenly
from the eyes of the girl. He stopped and looked at her, thrusting his hands in
his pockets and making a mocking smile curl his lips. »Come, now, old lady,« he
said, »you don't mean to tell me that you sized me up for a farmer?«
    A labouring man marched along with bundles under his arms. To her remarks, he
replied, »It's a fine evenin', ain't it?«
    She smiled squarely into the face of a boy who was hurrying by with his
hands buried in his overcoat pockets, his blond locks bobbing on his youthful
temples, and a cheery smile of unconcern upon his lips. He turned 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' ga no
money, dammit,« he shouted, in a dismal voice. He lurched on up the street
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 tall black
factories shut in the street and only occasional broad beams of light fell
across the pavements from saloons. In front of one of these places, whence came
the sound of a violin vigorously scraped, the patter of feet on boards and the
ring of loud laughter, there stood a man with blotched features.
    Further on in the darkness she met a ragged being with shifting, blood-shot
eyes and grimy hands.
    She went into the blackness of the final block. The shutters of the tall
buildings were closed like grim lips. The structures seemed to have eyes that
looked over them, beyond them, at other things. Afar off the 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 the
river. Some hidden factory sent up a yellow glare, that lit for a moment the
waters lapping oilily against timbers. The varied sounds of life, made joyous by
distance and seeming unapproachableness, came faintly and died away to a
silence.
 

                                 Chapter XVIII

In a partitioned-off section of a saloon sat a man with a half dozen women,
gleefully laughing, hovering about him. The man had arrived at that 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 in hearty
chorus. »You're the kind of a man we like, Pete. You're outa sight! What yeh
goin' to buy this time, dear?«
    »An't'ing yehs wants, damn it,« said the man in an abandonment of good-will.
His countenance shone with the true spirit of benevolence. He was in the proper
mood of missionaries. He would have fraternized with obscure Hottentots. And
above all, he was overwhelmed in tenderness for his friends, who were all
illustrious.
    »An't'ing yehs wants, damn it,« repeated he, waving his hands with
beneficent recklessness. »I'm good f'ler, girls, an' if an'body treats me right
I -- here,« called he through an open door to a waiter, »bring girls 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 serves
intoxicants for the man who takes too much of them. He nodded his head shortly
at the order from each individual, and went.
    »Damn it,« said the man, »w're having' 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 his
assembled friends.
    »Don' try pull man's leg, but have a heluva time! Das right! Das way t' do!
Now, if I sawght yehs tryin' work me fer drinks, wouldn' buy damn t'ing! But yer
right sort, damn it! Yehs know how ter treat a f'ler, an' I stays by yehs 'til
spen' las' cent! Das right! I'm good f'ler an' I knows when an'body treats me
right!«
    Between the times of the arrival and departure of the waiter, the man
discoursed to the women on the tender regard he felt for all living things. He
laid stress upon the purity of his motives in all dealings with men in the world
and spoke of the fervour of his friendship for those who were amiable. Tears
welled slowly from his eyes. His voice quavered when he spoke to his companions.
    Once when the waiter was about to depart with an empty tray, the man drew 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, »take't! Yer damn goo' f'ler an' I wan' yehs
take't!«
    »Come, come, now,« said the waiter, with the sullen air of a man who is
forced 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 the
women.
    »He don' know I'm damn goo' f'ler,« cried he, dismally.
    »Never you mind, Pete, dear,« said the 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 of the
woman's voice. »Das ri', I'm damn goo' f'ler an' w'en anyone trea's me ri', 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 be
convicted of a contemptible action he would die.
    »Shay, Nell, damn it, 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 to her
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 their glasses
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 allus trea'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 not then
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 good fellah!«
    »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 his voice.
    »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 straighten things
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 bills from
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 I got, 'cause I'm stuck on yehs,
Nell, damn 't, I - I'm stuck on yehs, Nell - buy drinksh - damn 't - we're
having' heluva time - w'en anyone trea's me ri' - I - damn 't, Nell - we're
having' heluva - time.«
    Presently he went to sleep with his swollen face fallen forward on his
chest.
    The women drank and laughed, not heeding the slumbering man in the corner.
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 bills and
stuffing them into a deep, irregularly-shaped pocket. A guttural snore 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 little compartment,
obscuring the way out. The smell of oil, stifling in its intensity, pervaded the
air. The wine from an overturned glass dripped softly 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.
    »D' hell she is,« said the woman. She continued her meal. When she finished
her coffee she began to weep.
    »I kin remember when her two feet was no bigger dan' yer t'umb, and she
weared worsted boots,« moaned she.
    »Well, whata dat?« said the man.
    »I kin remember when she weared worsted boots,« she cried.
    The neighbours began to gather in the hall, staring in at the weeping woman
as if watching the contortions of a dying dog. A dozen women entered and
lamented with her. Under their busy hands the rooms took on that appalling
appearance of neatness and order with which death is greeted.
    Suddenly the door opened and a woman in a black gown rushed in with
outstretched arms. »Ah, poor Mary,« she cried, and tenderly embraced the moaning
one.
    »Ah, what ter'ble affliction is dis,« continued she. Her vocabulary was
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 eagerness to
express her sympathy. The mourner sat with bowed head, rocking her body heavily
to and fro, and crying out in a high, strained voice that sounded like a dirge
on some forlorn pipe.
    »I kin remember when she weared worsted boots an' her two feets was no
bigger dan yer t'umb an' she weared worsted boots, Miss Smith,« she cried
raising her streaming eyes.
    »Ah, me poor Mary,« sobbed the woman in black. With low, coddling cries, she
sank on her knees by the mourner's chair, and put her arms about her. The other
women began to groan in different keys.
    »Yer poor misguided chil' is gone now, Mary, an' let us hope it's fer d'
bes'. Yeh'll fergive her now, Mary, won't yehs, dear, all her disobed'ence? All
her t'ankless behaviour to her mudder an' all her badness? She's gone where her
ter'ble sins will be judged.«
    The woman in black raised her face and paused. The inevitable sunlight came
streaming in at the window and shed a ghastly cheerfulness upon the faded hues
of the room. Two or three of the spectators were sniffling, and one was weeping
loudly. The mourner arose and staggered into the other room. In a moment she
emerged with a pair of faded baby shoes held in the hollow of her hand.
    »I kin remember when she used to wear dem,« cried she. The women burst anew
into cries as if they had all been stabbed. The mourner turned to the soiled and
unshaven man.
    »Jimmie, boy, go git yer sister! Go git yer sister an' we'll put d' boots on
her feets!«
    »Dey won't fit her now, yeh damn fool,« said the man.
    »Go git yer sister, Jimmie,« shrieked the woman, confronting him fiercely.
    The man swore sullenly. He went over to a corner and slowly began to put 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'! Her life was a
curse an' her days were black an' yeh'll fergive yer bad girl? She's gone where
her sins will be judged.«
    »She's gone where her sins will be judged,« cried the other women, like a
choir at a funeral.
    »D' Lord gives and d' Lord takes away,« said the woman in black, raising her
eyes to the sunbeams.
    »D' Lord gives and d' Lord takes away,« responded the others.
    »Yeh'll fergive her, Mary!« pleaded the woman in black. The mourner essayed
to speak but her voice gave way. She shook her great shoulders frantically, in
an agony of grief. The tears seemed to scald her face. Finally her voice came
and arose in a scream of pain.
    »Oh, yes, I'll fergive her! I'll fergive her!«
