The ragged edge, by John T. McIntyre—A Project Gutenberg eBook

WEARY horses dragged ponderous trucks homeward; the drivers drooped upon their high seats and thought of cans of beer; a red sun threw shafts of light along the cross-town streets and between the rows of black warehouses.

The porters had all gone for the night from Mason & Sons, and young Mason stood upon the office step, about to lock the door, when Kerrigan jumped from a passing car and hailed him.

“I just happened to notice you as I was going by,” Kerrigan said; “and that reminded me that I wanted to speak to you.”

“I drew up a will the other day in which you were[4] named as executor,” said Kerrigan, mounting a stool at the bookkeeper’s desk.

“It’s old Miss Cassidy who kept house for your father, years ago. She said that she had not spoken to you about the matter, but that she felt sure that you would consent to act.”

“No queerer than the will she had me make for her. Quite a tidy sum of money, too.”

“She was very saving; and then father thought well of her and advised her about small investments which were successful. But what induced her to make a will? Is she ill?”

“She says she is getting old, and thought that the matter should be settled. By the way, Mason, there are rumours going about the City Hall that must interest a reformer like you,” and Kerrigan smiled at his friend. “The Motor Traction Company is endeavouring to secure possession of Center and Line streets.”

“Not while there’s a chance to steal them; and from[5] what I’ve heard during the last few days that has been their object since the time the injunction was granted against the rival concern.”

The young attorney planted his back against the desk and braced himself with his elbows. “Let me give you a sketch of the thing,” said he. “The City Railway Company was duly chartered, secured the franchise from councils for these two streets and spent thousands of good dollars in putting down road-bed, rails and all that sort of thing. At this stage the Motor Company suddenly discovered that Center and Line streets were arteries that would tap the thickly populated sections, and that the new company would reduce their earnings.

“Under cover of a protest from citizens living along the line of the new road, an injunction was gotten out staying all work; the matter was carried into the courts, where it has been hanging fire ever since.”

“But,” put in Mason, “a decision was rendered in favour of the City Company less than a week ago.”

“I know that; and in that decision the new move of the Motor people had its birth. The long delay, the[6] cost of fighting the case and all that, pretty well drained the resources of the City people, who were none too rich to begin with. And a time limit was put upon the building of the line at the time the franchise was granted. The time specified will shortly expire and the road is but half built. The Motor Company intends to put unlimited money into the next local election in order to elect a majority in both branches of councils favourable to revoking the franchise on the ground of failure to live up to their contract.”

“Why, this is infamous!” exclaimed Mason. “How could the road be built in the time specified when the courts prevented their working upon it?”

Kerrigan shrugged his shoulders. “The Motor Company want that franchise and it is not at all particular about how it is gotten.”

“I understand,” said Mason, as he sprang the catch of the office door, “when the new company was organized that the stock was mostly taken up in small[7] lots by small store-keepers and people with accounts in saving banks.”

“That’s true,” answered Kerrigan; “and that’s what makes the company easy game.”

A heavy team swung up to the curb and a square-jawed young fellow climbed down from his seat. A battered, drink-sodden man tremulously clutched him by the arm and began mumbling incoherently. The teamster slipped him a nickel and gave him a helpful shove down the street; then he approached and said to Mason:

“There’s a lot o’ stuff up at Shed B for youse people. Shannon wants t’ know when ye want it hauled.”

“Ah, yes,” replied Mason. “We received the notice late this afternoon. Tell Shannon to have it here the first thing in the morning.”

[8]“Who’s your friend?” questioned Kerrigan, nodding toward the receding form of the tramp.

“Oh, just a guy what braced me for a nickel so’s he could hang up his hat on the inside of a wall. He said it’s been so long since he covered his stilts wit’ a sheet that he forgets what it feels like.”

“I told him that I was workin’ this side o’ the street meself. Say, it’s a big t’ing when a guy kin dig down in his pants an’ produce a roll that would stop a window; but the minute I run up against a bundle o’ rags me vest buttons is in danger. Say, Johnnie, was youse ever strapped?”

“I guess every geezer along the line has done the stunt at some stage o’ the game. Why, I’ve been so tight on the hooks that I couldn’t tell the difference between a coon blowin’ a cake walk an’ a gutter band handin’ out the ‘Dead March in Saul’; an’ if Queen Anne cottages was sellin’ for a quarter a bunch I couldn’t buy in a cellar window. I tell youse what it is, Kerrigan, when a guy’s room rent’s six weeks on the wrong side o’ the ledger an’ his meal ticket wont[9] stan’ for another hole in it, it’s time for him to start somethin’ doin’, an’ try an’ git his eyes on a graft what’s got ‘In God we trust’ chalked on its back. Ain’t that right?”

“A man entirely without money,” said Mason, “is certainly an object for sympathy.”

“I’d like to deal in that,” said he. “If I could sell it at two bits a crate I’d make money till youse couldn’t rest. The lobsters what runs the beanery’s got sympathy to give away; but youse couldn’t coax a beef stew out o’ the kitchen if ye had a smile like Maude Adams. And the gent that runs the hock shop keeps it in stock too, but the same guy wouldn’t lend youse a half a plunk on a pair o’ bags wit’ a hole in ’em if ye was spittin’ blood.

“Sympathy,” continued the square-jawed young man, “is the cheapest graft that ever looked over the hill; it’s got every other con game skinned to death and a guy in a tight pull takes chances o’ breakin’ his neck over it every time he opens his mouth. But, say, on the level, when a man’s single, an’ on’y got one end to watch he kin pipe up a breeze if he ain’t[10] dead leary on action; but when he’s got a full hand o’ kids like me friend Chip Nolan, an’ has to keep leather on their tootseys an’ their first teeth busy three times a day, he’s got to keep his t’ink-tank stirrin’ to beat the band, or he’ll look like a last year’s poster on a broken-down fence.”

“Don’t t’ink from this song an’ dance,” said he, “that I’ve ever stood in line wit’ a yellow ticket an’ a tin can. But, say, as Chip Nolan ’ed say: ‘Yer on the turf, mate, but youse ain’t under it yet.’ See? Git ’ep, Pete!”

IT was Sunday morning. The iron heart of the bell that hung in the tower of St. Michael’s beat against its brazen ribs, and the clangour went rioting over the housetops. Streams of people, dressed in their Sunday best, picked their way across the railroad toward the sound; heavy faces peered through bedroom windows and sleep-dry lips murmured curses at the noise; a shifting engine panted heavily as it dragged a milk train over the rails, and spat cinders into the face of day.

In the kitchen of a squat, shabby building fronting on the railroad, a lean, yellow-faced old woman sat beside the range, nursing her knees and drawing at[12] a black clay pipe. Another, almost her counterpart, was sweeping the floor with the worn stump of a broom.

“God be good till uz, Ellen!” suddenly exclaimed the first. “What are yez about?”

“Sure ye wur as near as a hair till swapin’ the bit av dust out av the dure!”

Ellen scraped up the sweepings. “There do be bad luck enough about the place,” she continued, as she slid the dust into the fire and watched it burn, the flame lighting up her old, faded face, her dirty white cap, her bony, large-veined hands. “Malachi tells me that the biz’ness do be poorly.”

“Little wonder,” declared Bridget, knocking the ashes from her pipe and laying it carefully on the top of a tin at the back of the stove. “I know’d what ’ud come av havin’ the son av a Know-nothin’ glosterin’ about the place! Sure the curse av God is on the loike!”

“True for yez,” assented her sister. “Owld Larkin[13] wur the spit av the owld felly himself; he wur a Derry man an’ as black a Presbyterian as iver cried ‘To h—l wid the Pope!’”

Ellen took up the hot pipe and charged it from the tin, shaking her head ominously.

“Ah, the Orange thafe!” piped the other. “Well do I raymember him, years ago, at the riots at the Nanny-Goat Market, that stood beyant there where the railroad is. Sure it wur him that put the divil in their heads till burn down St. Michael’s; an’ wid me own two eyes I see him shoutin’ an’ laffin’ as the cross tumbled intill the street!”

“An’ they say,” whispered she, awed, “that he barked loike a dog iver after!”

“Sorra the lie’s in it, avic. Owld Mrs. Flannagan, that lived nixt dure till him, towld me, wid her own two lips, that it wur so. Bud he always said it wur asthma he wur after havin’.”

“Oh, the robber! It wur himself that cud twist t’ings till serve his turn. More like it wur the divil in him, cryin’ till be let out.”

[14]“An’ d’yez raymember at the toime av the riots, Ellen, whin he stood be the fince, overight our back yard, wid Foley’s musket, waitin’ for any av uz till pop out our heads?”

Ellen, through some mischance, had swallowed some of the rank pipe smoke, and she gasped and strangled, with waving hands and protruding eyes.

“Well do I, asthore,” she panted between her fits of coughing. “Oh, the Crom’ell!”

“Bridget,” cried a voice from the storeroom in front, “have ye not me bit av breakfast ready? It’s late for Mass I’ll be iv yez don’t stir yezself, woman.”

Malachi O’Hara stood in his shop among his stock in trade. About him were heaped the rakings of low auction rooms and pawnbrokers’ sales; stacks of half-worn clothing lay upon the counter; the shelves were loaded with crockery, oil lamps, plaster of paris images, table cutlery, clocks, fly-specked pictures and a heterogeneous mass of battered, greasy and utterly useless articles for which it would be impossible to find names. In the window hung a banjo with two broken strings; a family Bible, its pages held open by a set of steel “knuckle dusters” lay just below,[15] and it was garnished on all sides with old-fashioned silver watches, seal rings, black jacks and so on down the list of articles that clutter such establishments.

O’Hara, a pot-bellied man, bald, broad-faced and with hard little eyes, walked back to the kitchen.

“We wur talkin’ av owld Jimmie Larkin,” said Bridget putting the crockery upon the table. “Look till the sup av coffee, Ellen,” she whispered, hurriedly, “d’ye not see that it’s b’ilin’ over!”

“An’ it’s only startin’ yez are!” he cried. “D’ye si’ here like a pair av owld cacklin’ hens, an’ the bell just rung for Mass!”

The bell had just ceased and people were still hurrying on; the red sun peeped at them from behind the church tower; the hands of the big clock reproachfully pointed out the fact that they were late. Bridget glanced through the side window.

“There goes Clancy’s wife in her new silk,” said she. “It’s proud enough she’s gettin’ till be, since her husband opened the grocery.”

“May the divil fly away wid Clancy’s wife an’ her silks as well! Faix an’ there do be other things that[16] Clancy could do wid his money!” O’Hara was in a stormy mood.

“Sit down till yez bit av breakfast,” soothed Ellen. “Clancy do be doin’ well an’ will pay the money he borried av ye, Malachi. It’s drink yez coffee black yez’ll have till,” she added, “for young McGonagle have not come wid the milk yet.”

“McGonagle is it!” exclaimed he. “Faith an’ there’s another wan. The toime is drawin’ on, so it is, but divil the dollar richer is he. It’s wait for me bit av money he’ll be wantin’ me till, but scure till the day will I. I’ll sell him out, the spalpeen! He do not trate me wid rayspect.”

“Spake av the divil!” remarked Ellen. She took a pitcher from the table and opened the door. “A pint,” she said.

[17]“We’ve heerd nothin’,” returned Ellen, “barrin’ that Hogan as he passed on his bate this mornin’, towld uz that his b’y Tom wur near kilt las’ noight at yez bla’gard club.”

“Not yet; but he’ll die before the day’s over.” And with this the milkman threw himself and can into the wagon at the curb, and rolled down the street. Ellen closed the door and put the pitcher upon the table.

“Small wonder,” put in the sister; “sure he’s been poorly this long time.”

“The owld man made a tidy bit av money in his day,” said the brother, admiringly. “Bud,” with a sigh, “it’s lavin’ it all he’ll be.”

“An’ tell me, Malachi,” said Bridget, “d’yez think the gran’son’ll git any av it?”

“Divil a cint,” answered he, positively. “Sure, the[18] owld man have niver noticed him since the day he wur born. An’ small blame till him,” rapping upon the table with his spoon, “for what call had his son till take up wid a Jewess?”

“But,” reasoned Ellen, “now that he do be dyin’ he might call him in an’—”

“Sorra the fear av that! Faix an’ whin Mike lay dead at O’Connor’s, the undertaker, he wint naythur nixt nor near him. Some say Kelly wur the cause av that, but owld Larry had timper enough av his own, God knows.”

“Ayther that or till Mary Carroll. Kelly t’inks there do be a chance for his boy, Martin; but Martin’s a hard drinker an’ the owld man niver liked a bone in his body.”

The gong over the store door rattled sharply. A plump little woman with a rosy, chubby face had entered; she wore a bright scarlet shawl shot with green and saffron, and upon her head was perched a tiny black bonnet with blue strings.

“Good mornin’ all,” greeted this lady with a sweeping[19] flourish of a big brass-clasped prayer book. “An’ Bridget, acushla, have ye heard about poor owld Larry Murphy?”

“God luk down on uz, I have,” answered Bridget, wagging her head from side to side. “Ah bud death’s a sad t’ing, Mrs. McGonagle.”

“True for ye, asthore, true for ye!” And Mrs. McGonagle wagged her head also. “But,” she continued, “what will become av the houses in the alley, an’ the power av money they say he have in bank?”

“We wur this minit spakin’ av that same,” said Ellen; “an’ Malachi t’inks the gran’son’ll git sorra the cint av it.”

Mrs. McGonagle caught her breath and stared at O’Hara in horror. “Till t’ink,” she added, in an awed tone, “av him holdin’ the grudge an’ him a-dyin’.”

“Young Larry is a study, sober, hard workin’ boy!” exclaimed Mrs. McGonagle, “an’ its a sin an’ a shame[20] for him till be treated so. He have lodged in me third story for a long time, now, an’ I have the first time till see him wid a sup av drink in him; an’ I’d say that iv it wur me last breath, so I wud!”

The gong rattled; the door slammed; and a girl, flushed and breathless, darted through the store and into the kitchen.

“Aunt Ellen,” cried she, “give me the candles we had from last Candlemas Day; an’ I want the ivory crucifix, too, for they’ve sent for Father Dawson.”

Ellen began a hurried rummaging for the articles named; the girl caught sight of Mrs. McGonagle and grasped her by the arm.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “is it you, Mrs. McGonagle? I’m glad you’re here; I was just a-goin’ to run around to your house.”

“Here!” cried Ellen pushing a parcel into the girl’s hand. “Here’s what yez want; away wid ye, now, an’ don’t be stan’in’.”

“You’ll hurry home, won’t you, Mrs. McGonagle,” the girl was now at the door, her hand on the latch,[21] “an’ tell Larry Murphy his gran’father wants to see him before he dies.”

And with that the side door closed behind her and she went by the window like a flash.

“Be the powers av Moll Kelly!” exclaimed O’Hara, his broad face blank with wonder, “but that bates the Owld Nick.”

He stood staring at his sisters, who had their withered hands in the air in gestures of amazement. Mrs. McGonagle’s face shone with glee and she cackled rapturously.

“Why, not very often,” admitted Mrs. McGonagle, reluctantly. “He an’ Jimmie Larkin slapes till a’most dinner toime ivery Sunday. But Larry’s a daysint b’y for all that. Good day till yez.” And with that the good little woman bolted into the street and went sailing toward McGarragles’ Alley, her bright shawl fluttering in the breeze.

The two old crones clawed mystic signs in the air[22] over the spot where their visitor had lately stood and began muttering in Gaelic. O’Hara was brushing his Sunday high hat with the sleeve of his coat and paused as he caught the words.

O’Hara regarded them fixedly for a moment; then with a snort he put on his hat, took his black-thorn stick from behind the door, and started off for church.

LARRY MURPHY awoke and sat up in bed; the sun was streaming in through the one small window of Mrs. McGonagle’s third story room, and the peal of the bell sounded solemnly in his ears. Through the window could be seen the church tower, pointing like a gigantic finger heavenward; the hands of the clock were slowly lifting as though to screen its face from the glare of the sun. Larry stretched himself lazily.

A second young man lay upon a cot opposite, propped up with a pillow and reading a pink sporting paper. He glanced up.

[24]“That’s the one,” remarked he, “that the property holders come together at, ain’t it? Ye kin see every plug hat in the parish on Second Street at half past ten on Sunday morning; but I’ll bet five cases to one that the collection ain’t no heavier than it is at the one what the dump-cart drivers goes to.”

Young Murphy grinned. “Ye’d better not say too much about that when yer on the street,” advised he. “Some o’ the Turks around here’s dead sore on youse since youse led the march at the ‘Sons o’ Derry’s Ball,’ an’ they’ll cop youse a sly one when yer not next.”

“Don’t lose any sleep over that,” said the other. “Somebody’ll get hurt if they run up against me, and that’s no dream. I don’t have to ask no gang o’ Mocaraws if I kin go to a ball; ain’t that right?”

“Anything new?” he inquired, looking at the paper which his friend had thrown upon the bare floor.

“Nothin’ much, ’cept that Jack Slattery got the life lammed out o’ him in his twenty round job with McCook’s ‘Pidgeon.’ There’s a good t’ing gone wrong! I know the time when Slattery went right down the[25] line and give ’em all a go; but drink got the best o’ him, and now he’s willin’ to take dimes for a hard job agin a big man, where he used to stan’ pat for dollars to put out a dub.”

“Rum’s a tough game to go up against,” commented Larry. “Say,” after a pause, “how’s yer trip South comin’ up?”

“Big. Me manager’s got me go’s at New Orleans, Galveston an’ half a dozen other burgs; an’ if I holds up me end, he’ll stack me against the champion fer as many plunks as youse kin hold in yer hat. That’ll be a great graft; eh, Larry? I’ll be a main squeeze meself then, and sportin’ guys’ll come out from under their hats as soon as they gits their eyes on me!” And Jimmie Larkin twisted himself around on his elbow and waved one thick, hairy arm delightedly.

“But, talkin’ about fight,” resumed he, “puts me in mind o’ the mix up at the club last night. Mart Kelly didn’t do a t’ing but open up Hogan wit’ a jack.”

Murphy sneered. “Kelly’s gittin’ to be a reg’lar slugger,” said he. “What was the matter?”

“Oh, he was a-shootin’ off his mouth like he always[26] does. He said his old man was the best councilman the ward ever had; Hogan was about half drunk, and he said he was a stiff, and had trun down the party. Then they clinched and Kelly started to hammer him.”

All was now quiet in the street except for the rattle of an occasional wagon, and the faint wheeze of a broken accordion being played down the alley. A barb of yellow sunlight shot through the window and fell upon a bright lithograph of the Virgin which was tacked upon the wall near Larry’s bed. He had bought this years before and he had always kept it because he thought it looked like his dead mother. Across the room was a large photograph of Larkin in ring costume, as he had appeared just previous to his desperate battle with the champion of the sixth ward; and under this again was pasted a policy slip with three numbers underscored, commemorative of the day that same gentleman had struck the “Hard Luck Row,” at Levitsky’s policy shop, and gotten his name down upon the books of the tenth police district as a “drunk and disorderly.”

“I wonder,” said Larry, his eyes dwelling soberly[27] upon the Jewish face of the Virgin, “how the old one is?”

“I saw Rosie O’Hara stan’in’ in the door last night,” returned Jimmie, “an’ she said that he was as good as gone.”

“I’m sorry,” said Larry. Then catching the look which Larkin threw him, he added: “He never done nothin’ to me, sure; but when I was a kid an’ me father was a-livin’, he told me never to knock.”

The plaster ceiling was seamed with cracks, discolored by the soaking through of rain. Larkin, lying on his back, thoughtfully followed the longest of these with his eye; and when he had reached its termination, he said:

“If youse was in with yer gran’dad just now, Larry, ye’d come in for some o’ the gilt.”

“I don’t want his coin; I wouldn’t make a play for it if I was flat on me uppers! I said that I was sorry for the old man, not that I would scoop his money after he was planted!”

Mrs. McGonagle’s son, Goose, was seated upon an empty cracker box in front of Clancy’s grocery; his wagon was drawn up at the curb, and a small Italian was shining his russet leather shoes. His mother came up, panting and wheezing from her haste.

“Faith yez shine kin wait, an’ somethin’ ilce can’t.” Mrs. McGonagle dropped upon a salt-fish barrel, regardless, in her excitement, of what effect the brine would have upon her church-going skirt. “Run” she continued, “an’ tell Larry Murphy that his poor owld gran’father’s at death’s door an’ wants till spake till him.”

“Don’t sit there starin’ at me, all as wan as a County Down peat cutter, but go at wanst! Divil another step cud I stir iv the gates av Heaven wur stan’in’ open till me!”

[29]Within a minute after hearing the above tidings McGonagle came charging up the crooked steps leading to their lodger’s room, like a drove of mavericks.

“Is it about Kelly an’ Hogan?” asked Larry. “I ain’t no witness. I didn’t see the scrap.”

“No, it’s yer gran’father; he’s a cashin’ in, an’ wants to see youse. Me mother jist told me.”

Larry was out on the floor like a shot, pulling on his clothes and talking incoherently.

“I kin hear the song they’ll sing,” said he. “They’ll pull me into rags; ain’t that right, Larkin? Where’s me collar buttons?”

“Look in yer other shirt,” Jimmie was also up, and dressing rapidly. Murphy found the missing articles and resumed:

“They’ll say I wus on’y waitin’ fer a chance to get next to the gilt.” The thought seemed to anger him and he glared at his friends. “But it ain’t so,” he cried, “so help me God, it ain’t! I don’t want the coin; I’ve got a job, ain’t I? And I’ve went up against it this far, alone, an’ I kin go the rest o’ the distance,[30] too.” He turned to the others, an appeal in his voice. “Did I ever make a play? Speak out, did I?”

“Yer raw there, Murphy,” said Larkin. “If youse hadn’t been afeared o’ what people’d say the old man’d shook yer hand long ago.”

Larry drew in the slack of his suspenders and closed the catch with a snap. He looked at Larkin in surprise; this was a thought that had never struck him.

“I cert’ny do. I often seen youse brush elbows with him on the street, and him turn and look after ye. He’d a-spoke to ye if youse had give him on’y half a chance, see?”

“Didn’t he have a chance when I was a kid? Didn’t he have a chance when me father died and the neighbours in the alley had to take up a collection to bury him? Did he do anyt’ing for me then? Not on yer life, he didn’t! He let ’em put me in a Home.”

“But, say, that wuz a dead long time ago, ain’t that right? If youse put a stick o’ wood in the stove it’ll burn hard at first, won’t it—but it’ll burn out at last, eh? The old one was leary on yer father then; but,[31] say, take it from me, the blaze went down long ago, and it’s bin a kid game ever since; neither one o’ youse’d speak first.”

Larry buttoned up his square-cut sack coat and looked at his tie in the little glass near the stairway.

“That might be all right,” said he; “but look at the time he—” here he stopped short and then added: “I don’t want to knock. I promised that I wouldn’t and it’s too late to begin now.”

A RED-FACED, bare-armed woman opened a door in Murphy’s court and threw a pan of garbage into the gutter. Her next door neighbour was walking up and down the narrow strip of sidewalk, hushing the cry of a weazened baby.

“Sorry the bit, Mrs. Nolan; he’s as cross as two sticks. It’s walk up an’ down the floor wid him I’ve been doin’ all the God’s blessed night. Scure till the wink av slape I’ve had since I opened me two eyes at half after foive yisterday mornin’.”

“Poor sowl! Yez shud git him a rubber ring till[33] cut his teeth on; it’s an illigant t’ing for childer’, I’m towld.”

Contractor McGlory’s stables and cart sheds stood on the opposite side of the court. A young man sat on a feed-box in the doorway polishing a set of light harness; a group of dirty children were playing under an up-tilted cart, and a brace of starving curs fought savagely up the alley over a mouldy bone. Mrs. Nolan called to the young man:

“An’ sure, is it out drivin’ yez’ed be goin’ so arly on Sunday mornin’, Jerry?”

“On’y a little spin,” said the youth. “I want to try out a new skate what the old gent bought at the bazar.” He rubbed away in industrious silence for a moment and then, nodding toward a clean-looking brick house at the end of the court, inquired:

“Not the saloon-keeper’s son that do be at the ’torneyin’!” cried Mrs. Burns.

[34]Mrs. Nolan looked at her neighbour, and the latter lady returned the look with interest.

“I declare till God!” said the former, “Iv that don’t bate all I iver heerd since the day I wur born. Sure an’ his father an’ owld Larry have been bitter at wan another for years.”

“It’s forgivin’ his enemies he’ll be doin’ now that the breath do be lavin’ him,” said Mrs. Burns. “Divil the fear av him forgivin’ me the bit av rint I owes him, though,” she added bitterly.

“There’s worse than old Murphy,” said Jerry. “Kelly’s got his net out after the court, an’ if he lands it, it won’t be long before youse find it out, either.”

But Mrs. Burns could only think of the crusty old harpy who went from door to door down the court on the first day of the month, the skinny old claw that reached out so graspingly for the rent, the leathery old face frowning blackly upon delay, of the bitter tongue that spat venom into the faces of all not ready to pay. And for the life of her, the good woman could think of none worse than old Larry Murphy to deal with.

[35]“Faix an’ he’d take the bit av bread out av the children’s mouths,” declared she.

A flock of grimy sparrows suddenly lit upon the roof of the stable, chattering, fluttering and fighting madly; one of the quarrelling dogs had been defeated and licked his wounds and howled dolefully; a drunken man, passing the end of the court, pitched into the gutter and lay there.

“Mother av Heaven!” exclaimed Mrs. Nolan with a suddenness that caused her neighbour to jump. She was pointing toward the house spoken of as Murphy’s. “Look there!”

Young Larry Murphy was standing upon the white stone step; he had just pulled the door bell softly; and catching the astonished stare of the two women, he swore at them under his breath.

“They’re next already,” he muttered. “They’ll chew me up, an’ spit me out, an’ laugh about it! Why don’t the fagots stay in the house!”

The door opened and he went in, leaving them staring at the house over which death was hovering.

Clean and fresh-looking the house stood among its squalid surroundings of dirty stables, frowsy, ill-smelling[36] drains and pestilential manure pits. Its stone steps were spotless, the brass bell knob was as bright as burnished gold, the pretty curtains at the windows like snow. And this was the home of the landlord of the court—the clean, bright, comfortable home he had dreamed of years before, when he stepped from the emigrant ship to begin life in a new land.

He was dying now, and the money for which he had slaved and demeaned himself—the money which he had hoarded and loved—was about to pass from him. Once more he was going to begin in a new land, and a land where hard craft was as nothing beside clean hands. Not that old Larry had ever exacted more than his due; but he had stood flat-footed for that, in spite of prayers and tears; and the reckoning was now at hand.

The door had been opened for young Larry by a stout, heavy-browed man, dressed in decent black; and as he stood aside for the youth to pass him in the narrow entry, he showed his discoloured teeth in a sneer.

“So ye have hurried here at wanst, eh?” said he.[37] “Divil the foot have yez iver put in the house afore, Larry?”

The stout man closed the door. The house was soundless, and there was a heavy smell of sickness; the door of the sitting room stood partly open, and Larry caught the rustle of skirts.

“I knowed yez’ed come,” continued the man who had admitted him. “Ah, but it’s the sharp wan yez are, Larry.”

The youth turned and grasped the door knob. “I knowed how it’d be,” snarled he, looking savagely over his shoulder at the stout man. “I’ll lick youse for this, Kelly!”

“Mr. Murphy!” A girl had come into the entry from the sitting room; she was tall and slim; a bright spot burned in each cheek and she coughed slightly as the draft from the open door struck her. She held out her hand.

[38]“I’m glad that you’ve come,” said she. “Your grandfather has been asking for you again. Were you going away?”

“Yes,” said Larry. He closed the door and took the proffered hand, ashamed of the anger which Kelly had awakened. She looked into his face with quiet, candid eyes.

He silently followed her up stairs. Kelly entered the sitting room and stood by the window; his heavy brows were bent and his lips were muttering. The people were streaming back from the church, across the railroad; the sooty shifting engine was still making up its train, panting and whistling like some asthmatic animal; a priestly-looking young man paused at the door of the house and looked up at the number.

“Father Dawson,” muttered Kelly hurrying to open the door. “He tuk his toime comin’, faith.”

The sick man, parchment-faced and wasted by disease, lay upon his bed; his lips were moving, and his gaunt hands clutched the ivory crucifix. The wax[39] candles burned upon a table; beside them stood a glass bowl of water blessed at Easter time; a bisque image of the Virgin stood upon a shelf, and Rosie O’Hara knelt before it, her head bent, her eyes fixed upon the floor. Young Kerrigan sat beside the bed, reading a newly written paper; the sun slanted in between the partly closed blinds and lay like a bar of gold upon the floor.

“You have stated your wishes very clearly, Mr. Murphy,” said the attorney, “and I see nothing that should be changed.”

The old man opened his eyes and tried to sit up. “Mary!” said he. “Where’s Mary?”

“Here, Uncle Larry.” The girl knelt beside him and smoothed his pillow. “You must lie still,” said she, gently.

“Ye will be a witness till me mark,” said he, faintly, “an’ so must Rosie. Is she here?”

“The sight do be lavin’ me. An’ the b’y? Did he say he’d come, Mary?”

“He’s here, Uncle Larry.” She took the young[40] man’s hand and placed it within that of his grandfather: and once more the old man strove to lift himself, peering at the other with dim eyes.

“Yes, sir.” Larry would have liked to have said “Grandfather,” but somehow it stuck in his throat. He looked upon the old man with awed, wondering eyes; it was the first person he had ever seen upon the threshold of death; and the drawn face, wet with the death damp, sent a chill through him.

“I didn’t do right by yez father, Larry,” said the sick man, “I t’ought a curse lay upon him for marryin’ yez mother!”

Larry stepped back from the bedside, and Mary Carroll’s quiet eyes alone kept back the angry words that leaped to his lips in his mother’s defence. His mother—that oriental-eyed mother—bring a curse upon anyone! The words still sounded in his ears as he looked down at the shrunken form, pity contending with anger in his heart.

His mother had died a Christian; she had deserted, in fear and trembling, the faith of her fathers; she had knelt before the altar raised to the Nazarene Carpenter,[41] and strove with all the power of her tortured soul to believe that He was the same God who had spoken to the Law-Giver of her tribe upon the heights of Sinai. And she had done all this through love for his father, the father whom this hard old man had disowned.

“I wud niver knowed better iv it hadn’t a-been for Mary; she made me see it; it wur her that towld me av the black wrong I done yez, both. I’ll make up for it, Larry, I’ll make it up, never fear!” The old man paused for a moment, his face twitching. “D’ye t’ink it’s too late?” he added eagerly.

“It’s never too late.” And thinking to soothe the fears that gripped at the darkening brain, Larry added. “It wasn’t much, ye know.”

“But it wur, lad, it wur. Ye don’t know the gredge I wanst held in me heart agin yez both. Didn’t I walk the flure, when he lay dead beyant there at O’Connor’s, half mad wid the thinkin’? I t’ought till give him a daysint berryin’ an’ bring yezself home here; but the divil got the better av me, lad, so he did! Yez don’t know the black bitterness I’ve held against yez; yez don’t know!”

[42]The agitation seemed to exhaust him; he sank back, a thin streak of blood showing on his purple lips.

“Don’t excite yourself, Uncle Larry,” said Mary. “That is all past and gone now; Larry has forgiven you, and his father has, too.”

A smile of hope flickered over the face of the sick man, and the girl kissed the withered cheek. The youth with the screed leaned forward.

“Hadn’t he better attend to this,” whispered he; “he may die at any moment, now. This meeting, or rather the prospect of it, was all that kept him up.”

“Is that young Kerrigan?” breathed he; “yez are r’ght, Johnnie; soign me name, lad, an’ I’ll make me mark.”

The name was attached to the paper, the mark was made and the two girls witnessed it. Kerrigan folded the paper and put it into his pocket; the old man lay back upon his pillow and seemed scarce to breathe; his chest was sunken, his eyes stared vacantly. A dog yelped dolefully below in the court; from the railroad came the hiss of escaping steam and the grind of wheels. Kelly opened the door softly, and said:

[43]“Father Dawson’s comin’ up.” He returned into the passage and looked over the stair rail. “This way, Father,” said he.

The pure-faced young priest came into the room. Mary’s lips trembled and her voice broke slightly as she greeted him.

“Bear up,” said he gently; “death is the common lot; and then he is very old.” He bent over the bed; the bar of light had shifted and old Larry’s hair shone like silver under its warm touch. “He should have the last rites of the Church,” said the priest. Then turning to Kelly and Larry he added: “I will ask you to leave the room for a few moments, please. You may stay,” to Kerrigan, who had moved toward the door with the others. “I may need you.”

The two men stood in the passage for a time in silence; Rosie could be heard sobbing heavily, and the priest’s voice murmured holy words. At length Kelly spoke:

Kelly regarded him for a moment, disbelief written upon his face. Then he resumed, anxiously:

“Ah!” and Kelly bent his heavy brows. “Wur there anything mention av Martin an’ meself?”

“Humph!” Kelly bit the nail of his thumb viciously and spat over the stair rail. Then, after a pause, longer than the first, he said: “How is the toide?”

“Tim Burns says it’s on the stan’,” said Kelly. “An’ whin it goes down, he’ll go out wid it.”

They waited in silence after this; Rosie’s sobs had ceased, the clergyman was reciting the litany for the dying, and the others were giving the responses. And then their voices were hushed; there was a stir in the room; the door opened and Mary came out.

“Mr. Murphy,” said she, “will you hurry over to O’Connor’s and tell him to come, at once?”

SCHWARTZ’S barber shop stood almost within the shadow of the church tower. The gas light streamed through his plate window and across the sidewalk; a row of customers lined up along the wall, waiting their turn in the chair; the fat proprietor stropped a razor and conversed with a short man who stood at the stove rubbing a freshly reaped chin. A large aired man, with a dyed moustache, was pulling a pair of kid gloves over hands too large for them. He wore a light overcoat, a silk hat, a flower in his buttonhole and seemed to sweat importance. This was Squire Moran, thrice elected to the minor judiciary and a power in the ward.

“It’s gittin’ a bit wurried I am,” said the little man; “for what kin a body be doin’ wit’out a bit av wurk.”

“Sure I t’ought, Squire,” said Clancy, the grocer, who lay back in the barber’s chair, tucked about with towels, “that yez wur goin’ till give Tim a job in the water daypartment.”

“There’s many a slip, Clancy,” quoth his honour, struggling with the gloves. “I’m not the only duck in the pond, ye know; and it’s Tim’s own fault that he ain’t in the department long ago.”

Mr. Burns looked downhearted; the others nodded sagaciously as though the reason given was all sufficient.

“I almost got down on my knees to him,” went on the magistrate, “but he said no; so what can I do?”

“What’s he sore on Tim for?” asked Goose McGonagle who, in a bright scarlet tie, sat near the wash-stand.

[47]“I wouldn’t vote for O’Connor,” Burns hastened to say. “Sure Gartenheim did me a favour wanst; an’ wud yez have me go back on a friend?”

“But O’Connor was the reg’lar nominee,” argued Moran, “an’ if it hadn’t been for the push that turned in for Gartenheim, O’Connor ’ud be holdin’ down the office instead of Kelly. McQuirk’s dead leary on split tickets—unless he gives the order—an’ he told ye at the time that he’d remember ye for it.”

Moran laughed. “What the boss don’t know about practical politics ain’t worth knowin’,” said he. “An’ it’s the little things what holds the party in line. So stick to McQuirk an’ McQuirk’ll stick to you.” He had succeeded with his gloves by this time and was about to depart. “If I can do anything for you, Tim,” he added, “I’ll do it. But when Mac says no, why he generally means it. Good night, everybody.”

“Niver talk till me av politicians,” said Clancy; “be dad they’re all tarred wid wan stick. An’ divil a better are they across the say; sure, I wur radin’ in the Irish World that Redmond do be at his tricks wanst more.”

[48]“D’yez say so,” exclaimed Burns; “ah, but the owld dart is in a bad way betune thim all.”

“Redmond do be after firin’ off some illigant spaches,” put in Malachi O’Hara, from behind a newspaper, “an’ he’s an able lad, so he is. Didn’t he take up for Parnell whin—”

“Parnell!” Clancy snorted his disgust so violently as to endanger his safety from the barber’s razor. “Don’t talk till me av that felly.”

“Yez wur a Parnell man yezself wanst, Clancy,” said Burns, with an elaborate wink at the others. “Sure, I see the chromo av him that came with the Freeman’s Journal nailed up on yez wall overight the kitchen dure.”

“An’ divil a long it stayed out av the stove after he wur found out,” said the grocer stoutly.

“Filled up, Schwartz?” cried Jerry McGlory, poking his head in at the doorway.

[49]“’Twuld be but daysint fer me till pay my rayspects till the family. Are yez goin’ yezself?”

“Sure! There’ll be a mob there, though.” Then turning to the youth in the scarlet tie he inquired: “Well, what d’ye know, McGonagle?”

Mr. McGonagle had just finished a graphic description, for the benefit of his right-hand neighbour, of the last performance of a “brass back” cock, the victorious veteran of a score of mains, and answered affably:

“Nothin’ much. On’y the selectman’s the sorest mug ye ever put yer lamps on. If ye’d touch him wit’ a wet finger, he’d sizzle.”

“Arrah, yer right, Goose,” confirmed Burns. “I stopped intill his place for a sup av drink as I wur comin’ by, an’ from the talk av him yez’d t’ink young Murphy had put his hand intill his money drawer.”

“I heard me father say,” said Jerry, “that Mary’s grandfather put up the coin to bring old man Murphy over here, and start him in the tea biz. That was a good many moons ago; and when her folks lost all their gilt and she was left alone, old Larry sent to Dublin for her, and he’s took care o’ her ever since.”

“Begorra, the owld fox had a heart in his body for all! Bud scure till the wan av me iver give him credit for it. God save uz,” resumed Mr. Burns, after a pause, “what a power av money he made at the tay peddlin’.”

“He uster be a great old geezer, didn’t he?” remarked McGonagle. “I kin remember him as plain as day in his old plug hat, an’ he wuz hot after the needful, too.”

“There do be a good profit in tay,” put in the grocer, who was now sitting up, having his hair brushed; “but how he iver made all av the property he’s left, be peddlin’ it from dure till dure, gits the better av me.”

“He had a head for commerce, sure,” put in O’Hara.[51] “It wur himself that cud lay out a dollar till advantage; an’ divil the bate av him did iver I see for buyin’ chape an’ sellin’ dear.”

“He was a winner if he cud beat youse at that game, O’Hara,” laughed McGlory.

“Nexd!” cried Schwartz, as Clancy got out of his chair. Malachi took the vacated place, a frown wrinkling his brow. The grocer, thinking of the hard bargain which O’Hara had driven when he had gone to him for money, some time before, winked at Jerry, delighting in the cut; and Schwartz, as he drew some hot water from the copper tank upon the stove into O’Hara’s shaving mug, grinned widely.

“Dod vas a good von, Cherry,” muttered he. “You hid him hardt, ain’t id?”

Burns, who was gazing through the window, suddenly uttered an exclamation, rushed into the street and buttonholed a young man who was passing.

“Is that not Dick Nolan, Jerry?” asked Clancy tieing his four-in-hand before the mirror over the wash-stand.

[52]“Be the powers! the crayture nades the bit av wurk. The good woife an’ two childer’ mus’ find it hard; an’ Tim’s a study, sober felly.”

In a few minutes Tim returned; his face had a brighter look and he was lilting an old country air.

“I go till wurk in the mornin’,” said he with a rapturous smile. “Young Nolan is a man av his wurd; he promised me a job at the first chance, an’ now he have give me wan. McQuirk an’ his political bums kin go till the devil, for me!”

“Good luck, lad,” wished the grocer. “Gartenheim is the man for yez till stick till.”

“He have the contract for layin’ the sewer above, at Frankford,” went on Burns; “an’ he’ll start till open the strate t’morry.”

“It’s a pity,” commented Clancy, “that his mother is so tuck up wid the sup av drink.”

“She hocks everyt’ing she kin carry,” said McGonagle. “Dick can’t trust her wit’ a cent.”

[53]“Small blame till him,” said Clancy; “she’d git drink wid it. He comes in an’ pays me bill every Saturday noight himself, poor b’y.”

“Makes big money, too,” remarked McGonagle; “and she cud live like a lady if she’d cut the bottle. It’s hard lines for Dick, le’me tell youse; for he’s a hard worker, an’ he’s got mighty big notions ’bout gittin’ to the top o’ the heap.”

“Poody as a bicture,” agreed Schwartz. O’Hara gave a grunt; the barber snatched away his blade and inquired, “Does der razor hurd?”

“Yez damned near cut me chin!” growled the dealer in second-hand goods. “Shut up, an’ tind till yez wurk.”

“She’s a nice girl enough,” said Jerry, “but, say, she’s cert’ny playin’ Roddy Ferguson for a dead one.”

“Sure! I never seen anybody so broke up on a bundle o’ skirts in me life. Say, he’s dead twisted[54] about her; he talks about her every time he opens his mouth.”

“Roddy’s a study b’y,” said Burns. “I heerd that O’Connor’ll be takin’ him intill the bizness wan av these days. It’s a good man he’d make her.”

“Dick’s leary on him,” said McGonagle, “he won’t let her even look at him.”

“D’yez say so!” And Clancy regarded the speaker with great surprise. “Faith an’ I t’ought they wur great buddies. They wint till the Brothers’ School together, an’ in thim days, divil a long they wur iver apart.”

“Why it’s a chestnut!” exclaimed McGonagle. “I t’ought everybody in the ward was next to that. They’ve bin given each other the stony smile ever since las’ election, when O’Connor and Gartenheim run against each other for select council.”

“The warmest ever,” agreed McGonagle. “It was a reg’lar drag out or I never seen one.”

“Wur they not both Dimmycrats?” asked Tim. “What call had they till foight, I dunno? I wur in[55] the division at the toime, sure, bud I niver got the roight av the t’ing.”

“Why, when the gang went to the convention they was split an’ primed for trouble, see? One crowd wanted O’Connor, an’ the other was a-fracturin’ their suspenders whoopin’ t’ings up for Gartenheim. And when the O’Connor push got the bulge, the Dutchman’s people broke for the door, and started a convention o’ their own upstairs o’ Swinghammer’s saloon. Both o’ ’em was in the fight from that on, and the way they shovelled out the long green ’ed make youse t’ink they was rank suckers. Why a mug couldn’t turn aroun’ wit’out runnin’ into a bunch o’ money.”

“Nolan worked for Gartenheim, of course; he couldn’t turn down his own boss, ye know. An’ Ferguson ’lectioneered for O’Connor for the same reason, see? An’ he chased aroun’ the ward waggin’ his face for votes an’ givin’ Gartenheim the knife every chance he got. On election night,” continued McGonagle, proudly, “we had the returns at the club by private wire, ye know, and when Roddy was dead[56] sure that Kelly had flim-flammed the push, he opened up on Nolan an’ said that Gartenheim had been workin’ wit’ the other side, all along. In a minute they was clinched an’ the crowd had to pull ’em apart. That’s how it is.”

“But, Goose,” complained Tim, “I don’t see how Kelly, who calls himself a Dimmycrat, got on the Raypublican ticket.”

“He was foxy,” returned Goose; “I ain’t stuck on him, but I’ll say that for him—he’s dead foxy. As soon as he seen his own party split he made a play for a place on the other ticket; the other side knowed that he cud lift a lot o’ votes from us, and that they cud win wit’ him, see? McQuirk got onto the game an’ tried to make a deal. But they gave him the laugh, and wiped up the ward wit’ him on ’lection day, wit’ Kelly at the head o’ their column. The boss was red hot, le’me tell youse: I heerd him in Kerrigan’s back room the next afternoon, and he said he’d be at Kelly’s finish if it took every cent he had in his clothes.”

“Next chendt!” called Schwartz. O’Hara got out of the chair, and McGonagle took his place.

“It was all blow, though,” added Goose as Schwartz[57] swathed him in clean towels and began to apply the lather. “He’s got over his spasm, an’ they’re both as t’ick as t’ives. Say,” to the barber, “keep that soap on the outside o’ me face, will youse!”

“We’ll see yez at the wake, Jerry,” said the former. “Will ye go along wid us, Malachi?”

“I have till go to the length av Coogan’s till see a stove that they do be waitin’ me till buy,” answered O’Hara, “but I’ll folly right after yez.”

“Good night, gentlemen.” And the door closed behind Mr. Burns and Mr. Clancy, who headed in the direction of Murphy’s Court.

O’CONNOR’S wagon had come and gone several times; a black streamer hung from the bell knob; the shutters were bowed with a ribbon of the same sombre hue. Groups of children sat upon cellar doors and talked in whispers; slatternly women stood on doorsteps, morbidly watching all who came or went at the house where old Larry lay dead. Mrs. Nolan, her head muffled in a woollen shawl, was leaning out at her kitchen window, likewise engaged, when Hogan the policeman came through the court upon his evening round.

“Not the noight,” replied Mrs. Nolan, “all me bits av rags is in the wash, an’ sorra’ a t’ing have I till put on me back. Bella an’ Dick will, though, an’ mesilf will t’morry noight, plaze God.”

Hogan drummed lightly upon a fireplug with his club. “It’s a Solemn High Mass they’ll be havin’,” said he.

“Divil doubt it! An’ there’ll be a power av hacks at the funeral; Dick wint for wan till McGrath’s, bud they wur all spoken.”

“Faith, yiz. We have a hack av O’Connor’s, an’ it’s go in stoyle we will.” Mrs. Nolan was looking toward Murphy’s as she spoke, and suddenly exclaimed, in a startled voice:

“Who is that, Micky, that young McGonagle have be the scruff av the neck? Glory be! Is it foightin’ he’d be in front av the house where the corpse is?”

A thick-set young man had staggered drunkenly up the steps of Murphy’s house, just as Goose McGonagle halted before the door.

“Say Kelly,” Goose had remarked, “don’t youse[60] t’ink ye’d better sober up a little before youse go in there?”

The man on the steps swayed to and fro and regarded him with drink-reddened eyes.

“Wha’s it your bizh’ness?” demanded he. “Don’t ye put yer beak in thish, McGonagle. D’ye hear?”

“Put yer head to work,” advised Goose, “an’ have some sense, Murphy’s got enough trouble now wit’out youse botherin’ him, Mart.”

“I’m goin’ in,” declared Martin Kelly, his thick voice raising angrily, “an’ what’s more I’m a-goin’ to lick Larry Murphy! He’s done me dirt; an’ I’m a-goin’ to do him up.”

“Ye ain’t a-goin’ to kick up no muss here, and that goes,” said Goose, decisively; “youse must be daffy, ain’t ye?”

“So it’s yezsilf, Martin,” sneered the policeman; “it’s a great foighter yez are gittin’ to be!”

[61]“Take yer paws off a-me, Hogan,” growled the drunken youth, struggling. “Me old man’ll have youse broke for this.”

“If ye don’t quit makin’ a monkey av yezsilf it’s a ride in the wagon yez’ll git.”

“Take the lush away,” begged McGonagle; “he’ll have the whole bloomin’ neighbourhood up.”

The expostulating Martin was hustled down the street just as Mary Carroll opened the door.

“I’m glad he’s gone away,” said Mary; “for he was here this afternoon when Mr. Murphy was out, and his talk was shameful. Are you coming in?”

“For a little while. Don’t stand in the draf’; it makes youse cough.” McGonagle followed her into the sitting room where the black box rested upon a pair of low trestles. A number of wax lights burned at its head and an aged woman knelt at the foot, her withered lips muttering prayers for the repose of the departed soul. A dozen more women neighbours sat around the room talking lowly.

[62]“The men are all in the kitchen,” said Mary to the young man, “and I suppose you will want to go there, too.”

“Arrah, then, Mary,” spoke his mother who sat among the group of women, “it’s himself that ’ud stay here till the cows come home iv Annie Clancy were on’y here.”

A titter ran about and Goose looked embarrassed. “Don’t mind her,” said he.

“Do Goose still droive the milk wagon, Mrs. McGonagle?” asked Mrs. Burns after the young man had gone into the kitchen.

“It sounds like the O’Hara’s,” said Mrs. McGlory, wife of the contractor, who sat in a corner fanning herself, with all the dignity of her social position. Mrs. Burns elevated her hands in dismay.

[63]“I wouldn’t have it!” declared Mrs. Clancy, the grocer’s wife. “What’ll people t’ink?”

The O’Hara sisters came bobbing into the room in queer-looking quilted bonnets that hid their faces, and triangularly folded shawls pulled tightly about their narrow shoulders. Espying Mary, they threw themselves upon her with lamentations.

“Mary, darlin’,” cried Bridget, “it’s a heart full av trouble yez have this noight!”

“God be good till yez, allanna!” exclaimed Ellen, “an’ kape death from uz all for many a day!”

Then they crouched down beside the ice box, betraying every symptom of great grief.

“She’s vexed at not gittin’ the bit av money,” said her sister in the same low tone.

Then they began muttering prayers in the Irish tongue; the others watched them, silently, from time to time exchanging intelligent nods. Then the sisters began swaying their bodies back and forth in unison, and the other old woman rose to her feet.

A long, low wail burst from them that immediately[64] filled the kitchen doorway with the grinning faces of the men. It was the weird death cry of the Irish race, with which they lamented the passage of a soul, in their island home. Mary quickly approached the women and spoke a few determined words; they bounced upon their feet angrily.

“Is it prevint our showin’ our rayspects till the dead ye’d be doin?” demanded Bridget.

“The custom is not understood in this country,” said Mary quietly; and they flounced indignantly down upon the sofa and glowered about them.

“Luk at that stuck-up shtrap, McGlory’s wife, makin’ game av uz,” muttered Bridget. “Sure an’ iv she’d git her drunken brother out av the House av Correction ’t wud be fitter for her!”

“Ah, the big, fat hussy!” exclaimed Ellen, “it’s well I raymimber the toime whin her owld man drove an ash cart, an’ hersilf tuk in washin’.”

All unknowing, Mrs. McGlory was smoothing out her silk dress and hoping that the others noticed the sparkle of her chip diamond ring.

“Mary,” inquired she, leaning forward as far as her[65] tight waist would permit, “is it owld Kate Sweeney yez’ll have till lay him out?”

“Troth she do that!” spoke Mrs. McGonagle, “an’ sorra a few have doide in the parish in the last thirty years that she haven’t put the shroud on. Ye’ll have till have some wan, Mary, an’ yez moight as well put the troifle av money in the poor owld crayture’s way.”

“She do be in her bed, the crayter,” answered Ellen rather stiffly. “It’s up t’ree nights han’ runnin’ she’s bin wid him,” with a nod toward the box, “as he lay sick; an’ a bit av slape’ll do her no hurt.”

“True for yez,” put in Mrs. McGonagle, “sure an’ iv it hadn’t been for her, what ’ud Mary done at all, at all!”

“Spakin’ av Mary,” said Mrs. McGlory; “where[66] did she get her eddycation? It’s carry herself very ladyloike, she do.”

“I t’ought it wur somethin’ av the koind,” said the contractor’s wife, “seein’ that she goes till the altar ivery second Sunday. It’s a good livin’ girl she is.”

“None better. But, God betune us an’ all harm, it’s delicate she is. She have a bad cough.”

Mary re-entered, accompanied by a pretty girl, very showily dressed, and a young man.

“How do yez do, Bella?” greeted Mrs. McGonagle. “An’ is it yezsilf Dick?”

“I’m very well, thanks,” answered the girl, stealing a side glance at the looking-glass and arranging her fluffy bang. “How have you been?”

“Tim wur tellin’ me, Dick,” said Mrs. Burns, “that yez have got him a job av wurk. It’s pray for yez this noight, I will.”

“Bella!” called Mary, “won’t you sit here? The men are all in there, you know.”

“I’ll be back in a second,” said Bella, over her shoulder. “I on’y want t’ take a peep.” And she disappeared into the kitchen.

“Hark till that!” exclaimed Bridget O’Hara, looking about, grimly. “It’s young Kelly she do be lookin’ after.”

“Yez shud be ashamed av yezselves, both av yez!” cried Mrs. McGlory, reddening with indignation. “Wud yez take away the girl’s ker-act-er!”

“An’ I wud have yez till know, Mary Ann McGlory, that she do be a daysint girl!”

“Oh, hush!” said Mary, pained beyond expression at this outbreak. “Please do hush!”

[68]When Bella came back into the room she sat down beside Mary, and began twisting a ring about her finger, and giggling.

The sisters threw glances of triumph at the contractor’s wife, and the other women looked slyly at each other and shook their heads.

Two dishes stood upon the kitchen table, one filled with loose tobacco, and the other with clay pipes; the air was heavy with smoke; the elder men leaned back and talked of times past; the younger grouped together and discussed current events of a sporting character. Larry sat upon the edge of the table, swinging his feet slowly and stirring up the tobacco with the yellow tipped stem of a pipe, a thoughtful look upon his face.

“It’s a foine lot ye hav for him at the Holy Cross,” said Clancy, “marble at the head an’ feet, an’ iron rails all about it.”

But he had seen another grave, away near the fence, in the same cemetery—a narrow, neglected grave, flat and bare, with a wooden cross above it—a grave that[69] lay at the end of a long row of others, the cramped resting places of poor wretches whose lives had been as cramped, and as bare, and as flat.

“Wid his side face to’ard ye, he luks like the gran’father,” said O’Hara, lowly.

“Old Cohen, thin. Sure, now that I t’ink av it, he do. But thin he hav the blood in him, an’ why not?”

“Well do I. Faix an’ I got me clothes av him up till the toime he died. Divil a-far from crazy he wur whin his girl ran off wid Mike Murphy! An’ iv owld Larry wur mad at his b’y’s marryin’ a Jewess, the other wur worse at his dawther for takin’ up wid a Christian. By dad, he cursed her up hill an’ down dale; he frothed at the mouth, an’ groun’ his stumps av teeth together loike a madman; an’ nothin’ ud do him bud he’d hav her taken be the police. But Moran towld him he cud do nawthin’. He’d a tramped her under his feet wan day beyant on Second Street whin he met her, iv it hadn’t bin for Peter Nolan, Dick’s father, God rist his sowl in glory! Peter jumped out av his[70] cart an’ dragged him away. Put Aaron an’ owld Larry in a bag together, an’ scure till the wan cud tell which ’ud jump out the first, for timper.”

The clock ticked and struck through the hours; the people came and went as is the custom. When the hands approached the hour of one, Tim Burns arose.

“I wur goin’ till offer till sit up wid ye, Larry,” said he, “but as I have me job till go till in the mornin’ I mus’ git a bit av slape.”

“Much obliged, all the same,” said Larry. “Larkin an’ McGonagle are goin’ to stay with me.”

“I’ll be goin’ mesilf,” said Clancy, reaching for his hat. “I mus’ have me grocery open be four, be the day.”

There was a general arising, putting on of hats and shaking of hands with Larry; the women had gone long before; and when the clock struck again the three watchers were nodding together beside the kitchen range.

THURSDAY morning broke clear, and before the factory whistles had done blowing, O’Connor and Roddy Ferguson had carried in the coffin, the great brass candelabra, and all the other things that went to make up O’Connor’s first-class funeral. O’Connor’s arrival was followed promptly by that of old Mrs. Sweeney, and under their practised hands things progressed rapidly; for when the clock of St. Michael’s struck the hour of nine, and then began tolling sadly, all was ready and the doors thrown open.

Hacks from neighbouring livery stables began arriving and lined up at the curb, and the friends of the departed began to gather. The women went in, but[72] the men, for the most part, collected upon the sidewalk. Frowsy-haired women stood in groups at the mouth of each alley in the block, blue faced and shivering, but anxious to miss nothing. A crowd of young men were smoking and laughing near Clancy’s coal box; the drivers of the hacks, in shabby livery coats and grotesque high hats, called to each other from their high seats.

It wanted but a half hour of the time when the cortège was to move when Goose McGonagle pushed his way through the people who were crowding in at the front door; he had a band of crape about his arm and was hatless. Approaching the group at Clancy’s, he said hurriedly:

“I’m goin’ to be a pall bearer, fellas, and Larry wants five o’ youse to help. Talk quick!”

“That makes three,” said Goose. “Won’t youse help to carry him, Larkin?”

“Try to get somebody else,” begged Jimmie. And with a nod of his head toward the smoky grey tower from which came the doleful strokes of the bell, he added: “I don’t go there, ye know; an’ it might[73] make talk about Larry, see? Here’s Casey an’ Mike McCarty comin’ up; give ’em a brace.”

Danny Casey who worked for Contractor McGlory, and Mike McCarty, who drove a truck for Shannon, the teamster, and was considered the best-dressed young man in the ward, were promptly “braced” and gave consent.

“I’ll git another one and give Ferguson yer names,” said Goose, “an’ he’ll fix youse up with gloves and crape for yer skypieces.”

And McGonagle plunged into the house with the crowd. The prospective pall-bearers resumed their comments upon the passing throng; a pastime at which they had been interrupted.

“How are yez, Danny?” answered the contractor as he went by with his wife. “Good mornin’ gintlemen.”

“It was made during the siege o’ Limerick,” said McCarty, “an’ Clancy’s wore it at every funeral an’ at every A. O. H. procession since then.”

“Say,” said McGlory, “don’t Rosie O’Hara look nice in black? Look at the two old ones givin’ their wipes a shower bath! Say, Larkin, there’s Rosie wavin’ her hand, on the quiet; she wants youse.”

Her aunts had gone in, but Rosie paused upon the step, and Jimmie was at her side in a moment.

Rosie looked pleased. “Git our names down,” said she, “so’s we’ll be called out.”

She entered the house just as Roddy Ferguson came out, his hands full of black cotton gloves and streamers of crape.

“Hold out yer fin, McCarty,” commanded Roddy. “Say, Casey, youse kin tie a bow knot, so gimme a[75] lift with these. I’d ask youse to come inside, gents,” went on O’Connor’s aid, “but the house is packed with women, and I know youse ain’t proud.”

Jimmie Larkin took off his hat in the entry and pushed into the room where the body lay exposed to view. Mary sat at the head of the casket; beside her were the Kellys, the mother with her handkerchief to her eyes, the father talking across the corpse to a friend, the son half asleep in his chair. Tall candles shed their light about the room; the walls were draped in dead black; the polished lid of the casket stood awesomely in a corner; the flowers sent by friends and the potted plants furnished by the undertaker smelt sickeningly sweet and heavy in the close, crowded room.

The old man looked very peaceful; death had removed the hard, crabbed lines from his face, and the pale hands, twined about with a rosary, and holding a small crucifix, seemed, to the tenants, very different[76] from the grasping old claws that he had been accustomed to thrust out for the rent. Some of the people sat, some stood, others again knelt, hurrying over the set prayers for the dead.

“He vas der hardest corbse to shafe I ever dackled,” Schwartz informed the latter lady’s husband.

“What an illigant ‘Gates Ajar’!” exclaimed Mrs. McGlory. “Is that the piece that the A. O. H. sent, Mary?”

“It takes Kate Sweeney till make thim look daysint in the coffin,” remarked Mrs. Nolan. “What splindid flowers she have put under his head!”

“Tell me, Mrs. Clancy,” whispered Bridget O’Hara; “who will walk wid Larry?”

Mrs. Clancy turned to Mrs. McGonagle. “D’yez harken till the talk av thim two?” asked she.

“God save uz,” answered Mrs. McGonagle, “they’ed talk about any wan. But, whist; is that not Mrs. Noonen’s black skirt, Casey’s wife have on?”

“Av coorse. She borryed it yisterday; for scure till the stitch av black she have av her own.”

“D’yez tell me so! An’ did he take the sup av drink, thin? Begorry I’d niver a-t’ought it.”

Mrs. Nolan blinked at the corpse with renewed interest. O’Connor came into the room with Larry and handed Mary a slip of paper.

“Iv there’s any other names ye want down,” said he, “just say the word.”

But Mary shook her head and returned it. Roddy[78] Ferguson pushed his way into the room and drew his employer aside.

“Callahan’s outside with the hearse,” said he in a whisper, “and if we want to catch the Solemn High Mass we’d better push t’ings.”

The undertaker drew himself up to his full height and looked gravely about him; then in his deepest and most professional voice, he said:

“The relatives an’ friends of the family will take a last farewell look at the departed before proceedin’ till the church.”

Veils were dropped, gloves were put on, and a subdued sobbing and whispering began. All pushed forward anxious to see everything at this critical and interesting moment. Larry was moved but silent; Mary sobbed, quietly; Mrs. Kelly’s grief was stormy; but her husband and son regarded the body stolidly, then gave way to those behind. In a few moments the casket lid was screwed down and the six young men had borne it through the door to the waiting hearse. Young Ferguson took the list of names and stationed himself by the door.

“Do she go afore me?” demanded Mrs. Kelly. “Mr. O’Connor is a black stranger till walk ahead av a sister av the corpse?”

“Thanks be!” cried the angry lady. “I wur expectin’ till be left till the last!” and out she went on the arm of her husband, to treat the watching crowd to an energetic exhibition of sisterly grief.

“Mr. Martin Kelly!” cried Roddy. He hesitated a moment, then added: “and Miss Bella Nolan.”

Bella came forward, smiling, and took the young man’s arm. The sisters O’Hara threw looks of malice toward Mrs. McGlory; but the good woman disdained to notice them.

His assistant had followed Bella and her partner with moody eyes, and now stood gazing at the[80] empty doorway. But he roused himself at O’Connor’s voice and before his abstraction was noticed by anyone else he continued:

“Divil the bit will she,” broke in the latter’s father. “Rosie walks wid me, an’ not wid the son av an’ Orangeman!”

Rosie grew red, and the tears sprang into her eyes; Jimmie hesitated, uncertain how to act, but at a glance from Rosie, he drew back and allowed her father to lead her out.

“I don’t like his trade,” said Mrs. Clancy, “but he’s a foine young felly.”

The list of names was gone quickly through; those intending to walk in the cortège as far as the church fell in, and all moved slowly down the street, O’Connor at their head.

Larry Murphy’s recollections of what followed were[81] but dim; through a sort of haze he heard the chanting priests, and saw the swinging censers, and his mind retained but little of what the pastor said in regard to the old man’s life and acts. He had been but a child when his father lay at the same altar rail, but his remembrance of that was vivid. The organ was silent then; the church was deserted save for a few friends, and a single priest performed the hurried service. It came back to him that he had cried bitterly; not that he had much idea of what was happening, but the dull light that crept in through the stained windows seemed to add to the gloom that filled the church, and a vague sense of loss had clutched at his childish heart. He did not begrudge the pomp that marked his grandfather’s burial services, but he thought that the old man could have spared a little from his store, that his dead son might have gone to the grave in a fitting manner, and not wait until death’s hand was upon him before giving a sign.

But it was all over now; the pall-bearers had drunk their glasses of red wine, crumbled their pieces of sweet cake, shaken hands with Larry and departed. The Kellys had remained until Johnnie Kerrigan had[82] informed them that the entire property had gone to Larry, and then left in a gust of anger.

The young man and Mary were alone. She sat by the window, crying softly; he stood with his back to the stove, his hands clasped behind him, staring at the bright pattern in the carpet.

He was trying to think of something to say that would ease her grief; but all that came to his mind seemed vapid and without much meaning. He had been thinking of her a great deal during the last few days and it hurt him to see her cry. He had never spoken to her before the day of his grandfather’s death; but he had seen her often on the street and at the church—when he went there—and he had often marvelled at the calm purity of her face. He had heard much of her in different ways; of her goodness of heart, of her gentle ways, of her deep love and veneration for the faith in which she had been reared. He had lived rough, a young man in his place could hardly help it; and he had seen, and said, and done things which would have made him hang his head had she known; but, for all, he liked, as most men do, reverence[83] for holy things in a woman. It was Mary that broke the silence.

“Mrs. McGonagle will take care of the house for you until you have time to get settled,” she said. And he looked at her blankly, not understanding. “I will stay with a friend for a while,” she continued, “for I haven’t had time to think of anything yet.”

“To be sure!” wonderingly. “This is your home now, and I can’t stay here, you know.”

“That’s so,” said he. He hadn’t thought of it before; and now that he did his heart sank a little at her helplessness. She fumbled at the catch of her mourning glove; he looked at her for a long time, thinking of another—of the tall, splendid girl whom he had known best as a child and playmate. But she seemed far away now; her people were his people no longer. Ah, yes that was it: Education had done much for this girl of whom he had dreamed since boyhood; but association had done more; and she seemed as far away as though she had dwelt upon a star. He could never reach her plane; and of late years he had[84] only thought of her as one thinks of the dream-built hopes of youth. At last he said to Mary:

“This house’s been your home for a good while, now; and it’ed look like drivin’ youse away, wouldn’t it?—I mean if ye went.”

“Anyway, I don’t want ye to go,” said he, with sudden courage. “Stay here—and marry me!”

He looked into the pure, candid eyes and saw sweeping into them a quiet happiness that caused him to stoop and kiss her cheek.

“Uncle Larry spoke of that just before he died,” she said; “and if you are sure you want me, I’ll stay.”

NOT many steps from St. Michael’s is the Academy of the Sacred Heart, where the girls of the parish are taught by the gentle-mannered sisters; and not far from that again, was the home of Maggie Dwyer. Time was, and not so many years before, when Owen Dwyer mixed the mortar for McMullen the builder and lived in one of the little houses in McGarragles’ Alley. But Owen made good wages and was a saving man and a sober one. All his neighbours knew that he had an account in the savings bank; but when he sent his daughter to the Normal School and thereby showed that he had sufficient to educate and support her it excited much comment; and when he bought[86] the Second Street house, and Fitzmaurice, the real estate man, caused it to be known that four thousand dollars was the price paid, a cry of wonder went up, and the old country tale of the finding of “a crock of gold,” began to be whispered from one to the other.

And, although he shortly afterward gave up his job with McMullen, Owen was still the same quiet, good-natured man, passing the collection plate in the church on Sunday morning and acting as president of the T. A. B. society, as he had been accustomed to do for years.

His daughter was his darling. Splendid, capable Maggie! whose fine eyes and handsome form were the talk of all who knew her. Owen had some influence in a political way, and after her graduation, Maggie was made a teacher at the Harrison School; her strong young voice was soon heard in the church choir; she sketched, embroidered, composed, and adorned their pretty home with pictures, dainty bric-a-brac and other things that a refined taste delights in, until Owen walked about the rooms in awe, and admired with all his soul.

One evening about a week after the funeral at Murphy’s,[87] Maggie, in a close-fitting gown that displayed the splendid lines of her figure, sat at her piano softly playing over some music which she was to use at a concert of the teachers’ society; Owen read the evening paper and smoked his brier pipe by the shaded lamp.

“I’m afeered, Maggie,” said he, in a troubled tone, laying down the paper, “that these goings on av the Motor Traction Company’ll bring sorra’ till many a body yet.”

“They do be after the franchise av the new company,” answered Owen. “An’ the politicians are sidin’ wid ’em in their rascality. I have put more money in this than I shud,” added he, soberly, “an’ iv the franchise is revoked be the next set av councilmen, it’s in a bad way we’ll be, Maggie.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, in the motherly fashion that Owen loved.

“Don’t worry, Daddy, you’ll see that all will come right in the end. And what matter, even if the stocks you own are made worthless; we still have our home.”

[88]“Bud we can’t ate bricks an’ mortar, sure,” complained he. “An’ I’m too owld till go till work, now, Maggie.”

“But I am not,” said Maggie, with a laugh. “Why you have said yourself, Daddy, that I earn more in a month than you ever did with Mr. McMullen.”

“Is it have me sponge on yez bit av wages ye’d have me do?” exclaimed the old man. “God forgimme, Maggie, I couldn’t do that.”

“It’s Mr. Mason, I suppose,” said Maggie. “He told me that he would drop in during the evening, and said that he wanted to speak to you.”

But it was Annie Clancy, the grocer’s daughter, a quiet, pretty girl, and a great favourite of Maggie’s.

“I only came in to say that Mary Carroll is coming around to see you,” announced Annie. “She said that she was afraid you’d be goin’ out, so she asked me to run around and tell you to wait.”

“What harm?” persisted Owen, who delighted to twit the girl about her sweetheart. “Sure, they tell me, Annie, that he do sarve yez father wid better milk than any av his other customers.”

“He don’t,” denied she. “And even if he did,” regretfully, “Pop wouldn’t like him any better.”

“You know he don’t. And it’s all because Goose is in debt to Mr. O’Hara. Pop says he’ll never be able to keep a wife; and that he’ll be sold out.”

“Don’t mind, Annie. You’ll have him, never fear. Goose is a good b’y till his mother an’ that kind do have luck.”

“I’ll have to go now, Maggie,” said the grocer’s daughter. “Pop’s going to the Clan-na-Gael meeting to-night and I have to tend store.”

Annie had hardly left when Mason came, and he[90] had barely been welcomed when Mary Carroll followed. The two men were left in the parlour to discuss the matter of Mason’s visit, while the girls withdrew to the sitting room upstairs.

“I could not delay telling you any longer, Maggie dear,” said Mary. “It came so sudden after poor Uncle Larry’s death that we have been keeping it a secret.”

A quick change came over Maggie’s face; she paled, then flushed, and faltered when she tried to speak.

“I am only glad, Mary—glad for your sake; you will be very happy; for Larry has a good heart.”

“It came so strangely, too,” said Mary, a happy light in her quiet eyes. “We barely knew each other, I mean in the conventional sense, but I must have loved him and he must have loved me for ever so long without either of us knowing it. And, oh, he[91] thinks so much of you, Maggie; why, you and he were boy and girl together, and yet I don’t remember ever hearing you speak of him.”

When they finally came down into the parlour, Mason was ready to take his leave; he had his hat and stick in his hand and was exchanging some last words with Owen.

“Every man,” he was saying, “who has the good of the city at heart, and who has the slightest sense of justice, will do everything in his power to prevent this proposed steal. I have made up my mind that the only way to prevent its consummation is to canvass persons who have influence in their own neighbourhood, acquaint them with the facts and endeavour to organize an opposition at the primaries.”

“There yez have it,” said Owen, approvingly. “The primaries is the place till make the fight; lave thim wanst git control av the convintions in the different wards, an’ they’ll put their own bla’gards on the regular ticket an’ thin the divil himself couldn’t bate thim.”

“Oh, Larry Murphy? Yis, yez could do worse thin have Larry wid yez. Sure, he’s so solid in his own division that McQuirk himself has till take second place, there.

“If you want to find Mr. Murphy,” laughed Maggie, “we will provide a way for you. Mr. Mason, this is Miss Carroll.” The introduction being acknowledged, Maggie continued: “You can be of mutual service to each other, Mr. Mason—you as escort, and Miss Carroll as guide.”

But, after their visitor had gone, and Maggie had sought her own room, the laugh vanished and she threw herself upon the bed and burst into a storm of tears.

Her thoughts went back to the time of her childhood, to the little home in McGarragles’ Alley. She once more saw the dark-eyed boy who had been her very slave, who was always ready to fight for her, and[93] who was happiest when by her side. But as they grew up the years had separated them; she lived in her present home, went to the Normal School and found new friends very different from the old, though her heart was still true to them. And Larry only saw the change from the outside. When she came tripping along on Sunday morning, prayer book in hand, on her way to church, he, standing on the corner in front of Regan’s cigar store, rigged out in a cream-coloured overcoat with pearl buttons, saluted her with a nod of assumed indifference and she would return it in kind and continue on her way, wondering: “What in the world Larry Murphy saw in standing on Regan’s corner all day of a Sunday.”

An incident had occurred later that should have ended this misunderstanding; and it would have done so had not the sense of distance between them been magnified, in Larry’s mind, by the very nature of the happening.

Shannon, the teamster by whom he was employed, had one day called Larry into the little office down by the river.

“Larry,” said he, “I’m after havin’ great call from[94] the mills above in Kensington, as ye know. Sure the bell av me telyphone’s jingling all the God’s blessed day, an’ I have the divil’s own job gittin’ me teams up there in time. Yesterday I bought six pair av the foinest jacks yez iver laid eyes on, an’ five trucks as good as new; I have rinted the back room av Kavanaugh’s on the Frankford road as an up-town branch; an’ it’s yezsilf I want till take charge av it. The work will be asey an’ genteel an’ I’ll pay yez twinty dollars a week.”

“The job’s a cinch, an’ the money’s good; but, say, Pat, how do youse t’ink I’ll size up to the work? I can’t write a’tall an’ on’y kin read a little.”

“Now God forgi’mine for an ijit!” exclaimed Shannon. “Sure an I niver wanst thought av that. That puts an end till it, Larry; the work is beyant yez, b’y.”

Larry understood this and felt it keenly. He endeavoured to convey an impression of carelessness; but Shannon was not deceived.

“Common since’ll tell yez, Larry,” said he, kindly, “that the man that takes howld av me up-town branch[95] must have a bit av larnin’. Give up runnin’ wid the gang, lad, an’ go till the night school.”

Larry paid very little attention to what the boss was saying; he was wrestling with the bitterness within him. But that night, as he was crossing the railroad on his way to the club, he noticed that a broad shaft of light flowed from each window of the old Harrison School, and then Shannon’s words came back to him. A group of boys were skylarking in the entry where a single gas light flared redly in the gloom.

His mind was made up in an instant, and he started up the stairs toward the principal’s room. But with his hand upon the door knob, he paused. What would the gang say when they heard? He pictured himself standing in the midst of them, an object of derision; he saw two of them meet upon the street and heard the laugh that greeted the words, “Larry Murphy’s goin’ to school, like a kid.” But he drove these visions from him, muttering:

[96]He half expected the principal to laugh when he stated his business; but, on the contrary, that gentleman seemed to regard the matter approvingly; this made Larry feel better, and he entered the schoolroom indicated with scarcely a tremor. A number of young men of his own age sat at the little desks, handling the spelling books with pathetic care. There were two teachers in the room, flitting helpfully from desk to desk; no one noticed Larry and he slid into a vacant seat, and awaited developments.

One of the teachers was working from pupil to pupil up the aisle toward him. His back was turned to her, but he knew, from the sound of her voice, that she was young. In a few moments she was, as Larry afterward expressed it, “givin’ points to the guy right back o’ me.”

It was not until then that he recognized the voice; and a panic immediately possessed him.

“Gee!” he mentally exclaimed, “what did I drift into this joint for, anyhow; I might a-knowed she’d be here.” He looked longingly toward the door. “If I t’ought nobody was next, I’d take a chance, and fly the coop!”

[97]But he delayed until too late; in another moment Maggie had sat down beside him, inquiring:

“How are you getting on with—?” then in great astonishment. “Why, Larry Murphy!”

He began to stammer a confused explanation; but she knew of his shortcomings and realized the situation like a flash.

Maggie knew this; she also knew that if he had dreamed of her presence wild horses could not have dragged him there. Her tact soon put him more at his ease, and, finally her manner of putting things, awoke an interest in the lessons that almost made him forget his situation.

He kept his word, finished the term and mastered the studies in hand. But after that it was the same as before;[98] she could only feel sorry for him, he thought; and when he chanced to meet her on the street his manner was formal, and for her pride’s sake her own could not be otherwise.

OLD Mrs. Coogan, who was distantly related to Mary, opened the door for her and Mason. Mrs. Coogan had been there since the old man’s death, as a sort of chaperon and housekeeper, and vastly pleased was she with the arrangement. Larry in his shirt sleeves came out of the sitting room as they entered:

“Hello, back so soon!” exclaimed he. Then, seeing Mason, he added surprisedly: “Mr. Mason, how are youse?”

“Mr. Dwyer advised me to come to see you,” said Mason, shaking hands; “but I had not the slightest notion that I should meet an old acquaintance.”

Mary left them to themselves; and Mason plunged at once into the matter in hand. He explained in detail[100] the nature of the scheme on foot and then continued: “Now the local reform organization has resolved to fight this thing, and wants to enlist as many men acquainted with practical politics as possible.”

“Sure,” said Larry. “That’s the first crack out o’ the box every time youse hear from ’em. Say, I’ll give it to youse straight: reform’s all to the good, but the reformers give me a pain.”

“Don’t take that to yerself,” said Larry, noticing this; “I ain’t a-backheelin’ you or any other man; it’s the reformers as a bunch that I’m hittin’. When they hear of a crooked job they start to kick up the dust, hold meetin’s at the Academy of Music and do other red-hot stunts; then the first t’ing youse know they’re backin’ up the worst kind of a gang of tin horn pipes who are on’y fightin’ the administration because they ain’t in on the rake-off. If they win out, the pipes git the plums and work ranker jobs than the other bunch ever thought of, and then the reformers flop over into the other camp and trot the race all over again. Ain’t I right?”

“There is some truth in this,” said Mason, “but[101] then fusion is our only hope; we have not the strength to name and elect a man of our own.”

“As long as youse t’ink that ye’ll be easy game. Say, the people who wants the cards dealt square in the city’s got the bulge, but they’re dead leary on gettin’ their hands dirty; a man with aces in his fist is beat if he don’t use ’em at the show down.”

“I take it that you would support a reform delegation providing you were satisfied it was controlled by reformers.”

“Not on yer life! Le’me tell youse somethin’. Some o’ the fiercest guys what ever broke into politics, started their turn as reformers, and I don’t take no chances on havin’ a confidence game worked on me, see? The man what goes to the convention from this division stands to do a certain t’ing; he’s sent there to do it by the voters and he does it. Nobody outside’s got anyt’ing to say.”

“That’s as it should be,” said Mason. “But in how many divisions or wards is that the case? The ring controls the primaries in nine out of ten of them; the voice of the man with the ballot is seldom or never heard. Slavery was a liberal institution compared with[102] the electoral serfdom that exists in some of our municipalities.”

Mason’s warmth led him into exaggeration; but Larry had views upon this particular subject himself and proceeded to unburden himself.

“Youse’re dead right!” declared he. “I was talkin’ to the old coon what peddles calamus root to the avenoo, the other day, an’ he said that he wished he was a slave again, pickin’ cotton an’ dancin’ the buck. He says that he got a skin full o’ corn pone then, but that it keeps him scratchin’ with both hands these days to git next to anything with more stick in it than water. Say, the Uncle Tom racket wasn’t a bad graft when ye look at it right, and maybe it’ed been a good t’ing for the wool growers if Uncle Abe had changed his mind.”

Mason smiled at Larry’s literal interpretation of his words and made a vague remark regarding the blessings of liberty. But the other received it with contempt.

“That’s got moss on it,” said he. “Liberty’s all right, but it don’t put beef and beans into a man. There ain’t a mug in this ward that ain’t got it to[103] lose; but they don’t lay in bed in the mornin’ thinkin’ about it, either, when the whistles are a blowin’; they have to climb down the street, eatin’ their breakfast out o’ one hand and buttonin’ their overalls with the other.”

“But the slave,” protested Mason, “before the Civil War also had to work.”

“Sure!” exclaimed Murphy. “I didn’t t’ink that the main squeeze took off his coat and drove mules, while they sat on the porch an’ spit at their boots. A young Willie, what had the Sunday-school class what I went to onct, told us that the slave owner’d open up a hand with a black snake whip, if he looked cross-eyed, and that it was the reg’lar t’ing to hang the cook up by the t’umbs if she broke a plate. But, say, that sassy t’ing was a-stringin’ me cold; because when a guy put up a thousand plunks for a bogie he wasn’t goin’ to lam the life out o’ him like they do in the show. I don’t say that he was stuck on him, mind youse, but I do say that the price worried him some, and that the worsted motto what his wife worked, and hung up in the parlor read: ‘T’ink twice before youse slug a nigger onct.’

[104]“The gang down in Washin’ton,” proceeded Larry, “riffled the deck in ’62 an’ made a new deal; the coons looked at their hands and t’ought they had the pot cinched; they stood pat on the Fourteenth Amendment and waited for the guys with the dough to buck up. But they’re waitin’ yet. They never git their eyes on any o’ the blessin’s o’ liberty cept at ’lection time—and then they must deliver the goods. Liberty ain’t a bad game; but youse want to size up the dealer from start to finish, so’s he don’t stack the cards. There’s lots o’ people in the liberty line what used to carry a lead pipe in their pockets, but made the change because the gilt grew thicker and there wasn’t so much chance for doin’ time.”

“Some one, long ago,” remarked Mason, “said something about the ‘crimes committed in the name of liberty,’ and, unfortunately, it holds good to-day.”

“That’s no pipe dream! Now look here; there’s lots o’ guys right in this division, what’s swingin’ a pick for a dollar an’ a half a day, an’ hangin’ up their hats in a third story back where they have to stand on the stove and hold the kid while their wives make the bed. If a slave got sick his owner hustled[105] in a doctor, for if the coon went up the flue it was good money goin’ to the bad. But if the pick swinger gits down on his back, the main guy cashes his time ticket, hires a Polack, an’ don’t care a picayune if his friends are invited to meet at two an’ go at t’ree, an’ he has a plain black box and an undertaker’s wagon, with a drunken carriage washer to drive it.”

“But all employers are not so unfeeling; some are heard of, now and then, who help their people out of the hard places.”

“That might be right,” agreed Larry; “but I never piked off one that was out o’ breath through handin’ out money. His daughter belongs to a flower mission, maybe, and if she t’ought of it she might send the sick man a bunch of hyacinths done up in a waxed paper; but she’d stop the kids from cryin’ quicker if she trotted out a beef stew done up in a tin kettle, an’ that’s no joke. Say, as Chip Nolan ’ed say: It’s no wonder the coons are all whistlin’ ‘Lemme take me clothes back home.’”

Mason managed to head him off at this point and began an earnest plea for his support; but Larry would not bind himself to the support of anyone at that time.

[106]“I’m leary on makin’ promises,” said the latter, as Mason, at length, arose to depart; “t’ings’ll be dead ripe by the night o’ the primaries; so after that I kin talk to youse.”

The bell had rung a few moments before, without their noticing it; and now Mrs. Coogan opened the sitting room door, saying: “Sure, here is Mr. McQuirk, as large as life.”

“Murphy,” said the visitor, as he stepped into the room, “I hope I didn’t interrupt ye? I can wait if you’re busy.”

It was Tom McQuirk, the boss of the ward, a big-bodied, pleasant-faced man, well-dressed and of assured manner.

Mason shook hands with him without enthusiasm. He had sat too long at the feet of the sages of the Civic Club not to believe that this man and his kind[107] were the very bacillus of corruption. He had met him a year or two before at a conference held with a view to allying the Democrats and the reformers in favour of an independent candidate for city treasurer. But McQuirk had been against the fusion—and it had failed.

And Mason, after he had taken his departure and walked homeward, admitted to himself, with some bitterness, that McQuirk’s voice, in this ward at least, would very likely be the deciding one in the matter in hand.

BELLA NOLAN looked through the half glass door of Riley’s Oyster Café and tapped softly upon the pane. Goose McGonagle stood before Riley’s bar, fork in hand, while Riley, with amazing dexterity, wrenched open oysters and placed them before him on the shell. At the sound of the tapping, McGonagle looked up and Bella beckoned him.

“Ye’ve got another guess,” answered Goose. He laid down his fork and stepped out upon the sidewalk.

“All right,” consented McGonagle. He opened the door, “Say Riley,” said he, “just open the rest and have ’em on the bar. I’ll be back in a second.”

“Don’t let on to nobody,” cautioned Bella. “Because I wouldn’t be talked about for the world.”

The rooms of the Aurora Borealis Club were over Riley’s place of business; the entrance was by a side door and a flight of steps led directly into the parlour. The members were present in force, dressed in their best and, as it was Saturday night, chinking their money in their trousers’ pockets.

Larry Murphy and Roddy Ferguson in their shirt sleeves, were engaged in a game of pool, discussing, between shots, the merits of the various candidates for nomination at the coming ward convention. Mr. McCarty sat at the piano endeavouring to pick out a ragtime melody which he had heard at some “free and easy”; and Johnnie Kerrigan was critically examining a portrait of McQuirk, the boss of the ward, a work[110] of art which the boss had lately presented to the club. Other and less distinguished members lounged about the room, indulging in gossip of a sporting character and strong cigars.

“I tell ye,” said Ferguson, slipping a ball into the rack, “O’Connor’s got the t’ing cinched if he gets the delegates. He’ll win in a walk!”

Murphy chalked the tip of his cue and looked doubtful. “Gartenheim’s dead agin him,” said he, “an’ Gartenheim kin scare up some votes, youse know that. McQuirk’s pullin’ with Kelly this hitch, and he’ll wheel the machine in line. I don’t t’ink O’Connor’ll do; if we want to have a say we must ring in a man what kin hold the push together, see?”

“Dum-had, dah; doodle-day!” hummed McCarty, banging away at the keyboard. “How’s that, Kerrigan?”

“Nothing like it,” answered Johnnie, “you’re getting worse every minute.”

“They’re makin’ up a game,” said he. “Any o’ youse gents want t’ sit in?”

[111]Murphy paused with his cue poised. “Not me,” remarked he. “Last Saturday night was my finish; I don’t play no more poker with people what deals from the bottom o’ the deck.”

McCarty stopped his piano practice and whirled about on the stool. “This joint’s gittin’ to be a reg’lar hang-out for sharks,” complained he. “We hold a meetin’ to-night, and if Kelly don’t git the razoo why I git out o’ the club, that’s all.”

“What’s that!” demanded he. “Speak yer piece, McCarty, don’t talk behind me back.”

Martin struck the cushion of the pool table with his fist. “I want to hear it right now; what are youse goin’ to put me before the meetin’ for?”

Murphy leaned his cue against the wall. “Ye done me out o’ a five spot by stackin’ the papers,” said he.

Kelly hesitated. Larry was one of the quietest men[112] in the district; but then he was also the man that the club had entered in the tournament for amateurs a few years before and he had carried off the light weight cup by beating three men in the finals.

“Let it drop, gents!” advised Jerry McGlory who had just come in. McGlory was the club’s president and he felt that in his office it behoved him to act the part of a peacemaker. He took the wrathful Kelly aside and was trying to soothe him when McGonagle entered upon his errand.

“Go ahead out an’ see ’em,” begged McGlory, delighted. “Ye’ll feel better after ye come back.”

Muttering under his breath, Kelly followed McGonagle down the steps, and after he had gone McGlory observed:

“Well, he’s got another t’ink,” said Murphy. “Say,[113] us people made a foxy play when we turned down the fifty dollars his old man wanted to chip in toward gittin’ the pool table.”

“’Lection’s comin’,” remarked Ferguson. “He t’ought he’d cop our support be that move.”

“He don’t git no support o’ mine,” Murphy informed them. “I ain’t for no gent that pulls on both ends o’ the string. Le’me tell youse this,” rapping with his knuckles upon the piano top; “if Kelly scoops the nomination we’re a push o’ dead ones.”

“He’s puttin’ his net out though,” affirmed Roddy Ferguson. “O’Connor told me that he’s got the ward committee fixed, an’ that the heelers’ll pull for him at the primaries.”

“He’s got all the bums in the ward on his staff,” said McGlory. “He gits ’em out o’ jail when they’re pinched, an’ he’s loadin’ rum into them all day, over his bar.”

“The Mozart Sangerbund give him an invitation to their last meetin’,” put in McCarty, “and he wanted Kerrigan to write him a speech. He’s makin’ a play for the German vote.”

“I heard in City Hall, yesterday,” said Kerrigan,[114] “that the Mayor offered him the indorsement of the other side again, if he could split our ticket. McQuirk was at the pow-wow and somebody slipped him a bunch of money. But say! if that’s right he’ll have a warm time delivering the goods.”

“Talkin’ about the ball,” remarked McCarty: “we won’t have Larkin to lead the march for us this time, eh?”

“There’s a guy what knows the figures,” commented McGlory. “How’s he doin’ now?”

“He’s doin’ ’em all; an’ right off the reel too,” said Murphy, who was a pupil of Jimmie’s in the manly art, and had watched his progress, through the newspapers, with interest. “He’s done stunts wit’ the best o’ them, since he left town, and they kin hardly put a glove on him. He knocked the Pohoket Cyclone dead to the world in the second minute o’ the fifth round last Monday night at New Orleans. Larkin’s a comer, le’me tell youse.”

[115]McGlory had pulled aside one of the window blinds and was gazing down into the street.

“Say!” exclaimed he suddenly, “it’s a bundle o’ skirts what sent McGonagle up after Kelly.” He regarded the two figures standing near the curb below under the glare of the gas light, intently. “It looks,” said he, “like Nolan’s sister.”

“Cheese it!” whispered Murphy. But Roddy Ferguson had caught the words; and he stood with his elbow resting on the piano top, chewing at the end of his cigar, and looking with clouded brow into the fire. It was an open secret that Bella had thrown him over for Martin Kelly; Roddy was too quiet and steady to suit her light temperament, he lacked Martin’s swagger and bluster, qualities which Bella liked, for she was one of those women who mistake excess for a proof of spirit and dissolute living for a mark of manhood.

Martin had found Bella waiting for him in front of Riley’s. His anger had not had time to cool, and he demanded roughly:

“You didn’t meet me last night at Whalen’s dance like ye said ye would, and I thought somethin’ might be the matter.”

“Nothin’s the matter only I’m ’lectioneering for the old man, an’ I ain’t got no time to meet women.”

“S-h-h! Mart Kelly, I don’t thank you one bit for talkin’ to me like that! Anybody to hear ye would think I was common.”

“Well, don’t do it no more! I don’t want people talkin’ about me and giving me a shamed face. Ye know, yourself, they’d on’y be too ready. Oh, my Gawd,” suddenly, “here comes Mom!”

Mrs. Nolan, a market basket upon her arm, came down the street with staggering step. Dick had entrusted her with money enough to go marketing and it had gone for drink; she was muttering to herself and gesticulating drunkenly, and as she caught sight of the pair by the curb, she halted:

[117]“Ah!” cried she. “Is it spharkin’ be the gutter yez’ed be doin’, jewels? Have ye no home till go till, Bella, that yez must stan’ on the strate!”

“Oh, go home!” cried Bella, scarlet with shame, “everybody’s lookin’ at you!”

“Divil a hair do I care. Sure, an’ haven’t I the roight till take a sup av drink iv I have the price? It’s not long yez father ’ud be in biz’ness,” she added to Martin, “iv it wurn’t for the loikes av me.”

The young man growled out an oath. He saw McGonagle looking at him through Riley’s window, and Riley, himself, with a grin upon his face. A Saturday night crowd filled Second Street; many that knew him stopped and looked and laughed; on the opposite corner, in front of Kerrigan’s saloon and under the glare of an arc lamp, a crowd of loungers were enjoying the sight; Officer Hogan was slyly pointing at him with his club, and saying something to the bartender who stood in the doorway.

“And is me poor home not good enough for yez,” went on Mrs. Nolan with increased pitch, “that yez do be kapin’ me daughter stan’in’ in the strate till be talked about. Divil a better had yez father till he[118] tuk to sellin’ the drop. Lave go av me arm Bella; I’ll go home whin I plaze!”

“Ye’ll go home now!” said her son, pushing his way through the crowd which had collected. “For God’s sake,” as she began struggling, “don’t make a show of yourself! T’ink of the neighbours!”

“May the divil fly away wid the neighbours! What call have I till be afeerd av thim?”

“Come on, Mom,” urged Bella, almost in tears, “if ye go on this way, I’ll never show me face outside the door again!”

“Ye promised to do right,” said Dick, with white face, “and ye’ll never get another cent o’ my money in yer hands as long as ye live!”

Kelly had darted into Riley’s; and the tittering, thoughtless crowd was growing greater.

“Is this the way yez talks till yez owld mother!” cried Mrs. Nolan. “May the cross av Christ darken the day yez wur born.”

A man laughed loudly: Dick turned with a snarl, caught him by the throat with one hand, the other drawn back for a blow. Bella screamed and Hogan ran across the street.

[119]“Don’t hit him,” shouted the policeman; “don’t hit him, Dick!” He dragged the angry, shame-maddened youth away from his victim. “I don’t want to pull yez,” said he, “for I know just how it is. Go along home, now and take yez mother wid ye.”

The mother, frightened by her son’s sudden exhibition of fury submitted to being led away. And an hour afterward she was deep in a drunken sleep on a narrow settee in her kitchen. Bella sat upon the steps leading to the room above, and her brother was walking the floor, his head throbbing and a sickening feeling at his heart.

“It’s a bad t’ing to say,” said he suddenly, “but sometimes I wisht she was in her grave.”

“I know! I know!” waving his hand impatiently, “yer goin’ to say that it ain’t right; an’ I know that as well as you.” He paced up and down in silence for a moment. “Look at what I could do for her,” he resumed, “if she’d on’y do what was right. I make big money, and I’d a-bought a house out o’ the Building Association long ago if it hadn’t been for that”—with a gesture toward the sleeping form. “She could[120] live like a lady—like a lady! And I’d only ask her to do right.”

He took a clay pipe from the shelf over the door and struck a match upon the stove.

“How often has she promised to break it off?” demanded he staring at the flickering flame. “A hundred times if she’s done it once.” Here the match sputtered and went out, and he threw the pipe angrily from him, smashing it to fragments upon the floor. “It was jist like that, though,” he said. “She broke ’em all! She’ll do anyt’ing to get rum. Look at last week when I was invited to Gartenheim’s sister’s weddin’! When I got home from work I hadn’t a rag to put on me back; she’d lifted ’em, and soaked ’em all at Rosenbaum’s hock shop.”

And bitterly he went over the long list of drink-inspired acts that had made his life so hard to live, and with a sense of despair he looked at the poor bare room, and contrasted it with the comfortable home that he could have supported had all been right. The thought came, too, of Gartenheim’s bright snug home, of the gas-lit parlour on the Sunday night when last he had been there, of the boss’s flaxen-haired niece,[121] and of how she had sung the “Holy City” for him in deep, rich, contralto voice. Then came darker thoughts, and he sat down staring vacantly into the fire. Bella watched him in silence, listening to the tick of the little nickel clock, and petulantly frowning at the bother of it all.

“I think I’ll go to bed,” she said, at last. She opened the stair door and was about to ascend when she felt her brother’s hand upon her shoulder.

“I oughtn’t to say this maybe,” said he, slowly, “but if yer mother can’t tell ye—why I must. I hope yer a good girl Bella; but I see youse with Mart Kelly often, and a girl can’t hold her head up long if she sticks to sich people as him. Break it off! Break it off, I tell ye, for he’s no good.”

He heard the clock strike every hour through the long night, but still he sat there struggling under the weight of his cross.

THE entrance to the hall was a-glitter with gas lights; freshly barbered young men in high collars and sack coats stood about the doorway, smoking cigarettes and spitting on the steps. A wagon was unloading kegs of beer at a side door; people flocked into the smoky entry; now and then a hired hack would pull up at the curb and a member of the club would hand his sweetheart out and up the steps. Four policemen, engaged at three dollars a head to keep order, stood on the sidewalk counting the ingoing kegs.

[123]“Forty quarters, all told,” said a pock-marked officer, lifting his huge shoulders.

“Whew! The club’ll have a neat wad to put away if they sell all that! An’ just look at the people goin’ in!”

“Say, there’s one fight in every two kegs o’ beer,” said a third policeman. “That makes twenty turns before the janitor turns off the lights. We ain’t a-goin’ to have no cinch.”

At the far end of the entry stood a pair of half doors so arranged that only one person could pass them at a time. Behind these, bathed in a glare of yellow light from a cluster of gas jets which hung directly overhead, stood Danny Casey, attired in a dress suit rented from Goldstine the costumer, a huge crimson badge edged with gold braid hanging from his lapel. He was taking tickets and deftly slipping them into a slot in a tin box which stood beside him on a chair; on the stairs leading to the ballroom, a man with a mass of brass checks hanging by strings from his fingers was keeping up a continuous fire of patter. Murphy and McGonagle, feeling rather queer[124] behind their glittering expanses of shirt front, walked stiffly down the steps to where Casey was standing.

“And they’ve on’y started to come,” said Casey. “Who ordered the extree beer?”

“McGlory: an’ we’ll need it, too; for the guys what’s a-comin’ in looks dead t’irsty.”

“Say,” put in Murphy, in an injured tone, “I don’t know how youse people take it but I feel like a sign for a clothin’ store. I can’t bend wit’out breakin’ me shirt and the pants ain’t got no pockets in.”

“You look,” commented McGonagle, “like a dressed up prize-fighter. Somebody ought to slam McGlory in the jaw for makin’ that motion that we all must wear dress suits. I know I look a mess in mine.”

“Thirty-eight dress suits at a dollar a throw,” figured Casey, as he politely plucked ticket after ticket from hands extending them to him; “that’s thirty-eight plunks. Goldstine’s makin’ money and McGlory will be holdin’ him up for a comish.”

There was a stir among the sack-coated and high-collared[125] coterie at the entrance. A tall, well-built girl, tastefully dressed and carrying herself with a dashing air, had come in, escorted by a blushing youth who looked very uncomfortable under the notice they created.

“It’s Nelly Fogarty,” said someone. “She don’t look like a poverty knocker when she’s dressed up, eh?”

“‘Oh Nelly was a lady,’” sang another. “Say, Brennen, here’s yer girl!”

“Gee!” exclaimed the person addressed. “And I told her I wasn’t comin’; she’s got me dead!”

The congregated youths grinned over their high collars and bowed after the fashion approved by Professor Whalen, teacher of the “Glide Waltz.” The girl flashed them a smile as she went by, a bunch of La France roses in her hand. But a cloud crossed her face, and she bit her lips at sight of young Brennen.

“Go on, please, Mr. Shimph,” requested she, of her escort. “I’ll folly you in a minute.”

“But, say Nell!” exclaimed Shimph, who had also caught sight of Brennen, “yous’re with me, ain’t ye?”

[126]“Cert’n’y!” with a lofty air, “I don’t shake me friends that way.”

Re-assured, Shimph walked down the entry; Miss Fogarty beckoned with the roses, and Brennen, a little abashed, came to her.

“I thought,” said she, “that you couldn’t come to-night. What’s the matter?—didn’t ye want to take me?”

“Will ye cheese it! If the gang git next they’ll give me the laugh. I didn’t bring no lady, Nell. I’m dead broke and couldn’t, see! That’s the reason I give youse the song and dance about not comin’. When I take youse out, I want to do the right t’ing.”

“I knowed you wasn’t workin’, didn’t I; and I didn’t expect ye’d blow your money when ye hadn’t[127] much. You ain’t acquainted with me, I can see that right here. I ain’t no leg-puller. Got a ticket?”

“No,” answered the youth awkwardly; “I’m waitin’ for a slow. Casey told me there’d be some goin’ aroun’ after the push got in.”

“For Heaven’s sake!” cried Miss Fogarty: “Don’t hang around the door waitin’ for a captain; ye’ll git a hard name!” She looked down the entry where Casey was riffling a packet of tickets his shirt front and rhinestone studs gleaming under the slanting rays of light. “After I go in,” continued she, “ask Danny for one; I’ll fix it with him as I pass.”

“Look here,” she cautioned, “don’t you ask me for a single dance; for if ye do ye’ll get flagged! Rox Shimph sent me these flowers and put up money for a hack, and he’s me partner for all the dances.”

“Don’t call him names! He’s run the pair o’ looms next to mine for three years now, and he’s always[128] acted like a perfect gentleman. You come to see me steady, Mr. Brennen, but I won’t play Rox for a lobster even for you.” And with this she once more started away fumbling in her purse and saying over her shoulder: “Don’t forget to ask Danny for the ticket.”

Murphy had gone to the street door to speak to a friend while the above scene was enacting; now he came hurrying back to the “gate” excitedly.

“McGonagle,” exclaimed he, “here comes Nobby Foley and Tim Daily wit’ a couple o’ skirts. I’ll bet we’ll have the ‘chain gang’ here!”

“Gee,” murmured Goose. “If they cut loose this won’t be a ball, it’ll be a scrappin’ match. Say d’youse t’ink four cops is enough? Hadn’t we better git the loot to send two more?”

“We ain’t a lot o’ kids, are we?” inquired he. “I might be dead wrong but I t’ink the push kin hold their own with any of ’em. There’s only one t’ing to do; as soon as they git gay, go in an’ slam ’em; ain’t that right?”

Foley was short and square-jawed; Daily was big[129] and brawny; and both carried themselves with much aggressiveness, swaggering into the hall, their convoys on their arms, with the air of men whose deeds were epic in the ward.

“That’s a swell one wit’ Foley,” whispered a voice. “Who is she, Brennen?”

“An old party rammer,” answered Brennen; “an’ she’s the star pivoter of Whalen’s Academy. Her an’ Bat Mahoney won the prize waltz at the Emmet Band’s picnic, Decoration Day.”

“Her hair’s bleached,” remarked the other; “an’ that rouge on her face is the reddest t’ing that ever come down the pike.”

The girl was taller than her escort; she was remarkably handsome, dressed richly, and held herself in a way that made the women whisper and the men stare. As they neared the gate, she laughing and showing her beautiful teeth and flashing her splendid eyes here and there, McGonagle leaned forward and whispered a few quick words in Murphy’s ear.

[130]Brennen suddenly craned his neck out of its circle of stiff linen, excitedly.

“Murphy won’t take their tickets!” he breathed, “there’s goin’ to be a run in at the start!”

All surged toward the gate; McGonagle whistled through his thumb and fore-finger; a policeman came looming along through the cigar smoke.

“Stand back, gents,” requested he. He flourished his club airily, and measured Daily with his eye. “On’y three couple allowed at the gate at a time.”

The crowd fell back disappointedly. The group at the gate were engaged in excited debate; Foley was describing aerial hieroglyphics with his clenched fist; the girl had let go his arm and was staring Murphy boldly in the eye.

“You’ve insulted this lady!” declared Foley in a sharp high-pitched voice.

“I didn’t insult nobody,” said Murphy. “Didn’t I flag her on the quiet? Nobody knowed it until youse made a holler.”

“This is the rankest snap I ever stacked up against,” remarked the girl, tossing her head and rubbing the[131] wrinkles out of her long gloves. “If I’d a-knowed it was a nasty-nice affair, I wouldn’t a-come!”

“This ain’t the first time youse gave me the wrong end of it, Murphy,” said Foley, drawing back in such a way as to cause McGonagle to brace himself for the expected rush. “For the last time; does she go in, or is she barred?”

“This ain’t no flash shine,” broke in McGonagle, “we’ve got our girls here to-night, and I, for one, won’t let mine dance on the same floor with her, and that goes!”

“Push along, gents,” hinted the policeman, “inside or out; yer blockin’ the passage.”

“Don’t git leary; ye’ll queer Kelly if ye kick up a row, now. Give him a chance to work the gang what’s runnin’ the show. We can come back, ye know, when he’s done; and if youse wants to do business, then, with the guy on the door, why you kin go ahead.”

The crush was growing; Levi and his orchestra had just gone in, and the tuning of the harp and violins came floating down the stairway. Belated Jerry McGlory[132] came striding in, in a light top coat and a glossy silk hat, bowing like a duke to his acquaintances, with Veronica McTurpin, the little widow who kept the millinery store; she was half hidden in her bouquet, and also bowing and smiling, dazzlingly. Mike McCarty followed, more than ever earning his right to the title of Brummel of the ward. He carried his stick and one glove in his right hand; with the other he was barely touching the elbow of Mazie Driscoll, who sold ribbons in a down-town store. Then there was Shaffer the collector for the brewery, and Carrie Lentze, whose father carried on the “Delicatessen” store on the avenue; while behind them came Koskee McGurk and a daughter of O’Mally, who kept the junk shop back of the railroad.

“Checks!” cried the man on the stairs jingling his bunch of brass tags. “Put yer wardrobe away, gents; youse can’t go on the floor with yer overcoat or sky-piece.”

“Hully gee!” gasped a youth in soiled white kid gloves and a scarlet Ascot tie; “they sticks youse a quarter for wardrobe!”

“It’s a t’row down,” echoed a neighbour. “Mame,”[133] to the girl at his side, “it’ll cost two bits to put away yer hat.”

“G’way,” said Mame, shocked. “It’s not the right thing, when you’re asked a dollar admission.”

“Don’t hold a meetin’ and make speeches about it,” requested he. “If yer goin’ to cough up, do it.”

The bar was on the second floor and had a door leading into the ballroom; groups of men and women were gathered about the tables; waiters were rushing about, the fingers of each hand twisted, in some miraculous fashion, about the handles of a dozen beer glasses; a young man was seated at a piano, singing a popular ballad in a high, throaty voice; some members of the club, their coats stripped off, their sleeves rolled up, were drawing beer, popping corks and passing out dry-looking cigars to a long line of thirsty patrons who stood along the bar.

It was ten o’clock. The floor of the ballroom shone with wax; the rows of chairs upon three sides were filled with chattering couples; Levi and his musicians stood ready. All were waiting for Master-of-Ceremonies Murphy, to give the word.

[134]“The floor looks great,” remarked that gentleman. He was surrounded by the “floor committee” at the far end of the room, and was running his eye over everything like a general before going into battle. There would be no hitch if he could help it. He hummed a tune and went through a few steps of a “glide waltz” by way of a test.

“Like old cheese,” commented he, “jist as slippy as ice.” He looked about him, again. “Where’s McGonagle?” he inquired. “Oh, there youse are,” seeing that gentleman. “All ready?”

Larry took some half dozen steps out upon the floor; then he paused, rapped sharply with his heel, and drew himself up with a dignity that Professor Whalen could not have excelled. All eyes were upon him; he extended both arms, palms held downward, waving them up and down. Silence fell. The palms came together with a sharp report; Levi described a wild flourish with his bow; the cornet blared brassily; McGonagle and Annie Clancy stepped out upon the floor to lead the march. The ball was on.

[135]At midnight the affair was in full blast; quadrille, schottische and waltz succeeded each other with hardly a pause, the dancers whirled, stamped and pirouetted with exhaustless energy; the musicians blew and scraped, the perspiration dropping from their faces. A sergeant of police, on his round of inspection, had just dropped in; he stood in the doorway leading to the staircase looking wet and chilled, for it had begun to rain, and talked to the men on duty in the hall.

“Anything doing?” asked he, shaking the drops of water from the brim of his hat, his eyes taking in the heaving mass on the floor, swaying in rhythm with the music.

“On’y a couple o’ drunks,” answered the pock-marked officer; “an’ we just fired ’em out, not botherin’ to pull up for the wagon.”

“I seen Daily and some o’ that crowd, in the barroom,” said another. “From the way things look he’s cappin’ for Kelly, and Kelly’s dealin’ out the dough for further orders.”

“For drinks, eh?” The sergeant frowned. “Say Laughlin, go in there and tell Kelly I want to see him,[136] right away. The damn fool oughtn’t make work for me!”

Kelly had a roll of notes in his hand and was flourishing them animatedly over his head; a crowd of half drunken youths surged about him, approvingly; he was their idol, having usurped the post held an hour before by Shaffer, the collector for the brewery.

“This is the stuff that makes the world move!” declared the saloonkeeper. “We’re all after it, me bucko’s, ivery wan av us an’ small blame till him that puts the fattest wad in the bank, eh?”

“Barkeeper,” remarked Kelly after a glance about, “me friends here are doin’ nawthin’.” He stripped a note from the bundle and threw it upon the sloppy bar. “Work that out,” requested he, “an’ tell me when it’s done. There’s more to folly, for I’m out for a good toime the noight.”

“There’s a good t’ing!” exclaimed Nobby Foley. “He’s a blood, d’ye hear—a blood! He treats youse right, see?”

“Gintlemen,” affirmed the object of these remarks, “I haven’t a mane bone in me body, an’ the man that[137] do be after callin’ James Kelly a friend, is welcome till share his last dollar. Iv any av yez gits pinched does yez friends have till ax me twice till go yez bail? Be hivens!” excitedly, “there ain’t a magistrate in the city, Raypublican or Dimmycrat, that’ed kape yez in the jug a minyute after I wint forninst him and told him till lave ye go.”

The enthusiasm that greeted this statement shook the walls. Daily, Foley, and a select circle of kindred spirits added no little volume to it. They rapturously patted the speaker on the back and beat the bar with their glasses, for each had a five dollar note tucked snugly away in his pocket and felt in duty bound to stir up the promised amount of enthusiasm. The outburst elated the selectman; his voice was husky with drink, but he climbed upon a chair and plunged into a speech.

“The fellys that are again’ me,” declared he, “say that I am not a Dimmycrat, an’ would have yez vote to bate me. But whin the day comes I’ll show thim what the people of the ward t’ink, because the dillygates’ll be there that’ll name me in spoite av thim!”

He forgot his protestation of a few minutes before[138] that he was out for a good time, and proceeded to make a bid for his hearers’ support at the primaries; Daily and his henchmen were punctuating his remarks by salvos of applause, when Laughlin summoned the orator into the entry.

“Hello, Phil,” Kelly greeted the sergeant, “sure an’ it’s glad till see yez I am; but divil take ye, cud yez not wait till I got through! I had ’em jist where I wanted thim; I wur makin’ votes by the dozen.”

“It’s a slashin’ good game for you,” grumbled the sergeant; “but look at my end of it! You load ’em up with booze—they’ll fight—my men’ll pull ’em, an’ I’ll have to hold ’em till Moran kin give’m a hearin’ in the mornin’. Then what? There’s lots of fellows from my division here, an’ I must carry that division, Kelly, I must carry it, or lose me job; that’s just how I stand. An’ if I put me people away in the cooler how am I goin’ to do any carryin’, eh?”

“Tut, tut, man dear, I must make meself solid wid the gang av young fellys. Sure a drop av drink’ll do thim no harm, Phil; it’ll make thim feel good, that’s all.”

The uproar raised by Daily and his friends and[139] Kelly’s display of ready money had captured both the rowdy and the frothy elements. But the popular young men—the members of the club for example—held aloof; and it was these that Kelly was working for.

“The stiff!” exclaimed Jerry McGlory, as Kelly came back into the barroom; “he t’inks if he blows his coin over the bar we’ll fall in line.”

“Look at Mart, over there,” said McCarty, “he’s looking black about something.”

“He was backcappin’ Murphy a while ago. He’s half lit up, and he’ll say somethin’ to Larry afore the night’s over, and Larry’ll slam him.”

“Here he comes over! Play foxy, gents; don’t give him no excuse for bother, see?”

“How are youse, gents?” saluted Martin. “It’s the old man’s treat; won’t youse have somethin’?”

“We’re on the floor committee,” said McCarty, “an’ we ain’t touchin’ it to-night.”

[140]Martin sneered; Daily heaved his bulging chest contemptuously and coughed. It was Foley that spoke.

“When a gent tries to be friendly wit’ me,” announced he, “I be’s friendly wit’ him, see? Ain’t that right?”

“Eh, no! What t’ell no! Youse do it every hitch!” And Foley excitedly dramatized a scene: “A gent comes up to me, and puts out his fin, see? What do I do? Why I takes it, an’ puts away me medicine like a little man! All to be sociable, see? All to be sociable!”

“That’s right,” agreed Daily. “That’s the proper t’ing to do. Why youse’d cut a hell of a caper, turnin’ down good people, wouldn’t youse.”

“Ah, go soak yer head,” growled McGonagle. “Youse guys give me a pain! We ain’t suckers; we kin see a play when it’s made, as well as the next.”

“Youse’re all gents!” put in Martin, sarcastically. “Here that lobster Murphy goes an’ turns down a lady, at the door. I’m ’sponsible to me friends for that, d’ye hear? I sold ’em the tickets an’ I’m ’sponsible[141] for the game I steered ’em against! Ain’t that right?”

“Where’s Murphy?” demanded Martin. “Murphy’s got to apologize fer insultin’ Nobby’s lady friend. He’s got to do it!”

“We’d better put Larry next,” remarked McCarty in the same voice. “Kelly carries a jack; remember how he t’rowed it into Ned Hogan that night?”

Larry was dancing; he had his arm about Annie Clancy’s trim waist and they swayed and spun with the music. Annie’s face was bright and happy; her eyes shone like twin stars, for Larry was telling her how good a fellow his friend McGonagle was, and that was a tale that Annie could have listened to forever.

Word had gone about among the “floor committee” that Kelly was looking for him, and Larry received mysterious nods, winks and signals. He could make nothing of it, so he led Annie to a seat beside Miss McTurpin, and walked over to where McGonagle, who had crossed the room, was standing.

[142]“What’s the new one?” inquired Larry. “What’s the gang all pullin’ faces about?”

“Keep yer eyes on Kelly,” cautioned Goose. “He’s been puttin’ away booze all night, and he wants to see you about the girl what you flagged at the door.”

“Oh!” Larry shoved his head forward in a bull-like movement and stared about him. “Does he want some o’ my game, eh? Is the lobster spoilin’ to mix it up with me? There’ll be on’y two blows struck; I’ll hit him, and he’ll hit the floor!”

Mike McCarty came out of the barroom and approached them, crossing the floor in the midst of the dancers. A girl’s swinging skirts almost wrapped themselves about him, as her partner piloted her by.

“Ah, there, Mike?” cried the lady, gleefully, and McCarty bowed like a Chesterfield, never pausing in his stride, however, until he reached the spot where Goose and Larry were talking.

“Kelly’s comin’ across,” said he pointing among the dancing throng. “He just seen youse a minit ago, and he’s goin’ to lay you out, so he says.”

Larry growled an answer deep down in his chest; he was looking at Kelly and his two allies as they[143] swaggered through the dancers. McGonagle rapped out a vexed oath, as he caught Larry by the arm.

“I t’ought,” complained he, “that we’d pull off this affair wit’out any scrappin’; and here them mugs spoils it all. Say, if there’s a fight, Annie won’t do a t’ing but climb down me back fer fetchin’ her.”

Larry reluctantly went with them, casting glances over his shoulder at his prospective opponent.

“The mug’ll t’ink I’m afraid o’ him,” said he. When they reached the entry he tugged viciously at the breast of his dress coat. “Damn it,” growled he, savagely, “the t’ing ain’t got no buttons on! I don’t want to get no blood on me shirt front.”

“Keep yer eyes on Foley,” whispered Mike to McGonagle. “I’ll look out for Daily.”

“D’ye t’ink ye kin hold him even? He pulls the beam fifty pounds more’n youse.”

“I wouldn’t care,” smiled Mike, “if he was as big as the side o’ a house. The bigger he is the harder he’ll fall.”

[144]“Youse’re a nice-lookin’ pill, ain’t ye?” were Kelly’s first words. “Floor Manager, too,” sneeringly; “why, youse don’t know a lady when ye see one.”

“You’re a liar,” snarled Martin. “And even if she is, she’s better than some women I know of. She don’t live with—”

He did not finish but leaped back and threw up his guard. Larry, his face wrinkling with a grin, was upon him, striking with the speed, precision and power of a practiced boxer. The exchange was heavy and rapid. The men panted and laboured for breath, cursing each other between their teeth. The policemen were clattering up the steps from the lower passage; the doorway leading to the ballroom was banked solid with the strained, anxious faces of partisans; women screamed shrilly; the music stopped with a crash.

Suddenly Larry slipped and fell upon one knee; Foley made a quick, wicked kick at his side, and the next instant was thrown against the wall by the force[145] of a smashing blow from McGonagle. Mike McCarty was staring eagerly into Daily’s face, his body quivering like that of a crouching cat, when the officers arrived.

The offenders were promptly hustled down the stairs and out upon the sidewalk. A light rain was falling; the arc lamps sputtered and hissed in the silence. A form wrapped in a blue mackintosh, and holding an umbrella, was standing upon the steps.

“Here he is,” laughed the policeman who held Martin; “and I didn’t have to tell him he was wanted, either.”

The three ejected ones stared curiously at the woman; and the policeman laughed again and closed the door.

“Oh, hell!” Martin’s tone was one of deep disgust and he waved his hand in a bored fashion.

[146]“Le’s go have somethin’, then,” suggested Daily, “don’t stand here in the damp.”

“Go on home, Bella,” commanded Martin, addressing the woman on the steps. “What are ye doin’ around here, anyway? Youse must t’ink I’m a chump, don’t ye, to have youse follyin’ me up this way.”

“Just a minute, Mart,” pleaded Bella: “I won’t be longer than a minute, so help me God!”

“Go on, Kelly,” said Daily; “don’t talk to a bundle o’ skirts that way. See what she wants; we’ll wait for youse at Mintzers.”

Daily and Foley cut across the street to where the lights of a saloon flared redly through the mist; Martin and the girl started up the street, slowly. She gave one upward glance at the windows of the hall, and sighed to see the dancers whirl gayly by. That was of the bright past; and the future was black enough for her.

IT was the season of rains, and the great sewer that drains the northwestern section of the city had burst again, and with its collapse sunk a goodly part of two streets at the junction of Germantown Avenue and Third Street. Gartenheim was doing the repairing as he had often done before; great heaps of brick and timber lay about the break in the street; a donkey engine, shrouded in a canvas covering loomed up spectre like in the fog; from the small windows of the tool shanty crept a pale flare of light; and a man could be seen within, bent over a mass of papers and time-books. Martin and Bella paused at the foot of a broken spile-driver.

“I ain’t a-goin’ apast! He’d never let me hear the last of it if he seen me out so late.”

“I don’t care! I on’y want you to do right by me; you promised you would.”

Martin laughed. Bella’s face was pale, and the damp, penetrating mist made her shiver; a single, heavy drop of water was falling from a height upon her umbrella, with a measured beat that kept time with the pulsation of her heart.

“You on’y think of yourself! What’ll Dick say?[149] What’ll everybody say? I can’t face it, Mart; I can’t face it!”

She began to sob huskily; Martin prodded a stone with the toe of his shoe and reflected; he whistled a few bars from a popular song to convey an impression of carelessness; nevertheless he was troubled.

“Ye don’t want to, I know.” Then she added after a pause: “I was to see Father Dawson, yesterday.”

“So you’ve beefed, eh? Yer goin’ to try that racket, are youse? Well you’ve made a scratch, see? Ye forgot to call yer play. I don’t go to church; he can’t jump me because I won’t stand for it.”

“Then he’ll go to your father,” said she, “and I will, too. He’ll make ye do what ye said ye would; he can’t help it!”

“I’ll jump the town,” said he, doggedly. “There[150] ain’t no use chewin’ it up with the old man; he ain’t got no pull with me! I’d flag him as quick as I would youse.”

Then she began to reproach him. He opened an extensive vocabulary of abuse, and drenched her with epithets; she grew angry and responded in kind; for a time their words reeked with foulness. Suddenly he drew back his arm and struck her; she fell backward, the blood spirting from her nostrils and mouth. Kelly did not give her a second glance, but strode away, cursing under his breath.

People have an awkward habit of dying at all hours of the day and night, and an undertaker is never care free for a moment. Roddy Ferguson was revolving this fact with gloomy disapproval as he bowled stableward in O’Connor’s black wagon, his mud spattered horse picking its way along the broken street.

“Old Brannagan,” muttered Roddy, “has been dyin’ once a month reg’lar for the last three years; and now, just because it’s the night of the ball, he cashes in for real, an’ I have to hustle to fix him up.”

[151]“Gartenheim,” he mused, “must be gittin’ paid by the day for this sewer; he’s been long enough at it to sew tassels on every brick he puts in. Go on there, ye big Indian, what’s the matter with youse, anyhow?”

He jumped out to see what frightened the horse, and at once caught sight of the prostrate figure at the foot of the spile-driver; the pale, wavering rays of a gas lamp gave him a glimpse of the blood-smeared face.

He threw his horse blanket over her as a protection from the rain and then rushed toward the tool shanty and opened the door.

“Say,” panted he, “there’s a woman out here hurt. Kin I bring her in here while I get a cop to ring up for the wagon?”

Dick Nolan stared at him, vacantly, chewing at the end of his pencil, the figures of the time tickets buzzing in his head. He did not catch the import of the words for a moment, neither did he recognize Ferguson; then his brain burst through the maze of arithmetic and both flashed upon him.

“I didn’t ask for no card,” returned Roddy, sarcastically.[152] It was the first words he had exchanged with Nolan for almost two years, and the fact that he had spoken first, galled him. “Lend me a hand,” requested he, “I don’t t’ink she kin walk.”

They found the girl upon her feet, leaning dazedly against the heavy timbers of the machine. Roddy drew his breath, hissingly as he recognized her; and Dick stabbed through the air at him with one quivering finger.

“If there’s anything wrong,” answered Roddy, “may I rot and die if I had a hand in it! You know I t’ought well o’ her, Nolan!”

Dick rubbed some of the blood from her face; she was sobbing and clung to him tightly.

Ferguson’s straining ears caught the whispered answer, and a sense of smothering filled his breast.

[153]“If yer goin’ to do anyt’ing,” said Ferguson, eagerly, “I want to stand in with ye.”

“Don’t say anything,” warned Nolan. “An’, say, where kin I see youse in the mornin’?”

“At the club,” said Roddy, “afore ye go to work. And ye kin bank on me not to say a word.”

MRS. BURNS was bending over her washtub, placed upon a bench in the alley, taking the skin from her knuckles rubbing one of Tim’s red flannel shirts. It was wash day in Murphy’s Court and a network of clothes lines was strung from dwelling to stable, making a constant bending necessary to safe progress. Mrs. Nolan was hanging out her wash in her allotted space, her mouth stopped with clothes-pins and her skirts tucked up out of the damp; Mrs. McGonagle, who was making a social call, sat upon Mrs. Burns’ doorstep watching the efforts of her hostess across the drifting steam.

“Glory be!” exclaimed that lady, at length, pausing and wiping the perspiration from her face with one bleached and wrinkled hand, “the owld felly himself[155] cud do nawthin’ wid it! Sure I’ve rubbed it, an’ I’ve b’iled it; I’ve bleached it, an’ I’ve got down on me two knees an’ scrubbed it, but sorra the cleaner it’ll git!”

“God love yez, avic, don’t I know,” said her caller. “Faith Goose gits his shirts in sich a state from his bit av work, that the washin’ fair takes me breath from me.”

“An’ it’s Murphy’s wash I’ll have till do after me own,” said Mrs. Burns, grappling once more with the labor at hand, half hidden in the thick cloud of steam. “It’s a-most dead I’ll be afore noight.”

“About the same,” answered Mrs. Burns. “Poor sowl; she’s failin’ fast.”

“Tis a sin an’ a shame till hark till the cacklin’ that do be goin’ aroun’ about her,” said Mrs. McGonagle. “Thim Kelly’s is spalpeens, so they are!”

“Divil pull the tongues out av thim!” cried Mrs. Burns. “Did she not feed me two children whin I hadn’t a bite nor a sup in the house?”

“Yez may say so, Mrs. Nolan. Iv I wur Larry, it’s have thim afore Judge Moran, I wud!”

But a little time had elapsed since the events narrated in the preceding chapters. Mary’s frail health had suddenly failed, and Larry passed most of his time hovering about the sick-room. Their engagement had caused much comment in the parish and afforded the Kellys a chance to rid themselves of much of the venom which the willing of the estate had distilled.

“Scure till the bit av luck cud they expect,” Mrs. Kelly had declared. “The owld man’s eyes were hardly closed afore they were makin’ eyes at wan another. The white-faced t’ing is mad after him!”

“It’s the bit av money she wants,” her husband had said. “She do be a sly one for all her quietness.”

It was this sort of thing—and worse—that had caused the indignation of the trio of ladies in the court; it had gotten about the neighbourhood and had long been the topic for conversation over cans of beer.

[157]“Arrah, what wud Larry do at all, at all, widout her? Divil the bit av good owld Mrs. Coogan is as a housekeeper. Rosie t’inks a power av Mary an’ tinds till her loike a sister. An’ Maggie Dwyer, God bless her, she’s the good girl till thim.”

Mrs. Nolan’s red face became solemn. “Whisper!” said she, “did yez hear the talk about Rosie an’ Larry?”

“Divil take ye, Mrs. Nolan!” Mrs. McGonagle fairly bristled. “Is it help till carry it around ye’d be doin’?”

“Ye had better luk at home,” muttered Mrs. Burns from amid her cloud of steam.

Larry was in the kitchen washing his hands at the sink. He had just been raking the fire so that it would burn brighter, and the remains of his breakfast still littered the table. Mary was in the adjoining room propped up by pillows in a big rocker; she had just awakened from a light sleep and had been watching his efforts, a faint smile upon her lips. When Rosie O’Hara came into the kitchen by the back door, Larry greeted her, ruefully.

[158]“I’ve bin tryin’ to make the fire come up,” said he with a glance at the grey grate.

Rosie laughed. She set the steaming pitcher of broth, which she carried, upon the table.

“I’ve brought that for Mary,” said she, attacking the range with vigour; “I thought she might like it. How is she?”

“She had a bad night—had a hemorrhage after youse went home, and she don’t breathe very easy. She’s asleep now, though.”

“You mustn’t get frightened, Larry; the doctor says there’s no danger yet, you know.” Rosie tied an apron, which she took from a nail, about her trim waist. “I’ll wash these dishes for ye,” she said. “I couldn’t get in to get your breakfast, for Aunt Ellen kept me busy.”

“I burnt the steak to cinders,” said Larry forlornly, “and youse could cut the coffee in slices.”

“Poor fellow!” She looked so bright, so sisterly, so helpful, that the poor, strangely circumstanced young man felt his heart go out to her in thanks. He never knew what prompted him to do it, but he leaned forward and kissed her upon the cheek. She looked[159] up, frightened; but the expression in his eyes reassured her and the bright tears sprang to her own.

And when he went into the room where Mary sat he thought she looked whiter than usual.

“Hello!” he cried gladly, “Yer awake, eh?” He took her slim hand in his own strong, rough one, and it was trembling. She looked into his face strangely; for her visitors had been many since her illness and she had heard things of which she had never spoken.

And from that day her failure was more rapid; from that day her patience, her gentleness was more marked; from that day, if the truth be known, she grew anxious to die.

IT was a pleasant evening and the groups of children were playing “a ring, a ring o’roses,” in front of Clancy’s grocery. Clancy was whirling at the handle of the coffee mill; and Annie was attending to the other wants of Mrs. McGonagle, who stood at the counter.

[161]“Your heart’d ache to see poor Larry,” remarked Annie. “That’s tea, soft soap, two cents’ worth of syrup, and a mackerel, Mrs. McGonagle, what elce?”

“That’s all to-noight, barrin’ the bit av coffee. It’s a sore trial for him, poor sowl!”

“He thinks the world av her, do Larry, an’ it’ll be a hard job for him till lose her.” As he spoke Clancy dumped the ground coffee into a paper bag and with deft fingers tied it up. The song of the children came through the door:

“Go ’long out av that wid yez!” shouted Clancy; but the joyous little crew sang on unheeding:

[162]The exact nature of the noble twain’s errand still remains a mystery, for the grocer bounced through the doorway and scattered the tots in every direction.

“Ye young villyans!” shouted Clancy with a great assumption of anger; “sure a body can’t hear themselves think, for yez. Don’t yez know that Mary Carroll do be at death’s dure, ye bla’gards!”

James Kelly polished the walnut top of his bar and nodded a “Good Luck” to Schwartz as the barber was about to swallow his evening glass of beer.

“It vas doo pad,” returned he. “An’ she vas sutch a young vooman, doo!”

“She have the con-sum-shun,” went on Kelly, cheerfully, “an’ sorra a few av thim iver git well av that.”

“Oh, well! It’s not any of our doin’, Schwartz,” said Kelly, his voice full of comfortable irresponsibility.[163] “But hacks will bring a power av money on the day av the berryin’.”

A group of “somewhat drunk” young men sat upon the cellar door in McGarragles’ Alley, howling out a popular song between pulls at a can of beer. Goose McGonagle, who was passing, paused and regarded them disdainfully.

“Did somebody hit youse mugs with a bar rag!” demanded he. “Ain’t none o’ youse got no sense? Here’s Mary Carroll a-dyin’ and youse people raisin’ hell almost under the window.”

The singing stopped; the young roughs had always taken off their hats to Mary, a degree of reverence that they showed no one else, except, perhaps, young Father Dawson; and Goose passed on, confident that their uproar for that night, at least, was done.

And so it went through all the neighbourhood; in every court and alley the news was known; in every kitchen and on every street corner it was talked of.

Mike McCarty heard it while stripping the harness from his horses’ backs in Shannon’s stables; Tim Burns was told of it while still on his way from work;[164] and it was the first thing that fell upon the ears of Danny Casey as he entered his mother’s house.

“Mary’s dyin’,” trembled upon every lip that had smiled in answer to her kindness; and as the night grew old, a hush seemed to fall over the district; the very moon, as it sailed across the sky, attended by myriads of stars, seemed to blink solemnly down, and ponder sadly.

Yes, the serene, white soul was passing; the shadow of the death angel’s wings had fallen across the bed where Mary lay. Larry sat near the window, his arm thrown along the back of the chair, his forehead resting upon it; Rosie, the only other person in the room, wiped the death damp from the pale brow, her eyes bright with tears.

“Don’t take it so hard, Larry,” whispered the sick girl. “It had to come, you know, and you’ll be happy, afterward.”

Happy! With a return of the old bare life—the rough, purposeless life that she had made bloom with new thoughts? He would drift back to the old conditions; there would be nothing to keep him from it[165] when her gentle influence had relaxed. And that “afterward” of which she spoke so often, and so hopefully! It would be black and barren enough, his heart whispered to him—she would be where her voice could not reach him and he would be alone with his sorrow.

A picture of the crucifixion hung upon the wall; a slanting ray from the dim light brought out the world’s great tragedy with piteous distinctness. But the lesson brought no consolation to Larry. He looked at the picture with vacant eyes, for his brain was numb, and he could think of nothing but his impending loss. Philosophy is a meaningless word to such as he; for they who grapple with poverty, and go wrestling through a gloom from birth to death, find it hard to submit.

“Are you crying, Rosie?” asked the weak voice. “Don’t, dear; you promised not to, you know.”

Rosie’s face rested upon the pillow beside her, and Mary stroked the tear-wet cheek, softly.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t see it long ago,” said she, sadly; “sorry for you, and Larry. But it won’t be[166] long now, and you both will be very happy.” Her voice trembled a little but she continued, bravely: “Promise me that you will think of me sometimes, Rosie?”

“And don’t let Larry forget me, either,” eagerly. “And try and be a good wife to him, Rosie.”

Both Rosie and the young man lifted their heads quickly and looked at each other, searchingly.

From far down the street came a faint, musical drone as of minor voices singing; the bell of St. Michael’s boomed the hour solemnly; quick footsteps went by the house, grew faint and then died away.

“Do you think,” Rosie’s voice trembled in dread, “that she’s dyin’, Larry?”

He had approached the bed and was looking down at the pale face framed in the dark, loose hair. She smiled up into his eyes.

“She will be good to you, Larry; she has a kind heart and will be a better wife to you than I could have been.”

[167]“You were kind to me when I was left alone, Larry; you would have married me because you felt sorry for me. But you’ll be free now; and I have prayed that she’ll be as happy as I was—before I knew!”

“Don’t talk like that, Mary! It was you that was sorry for me! It was you—” but his voice broke in a dry sob.

“Hush!” a pleading look crept into her eyes. “Don’t let anything stand in the way of your happiness, Larry; don’t let any thoughts of me—any regrets—keep you apart. Promise me that!”

He knelt and covered his face with his hands, the deep, hard sobs racking him from head to foot; and as he made no answer, Mary turned her eyes upon Rosie.

But seeing the look of sorrow that crept into the death-dulled eyes, she added frantically—despairingly, thinking of nothing save the soothing of her friend.

[168]The clock ticked on through the hours; the breathing of the man and girl was long and heavy, and their eyes were blood-shot with watching. And when dawn drew aside the sky’s black draperies, the gray light stole into the room and lighted up a face that was calm and still.

“IT’S an ill wind that blows nobody good,” muttered Malachi O’Hara, as he stood looking through his store window, his eyes resting upon Goose McGonagle who had just drawn his wagon up at the curb. “She’s the lucky girl, so she is.”

Goose swung himself from the step of the wagon, a milk-pail in his hand. Filling the pitcher, resting for the purpose upon the counter, Goose addressed O’Hara.

“I’m sorry,” said he, “that election comes off so soon after Mary Carroll’s funeral. Larry ain’t feelin’ fit for a bruisin’ fight, yet.”

“I’ve heard,” said O’Hara, “that yez are both goin’ on the ticket at the primaries.”

[170]“It’s a gift! We’ll go t’rough to beat the band, for both divisions is behind us, solid.”

“Ye’ll get it if yez are for James Kelly. It’s a walk over he’ll have, I’m told.”

“Rats! We go to the convention and we don’t carry no banner for Kelly, either, see? And if he t’inks he’s got this t’ing cinched he’s sold. The boss is with him this time, but then, McQuirk ain’t the on’y fish in the swim. Gartenheim kin have the nomination if he wants it, in spite o’ him; and then there’s O’Connor; he wouldn’t shake Kelly’s fin if it was made out o’ gold.”

“Sure thim two won’t go afore the convintion! It’s inside information I have, from Moran.”

“Moran misses it more times than any guy I know, but he’s put ye next to the right graft this time. Gartenheim an’ O’Connor both blowed in a bunch o’ money last ’lection, an’ they’ve sort o’ got it into their heads that they can’t stand for any more. If Gartenheim’s named he could not win out unless O’Connor turned in for him, see? An’ youse kin stake yer coin on it, that O’Connor ain’t a-doin’ that—he don’t forget so easy.”

[171]“Faith an’ that’s jist what the Judge told me, an’ he says, says he, ‘They’ll pick Kelly in the end, never fear,’ says he.”

“Ah, we ain’t losin’ any sleep worryin’ about old Kelly scoopin’ the pot. The gang’s got their coats off an’ say we’ve got a graft to throw into the fight that’ll make him look like t’irty-seven cents. Look out for the papers the day after.”

After McGonagle had gone, O’Hara walked back into the kitchen where his sisters were crouched behind the range.

“She’s above stairs,” answered Ellen, “an’ cryin’ the two eyes out av her head!”

“Troth, Malachi, it’s well enough ye shud know, avic. I niver, since Gawd made me, see any wan stand so in their own loight as she.”

He wrinkled his brows, his round little eyes snapping angrily. Going to the stairs he called: “Rosie! D’yez hear me? Come down here, this minyute!”

[172]“Show yez authority,” approved Bridget; “are ye not her father, faith!”

Rosie descended into the kitchen, slowly; her face was flushed, her eyes were red and swollen.

“Will ye tell me the manin’ av this?” demanded her father. She sat down, not answering; and he continued: “Yez hay bin cryin’ agin! Will yez not give over?”

“I can’t help it,” said the girl. “You’re all against me and I can’t help it.”

“Is it thinkin’ av young Larkin yez are!” exclaimed Ellen. “Shame on ye, Rosie!”

“Wud yez hav a black sin on yez sowl?” cried Bridget. “An’ wud ye break yez promis till the dead? Glory be! Bud the young wans now-a-days t’ink nawthin’ av the hereafter.”

“I can’t marry Larry,” sobbed Rosie, “I don’t like him—not that way. And then I’ve promised Jimmie!”

“The son av a ‘Know Nawthin’,” cried Ellen in horror. “Did yez iver witness the bate av that?”

“Hold yez tongues!” snapped their brother, “sure[173] a body can’t git in a word edgeways for yez cacklin’. Listen till me, Rosie; did ye not promise Mary, an’ she a-dyin’, that yez wud be Larry’s wife? Answer me that.”

“I didn’t know what I was a-sayin’,” protested Rosie; “I was so took back and frightened!”

“Divil a bit do that alter the case! Ye promised, an’ it howlds good in the soight av God!”

“Will yez howld yes whist!” exclaimed O’Hara, enraged. “Faix, yez tongues do be goin’ from Monday mornin’ till Saturday noight, an’ divil raysave the voice kin be heerd bud yez own!”

“She’s yez own choild, Malachi,” admitted Ellen, as though to wash her hands of the whole affair.

“I will iv yez giv me a chance.” And O’Hara once more turned to his sobbing daughter and proceeded with his arguments.

Rosie had been an infant when her mother died,[174] and she had been reared by her two aunts in an atmosphere loaded with superstition and reeking of omens of good and ill. If the wind but stirred of a night among the housetops, Ellen detected the wail of a banshee, and if a lonely dog howled at the moon, Bridget, in hushed tones, announced the presence of death in the street. They crowded the corners of dimly lit rooms with the shadows of those departed, and the very teachings of religion were so distorted as to be made to supply exorcisms against agencies of evil and tokens calculated to render powerless their incantations. The girl was saturated with this; from her childhood she had drawn it in with every breath; and it was taught to her as an article of faith, to disbelieve which was to imperil her salvation. The father was well aware of this. He was far too practical to give heed to such things himself, but he was willing enough that they should help him finger some of old Larry’s hoarded dollars.

So, like the crafty old fox that he was, he conjured up dreadful pictures of the fate that awaited her should she break her promise. The girl listened, terrified.

[175]“Glory be! That ye shud even t’ink av sich a t’ing!” cried her father in conclusion. “Don’t ye know that Mary do be harknin’ till yez?”

“No!” said the poor girl, her face growing pale, “don’t say that, Aunt Ellen!”

“Don’t deny it, girl!” exclaimed her father seizing quickly upon the suggestion, “for divil the lie’s in it. She’ll go moanin’ about iver God’s blessed night wringin’ her two han’s an’ cryin’ the heart out av her! Scure till the bit av pace she’ll see till yez word’s made good.”

At this Ellen began a muttering; Bridget took it up, and Rosie stared at them, the fear in her heart showing in her wide-open eyes.

That night Malachi O’Hara waited upon his customers with looks of great satisfaction; and in the little room above the store, Rosie cried herself to sleep thinking of the letter she had sent Jimmie Larkin.

THE big gilt sign over Kelly’s saloon on Girard Avenue was all a-glitter with morning sunlight; a crowd of hangers-on leaned against the awning-frame, watching with admiration the ease with which a powerful German, in a leather apron, lifted huge kegs in and out of a brewer’s wagon.

Within, James Kelly stood behind the bar polishing thin glasses, and frowning vexedly; a group of customers sat at a table drinking and watching the deft[177] fingers of Nobby Foley guide a pencil along a narrow strip of paper.

“I’m a sucker for buyin’ anyt’ing;” complained Daily. He wore hob-nailed shoes and clothing covered with burnt spots which showed him to be an iron-worker. He took some loose silver from his pocket and selected a quarter. “Gimme that much,” said he, “o’ whatever ye t’ink’s hot.”

“That’ll do,” said Daily. “It’s just the same; like t’rowin’ good money in the street.”

“Not on yer life! If I strike the game I’ll hit it big, see? Good and hard! No gittin’ the small end, tryin’ to save me play.”

“It’s your say. Whistle yer own piece, me boy, if youse t’ink it’ll do ye any good.” The “writer” looked around at the array of half empty glasses and added, “drink yer beer, gents; we’ll have another.”

Kelly glanced at the clock over the bar. His frown[178] grew heavier; and opening the door leading to the dwelling portion of the house, he cried:

“I can’t swallow me feed whole,” came Martin’s voice angrily. “Shut up, will youse!”

Kelly closed the door with a bang. “Damn the bit av good he is till me,” growled he, recommencing upon the glasses.

“Beers, Kel,” called Foley. “What’s the matter, old boy. Youse look mad.”

“Little wonder,” answered Kelly, drawing the beer and carrying it to where his customers sat. “Here I have McQuirk an’ young Haley till meet at the City Hall at noine be the day; it’s but a few minutes av it now, an’ divil take the wan I have till tind bar.”

“I heerd,” said one of the men, addressing the policy man, “that Levitsky’s place was pinched last night.”

“That’s right. He had some words with the lieutenant, and the loot sent a wagon down there t’cut even, see? But, say, he’s out an’ wide open for biz this mornin’, because McQuirk got him out as soon as he heard about it. Youse can’t queer the push!”

[179]O’Hara came in through a side door; his face wore a fat smile, as he walked to the bar.

“How are yez, Malachi?” returned the saloonkeeper, “is it yez mornin’s mornin’ ye’d be after?”

“Divil a ilce! Give me a sup out av the brown bottle, an’ a troifle o’ porter on the soide.”

“I suppose,” remarked old Kelly as the drink was tossed off and rung up on the cash register, “that ye’ll give me a lift at the primaries next wake.”

“Sure, James, I’ll strive till be neighbourly; an’ if me vote’ll do yez any good, faith, yez shall have it.”

“Ivery wan counts. I’m sure till be nominated, for the boss is wid me; but we want all the votes we kin get in yez division, for the young bla’gards are makin’ a foight agin me, I hear.”

“True for ye, boy! I wur talkin’ till young McGonagle yesterday, an’ it’s on the ticket he’ll be, agin ye, Kelly.”

“D’yez tell me so! Faix, he’s soured on me because I wouldn’t take me milk from him, I think. But we’ll bate him, never fear. McQuirk an’ mesilf have bin among Murphy’s frinds an’ we’ll see till him, the[180] spalpeen. McQuirk have got the most av thim jobs, an’ they can’t go back on him, faith!”

“Ho! Ho! Faith an’ I thought yez wur in good timper this mornin’. What’s happened to yez, O’Hara?”

“Nawthin’ till me, sure. Bud Rosie’s till marry young Murphy; an’ the money’ll be a foine t’ing—for her.”

Kelly stared at him in dumb astonishment. O’Hara returned the look with great good humour.

“Be the powers av Moll Kelly!” ejaculated the saloonkeeper, “but that bates all, yet! An’ is it so soon after Mary’s berryin’?”

The side door swung open, admitting Mrs. Nolan, in a greasy wrapper, her face puffy with drink.

“Good mornin’ till yez gintlemen,” to the nodding, grinning group at the table. “It’s takin’ Willie a-walkin’ I am, this foine mornin’.” As she spoke, Mrs. Nolan flourished a kettle in the air and then[181] banged it down upon the bar. “Tin cints worth av mixed,” requested she.

Kelly jerked the can under the spigot with professional dexterity and watched it, pondering.

“Another toime. Faith, me business’ed suffer from two drinks av yez whisky.”

The second-hand man departed and Kelly slid the filled can along the bar, the froth creaming down its sides.

“Small blame till yez, Kelly; arrah, it’s all the news yez hear as ye stan’ behind yez bar, so yez do!”

“It will surprise ye, mam,” spoke Kelly solemnly. “Rosie O’Hara is till take up wid Larry!”

“Faix, an’ the talk wint round about thim, long since, James. It’s sorry I’d be iv it wur true.”

“What will young Larkin do now, at all, at all. He wur woild after her afore he wint away.”

“So he wur, Mrs. Nolan,” agreed Kelly, a change suddenly creeping into his face; “so he wur, mam.”

“Glory be! What’ll he do whin he hears av this? He’s got the divil in ’im whin his timper’s up, so he have.”

After Mrs. Nolan had gone, Kelly wiped the little puddles from the bar and ruminated.

“He have the divil in him,” muttered he. “Did I not see him, in this barroom, knock the padding out av t’ree av’ the ‘Chain Gang’ for callin’ his father an Orange bastard.”

[183]“Foley,” said the saloonkeeper, “stop a bit an’ give an eye till the bar; I want till spake till Martin. Call me iv any wan comes in.”

Martin had a great, half raw beefsteak before him from which he was hacking bleeding strips; a newspaper was propped against the salt cruet and as he ate Martin read the doings of the sporting world.

“Arrah, don’t be botherin’ him!” cried Mrs. Kelly, as her husband entered. “Lave him ate his bit av breakfast in pace. Will ye have another cup av coffee, Martin?”

Martin pushed his cup toward her, over the stained table-cloth, in silence; his father sat down and watched him as he split a bake-house biscuit and covered it with butter, and then resumed his attack upon the gory steak.

“I want till tell ye somethin’, Martin,” said the father. “No hurry for Foley’s in the barroom.”

[184]“The cash register’ll ring if he meddles wid it,” grinned the saloonkeeper. “Never fear av Foley.”

“Divil mend ye if yez are robbed av ivery God’s blissid cint ye have, some day!” cried Mrs. Kelly, putting the steaming coffee before her son. “I’ll go out till him. Sure, I wouldn’t trust that felly wid the value av a glass av porter!”

“Good riddance,” said her husband—“yez mother talks too much at toimes, Martin; an’ I want till spake till ye privately.”

Kelly spoke for a long time leaning across the table; Martin listened, his knife and fork constantly at work.

“Iv we knowed where Jimmie wur,” said Kelly, “we cud lave him know av this dirty pace av wurk. Murphy is no frind av his’n nor moine aither!”

“Larkin’s easy found,” said Martin. “He’s got a match on at the Crib Club in Boston for nixt Monday night, and he’s trainin’ at a road-house just outside[185] of the city. I kin git the address from somebody and we’ll write him, eh?”

“We will, Martin! Go out an’ git a two cint stamp at Mullen’s drug store an’ a sheet av paper, an’ an invelope, as soon as yez are done atin’. It’s our juty till tell Larkin av this, an’ we must do it.”

IT was the evening of the primaries and the opposing factions were lined up for the battle that would decide who was to be the party’s standard-bearer within the limits of the ward. The workers had made a door-to-door canvass, pleading eloquently with some, making a vague statement of principles to others, hinting at “prospective jobs” to more. A great deal depended upon the person, and the heelers were supposed to have the voters in their precincts gauged to a nicety.

Tim Burns was eating his supper of potatoes and eggs at the kitchen table, together with his wife and two children, when a knock came upon the door.

“God bless uz an’ save us, Mr. McQuirk,” ejaculated Mrs. Burns, confused at the sight of the ward’s great man. “Here Xavier, git down wid yez at wanst, an’ give the gintleman yez sate.”

She dumped her eldest son unceremoniously from his chair and dusted it with her apron. But McQuirk re-seated the boy and shoved the chair back to the table.

“Pitch in, son,” advised he, heartily. He speared an egg with a fork and placed it on the child’s plate. “Go to work,” said he. He rumpled the youngster’s hair and turned to Mrs. Burns. “This must be a fast day,” remarked he.

“There’s two this week, so they give out from the altar on Sunday,” answered Mrs. Burns; “an’ a body’s lost widout the bit av mate, after workin’ all day.”

Mr. Haley stood in the background, near the range, pulling slowly at a fat black cigar, and gazing at his leader admiringly. “For star plays,” muttered he[188] with ecstasy, to himself, “run me against McQuirk. He’s a miracle!”

The feminine and juvenile side of the house surrendered without firing a shot; but Tim was made of different stuff and had a long memory. He glowered at his plate from under his brows and caused buttered wedges of bread and saucers of tea to disappear with startling rapidity.

“Got plenty to do, Tim?” McQuirk stood with his back to the range and tugged at the spike-like points of his moustache.

“Lots av it—now!” Tim put a great deal of emphasis on the last word so that the boss might not misunderstand.

“The delegates are named to-night,” interrupted the candidate for school director, hurriedly, “and the town will be jammed with conventions to-morrow, all the way from members o’Congress to,” modestly, “school director.”

“I want your support!” said McQuirk, bluntly. “There’s a movement to wall me up in me own division[189] by a gang o’ would-be reformers; and I want all me friends to stand by me.”

“So yez want me vote?” asked Tim, as he wiped his mouth on a corner of the table-cloth and pushed back his chair.

“Sure; you’ve voted with the party ever since you got out your papers, an’ you’re entitled to a say in the primaries.”

“I’ll smoke me poipe,” said Tim. He took it down from a shelf and knocked out the “heel” on the edge of the range, then proceeded to cut a fresh charge from a plug of “Rough and Ready,” with his pocket knife.

“I’m a Dimmycrat,” said Tim, “an’ plaze God, I’ll always stay wan.”

The boss beamed approval. “Now look here,” said he, “you know McAteer, don’t you? Well this other crowd want to do him out of the nomination because he sticks like glue to the party, see? Old Owen Dwyer’s on the ticket, instructed for him; so give Owen your support, eh?”

“McAteer,” spoke Mr. Burns, “is an able man, an’[190] Owen Dwyer, is a daysint wan, an’ a friend av my own.”

“So he is; you’re right, Tim! And then there’s Abrams for judge—Jimmie Hurley stands for him. Abrams is a sheeney, but he’s all right.”

“And there’s Kelly for select—a neighbour of yours; and here’s Haley for school director.”

“I knew yez father,” said Tim to Haley; “he wur a United man, an’ an A. O. H., so I’ll do what I can till give his son a boost. But for James Kelly—never!” Tim smacked his hands together loudly. “Gartenheim gits me vote; for he give me a job av work when the rist av yez passed me by!”

“Don’t let any o’ those young fellows jolly you, Tim; for they’re goin’ to git it in the neck, sure! Kelly’s the man! He’s the only one that can hold the workers, for he stands in with the mayor. He can git jobs.”

“I’ve heard that afore now,” remarked Tim, stubbornly. McQuirk touseled up the eldest boy’s head once more and also shook hands with the mother.

[191]“Gartenheim’s name won’t be mentioned,” prophesied he as he buttoned up his light overcoat and paused at the door. “Stand in with the party, that’s the thing, eh, Mrs. Burns? The right kind o’ people never forgets who puts them in office. Do what’s regular, Tim, that’s all I ask, do what’s regular; vote to hold the organization together and keep the snide reformers out. And, remember, we’ve got a congressman to elect, the only one o’ the right stripe in the city.” He opened the door and stood aside while Haley stepped out. “Good night, Tim; I just thought I’d drop in and talk to you about the thing. No harm done?”

And so it went from house to house, from alley to alley, from division to division through the ward. McQuirk did not trust himself in the hands of his workers; he saw the voters in person, raised the standard and appealed to the partisanship that is born in every man; and so if there was glory to be gained, he was the gainer; if there was a harvest of defeat to reap, it was not because of lack of personal attention on his part.

Politics had been McQuirk’s study for years, and he[192] had been an apt scholar. He knew nothing of the profundity of statesmanship, and cared less; he had never made a speech upon his feet, and could not had his life depended upon it. But what he did not know of practical politics, as his friend Moran was in the habit of saying, was not worth knowing. He possessed a genius for organization: in getting out the full vote he was unexcelled, and he dominated the freemen of his district by one of three things: Favour—the expectation of favour—the fear of disfavour.

There were people in the ward that had known him when he was a dump-cart driver, and others who remembered a later period when his only visible means of support was Sunday poker-playing in the parlours of social clubs. Then he became a political hanger-on; he fetched and carried for the powers that were and by his astuteness gained their favour. Little by little he rose in power, and at length, was sent, under orders, to represent his division in the ward committee. From that time he grew visibly; his name began to appear in the political columns of the Sunday papers and he took to wearing a silk hat. Then came the revolt of a clique of workers that presaged disaster to the ward[193] machine; McQuirk saw his opportunity, threw himself at the head of the insurgents and in a desperate battle of the ballots, came off victorious. His old benefactors were driven to the wall and ruthlessly knifed, and McQuirk stood at the head of the committee in the pivotal ward of the district.

With a solid phalanx of admirers and a chain of supporting social clubs behind him, he soon made himself manifest; controlling the most powerful subdivision of the organization, he held the balance of power and was courted and feared. He walked into his first ward convention with his breast pocket stuffed with proxies and dictated the nomination of his bitterest foe; then he threw his strength, in secret, with an independent movement and buried the said foe under an avalanche of ballots that effectually stripped him of his dangerous qualities. As Mr. Haley had remarked, McQuirk was a miracle.

James Kelly was sweating blood and spending money, provided by the Motor Traction Company, right and left, to accomplish his nomination. The back room of his saloon, turned into a campaign headquarters, had for weeks been a vortex of activity. The[194] air was never clear of cigar smoke, or the table of beer bottles. Kelly, aided by that rising young politician, Gratten Haley, Nobby Foley and his son, had canvassed the ward from end to end. This did him some good; but vastly greater than their combined exertions was the fact that the boss favoured him—that he was the choice of the machine.

“That mocaraw,” said McQuirk, on Tuesday morning as he stood in Moran’s “court,” “has queered the whole shooting match! He’ll have every voter out to-night, either for him or against him, and that’ll bring our other people into the fight.”

“He ain’t got no gumption,” remarked the magistrate tipping himself back in his office chair, and loosening the foil covering of a paper of fine cut. “The old way’s the best. Keep quiet and on the night of the primaries half of them will forget it, and the other half won’t bother their heads. Enough picked people to elect each delegate is all we want; when the whole crowd starts to chip in, it keeps you guessing.”

“That’s what! It’s time enough to make a hurrah and shoot off the sky-rockets when the convention’s over and your slate’s all to the good; you’re fresh for the[195] fight, then; but when there’s a preliminary about who’ll carry the flag, it makes hard feelings; and a man who would turn out with the gang, with a torch dropping grease down his back, in the first place, wouldn’t show up in the second even if you promised to put him under a plug hat and on top of a horse ahead of the band.”

Moran nodded his approval of this piece of political sagacity; McQuirk buttoned up his coat.

“I’ve fixed it,” said the latter, “so that if anybody’s pinched they’ll be run over here in the wagon. Be sure you have somebody to bail them out if you can’t discharge them.”

“That’ll be all right. I’ll have Pete Slattery hangin’ around somewhere; he’ll do for a few more, yet.”

“That young Murphy,” said he, “is bothering me some. I don’t like the way he is jumping into this thing. He’s sore on Kelly, eh?”

“I should say so! He’d give him the knife in a minute. Say,” continued Moran, suddenly, “ain’t you on the wrong track, McQuirk? You don’t want to make an enemy of Murphy, he’s growin’ up and beginning[196] to take notice, don’t you know? Keep him in line; one young one’s as good as a half dozen old ones, and they do more and don’t ask as much. Ain’t that right?”

The boss looked at his watch, snapped the case shut, and dropped it into his pocket.

“I’m going down to the Precinct Club,” said he. “The committee holds a pow-wow there in half an hour, and I must make good.”

“But, say,” went on the magistrate tenaciously, “what’s the good word, Mac? Sling me a line on it, so’s I can put the boys next. Is it Kelly or nothin’? Or is it Kelly if we can?”

McQuirk cleared his throat and twisted his fingers among the links of his watch chain. He was not revolving a decision—that had been made weeks ago. He merely wanted his honour to draw his answer more from his manner than his words. He had seen political friendships broken before now; and he had also seen men’s words, quoted in fat type, posted upon fences.

“We’ll do what we can for Kelly,” said he, “yes, we’ll do all we can for him.”

“Just as foxy!” murmured he. “It’ll be a slick member that ever makes him slip his hold, and that’s no dream. If Murphy draws the most water why Kelly gets entered among the also rans, that’s all.”

Not many members of the Aurora Borealis Club who had entered the political arena against Kelly had gone to work that day. Some were canvassing their divisions for votes or information, and others lounged about the club rooms, ready for anything that might turn up. Larry Murphy, wearing a deep black band about his hat, dropped in during the morning.

“We’re goin’ to do him,” said Larry, after a long talk with his friends. “If anybody ever needed a lickin’, it’s Mart Kelly. He wants it bad!”

“I heard Mary prayed for in church on Sunday,” said Jerry, with a glance at the mourning band.

“Sure,” said Larry. “But she don’t need it, though,” he added reverently.

“If we all stood as good as her,” remarked McGonagle, “we’d be all right. Me mother was makin’[198] a novena for her when she died. She t’ought she’d get better.”

“Tell her I’m much obliged,” said Larry. “Your mother always liked Mary.” After a pause he said: “I’m goin’ out to see what’s doin’. Don’t loaf, gents, keep the t’ing goin’.”

“One o’ Rosie O’Hara’s aunts was to see me mother last night, and it was the first time she was ever in our house, for her and me mother can’t hit it. I was out at the time—over to see Veronica, ye know—but I heard all about it at breakfast-time next mornin’.”

“Well, chop it off!” urged McGonagle, impatiently. “Don’t wait until I’m grey-headed. Bat it out.”

“G’way!” Goose stared at his friend, amazedly. “It must be a roast. Murphy was a friend o’ Larkin’s; he wouldn’t play him dirt like that!”

“Whew!” Jerry whistled through his teeth and frowned across the table at the other. “I’ll bet the best skate we’ve got in the stable that Murphy don’t know a thing about it.”

“But Rose does! She’s give Jimmie the ice-house laugh, that’s what she’s done; he’s only a sparrer, an’ Murphy’s got the money, see? I never put me lamps on a woman yet that wasn’t daffy after a guy what’s got a wad o’ rags.”

Danny Casey who sat by a window, emerged from behind his newspaper, took his feet from the sill, and observed:

“There seems to be lots o’ new t’ings chasin’ around. When I heard that Dick Nolan and Roddy Ferguson had made up, ye cud a-knocked me down with a straw; but when I seen them workin’ together against Kelly, why, say, I almost fainted.”

“That was a funny t’ing,” agreed McGonagle. “I tried to pump Roddy, but he was dead dry. But, say, it’ll be a good snap for us all, eh? Nolan’s ace high[200] with Gartenheim, and if he kin coax him to step out, and give O’Connor a push, Kelly’ll be a dead cock in the pit.”

Casey shook his head doubtfully. He felt that Goose’s hopes were a trifle too roseate.

“Dick pulls some weight wit’ the old man,” admitted he; “but he can’t do all that. I tell youse Gartenheim’s too sore on O’Connor to turn in for him. Stick to Murphy’s lay-out; we’ve got the best chance there. When we spring it, take me word for it, the whole shootin’ match’ll stand up on their hind legs.”

“Youse might be right; I only hope ye are,” said Jerry. “Anyhow let’s go down the line; we ain’t doin’ no good holdin’ down chairs around here. I want to see old man Hoffer and a lot more guys; they’re friends o’ the old man’s and I want to sling ’em a breeze.”

When seven o’clock drew on the division houses were wide open; the special policemen and ward workers were clustered in the doorways and were aghast at the magnitude of the vote called out by the conflicting efforts of Kelly and his opponents; it was as heavy as that of a general election and stood unprecedented in[201] their experience. McQuirk, in a silk hat and with a cigar between his teeth, was going from division to division, in one of McGrath’s hacks; his subordinates worked zealously with the vote, feeling that their future weal depended upon the impression that they made.

Clancy came through McGarragles’ Alley and turned down the avenue toward the polling place of his division; his white apron was tucked up about his waist and he carried a ballot fluttering between his fingers. Murphy who stood by the curb, watching things, and sending out his aids to drag voters from their suppers, at once pounced upon the grocer.

“Ah, let the man be!” requested he. “The polls’ll be closed in a little while. Go ahead and vote, Clancy!”

“An’ yer makin’ a mess of it, too. Youse people’ll split the ticket, and we’ll get it good and hard, like last time.”

“I take notice youse have all turned in for de guy[202] what licked youse; youse fellas would cap for McQuirk to beat yer own gran’father.”

Murphy was about to unmask his batteries and wither the red-faced man with sarcasm when Clancy interrupted him.

“Yer got a pink ticket there. Just open it and paste this sticker over Pete Slattery’s name.”

“But, say, he’s for Kelly! Ye ain’t goin’ to help that slob to lick us, are ye?”

“For Kelly! Begorry, they niver towld me that. Where’s yez sticker? Divil a boost’ll I give a man that’s for James Kelly.”

A deep murmur that swelled into a smothered roar came from the cigar store where the balloting was being held. A dense group of excited, gesticulating workers were gathered about the table; in their midst stood two men, their noses almost together, their faces pale, their voices high-pitched and angry.

“Ye don’t vote, see,” declared one. “Ye ain’t got no vote, here, and that goes.”

[203]“I’m as good a Democrat as youse,” maintained the other, “you’re a mugwump, ye stiff!”

In an instant they had clinched and were making maddened efforts to strike. A policeman rushed in, tore them apart and hustled one out upon the sidewalk. Murphy desperately forced his way through the crowd; he saw a vote being lost to his faction, and the sight aroused all his combativeness.

Officer Callahan turned with upraised club. “I’ll break your face!” growled he, “I’m dead onto you, anyhow.”

There was no telling to what extreme the young man would have gone, had not McGonagle and some others pulled him away.

“Youse must be daffy!” exclaimed Goose, “D’ye want to play right into their hands? Every copper around the booth’s a Kelly man and they’ll rope in us people if we look cross-eyed; and then we’ll get the wrong end of it, sure.”

“The wagon’s been out t’ree times in Tom Hogan’s[204] precinct,” said another, “they’re challengin’ all our people and t’rowin’ ’em down—an’ givin’ ’em a ride if they kick.”

“I know’d Hogan’d get the goose if he’d go against Daily alone. Somebody go down and help him out”; continued Murphy. “Hully Gee, we gotta’ hold ’em safe down there, it’s our strongest graft, and we can’t afford to be gold-bricked, gents.”

“It’s too late,” spoke McGonagle, looking at his open-faced watch; “the polls’ll be closed in a quarter of an hour.”

“They’re doin’ us dirt,” said McGlory, bitterly. “They’re pullin’ our vote, an’ holdin’ ’em for a hearin’ in the mornin’. They took twelve out o’ Mason’s precinct since seven o’clock!”

“Move over,” said Larry. He and McGonagle jumped into the carriage beside Jerry, as he continued:[205] “Now throw it into that old skate o’ yourn for all yer worth.”

“Up to Moran’s,” answered his friend. “He’s goin’ to do somethin’ damned quick, or the next guy he holds for a hearin’ ’ll have done somethin’ to be held for!”

BUT Moran was not to be found. After the horse had been put up, Jerry started for the club. Larry and McGonagle began a round of the divisions; but finding the polling places closed, followed Jerry’s footsteps. The hour was midnight; the moon was pushing its red rim above the housetops; and the great heart of the city throbbed but slowly. The streets were silent, deserted, save for a single pedestrian who now and then loomed up, ghost-like, from the shadows and as suddenly vanished from view.

“So youse t’ink we’ve got the bulge, eh?” asked Goose, as they hurried along.

“Sure! We copped votes in places where I t’ought we’d get the dinky-dink. If the other end o’ the ward’s as much to the good, we’re all right.”

[207]An engine pulled out of the freight yard as they were about to pass and stood coughing and panting upon the path, blocking their passage. A shower of cinders dropped through the grate bars, turned a dull red and then expired; a man ran along the top of the cars swinging his lamp in frantic signals; the moist, grimy face of the fireman peered through the cab window, his inflamed eyes blinking at the fluttering red spark; then the lever was reversed with a jerk, and back they go until a sudden crash and a shrill “Why-OO!” tells the engineer that another car has been added to his string.

“Come on,” said Goose, “here comes the ‘loco’ again. What are youse lookin’ at?”

Murphy was gazing over his shoulder into the shadow and did not take advantage of the shifting engine’s retreat. Two men were swiftly crossing the street toward them.

“Here comes a couple o’ gents what wants to sling us a breeze,” said Larry. “It’s either the price of a bed they’re chasin’ up, or they want to give us a piece o’ lead pipe.”

“The fat one looks like old Kelly,” observed[208] McGonagle. “Say, he can’t be on the fight, kin he?”

They waited for the men to come up; and once more the signal lamp swayed up and down, once more the engine wheezed out upon the path, groaning and hissing as though in protest. A man rushed down the track, paused under the flaring head-light to look at some papers, and then began swearing at someone in the darkness. He had lost one hand and the stump was armed with an iron hook; this he waved frantically.

“Drop them last cars! Go down the next siding and pick up the flats! You know better than this, Conroy!”

The engine seemed to have caught his humour for it snorted angrily; the crew began twisting madly at the brakes, the lamps were set swinging down the track; a shadowy form darted out of the gloom, threw open a switch and was immediately swallowed up again. The panting of the locomotive grew fainter; from far down the yard its head-light burned like a dim, red spark. The man with the hook entered a watch box and angrily slammed the door. Silence!

[209]“We heard that yez had come this way,” remarked Kelly, as he came up. “McQuirk an’ mesilf were passin’ Phil Burk’s place as he wur shuttin’ up an’ he towld us yez had started for the club.”

“We want to have a little talk,” said the boss, as they walked along. “A little confabulation, you know.”

“All right,” said he, cheerfully, “sing your song, Mac. What’s on yer mind?”

“Let me tend to this,” requested he, coolly. He turned to Larry and in a fatherly fashion laid his hand upon his shoulder. They were under an arc lamp and in the blue-white light, Larry saw that his face was wrinkling with smiles.

“You boys put up a good fight,” said McQuirk. “I like the way you run things. Me an’ Moran was talkin’ about an hour ago; he’s feelin’ obliged to the club for turnin’ in for Rhinehardt for common council, and told me to tell you so.”

“There’s bigger lobsters than Rhinehardt kickin’ around loose,” put in McGonagle. “He kin get a lamp-post put on the corner if youse want one bad; an’ he kin have one took away if youse kick. That’s more’n some o’ the other guys kin do for the ward.”

“Haley’s got a safe majority in the convention,” said he; “the present member’ll go back on the ticket for Congress; Abrams has won in a canter; and the only man that’s been back-heeled is Kelly, here. You boys fought him so hard that he could only split even.”

“Much obliged for puttin’ us on,” said Larry. “So we made it a draw, eh?”

“That’s just what you done,” laughed the boss; “an even draw! I like to see young roosters make a game fight; it shows that they’re made of good stuff. But, look here; now that you’ve showed your spurs, what are ye goin’ to do? Kelly’s the choice of the regular crowd.”

Facing them was Kerrigan’s saloon, ablaze with incandescent lamps. A number of men came noisily forth and went wrangling up the street; the white-jacketed[211] barkeeper came out and looked after them; then he went in, banged the door and turned off the lights.

“Damn it!” exclaimed Kelly; “he’s shut up. I wur just goin’ till ax yez in till have a sup av somethin’.”

“Much obliged,” returned Larry. “We ain’t hittin’ the booze to-night. We’re in trainin’, see?”

“The regulars all want Kelly,” persisted McQuirk, “and we want to hear from you people. Who are ye goin’ to throw the vote for?”

“The reg’lar crowd, eh?” sneered he. “That’s a good t’ing, ain’t it?” to McGonagle, “that’s a real good t’ing.” He turned once more to McQuirk and demanded: “Say who is the regulars, eh? Ain’t it the majority o’ the party? And if none o’ us ain’t got the big end o’ it, who d’youse call the reg’lar push, eh? Ain’t us guys, what’s workin’ agin Kelly, inside the lines? Don’t we say our say? And don’t we win if we hold the people?”

“That’s all right, see?” Larry was speaking in a loud, sharp tone, working his arms like flails. They[212] had paused upon the sidewalk, before the door of the club. The piano was being thumped joyously and a thundering chorus came through the partly opened windows:

A cyclone of groans, hisses and profanity came whirling out into the night. The execrated one looked at McQuirk; and McQuirk shrugged his shoulders and laughed. A man got between the light and one of the club windows; his body, silhouetted upon the blind, writhed and swayed; his right hand flourished a beer glass above his head, apparently demanding silence. At last his voice was heard.

“Gents,” cried he, “we have slammed it into ’em,[213] ain’t that right? We’ve got the t’ing cinched! We don’t want that lobster Kelly, and we’ll sit on the mugs what trys to ring him in. We got a man of our own.” He flourished the glass, seeming to defy contradiction. “We got a man of our own,” repeated he; “and he’s a winner in a walk! Gents, I’ll ask you for t’ree rips for old man McGlory!”

The yell that followed split the silence like a knife; the man with the glass vanished from the blind; the piano resumed its measured beat; the triumphant chorus once more began.

“Youse just asked me what us people was agoin’ to do,” said Larry. “Well the gang just saved me the trouble o’ tellin’ yez.”

WHEN the two young men pushed open the door leading to the club’s parlour, they found themselves in a vortex of wild enthusiasm. The congregated members, for the most part, were coatless; and with cigars clinched between their teeth they madly gyrated about the room to the tune of:

[215]Danny Casey, his suspenders slipped from his shoulders and his derby hat tipped back upon his head, presided at the piano; McGlory, standing upon the pool table waved his arms like a bandmaster.

Mike McCarty appeared to be the only sane person in the place; he stood in the doorway that led to the adjoining room, as self-possessed, as well-dressed as ever, a smile upon his face. Though he was born in an alley and of a woman who took in washing, Mike, in instinct, taste and deportment, was a gentleman. Seeing Larry and McGonagle enter, he beckoned them into the other room and closed the door.

“The push is havin’ a good time,” remarked Larry. “That’s a lovely skate McGlory’s got.”

“They’re all about half lit up,” returned McCarty; “and they are plumb daffy, too. It’s best to save yer sky-rockets till after the game’s won; ain’t that right?”

“It was a cinch,” put in Goose. “There’s about[216] forty o’ McGlory’s drivers boardin’ in my division, and when the old man cut ’em loose, the Kelly push wilted like wet rags.”

“Then we got ’em,” declared Mike, exultantly. “I knowed youse’d win out; that gives us two more.” He nodded toward a sheet of foolscap upon the table, covered with names and figures. “Kerrigan made that,” added he. “It’s all right, I guess.”

Larry and McGonagle bent over the paper attentively; the uproar in the other room continued; but the tune was changed; the dancing had ceased and the voices of the overjoyed members were raised in the ditty:

[217]The reasons for these acts of domestic vandalism were not inquired into by Murphy or McGonagle; each had his finger upon a name and they were looking at each other with something like dismay.

“And Levitsky,” moaned Goose. “Elected by our people, too! Oh, I kin see our finish, right here.”

“Hully Gee!” murmured McCarty, “is them people been worked in? Then they’re got the bulge.”

There ensued a silence as sulphurous as any profanity ever conceived by mortal man. Then McGonagle spoke. “Well,” demanded he, of Larry, “what next?”

Larry glowered at them in bovine fury. “I went into this mix,” declared he, his right hand beating upon his left, “to win! And we’re goin’ to win if we have to tear up the ward be the roots! McQuirk’s played a foxy game, and worked some of our people for rank[218] suckers, see? But we’ll kick the props from under him and do him brown, d’ye hear? We’ll do him brown!”

“How? I don’t care a damn how we do it! We ain’t a’goin’ to let him play us for good t’ings, are we?”

McCarty looked at his watch. “It only wants a couple o’ minutes o’ one,” said he, “Daily’s snorin’ t’ beat the band by this time.”

“Not on yer life! He’s on the night shift this week,” said Larry. “We kin see him, all right. Come on, Goose.”

The two repassed through the parlour, almost unnoticed in the excitement, and down the stairs to the street. They headed eastward over Girard Avenue, their objective point being one of the iron mills that line the river front in Kensington.

Down a narrow street, under the light of the lamps, a dozen or more of men were swinging long-handled brooms; a pair of bony, dispirited horses followed in their track, their driver shovelling the heaps of rubbish[219] into the cart. The scavengers droned a strange-sounding song as they worked; the watching overseer talked constantly, in a sharp, high tone; the horses hung their heads dejectedly and rattled at the chains of their harness.

“That’s some of McGlory’s night gang,” remarked Larry. “They start ’em out early since the loot reported dirty streets in the old man’s district.”

They turned into a quiet street leading toward the river. A cellar door opened, and a broad barb of light shot across the sidewalk; from the midst of this rose a pallid, spectral form, and stood looking calmly into the night. But it was only a baker, clad in his spotless working dress, popping out of his overheated basement for a breath of air. A great stack, towering skyward, and vomiting a blazing shower of sparks into the night, showed that they were nearing the mill. The huge, low, shed-like buildings lifted their corrugated walls, like the beginnings of greater structures; a knot of men were gathered about the wide doorway; they had limp, damp towels twisted about their necks and all smoked short pipes. Rows of puddlers, naked to the[220] waist, their bodies glistening with perspiration, stood before the furnaces “balling” the molten metal; from time to time one would drench himself with water, and once more face the Cyclopean eye glaring so angrily upon him.

Daily was among the crowd at the door, and he smiled and winked at his fellows, as the two young men approached.

“We’ll on’y keep youse a second,” said Larry. He gathered from Daily’s expression that he knew the nature of their errand. “Come on in here.”

The three entered the building. The vast mill was in almost complete darkness, save for the far end where, sweltering, the puddlers toiled; here and there an incandescent light threw a thin gleam over the ponderous machines which crouched close to the floor like squat black monsters. Huge cogs, a-glitter with grease ground together with metallic growls.

“We’ve heard that yous’re got the papers in your division to vote in the convention t’morrow,” said Larry.

“Why Kelly, of course! I’m a regular, see? I don’t get dead sore because t’ings ain’t batted my way; ain’t that right? I didn’t start to work to-night till I got out the vote,” continued Daily, with a laugh, “an’ the way your people shoved their little old votes in for me when Foley slung ’em a breeze that I was against Kelly, would make youse hit yer mother. Say, it was the real t’ing!”

“None o’ youse could a-squeezed in any other way in that division,” put in McGonagle, angrily.

“Ah, git out! If they was fools enough, whose fault is it? If you was dead set on carryin’ the precinct, why didn’t youse watch your end o’ the game, eh? But I got the vote, and I’m for Kelly!”

From far away in the dimness of the mill, a hammer rang upon an iron plate with a tumultuous clangour. A voice vociferated:

Pipes were laid aside; heavy shoes rattled along the[222] plated floor; the rolls began to rumble slowly as the belts were shifted from the loose pulleys; the men seized their tools and stood ready.

“Hold on!” Murphy held him by the arm and spoke rapidly. “Listen to me. A delegate sits in a pow-wow to talk for the people what sends him; ain’t that right? An’ if they sends him to salt a man, and he supports him, why he’s playin’ ’em all for good t’ings!”

They watched him as he took his place at the rolls. Huge tongs running upon trolleys, were shoved into the gaping maws of the furnaces and each emerged gripping a white-hot mass of metal. A jarring concussion rang through the building; it was the first of these being passed through the rolls, and its scattering scales made even the hardened “passers” flinch. Report followed report; the darkness had vanished before the lurid glare; the heat of the place became blistering. Amid the blinding flashes and the serpentlike bars that crawled about the floor, the men worked furiously, like[223] heat-maddened demons, engaged in some dread incantation.

Then they turned and walked away. Larry’s face worked with rage; McGonagle walked gloomily along at his side, his hands stuffed into his pockets, his head bent dejectedly.

“We’ve got it where we live,” said the latter. “It was all serene till we heard o’ this, and if he’s goin’ to vote for Kelly, why we can’t stop him, that’s all; we can’t do nawthin’.”

“T’ell we can’t!” cried the enraged Murphy. “Say, look’et here, Goose; one hour after Tim Daily says ‘yea’ for Kelly he’ll be in St. Mary’s done up in splints! He’s played crooked with us people, ain’t that right? And we’ll git even if we have to t’ump him. Ah!”

“Let’s go over to the Dutchman’s, hit a bracer and talk t’ings over, first. I’ve got cobwebs in me head an’ I want to brush ’em away. The motzer kin wait till daylight.”

[224]The saloon was the only all-night establishment in the neighbourhood. It glittered with clusters of electric lamps and broad, gilt-framed mirrors; a marble-topped bar backed by pyramids of glasses and bottles stood upon one side.

They talked in a desultory way for some time, consuming much beer and many plates of sandwiches. Dawn stretched a grey hand through the window and dimmed the clusters of lights; and when they ranged along the bar for the last drink, the streets were filling with people hurrying toward their work.

Then they tramped off toward the spreading Hebrew settlement on North Second Street. Levitsky, the man whom they sought, while he claimed a voting place in the ward, really lived south of the line, in one of the row of houses that face the old market sheds. These teem with long-coated, huge-bearded Russian Jews, who drag their stock in trade upon the sidewalk each morning and prowl up and down before it watching for customers, and hoarsely shouting in a mixture of English and Yiddish.

Larry and his chum paused before a dirty bulk window heaped with odds and ends of merchandise; on a[225] stand upon the sidewalk lay little stacks of Yiddish newspapers and pamphlets; a thin, yellow-faced man, in a round, high-crowned cap, and with a beard of patriarchal length, sat in the doorway twisting a cigarette out of some damp tobacco. He was a wise man in the Ghetto, learned in the law and a public reader of the scrolls; he knew the ways of Gentile youth when it was half drunken, for he drew his long coat about his gaunt frame as they approached, and raised his hand to prevent the expected plucking at his beard.

The man in the velvet cap gestured his relief and called shrilly to someone within. A girl came out; a dark-eyed, deep-breasted girl, the perfect type of Jewess.

Down the street a scarlet lettered sign flamed conspicuously among a wilderness of others, and thither they hurried and entered at the door over which it hung. The revolving fans drove the hot, strong-odoured[226] breath of the place into their faces; waiters, greasy aproned and perspiring, rushed about dexterously balancing pyramids of food-filled crockery; the room resounded with shouted orders and the incessant ringing of the cash register.

A stocky young man, in a collarless shirt, was just about to seat himself at a table; he greeted them surprisedly.

“Vy cert’ny,” answered he, “ye kin see me. But I cand sell no bolicy here, chends; there ish doo many beoble.”

“We ain’t lookin’ for policy. We want to see youse about yer little old vote in the convention.”

Levitsky grinned. “Oh!” said he, “vell, sit down. Vill you have anyding to eat?”

And then Larry proceeded to state his views;[227] Levitsky listened, never volunteering a word, until he had finished his excited remarks, then he spoke.

“Youse chends alvays treaded me right,” said he, “and I wud like to do someding for you, an’d dot ride? But McQuirk jusd god me oudt of drouble and I cand go pack on him, can I?” He flourished his arms wildly as though protesting against the mere thought. “I vill leave id to you fellas!” exclaimed he, “vould id be ride?”

This involved a question of ethics with which neither Larry nor McGonagle felt themselves capable of grappling.

“But say,” demanded Murphy, “do youse t’ink us people’s goin’ to make good to McQuirk because he got youse out o’ hock? If ye want’s to square yerself, don’t make us stand for that. Ye’ve copped a sneak on us, Levitsky, ye know ye have.”

They argued the question until the ordered breakfast appeared. Levitsky attacked it, apparently unmoved in his determination to remain faithful to the boss; the others got up angry and despairing.

“Just now,” said Larry, “it looks as if youse had us skinned to death; but, say, there’s a block for every[228] punch, and if Daily and youse try to double bank us, we’ll git even in the convention if we have to pull the shack!”

THERE were but few at the six o’clock service, and these were so scattered about the church as to create the impression of vacancy. The priest, glittering in gold-embroidered vestments intoned the mass at the high altar; the acolytes drowsily made the responses; the worshippers followed the sacrifice with devout attention; a restless child now and then broke the silence that pervaded.

A light stole through a long, stained window, throwing shafts of crimson and purple radiance across the side altar, where stood a carven image of the Holy Virgin. A girl knelt at the altar rail, her head bowed, her hands clasped. Even the black-robed sisters, who[230] taught in the parochial school, now and then raised their eyes to look at her, for she was so white, her attitude was so supplicating.

Larry Murphy who was very regular at church since Mary died, often glanced up from his book to look at the pleading figure; but he did not recognize her, he was too far off, or the light was too dim. It was Rosie O’Hara.

With all her pure young heart Rosie was pleading for her love. Right or wrong she had been taught to carry her griefs to her who had been born into the world to crush the serpent’s head; and with an intensity for which her mind could find no words, she prayed mutely.

The gleaming, richly-wrought vessels had been taken from the tabernacle and stood upon the pure white altar cloth; the good father bent his knee, and every head sank in adoration. Rosie, awed to the very soul at the proximity of the unveiled host, found words—the words of the angel:

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” she breathed, “blessed art thou among women; and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

[231]At intervals the bell continued to ring softly, the people beat their breasts; all bent before the uplifted host, save the child, who looked on, open-eyed, wondering.

“Holy Mary, mother of God,” pleaded the girl. “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death!”

When the services were ended, Rosie lingered until the priest had left the altar and the people had gone. Upon her way out she paused. In a far corner, where the light scarcely fell, hung a pale, white Christ upon a cross; she knelt and pressed her lips to the wounded feet, her eyes bright with tears, and then she passed out through the great swinging doors.

Larry had been one of the first to leave the church; Jimmie Larkin, who was standing upon Kerrigan’s corner, saw him, instantly crossed the street and advanced to meet him.

“Larkin!” young Murphy’s voice showed his surprise; and he held out his hand in a hearty, full-blooded fashion. But Jimmie stuffed his hands into his pockets, and stared at him, with a sneer.

“Ye know well enough! I’ve bin put next to the cross game yer workin’, Murphy; I’m dead on, I tell ye, and I’m rotten sorry! I trusted ye, I did; I trusted youse like I would me brother.”

“Say, what’s the matter with youse, Larkin? Don’t stand there like a stuffed shirt! Put me on to the trouble. What are youse jumpin’ me for?”

“Ah! Don’t try that; it won’t work. I ain’t sore because I got the dinky-dink, but on’y because youse had a hand in it! You was me pal, wasn’t youse? Didn’t I usta sleep with youse? And didn’t we eat together? I borried yer coin when I was strapped, and lent youse mine when I had any. You knowed all about how it was with me and her, ye knowed it and done me dirt when me back was turned. That’s the part what hurts, an I’ve broke trainin’ to come here and lick youse, Murphy—to lick youse till ye beg!”

“I don’t know what ye mean,” said he, sharply. “Youse’re a friend o’ mine, Larkin, and I’ll stand for[233] all kinds o’ talk from ye, but, say, if ye go t’rowin’ any punches my way, I’ll try to give ye a run for yer trouble.”

It was then that Rosie came out of the church. She saw, with frightened eyes, the angry and threatening gestures, and caught the high, sharp tones of their voices. She hurried forward, her heart palpitating, realizing at once the cause of the quarrel.

“Oh, yes,” said he mockingly: “I’ve come back. I just wanted to see Larry, that’s all.”

“Don’t ask Larry about it,” she pleaded, eagerly. “He don’t know a thing. Let’s walk down toward McTurpin’s, and I’ll tell you—”

Larkin laughed and interrupted her. “Gee!” exclaimed he, “is it that bad, eh? Is he a-goin’ to hide behind yer skirts?”

“I ain’t a-goin to hide, and I ain’t got no reason to hide,” stormed Murphy. “Come on, whatever it is! We’ll settle this right here.”

“Don’t fight,” said Rosie, frightened more than ever. “Look you’re a-most in front of the church.[234] Honest to God, Larry, I couldn’t help it! Me father got it around: He told everybody.”

“Why, you know that, what Mary said; you ain’t forgot about that? When she was dyin’, I mean.”

“Oh! No! But what’s he gotta do with that? That’s what I want to know; where’s his kick a-comin?”

“Me and him was engaged, ye know, an’ Pop made me write to him that me and you—”

“No!” Murphy fairly gasped as he caught her meaning. “Say, did youse do that?”

“Oh, Larry, I couldn’t help it; they frightened me so; and I was willing to do anything.”

Larkin was looking from one to the other, puzzled, glowering and suspicious. Murphy turned to him.

“You’re right,” said he. “If ye t’ought I was doin’ that, I don’t blame youse for wantin’ to start t’ings my way. But, say, we kin fix this up to suit. Les’ go in here,” nodding to the open iron gate that led to the little burial ground behind the church. “We kin talk all we want and nobody’ll hear us.”

[235]They walked about the tiny inclosure where lay the parish dead, under the rank tufts of grass and the weather-beaten stones; and there they told Jimmie of Mary’s request, and Rosie narrated the story of her father’s crafty handling of her to break one promise and keep the other.

Young Larkin drew his breath, slowly, after all had been said, and then expelled it with great force. He held out his hand to Larry.

“It’s up to me,” said he. “I might a-knowed, old pal; but youse know how it is.”

“It’s all right,” said Murphy, shaking his hand; “on’y ye might a-looked at it that way before ye jumped me. But let it go at that, it’s all to the good now.”

“But the promise,” said Rosie. “That’ll always be there; I can’t break it; I’d be frightened to.”

“Gee!” cried Larkin, impatiently. “Don’t mind that; Mary was outa her head, see? And the old ones was a-workin’ youse; they was after Murphy’s money, see?”

But the fear was implanted too deeply in her breast to be moved by this. Larry understood and[236] pondered the matter, while Jimmie argued and Rosie sobbed.

“Why, it’s easy,” said he, suddenly. “You needn’t break your promise, Rosie, if youse’re afraid.”

“It was you what promised,” said Larry. “I didn’t say a word, see? I’ll lay down! I won’t marry youse; and if I won’t, how kin youse go ahead, eh? It lets youse out! That’s what it does—it lets youse out!”

The simplicity of this made Larkin stare, and caused Rosie hopefully to dry her eyes. Larry was vociferously triumphant; he saw all made clear, and was as happy as he desired them to be.

“I’ll go round and bruise up yer father,” said he. “I’ll talk to him like a Dutch uncle, I will. Him and the two old ones’ll play light on the ghost game when I get through. They’ll see it ain’t no use. Take a walk with Jimmie, Rosie; don’t go home till youse t’ink I’ve left. I’ll make it right, all right!”

But this was not the only incident of the morning. Annie Clancy stood in the door of the grocery store;[237] and as Goose McGonagle came along he naturally stopped for a chat. The voice of Clancy could be heard grumbling from the interior.

“Don’t talk too loud,” warned Annie, with uplifted finger, “he might hear ye. He’s been in an awful temper ever since his half sister, old Miss Cassidy, died. They say she left her money to the Church. He thought he’d git it, and then he’d be able to pay—you know what.”

“I ought to,” answered he, “I can’t t’ink o’ the mess I’m in meself without t’inkin’ o’ that. But his temper don’t cut no ice with me, Annie, I’m goin’ to talk to him to-day if I git t’run down or not.”

“Annie!” called Clancy, angrily. “Sure, what keeps yez glosterin’ be the dure? Come in at wanst, an’ tind till yez bit av wurk.”

[238]“Clancy ain’t so many, if he does run a grocery store. Annie’s willin’ to call it a go, an’ I don’t see—Gee! Here comes O’Hara.”

The second-hand dealer had just come out of his shop; he wore his narrow-rimmed high hat and carried his thick black-thorn cane.

“I have no rayson till complain,” said O’Hara. Then he tapped his stick once or twice upon the pavement, and cleared his throat. “McGonagle,” said he, “yez will be after havin’ the troifle av money that’s due me nixt week?”

“Why, say, O’Hara, t’tell youse the trut’ I don’t see how I kin git it. Bizness is so rotten bad, ye know.”

“Don’t git hot! Youse heard me speak me piece, didn’t ye? Well, that’s jist what I mean. An’ I can’t stand chewin’ it with youse all day, O’Hara; me customers’ll be waitin’ for their milk. So long.”

And with this he hurried off while O’Hara gazed[239] angrily after him for a moment, then started off toward Clancy’s.

“The bla’gard!” muttered O’Hara. “The thafe av the world till keep a daysint man out av his bit av money!”

He entered Clancy’s and found the grocer alone, seated astride a crate, sorting eggs.

“The same till yezsilf,” responded Clancy. “Sure, an’ it’s glad till see yez I am, this foine mornin’.” Then under his breath he added: “God forgi’me for the lie I’m tellin’.”

“I’ve jist luked in till ask if yez have the troifle av money that’s due me,” said O’Hara.

“I have not the price av a can av beer in the house. Faix an’ I’ve jist paid me butter man who shud have had his money last Chuesday, an’ it’s claned out I am, entirely.”

[240]“Divil raysave the day!” And O’Hara turned abruptly toward the door. “Mister Clancy, I will have me money, principal an’ intrust, or I will sell yez out!” He paused upon the threshold. “Iv ye are not at me store t’morry at twelve be the day, I will have Haggerty, the constable, down on yez. Mister Clancy, good day till yez, sir!” And he slammed the door behind him.

“An’ the divil go wid ye,” exclaimed Clancy, savagely, as he resumed his work upon the crate of eggs.

“Ain’t ye goin’ to church this mornin’, Pop?” called Annie, from an inner room.

“Faith an’ I am,” answered her father, rising hurriedly, and slipping off his apron. “It’s bad luck enough I’m havin’ widout missin’ me juty. What time is it, asthore?”

Clancy put on his coat. “It wur a black day,” he muttered, as he started off, “when I borryed that money av Malachi O’Hara. The owld villyan’ll keep his word, bad luck till him; it’s in a trench wid a pick I’ll be, afore the week’s out.”

After leaving Rosie and Larkin, Larry Murphy[241] headed straight for O’Hara’s; but he had scarce gone a half block when he encountered Kerrigan and Mason, who had just paused before Owen Dwyer’s door. Mason grasped the young man’s hand and shook it warmly.

“I am delighted that you have made such a splendid fight against McQuirk,” said he.

“It ain’t McQuirk, so much,” said Larry. “Kelly’s the man I’m after.”

“We’re just going in to see Owen Dwyer, about the delegates for his division,” said Kerrigan. “Won’t you come in? He’ll want to see you, I know.”

Owen had seen the trio from the window and had opened the door in time to catch these words.

“Come in, Larry,” said he cordially. “It’s a stranger ye’ve made av yezsilf long enough.”

Owen had asked him to visit them many times before, but Larry had never done so because of the fear that Maggie would think he was forcing himself upon her, and this his pride would not permit. He was reluctant to enter even now, but somehow there was also a feeling of gladness in his being unable to refuse.

He sat upon the edge of the chair that Owen offered[242] him, stole covert glances about the parlour and earnestly hoped that Maggie was not at home. A glance at the clock showed him that it was but shortly after eight, and he wonderingly confessed to a sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that school did not begin until nine. Owen settled his doubts by poking his head through the hangings of a doorway, and calling:

“Maggie, asthore; can ye come here for a minyute? Sure, it’s company we’re after havin’ so airly in the mornin’.”

Maggie entered the room, obediently; she flushed a little at sight of Larry, but managed to greet him in a calm, even voice that betrayed nothing of what she might feel.

She talked to him of neighbourhood events, he answering awkwardly and distantly, as he always did with her. Her father had plunged into an earnest discussion, with the others, of the coming convention, and finally swept them out of the room to look at some figures which he had compiled, bearing upon the comparative strength of the opposing factions.

[243]“I have wanted so to speak to you lately, but you are such a stranger!”

A little thrill ran through Larry at these words. She had thought of him, then; and he fancied that he caught a note of vexation in her voice. He pondered this, confusedly, and did not reply. She continued:

“I wanted to tell you how sorry I was at your great loss. Mary was a sweet and good girl.”

“That’s right,” said he, eagerly. “There ain’t many like her, is there?”

Though Maggie did not agree with him in this, she did not say so. And this is why: She had been a constant visitor during Mary’s illness, and the sorrow that had grown so upon the sick girl toward the end had not escaped her. Little by little she grasped the causes of this and realized why Larry had asked Mary to be his wife. She had laboured strenuously to persuade the gentle girl that love alone had been his motive, but without success. Though she had loved Larry from the days of her girlhood—and this Maggie[244] had confessed to herself long before—still her heart was great enough to appreciate what he had endeavoured to do; and all the more because it proved him to be as noble as she had always believed him.

“I also wanted to thank you,” said Maggie, “for what you did last night. Daddy has a great deal of money—for him, you know—invested in the City Railway Company’s stock, and the loss of his savings, now that he is old, would be bitter enough.”

This was news to Larry and it startled him. The proposed steal of the Motor Traction Company had had very little to do with the fight he and his friends had made. As he had informed Mason, Kelly’s defeat was his object and so long as he accomplished this he had cared little for anything else.

But Kelly and his hate of Kelly suddenly shrunk into insignificance, and the Traction Company began to loom up dragon-like with Maggie as its prospective victim.

“I didn’t know that yer father stood to lose anyt’ing,” said he. Maggie’s face fell; she had thought that perhaps he had made the fight partly for her sake.[245] He saw the change in her countenance and hastened to add: “He’ll come out all right, though; McGlory’s against that job they’re tryin’ t’work.”

“Sure. They’ve worked a couple o’ ringers on us, but we’ll win out in spite o’ them.”

“The thing is as plain as day,” said Kerrigan. “There were only three votes in the past session that held them down; the figures show that they have defeated two of these, and if this is the case and Kelly is not beaten, they have a majority of one.”

“An’ that,” said Owen, “is as good as a hundred till do their darty wurk.”

“They will seat these men, Daily and Levitsky, in the convention, by hook or by crook,” remarked Kerrigan. “And in that case they will have a majority of two.”

“But the two-thirds rule,” Mason interrupted.[246] “They must have two-thirds of the delegates to nominate.”

“The bunch with the most tallies always wins out,” said Larry. “If they show a lead in the runnin’, enough’ll flop over to make good for them.”

After a time Larry and Kerrigan arose to go, while Mason remained to talk with Owen.

“Don’t forget, Mason,” said Kerrigan, “that I’ll want to see you to-morrow about old Miss Cassidy’s will.”

“God help uz all”; said Owen. “All av the owld neighbours is dyin’ off. She wur a kind body, too, wur Miss Cassidy, for all she wur an owld maid.”

Maggie opened the door for the two young men as they departed. She smiled as she said:

“You must come again, Larry,” and then as an after-thought, “And you too, Mr. Kerrigan.”

“Oh, cut it out,” said Larry, impatiently. But he was glad to hear it said, nevertheless.

Goose McGonagle had covered his route quickly that[247] morning and by the time service was finished in the church and the thin stream of people began to flow into the street, he was standing on the step of Regan’s cigar store anxiously awaiting Clancy.

The grocer had stopped to discuss the primaries upon the sidewalk in front of the church, and some little time elapsed before he arrived at the point where Goose was awaiting him.

“Hello, Clancy,” saluted the latter, cordially. “How’s t’ings?” But without pausing for a reply he took the elder man by the sleeve and led him out to the curb. “Say,” inquired he, “have youse noticed that I’ve been hangin’ around your place a good bit in the last two or t’ree mont’s?”

The grocer’s looks were not encouraging and Goose began to waver. But he pulled himself together, and blurted out. “Say, do youse mind if me and Annie gits Father Dawson to tie the knot?”

[248]“Well, the divil himself niver witnessed sich a cheek. An’ might I ax what yez have till kape a wife on?”

“Why, I ain’t got much dough,” admitted Goose, ruefully. “But there’s me milk route and—”

“Arrah, go long wid ye! There’s a dale av money in the milk business, Goose, me b’y, bud yez route’ll niver make ye rich. An’ as for Annie, she’ll stay at home, an’ help her mother wid the wurk, as she hav always done. Now don’t be after vexin’ me!” Goose was about to protest; “’twill do ye no good.”

And the grocer went on his way down the street leaving the young man gazing despondently after him. He did not notice the approach of Larry and Kerrigan who had just emerged from Dwyer’s; and Larry slapped him on the back, remarking:

“I’m gittin’ it in the neck, all around,” answered Goose, savagely. “They’re all givin’ me the dinky-dink for further orders. I just now went against Annie’s old man, and he flagged me, cold!”

[249]“Oh, was that Clancy you were speaking to?” asked Kerrigan looking interestedly after the retreating figure. “I’ve got something to tell him, but I’ll see him again. Say, you knew old Miss Cassidy, Annie’s aunt, didn’t you, Goose?”

“Sure,” answered the milkman. “She was me star customer, up till she died the other day.”

“Well, she left a queer kind of a will.” Kerrigan hesitated a moment, and then continued: “Say, I know how it is between you and Annie; walk down the street with us and I’ll tell you about it. It might help you somehow.”

As they went along, Kerrigan, with a wealth of technical phrases, explained the peculiarities of the document. A great part of the explanation was Greek to McGonagle; but Larry grasped the points of the matter, and by the time Kerrigan had finished, his face was lighted with suppressed excitement. They paused before the door of the Aurora Borealis Club in the midst of a rapid debate between the two latter gentlemen; finally Larry said:

[250]“Only until to-morrow afternoon,” said Kerrigan, decisively. “You’ll have to work quick.”

After the attorney left them, Goose turned to his friend, and inquired bewilderingly:

“Say, Murphy, put me next, will youse. What kind o’ a graft have youse got? Hit it out, quick!”

Larry leaned against the frame of Riley’s show window and laughed exultantly; McGonagle frowned vexedly at his mirth, snapping his fingers with impatience.

“Say!” exclaimed the latter, as Larry continued to laugh, “youse must be crazy. What’s the matter, anyhow?”

Larry smothered his laughing, and took Goose rapturously by the lapel of his coat, proceeding to put into words the idea which he had conceived while Kerrigan was speaking. When he had finished, Goose tore himself away and executed a mad acrobatic dance about the sidewalk, and wound it up by throwing his arms about Larry and hugging him until his ribs cracked.

“It’s the slickest t’ing I ever run against,” declared[251] he, with enthusiasm. “I always said you was foxy, Murphy; and if youse work this right, ye kin take the front seat, and I’ll never say a word!”

After a few moments’ consultation they separated and Larry made his way toward O’Hara’s. The freight engines, as usual, were coughing up and down the tracks, hissing and straining at their trailing loads. O’Hara was repairing the fire brick in an old stove outside; his sleeves were turned up and he was soot to the elbows.

“Yez are an early caller!” exclaimed O’Hara, delightedly. “But, faith,” poking him in the ribs, “I t’ought yez’ed called long afore this, b’y. She’s a smart slip av a girl, Larry.”

He led the young man through the store and back into the kitchen. The sisters sprang up tumultuously.

“Larry, asthore,” piped Ellen, “sure an’ it’s a glad heart I have this day. Glory be! bud yez are fitted for wan another. Sit down; she’ll be here this minyute; she do be only gone as far as the church.”

[252]Bridget shrieked with mirth. “Lave the young wans alone!” cried she. “They’ll see each other, niver fear. Arrah, avic, it’s the great b’y yez are.”

“About how foolish she wur?” questioned O’Hara. “She’s seen it, have she. Bud, niver fear b’y, niver fear.”

“It wasn’t Rosie what was foolish, O’Hara, it was youse. Didn’t ye see that there was two ends to this t’ing. Ye scared her, and then t’ought youse was all to the good, didn’t ye? But yer out o’ line: ye can’t play me; I won’t have it.”

“Ah, ye know damn well what I mean! Youse t’ink yer a hot guy, O’Hara, but ye’ll buy a gold brick some day, le’me tell youse that. Ye’ll go flat on yer back wit’out a cent in yer pants.”

“Shame on ye, Larry Murphy!” exclaimed Bridget, “is poor Mary’s dyin’ words—”

“Say, cut that out! I won’t’ stand for any o’ youse draggin’ her into yer little game.”

O’Hara strove to look impressive. “Iv any wan had towld me,” said he, “that yez had no rayspect for Mary, I would’ve towld him that he lied!”

Larry laughed. “That’s a slashin’ good jolly,” remarked he. “It might have worked, too; on’y I’m next to yer little scheme,” he paused a moment, regarding O’Hara, soberly. “Say,” he resumed “I didn’t come to see youse on’y about that, but to do youse a good turn if ye’ll on’y let me.”

“Come into the store,” said Larry, with a glance at the two old women. “This t’ing’s private.”

They re-entered the store. O’Hara closed the door, while Larry seated himself upon the end of the counter.

“He do,” admitted O’Hara. “Six hundred dollars, an’ ’tis due the day.”

“Yis; I loaned him enough till buy his milk route, a year since, an’ divil the cint do I iver expect till see av it again!”

Larry crossed one leg over the other, and clasped his hands comfortably about his knee.

“I kin put youse next to a way to collect every cent, interest and all,” he informed O’Hara.

“How can yez do that? Sure, nayther av thim have a cint till bless thimselves wid!”

Larry leaned forward and began to explain away the other’s doubts. He talked straight to the point and in a few moments O’Hara brightened up wonderfully.

“But there’s somethin’ else,” said Larry. “There’s Rosie and Larkin; what about them?”

“Just as much as the others. Youse’re got to say ‘yes’ to them or you’ll slip yer trolley.”

[255]“Hell till yez sowl!” cried O’Hara. “Is it a girl av mine marry that dirty Derry spawn av the divil!”

“Keep yer shirt on,” advised Larry, evenly. “Don’t make any wild swings. Money’s money, O’Hara; and ye must make good or youse don’t see a dollar.”

O’Hara spluttered with rapidly evaporating wrath; and at length he cooled down sufficiently to say:

“Yez are in the Church yezsilf, Larry; an’ ye know that the clargy do be down on mixed marriages.”

“Say,” said Larry, getting down from the counter and buttoning up his coat, “youse might as well git yer money back by doin’ what I ask ye to do. Rosie’s twenty-one, and she’ll marry Larkin some o’ these days, anyhow. Speak quick; is it yes or no; I’ve got to see the delegates afore the convention opens.”

“I’ll not lose me bit av hard arned money till save the trollop! Iv she wants till make her bed so, why lave her lie in it, an’ divil do her good wid it!”

IN the parlour of the Precinct Club, McQuirk was just concluding an interview with the political manager and lobbyist of the Motor Traction Company.

“McGlory,” said the lobbyist, “mus’n’t think he’s too big a fish. Some other people that I know of will give the administration as good a rake-off, and be glad of the chance.” He got upon his feet, as their conference was over and shook McQuirk encouragingly by the hand. “Just send for him, and talk things over. Alex’s got good sense; he’ll see the point.”

“I don’t think he’d come,” said McQuirk, “so I’ll go over and see him.”

[257]“All right,” said the other, “do as you think best. And, say, how’s Conlin doing with the vote in his division?”

McQuirk compressed his lips. “Bad,” returned he. “They separated him from it, clean.”

“I think,” mused the other, “that Conlin’s too short for the police force. The examining board’s mighty strict just now, Mac.”

The ward boss grinned. “He won’t like it much,” said he. “It’s funny,” he went on, humorously, “how much better tall men are at gittin’ out the vote than short ones.”

The other laughed. “You’re right, Mac,” said he; “but let me say this, again, before I go: Whatever you do, don’t have a fight in your ward. Go into your convention and find the man that’s goin’ to win—and stand good with him if we can handle him. The administration wants lots of friends next session.”

McQuirk found McGlory, dressed in his best, at the stables in Murphy’s Court, superintending the doctoring of a worn-looking horse. The contractor’s greeting was stiff and formal.

[258]“Anyone got your proxy, Alex?” asked the boss, after they had exchanged some general remarks.

“I’ll go till the convintion mesilf,” answered McGlory. “There do be too damn much of this proxy business.”

McQuirk brushed a fly or two from a raw saddle gall on the horse’s back, and reflected.

“I understand,” he said finally, “that you’re out for the nomination.”

“The young fellys want someone till stan’ for it, an’ sure I’m willin’ till try an’ bate Kelly. I don’t forget what he done last illection, an’ at the time, McQuirk, yez said yezself that he played ye a bla’gard trick, an’ that yez’ed git even.”

“Oh, hell!” McQuirk waved his hand, deprecatingly. “It don’t do to hold grudges, Alex; Kelly’s a good fellow.”

The horse stretched his stiff old limbs in the sunlight at the stable door; McQuirk whistled softly; a couple of dirty children from across the narrow court stared at him, curiously.

[259]“Say,” said the boss at length, “when’s your contract out, Alex?”

“That’s all right. You’re not inside, Alex; ye don’t know everything. Now think the thing over, as ye go down to the hall; and take my advice—keep your eye on your bread and butter! That’s all.”

The crowd on Girard Avenue had been waiting for over an hour for some sign of a stir, when a sudden blare of brass instruments and a thundering drubbing of drums broke forth, and into the avenue wheeled the Emmet Band, Eddie Brennen at its head, splendid in a scarlet coat and towering shako, his drum-major’s[260] staff whirling about his head like a metallic circle. Hogan, the policeman, darted into the street with uplifted club, to hold back the teams from the cross streets. The throng ranged quickly along the curb; from the adjacent alleys poured a horde of whooping children; draymen pulled up their nags in order to watch the passing cohorts. Everyone knew that the gathering of the clans had begun.

It was the anti-Kelly faction, and they swung along behind the drums like veterans. Those of them who were to sit in the convention wore huge scarlet badges upon their breasts. Larry Murphy, in all the glory of a high silk hat, borrowed from one of McGrath’s hack drivers, marched at the head of the column, and his aids, Nolan and Ferguson, were immediately behind him.

“Be me soul!” ejaculated the grocer, “bud young Brennen kin twirl his bit av a stick, so he kin. An’ luk at the walk av Murphy; sure yez’ed t’ink he had a mortgage on the City Hall!”

“It puts me in mind,” remarked Tim Burns; “av the owld days whin we stepped till the music oursilves, Clancy, on Paddy’s day, beyant on Broad Street.”

[261]“True for ye, Tim, an’ we wid the axes on the shoulders av uz, an’ the bokays, an’ the strings av doughnuts till ate on the march. Faith an’ the young fellys know nawthin’ av the harp an’ the sunburst; an’ it’s withered in the hearts av most av the owld wans too, I’m thinkin’. God luk down on uz! Till think av all the talk there wur av the owld land, then, an’ the little we hear av it now. Divil a green flag d’yez see hangin’ out av the windys on the siventeenth av March; an’ the Land League do be forgotten. The owld blood’s growin’ thin, Tim—thin as water!”

About the doors of the convention hall, the same hall where the Aurora Borealis Club had held their ball, the scene was one of extreme animation. The groups of high-hatted, tobacco-chewing men, seemed possessed by demons of movement and noise. They laughed with the full strength of their chests, waved their arms wildly and swore joyously, with the unconscious finish of experts. Kelly and his henchmen had already arrived; he had been greeted as a hero by his own faction and now stood in the hallway surrounded by a solid circle of supporters. Gratten Haley who had been named for school director the night before[262] in a convention held in a back kitchen on Second Street, approached Owen Dwyer.

“I haven’t seen him. Sure, Gratten, it’s not at a side issue like this he’d be, whin there’s McAteer’s nomination for Congress till be looked after.”

“That’s where you make your little old mistake,” smiled Mr. Haley. “This is the only fight in town; all the others is cinched; and Mac’ll be on the ground to keep the gang in line.”

“Ye can search me! McQuirk says yes; but I wouldn’t put me roll on it, at that. It runs t’rough me that there’ll be doin’s this mornin’, and if Jim Kelly wins, it’ll be a mix for yer life. And if he goes under, he’ll fall like a rotten wall!”

“I hear the young fellys’ll be contestin’ Tim Daily an’ what’s-his-name that kapes the policy shop. Young Kerrigan do be after tellin’ me that they got the papers by a trick.”

Owen was innocence personified; he knew that Haley possessed information that would be of use.

[263]“Here comes the kickers!” shouted Martin Kelly. “The marks is gotta band, too. Don’t they look gay?”

The anti-Kellyites had swept around the corner with their band playing a “cake-walk” march, their flags waving and themselves cheering lustily. O’Connor, the undertaker, had just arrived in one of his own hacks and now shook hands with his friends.

“The young fellas,” smiled O’Connor, “bate the divil whin they cut loose. Sure, here they are with the Emmet Band till the fore, ready till nail Kelly’s hide on the back dure. Well, well, an’ so Alex McGlory’ll go afore the convention?”

“So I’ve heard,” said one of his friends. “Just to t’ink av ‘McGlory an’ clane streets’ as a campaign cry.” The speaker paused, delighted with the shout that greeted his sally; then he added “Here comes Gartenheim, O’Connor; sure this time a few years ago yezsilf an’ him wur at it, hard enough.”

O’Connor smiled patronizingly, and reared his head in his most dignified fashion; Gartenheim, stout, rosy and smiling was advancing toward him through a lane of outstretched hands.

And the ancient foes grasped each other by the hand, while the gaping spectators swore soft oaths of wonder.

The band had ceased playing; the marchers were halted in the street and this reconciliation was in plain view. Roddy Ferguson swung his derby hat above his head, shouting:

A whirlwind of shrieks swept over the crowd, sustained until the veins of their necks swelled to bursting and their faces turned purple; sticks, hats and flags were tossed wildly in the air.

The two gentlemen whose public burial of the hatchet occasioned this outburst, bowed and smiled genially and once more shook hands, which had the effect of renewing the tumult. James Kelly and his supporters gazed glumly on; the delirious display was not pleasant to them.

“Bloody wars,” breathed Owen in Haley’s ear, “d’yez see that, Gratten? They’ve made up.”

[265]“It looks bad for Kelly,” admitted Mr. Haley; “and he don’t like it for a cent.”

“Here’s them two old guys doin’ the love feast stunt,” sneered young Kelly, “right out in the open. It’s bin fixed to cop votes with; a blind man kin see that. It makes me sick!”

“We’ll do that all right,” said Goose McGonagle; “youse’ll all be a sick lot o’ ducks after we slam youse a few.”

The procession had broken ranks; the members of the band had blown themselves breathless and beaten their arms helpless, and now dispersed into saloons adjacent to the hall to seek refreshment. The delegates, by degrees, began to drift upstairs to the room where the convention was to be held. Here a band, perched in a little gallery at the back, discoursed music; a flag hung from every point where it was possible to drive a nail; the platform stood at the far end holding an array of chairs and tables.

Dick Nolan and Roddy Ferguson, who formed the connecting links between the formerly hostile factions of Gartenheim and O’Connor, were working desperately with delegates; they felt that it depended upon[266] them to secure a solid vote from these two bodies, and they spared themselves no effort. Neither the undertaker nor the contractor had been active in the canvass, so their personal followings were not heavy in the convention; but it served to give the anti-Kelly faction a slight advantage that they were compelled to exert themselves to the utmost to sustain. Each man in the hall with a ballot to cast was under pressure to vote against them, and the pressure would be increased a hundred-fold when McQuirk got upon the ground.

Gartenheim had Larry Murphy in a corner giving him some fatherly advice; O’Connor stood listening, with approving nods; Kerrigan, red-faced and perspiring, came bustling up.

“Well, I’d like to see Pete Comisky hold the office. He’s a straight man.”

“Haley!” Kerrigan stared at him amazedly.[267] “Haley! Why you’re mad. Haley would rule against us every time.”

“He might—if we let him. It’s just like this. Haley’s got the chairmanship cinched; no one else can win against him; I’ve been over the bunch, and I know.” Larry took his cigar from his mouth and pointed it at Kerrigan, impressively. “The chairmanship’s the first test o’ strength. Make a fight on that and lose, and youse might as well chuck up the sponge, on the spot. We’ve got grafters on our side, Johnnie, and you know it; if they see us shake they’ll fly the coop.”

“We’ll t’row our vote to Haley; they can’t see our hand then; and we’ll hold all our people for the real work.”

“But Daily and Levitsky!” remonstrated Kerrigan. “He’ll seat them, they’ll vote and they have no right!”

“They kin seat all they want,” determinedly, “but they don’t vote for Kelly.”

“You’re a bolitician, Larry,” said Gartenheim, admiringly. “Dot’s a good scheme, ain’d it?”

[268]“Say, Larry,” said Roddy Ferguson, allowing a crowd of delegates to precede him to the stairs, “I’m goin’ out to t’row a couple o’ beers into this gang. Look out for Nolan while I’m out, will ye? Don’t let him get near Mart Kelly.”

“There’s McQuirk,” said Kerrigan, as that gentleman entered and shook old Kelly’s hand with theatrical warmth. A crush of delegates gathered about the boss, who seemed in high good humour. He stooped over and whispered something in Kelly’s ear, and the saloonkeeper laughed uproariously, his face growing mottled with excitement, his hands gesticulating madly.

“We have thim!” vociferated the candidate, glowing upon his supporters like a spotted sun; “we have thim on the run, so we have. Begorry, McQuirk, it’s at school they shud be instead av playin’ at politics!”

“Keep it quiet,” advised McQuirk; “keep it quiet, and let’s get down to business.” He took Haley aside. “How is it goin’?” questioned he.

[269]“All to the good,” answered Mr. Haley. “The chairmanship’s ourn. There ain’t no one else but me in sight!”

The boss laughed: “The old man’ll show ’em a few tricks,” said he complacently. “I think they expected me to lay down, eh?”

After a time everything was in readiness; the temporary chairman mounted the platform; the scribes of the gathering took their seats and the convention came to order.

“Gentlemen,” said the temporary chairman, advancing to the edge of the platform, “we are called together this morning to name a man for the important office of selectman. I feel that—”

The temporary chairman was an elderly man, little known and with a colourless manner. He endeavoured to go on with his remarks but the volume of interruption steadily increased.

“We will proceed with the business of electing a chairman,” said he at length.

[270]McQuirk was on his feet in an instant; Larry followed, also demanding recognition.

“I give you,” said the boss, “the name of Gratten Haley, of the nineteenth division, for chairman.”

The supporters of Kelly leaped to their feet with shrieking acclaim; it was some moments before Larry could be heard.

“I second the nomination of Mr. Haley,” said he, “and move that his ’lection to the chair be made unanimous!”

Dead silence followed. McQuirk looked dumbfounded; Larry smiled sweetly at him over the heads of the intervening delegates. The vote was a rising one, and the temporary chairman surrendered the gavel to Haley.

McQuirk was dazed, but respectful; old Kelly smiled broadly and rubbed his hands gleefully; young Murphy moved among the opposition like a spirit of wisdom.

McQuirk once more arose. “Let’s keep things moving,” said he. “There has been no protest against anyone sitting in the convention, with the exception of[271] Mr. Daily and Mr. Levitsky. We will now look into their cases.”

“I wouldn’t,” sneered McGonagle, “take too much work on me shoulders, if I was youse. I’d let the chairman do a little.”

“Cheese it; sit down, and keep yer shirt on!” warned Larry, leaning forward, “if youse make trouble now, I’ll put a muzzle on ye.”

Johnnie Kerrigan was entrusted with the business of protesting against the seating of Levitsky and Daily; but Haley, as was expected, carried matters with a high hand, and overruled him at all points.

“All right,” said Kerrigan, “you can let ’em vote if you want to, and I know you want to; you can use ’em in your business.”

The Kellyites were triumphant and voiced it until the hall was filled with their clamour.

“We’ve got ’em burnt to the ground!” declared[272] Martin Kelly. “Why, the mugs capped the game for us! They must be rank suckers.”

The roll was called amid much tumult; then Chairman Haley hammered with his gavel for order; when something like silence had been obtained, he said:

“Gentlemen, our object is to get done with the business in hand as soon as we can. We will, therefore, pass over all unnecessary forms and go into the matter of nominating our candidate at once.”

Mr. Haley had carefully rehearsed this little speech during those moments when there was nothing doing behind the bar over which he presided, and was much pleased with the applause which it provoked. He added:

Mr. Shulze arose amid much disorder on the part of the insurgents. By virtue of his ability to deliver a certain amount of goods each election Mr. Shulze held a position in the post-office; he had a voice like a megaphone, and a fixed set of gestures that resembled the jerkings of an automatic doll. In tones that shook the windows he placed the elder Kelly in nomination, and sat down amid a whirlwind of cheers.

[273]Johnnie Kerrigan got up to name McGlory; he had not spoken a dozen words before the contractor and his son Jerry, rushed into the hall and beckoned the speaker and Larry into an anteroom. The old man was pale and agitated; Jerry acted like a man dazed.

“He’s quit at the post!” exclaimed Jerry. “He’s laid down like a dub.”

“I’m tellin’ youse, ain’t I. From a kid up,” added Jerry, bitterly, “I t’ought the old gent was an ace, but now I find he’s on’y a two-spot! Say, I t’row up the towel; I’ll never stack against the bunch again.”

Kerrigan grasped the elder man’s arm. “Why, McGlory,” protested he, “you’re not going to shirk at the last moment, are you?”

“I’m sorry,” said the contractor, “but I can’t allow me name till be used.” He was trembling under the stress of the moment and looked appealingly from one to the other. “Don’t blame me too much,” implored he. “I have too much at stake, b’ys. Sure iv I make the fight, it’s a ruint man I’d be.”

[274]There was a pause; Jerry was viciously biting at his nails; Larry was fighting visibly to keep down his anger; from the main hall came the subdued roar of many voices.

“Afore God!” exclaimed the contractor, “I niver t’ought till do the like av this! But they have me on the hip, divil take thim, and I can do no better.”

“Let ’em do youse outa the contract,” rapped out his son. “Let the whole shootin’ match go t’ell! Youse can do better’n scratch streets.”

“Shut yer mouth,” roared McGlory. “Don’t be stanin’ there talkin’ till me like that. Lose the contract is it, with Matthew Fitzmaurice holdin’ a paper agin me beyant in his rale estate office? Divil a long it’s stay in his safe iv he knowed I’d no contract. Gawd help yez for a fool! Is it till the La Salle College yez cud have gone, iv it hadn’t been for the contract? An’ how many av thim young fellys wid the flowers in their coats ’ed call till see yez sister av a Sunday night, widout it? Tell me that, ye igit!”

“Ease up,” soothed Kerrigan; “I wouldn’t make any trouble between you for the world.”

Larry turned to Kerrigan. “D’youse see anyt’ing?” asked he. “Is it our finish?”

“Not in a thousand years!” retorted the young attorney. “Find another man for the running; I’ll go in there an’ do some spell-binding while you canvass the crowd. If Gartenheim’ll swing in line for O’Connor, give me the word and I’ll name him.”

They left the McGlorys engaged in a wordy duel, and rushed back into the main hall. McQuirk, the Kellys and some others of their adherents were gathered in the doorway leading into the entry; they greeted the young men with a laugh.

“All to the bad, eh?” sneered Martin. “Yer star nag’s on’y a sellin’ plater.”

“What’d I tell ye, boys,” said McQuirk with the easy assurance of a man who has won his fight. “There’s only one man. We’ve got the nomination safe, ye can see that. Now don’t be sore-heads; be nice, clean boys, an’ ye won’t miss anything.”

[276]Kerrigan hurried into the convention hall without replying; but Larry turned on the boss like a sullen bear.

“Don’t josh us, McQuirk,” warned he, “because we won’t stand for it. Youse people ain’t scooped the pot yet, so don’t give yerself the glad hand.”

“Come, come,” smiled McQuirk, winking at his co-labourers, “don’t take it so hard. Alex McGlory knows where he stands, and he shows good sense when he gets out from under.”

“Don’t take me for a mark!” flared Murphy, shoving his head forward, his jaw protruding, wickedly. “We kin split the shootin’ match wide open, McQuirk, and afore we let youse git the bulge with Kelly, we’ll do it. If youse are wise, ye’ll write that on yer cuff.”

He rushed into the convention hall, hot with anger; Nolan, Ferguson and others of his lieutenants were quickly enlightened as to the state of affairs, and they passed the word among the others that someone other than McGlory would be named, at the same time working zealously to allay the feeling of insecurity that these tidings naturally aroused.

Kerrigan was speaking and the convention was giving[277] him its undivided attention. The youthful attorney possessed that self-assured poise and explosive style that captures such gatherings; and then he was easily the most popular young man in the ward, and his father’s saloon was a well-known place of resort. Most of the younger men among the delegates had gone to school with him, and though they, for the most part, were day-labourers and Johnnie had his name painted upon a ground-glass door in a down-town office building, he had always kept up old friendships and clung to old surroundings. As one of his friends said:

“Johnnie’s a high guy, but he’s as common as dirt; he don’t have to put ice in his hat to keep his head from swellin’. When youse stack up against him on the street, he’s always got the glad hand for youse, and a cigar what ain’t workin’.”

It was this democratic quality that made him liked and secured him attention from the delegates when he arose to deliver the address that was to give Larry an opportunity to select a new candidate.

These facts came to Larry as he paused for a moment to listen; and like one inspired he proceeded to consult Ferguson and Nolan.

[278]“Somethin’s gotta be done, and done quick,” said he. “Now look here, if I go against Gartenheim and ask him to turn in for O’Connor, what’ll he say?”

“There’s no difference,” said Nolan. “If one was ast to work for the other he’d git dead wise all of a sudden and t’ink he was bein’ worked for a good t’ing, and havin’ a con game slung into him from the start! It won’t do; take it from me.”

“Then I’ve gotta bran’ new graft!” exclaimed Larry starting up the aisle.

Larry said something to Kerrigan in a low tone. Johnnie looked surprised; he closed his remarks[279] abruptly and sat down, while Larry nodded to the chair for recognition. Upon obtaining this he wasted no words.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I’m goin’ to put in nomination a man that youse can all vote for.” He paused a moment and glanced around at the expectant faces; he raised both arms, with a sweep and shouted: “Mr. John Kerrigan, of the 12th Division!”

For an instant there was dead silence; then the anti-Kellyites came to their feet with an ear-splitting scream of delight. Kerrigan sprang to Larry’s side protesting excitedly; men stood upon chairs and beat the backs of their neighbours; pandemonium reigned. Kerrigan was ringed in by dozens of outstretched hands; his appeals for a hearing were drowned by the clamour of his partisans.

James Kelly was stricken mute; a moment before he had seen victory in his grasp; now it had eluded him and was dancing away in the distance. McQuirk looked on at the scene of disorder, astonished at Larry’s act. He had expected to hear the name of a man steeped in the factional differences of the ward—a[280] man easily beaten—and now he was at a loss, for here was one not only without political enemies but with fast friends in every faction of the party.

“It ain’t a half-bad move,” said the boss to himself, angry, but forced to admiration. “If I wasn’t sure about McGlory, I’d say the thing was fixed.”

Haley hammered vigorously for order; old Kelly and his friends were gathered in a clump, shouting their observations in each other’s ears; Larry stood near the platform, frantically endeavouring to attract the chairman’s attention, and turning every moment to swear at his friends for their uproar. He saw that the moment for action was at hand; the surprise had been sprung and had given his faction heart, and he determined to strike again while they were white hot. Gradually the noise began to settle; and, though now and then a cheer volleyed across the hall, his voice could be heard:

This, at a nod from McQuirk, Haley proceeded to[281] do; the secretary began to read off the names, and the delegates answered “Kelly” or “Kerrigan” as the case might be. As the vote began, a concerted movement of a dozen young men, led by Larry and McGonagle, was made toward the point where Daily and Levitsky were sitting.

“Not on yer life,” answered Daily, but with an uneasy glance about him. He saw in their faces that they were ready for anything; and that they were awkward men to handle, he knew, partly from experience, partly by hearsay.

“I t’ink youse’ll turn in for Kerrigan when they hand out yer name.” Larry leaned carelessly upon the back of Daily’s chair, and spoke very quietly.

“It’s just as easy to say Kerrigan as Kelly,” put in McGonagle, “an’ I guess Levitsky’ll say it, too, when it’s up to him.”

“Ah, rats!” returned McGonagle, savagely. “Youse’ll chirp for Kerrigan, or the next stunt youse’ll do’ll be at the morgue, stretchin’ slabs!”

[282]“Play light, Goose,” advised Larry, “I t’ink they’ll be in line.”

News of the state of affairs reached the elder Kelly as he stood talking to McQuirk at the far side of the room; and they hurried toward the storm centre to prevent the coercion of their vote. Because of some trifling hitch the polling of the delegates had stopped for the time being, and Haley and the secretary were wrangling with a cluster of men about the platform.

A man rushed up the aisle and stopped McQuirk, at the same time handing him a card.

“Go ahead over and talk to them, Kelly,” said McQuirk. “I’ve got to go out for a second.”

“What’s this,” asked Kelly, upon reaching the spot where Larry and his friends were gathered behind the chairs of the two protested delegates. “What call have yez till be threatenin’ these two min?”

[283]“You are, ye bla’gard!” exclaimed the saloonkeeper, hotly. “You an’ the likes av yez. Divil take me, bud youse’ll sup sorra for it, ye thaves av the world.”

“Ah, go scratch yer head,” elegantly advised Larry. “Don’t cut loose with any o’ yer fireworks, Kelly; youse’re carryin’ weight for age and don’t work fast enough to mix it with this bunch.”

“Youse’d t’ink,” said Martin Kelly, coming to the aid of his father, “that youse people run the shack, and no other body has a look in.”

His proximity and the sound of his voice had an immediate effect upon Dick Nolan; his sister’s shame and young Kelly’s brutality on the night of the ball had burned themselves into his brain.

“Let me plug him,” gasped Nolan, his face as white as death, his whole frame shaking with an overwhelming desire for revenge. He was struggling as he spoke in the arms of Roddy Ferguson; but Roddy dragged him away.

“Don’t make a mess of it,” implored Roddy. “If youse jump him now ye’ll put the whole snap on the bum, maybe.”

“He’s leary on Kelly, youse can bank on that,” answered Casey. “From the cracks he made to me a while ago, he’s goin’ to put him out o’ business. I don’t know what he’s sore for.”

The commotion attracted Haley’s attention and he commenced to sound his gavel and cry for order. The roll-call recommenced and just as Kelly turned to acquaint the chairman with the attempt being made upon Daily, that gentleman’s name was reached.

“Now then!” grated Larry. The circle narrowed about Daily as he arose to his feet. Martin Kelly attempted to rally his friends; but the determined looks of the cordon of young men and Daily’s unpopularity caused it to result in nothing more than a scattering fire of protest.

“I’ve got this to say: As I was ’lected by the parties against Mr. Kelly, I t’ink it’s best for me to save me reputation by votin’ for Kerrigan.”

“Youse saved a damn sight more’n your reputation,”[285] observed Murphy, as they turned away to give their attention to Levitsky.

In the meantime McQuirk had hurried out into the entry to see the person who had sent in the card. It was he with whom he had had the conversation in the Precinct Club a few hours before.

“Well,” said the gentleman, “what do ye know? Did McGlory do the right thing?”

“Yes, and almost put them in the ditch. But they’ve got their second wind, now, and I don’t like the looks of things.”

“No?” The politician looked questioningly at McQuirk, and then added: “They’ve fixed upon a new man? Who is it?”

A henchman of McQuirk’s rushed into the entry and looked anxiously up and down.

[286]“Tom!” exclaimed the supporter, hurrying up. “Daily’s just voted for Kerrigan, and Levitsky’s goin’ to do the same!”

“I’ll take it back,” said McQuirk, coolly. “They’ve got me hung up.”

“Then fight it out with them! If they split the party we can elect Kelly on the opposing ticket as was done last time.”

“What! I say, Mac, you’re not gitting weak-kneed at the last moment, are you?”

“I’m ready to stand in and help your company out as long as I can do it regularly. This is my ward and the only way to keep it my ward is to be a regular. I’m against split tickets, you know that. If young Kerrigan can swing the convention, I’m for Kerrigan.”

[287]“But think of what this means? This vote must be had or we will fall flat.”

“And I must carry my ward,” said McQuirk. “If I lose twice in succession you’ll be makin’ deals with another man next election; I’ll have lost my grip.”

Upon McQuirk’s return to the convention hall his adherents gathered about him; he paid no attention to them, but at once buttonholed the elder Kelly and drew him aside. The first ballot had resulted in a tie and the second had not yet begun; Kerrigan, reconciled to the situation, was receiving the noisy congratulations of his friends; the band in the gallery brayed and throbbed through a popular air. Suddenly a volley of incoherent adjectives came from James Kelly; his face was purple with wrath and he gesticulated with the fury of one demented. No one caught the words, but all saw that McQuirk was the object of his vituperations.

“There’s a plank loose,” prophesied McGonagle. “It must be a come-back, he’s makin’ it so strong.”

McQuirk broke away from Kelly’s detaining clutch and approached the group surrounding Kerrigan; the[288] delegates, clearly seeing that something important was about to occur, pressed about him.

“Gentlemen,” said the boss, “above everything else we must preserve unity. As things stand, I would advise you all to turn in for Mr. Kerrigan.”

The compact mass of delegates was torn as by a tempest; personal friends of Kelly stormed about McQuirk with clamorous denunciations; the opposition in a frenzy of rapture, hoisted their candidate upon their shoulders and began a march of victory about the hall, while the band blared brazenly through the noise.

When at length comparative silence had been restored, the poll recommenced. McQuirk’s “advice” to his followers had been rightly interpreted as an order, and the name of Kerrigan seemed to be on every lip as man after man responded to his name. Upon its conclusion and Haley’s announcing that Kerrigan had won by more than two-thirds of the vote, the uproar broke out afresh. Suddenly, however, it hushed and all crowded toward the rear end of the hall. There was a quick grinding of feet upon the floor, a heaving of straining bodies, a growling of curses between tight-shut teeth. In the centre of the[289] crowd, his face smeared with blood, fighting viciously, was Martin Kelly. With the full, swinging strength of their arms Nolan and Ferguson were battering at him and all who sought to interfere; upon the outskirts of the crowd the elder Kelly, white-faced, blue-lipped, and gasping, desperately sought to break through to the aid of his son.

Larry and McGonagle and some others fought their way through the press and tore Nolan and Ferguson away.

A half hour later a patrol wagon dashed away from the hall toward the nearest hospital bearing the bleeding, broken form of young Kelly. Upon the steps stood his assailants in the custody of two policemen, and with their friends gathered about them.

“Don’t make no kick,” said Larry. “The cops game is too strong for youse. Go ahead with ’em.”

“Make no resistance,” advised O’Connor. “I’ll try if they’ll take bail for yez in the mornin’.”

CLANCY was reading the news of the convention in the evening paper behind his counter; the rush was over for the night, and he pulled at his pipe contentedly, for O’Hara had failed to keep his threat, and Clancy fancied that his creditor had thought better of it.

“Sure, Young Murphy is the b’y for thim,” said Clancy, as he finished the account. It was a McQuirk[291] sheet and lauded that gentleman’s action to the skies. Its story of the convention teemed with such phrases as “Magnificent battle against organized greed,” “Opponent of municipal corruption,” “Able friend of the working class,” etc. “But, divil take thim,” continued the grocer, “yez’d t’ink, from this, that McQuirk done it all.”

He adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses and was about to resume his reading when a step sounded upon the floor and a shadow fell across the newspaper; looking up he saw O’Hara.

“Good avenin’,” said the visitor. “I wur passin’ an’ t’ought I’d drop in on yez.”

“Yez towld me this mornin’, Mr. Clancy,” said O’Hara, “that yez could not pay me the troifle av money yez owe me.”

“On con-sider-rayshun av yez bein’ an ’owld frind av mine,” said O’Hara, “I have daysided till give yez back the note, widout the payin’ av a cint—upon wan condition.”

Clancy looked thunderstruck; he gazed at the other with mingled wonder and anger.

“What call have yez till meddle wid me family affairs?” demanded he, indignantly. “An’ what rayson have ye till be pullin’ wid McGonagle?”

“Sorra the t’ing hav that till do wid it. Give yez consint, an’ I will give ye a raysate for the money ye owe me the minyute the marriage lines are wrote.”

Clancy’s objection to Goose was solely because of his poverty, but a son-in-law with money could do no more than pay off his debt, so the grocer figured it out, and the reluctance with which he at last consented to O’Hara’s proposition was more assumed than real.

THE door bell of Larry’s home at the end of Murphy’s Court kept up an almost constant ringing next morning, and old Mrs. Coogan’s breath grew short through answering the calls.

First it was McGonagle and Larkin, dressed in their best, with beaming faces and movements of suppressed excitement.

“Everyt’ing’s all to the velvet,” said Goose airily. “The girls have been up and dressed since five o’clock, and Father Dawson’ll do his turn at eleven, sharp.”

“Say, Larry,” put in Jimmie, “one bridesmaid’s goin’ to do for both; who d’youse t’ink it is?”

“It’s Maggie Dwyer,” said Jimmie. “Say, there’s a girl for yer life! She’s got ’em all tied hand an’ foot.”

“If there was no Annie,” remarked Goose, “and I had the drag with Maggie that youse have, why her name’d be McGonagle in short order, le’me tell ye that.”

“This is on the level,” insisted McGonagle. “I’ve heard it talked about for years. Everybody in the ward[294] knowed that she wanted ye,—everybody but yerself. But, say, youse seemed so dead leary about the t’ing that nobody had the nerve to say anyt’ing to youse.”

After the two young men departed, a perfect stream of reporters began to call, all anxious to get Larry’s views upon the political situation; and when this had subsided, Mason and Kerrigan came in, to talk over yesterday and confer about to-morrow.

“Did youse see McQuirk since yesterday?” asked Larry, after some time spent in this fashion.

“No,” answered Kerrigan, “but I received a note from him late last night, asking me to call upon him this afternoon.”

Larry nodded. “I was at his house when he wrote it,” said he. “Youse don’t need to worry any about him; he’s right in line. He kin carry the ward, with youse on the ticket, hands down. And that’s McQuirk’s game, every time. As long as he’s on the side that wins he can make good, ye know, and any time they need the ward in a deal they have to come to him with the money.”

“Owen Dwyer seems to think,” said Mason, “that[295] the election is only a matter of the size of Kerrigan’s majority.”

“That’s right,” said Larry. “In this ward, and in all the others for that matter, the fightin’s done at the primaries; the guy what’s named in the regular way by the party what runs the ward, has got the election cinched.”

“I am glad that Nolan and Ferguson came out of their matter all right. I know Cullen, one of the doctors at St. Mary’s, and he told me that Mart Kelly’s condition, while painful, is not necessarily serious.”

“O’Connor an’ Gartenheim talked to McQuirk,” said Larry; “and McQuirk squared it all right at the front office. They had to give bail but the case’ll never come to trial, because Jim Kelly won’t push it; he knows what Mart was done up for, and he dasn’t.”

“McGonagle tells me that things are all O. K. in his matter,” remarked Kerrigan, as they stood upon the steps, Larry in the doorway. “I’ll be on hand promptly at noon to attend to my end of it.”

[296]Larry closed the door after they had departed and returned to the sitting room. He was glad that matters political had turned out as they did—but only because it would prevent the loss of Owen Dwyer’s savings, and thereby please Maggie—outside of that he seemed to have lost all zest of the battle, all exultation in the victory.

Maggie was in his thoughts, Maggie and Maggie only. Since his talk with her the morning before, she seemed to have grown nearer to him. He did not dream that this was caused by a lessening of his sense of inferiority—by a gradual growth of faith in himself, which had its conception in the hardly realized fact that he had been the dominant spirit in a matching of wits which, in result, meant not a little to her.

He only thought of her kind manner, her smile and invitation to call again; he only remembered Kerrigan’s half-jesting remark after they had left the house. And then there were McGonagle’s words; Goose was a friend of his and would not deceive him. He had said that Maggie was not indifferent! Could this be so? Had he been so blind, so full of self-pride as to not see it? Could it be that the aloofness with which[297] he had long secretly charged her had all been of his own doing? It is not often that a man wishes himself in the wrong; but that, at this moment, was Larry’s most earnest desire.

“I’ll settle it to-night,” he said to himself. “I’ll brace up and give her a chance to flag me.”

Half past eleven saw Larry hurrying toward Clancy’s. Two of O’Connor’s hacks were drawn up at the curb before the grocery, from one of which McGonagle and Larkin were assisting Rosie, Annie and Maggie. Clancy and O’Hara were alighting from the second, which they had shared with the two bridegrooms; a flock of marvelling children were gathered upon the sidewalk; and the heads of their elders were popping out of windows and doorways full of wonder and surprise.

“I’m sorry,” said she, “that I can’t remain to see the result of your planning. It is very clever!” Larry caught the look in her eyes and it said as plainly as words that it was no more than she had expected of him. A sudden tumult was raised in his breast and[298] perhaps he pressed her hand a little; at any rate she flushed and withdrew it quickly.

“I must get back to my class before the morning session is over,” she continued. “The principal would only give me an hour’s leave of absence.”

He did not even ask her permission! She gasped a little, in surprise, but laughed as though she liked it.

“I shall be at home,” said she. Then she kissed the two girls. “Good-by, I shall run around this afternoon to see you both, and,” with a sly glance at O’Hara, “to hear of the fun.”

When she had gone, Larry followed the others into the house, Mrs. Clancy embraced Annie and sobbed; then Annie and Rosie began to sob also, while Goose and Jimmie looked uncomfortably at one another, each with a feeling of guilt heavy upon him.

“Here is yez raysate, Mister Clancy,” said O’Hara, handing the grocer a slip of paper. “It’s a man av me word I am.”

“Youse’ll get your cash, as soon as the fortune[299] comes along, O’Hara,” McGonagle informed him reassuringly.

“It’s a queer thing to do right after a wedding,” said the young attorney, after he had congratulated the happy couples, “but the fact is, Mr. Clancy, I am here to read a will. And as all the persons spoken of in the document are present, I will, with your permission, get down to business.”

“The will,” he continued, “is that of the late Honora Cassidy, spinster.”

“Ah! Ah!” exclaimed Clancy, striking the table with his fist; “Now we’ll know the rights av it. Faith an’ I knew Honora had money.”

“So it’s Honora Cassidy that yez meant?” said O’Hara looking at Larry. Then he turned to Kerrigan. “Sure, I wur acquainted wid her in Skibereen whin I wur a young felly.”

“I am aware of the fact,” returned Kerrigan, dryly. “The document reads this way:

[300]“I, Honora Cassidy, being in sound physical and mental health, do make this my last will and testament. Having remained a spinster up to this date and recognizing the emptiness and loneliness of such a state, I, in this instrument, do all in my power to prevent my half-brother’s child, Annie Clancy, from following my example.

“With this end in view I bequeath all my estate, both real and personal, with Charles Mason as Trustee, to the man who marries the said Annie Clancy, on the condition that the ceremony is performed within thirty (30) days after my decease.”

“Ha! An’ so yez knew av this, O’Hara!” exclaimed Clancy. “Yez knew av it an’ played me the darty trick till git yez money out av McGonagle!”

“A stroke av business, Clancy,” murmured O’Hara soothingly, “A mere stroke av business, sir.”

“But say, Kerrigan,” put in Larry, with great innocence, “if Annie hadn’t got married within the thirty days?—what then?”

“Then,” replied the attorney, referring to the will, “the estate would have gone to the only man who ever[301] made a proposal of marriage to the deceased—and whom she refused.”

Larry had his eyes fixed upon O’Hara, who at these words, started suddenly, and sat bolt upright.

“An’ who wur that, Johnnie?” asked Mrs. Clancy, who, womanlike, felt a great curiosity upon this point.

“What!” shrieked Clancy, leaping to his feet. “D’yez mane till say, Goose, me b’y, that yez made the owld harp do himself out av a fort’in?”

O’Hara had slowly arisen, his dumpy form quivering, his face crimson with wrath.

“It wur a conspiracy!” exclaimed he, thumping the floor with his cane; “a conspiracy to defraud me out av me possible roights!”

“’Twur a nate bit av wurk,” cried Clancy, enthusiastically shaking his son-in-law by the hand. “An’ I forgi’ yez for my part av it. Sure, yez are all great b’ys together!”

O’Hara continued to stamp about the room; Rosie[302] wept on Jimmie’s shoulder, frightened at her father’s anger. At last the second-hand dealer grabbed up his hat and made for the door.

“Come home wid me, Rosie!” commanded he. “Don’t be stayin’ here till see yez father chated an’ robbed.”

“She’ll go home with me, after this,” said Jimmie Larkin, as he fondly kissed the tears from her cheek.

“Thin, the divil do her good av ye!” O’Hara swept the room with a stormy glance. “It’s the law I’ll have on yez,” foamed he, “Ivery wan av yez’ll sup sorra for yez divilment, raymimber that!”

IT was a beautiful night; the moon was sailing through the heavens attended by countless myriads of jewel-like stars; the breeze rustled gently through the street, and as Larry neared Maggie’s home he caught the soft notes of an old, old song.

Owen sat upon the step, enjoying the fineness of the night, and as the young man came up he arose and gripped him by the hand.

[303]“God bless ye, Larry,” said he, with a subdued emotion rare in the Celt. “God bless ye for what yez done for me and mine! I niver towld Maggie till the day, but iv Kelly had won, it’s find another home we’d had till do, for ivery dollar I could rake an’ scrape were in that stock. I took a great risk, b’y, I see it now; but it wur all for her sake, Larry, all for her sake.”

Larry entered, leaving the old man smoking peacefully upon the steps. The hallway was dim, and he walked softly to avoid knocking against things. But a shaded lamp threw a soft light about the parlour, and he paused in the doorway to listen to the faint music and the words of the song. Maggie sat at the piano, her back toward him; she was dressed in white, clinging stuff that displayed the full charm of her fine figure; her fingers touched the keyboard lightly, caressingly and she sang in a subdued, brooding way:

[304]She paused, her fingers still straying over the keys, and Larry took up the song:

She arose and slowly turned toward him. Her face was rosy, her eyes shining with a light that was good to see.

He advanced half way, then paused, his arms outstretched. She understood, on the instant, and came the remainder of the way; then the strong arms were around her and he had kissed her upon the lips.

GABRIEL TOLLIVER

THIS is by far the most mature and important work that Mr. Harris has yet given us. Like David Copperfield, Gabriel Tolliver is intensely personal, and is practically the story of Mr. Harris’ own boyhood experiences. In so far as its setting is concerned it is a novel of Reconstruction in the South. It is the most perfect picture in fiction of those disheartening days following the war, when the Southern States seemed likely to sink into anarchy through the corruption of the carpet-baggers. In the midst of such conditions, and the quaint, unprogressive life of the little Georgia community, Shady Dale, a beautiful study of boy and girl love is developed and carried to a happy conclusion after exciting adventures on the part of the hero, who is falsely accused of the murder of a Government agent engaged in inciting the negro population to violence against the whites.

$1.50

Author of “The Stickit Minister,” “The Black Douglas,” “The Firebrand,” etc.

THE BANNER OF BLUE

IN The Banner of Blue Mr. Crockett offers a new version of that most wonderful of parables, the prodigal son. Against the sombre background of the Disruption Period in Scotland he draws with a master hand two brilliantly colored love-stories, the one intense to its tragic end, the other delightful in its quaint Scotch humor. The character-drawing possesses in particular the quality of nearness and reality, and he who reads must suffer with the proud Lord of Gower in the downfall of his idolized son, laugh with Veronica Cæsar in her philosophical bearing of domestic burdens and tyranny, and share with John Glendonwyn his love for the will-o’-the-wisp sweetheart, Faerlie Glendenning. That part of the story dealing with the separation of church and state calls forth not only the strongest but the most picturesque traits of the Scottish people.

$1.50

MRS. CUTTING begins where other storytellers leave off. Marriage is a very general experience, and the married in actual life seem as much alive as other people; but in literature they generally pass out of any existence worth the name when the ceremony is performed. In the very heart of domesticity Mrs. Cutting finds moving crises and climaxes, perils and triumphs. Why not? Domestic affairs make or break the daily existence of most of us. Her book has a peculiarly American quality, for the American home is its field; at the same time its pages are especially rich in those touches of nature, humorous or pathetic—often humorous and pathetic—that make the whole world kin.

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Edited by
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN AND NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH
with an
Introduction and Little Letters on Poetry
by
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

FOR the purpose of compiling this book Mrs. Riggs [Kate Douglas Wiggin] and her sister, Miss Smith, have explored practically the entire body of English poetry, and have spent two years in the work of selection and arrangement. The result, it is hardly necessary to say, in view of Mrs. Riggs’ well-known sympathy with the needs and interests of young life, is the greatest work ever planned to put the boys and girls of America and England in possession of the poetic heritage of their literature. The volume may well serve as a general anthology for all ages, so representative is it and so complete. And yet so skillfully has the work been done that nothing is introduced which might not serve immediately to win the attention of the young reader and to stimulate his curiosity to make independent discoveries in the broad fields that lie beyond the covers of his book. A second volume is in preparation. It will be entitled The Posy Ring, and will aim to interest still younger readers than those to which Golden Numbers will make an appeal.

THE first novel of a new master. The work has gained wide-spread recognition on both sides of the water. Three of the most conservative and authoritative publications in England include it among the first twelve of the year. In this country Harper’s Weekly gives it as one of the two most interesting novels of the year.

The critics differ as to with what other master George Douglas should be compared:

The London Times says: “Worthy of the hand that drew ‘Weir of Hermiston,’” and that “Balzac and Flaubert, had they been Scotch, would have written such a book.”

The Spectator: “His masters are Zola and Balzac, but there are few traces of the novice and none of the imitator.”

Vanity Fair: “It moves to its end with all the terrible unity of an Æschylean tragedy.”

Harper’s Weekly: “If Thomas Hardy had written of Scotland, instead of Wessex, it would have been something like ‘The House with the Green Shutters’.... If any man is his (Douglas’) master it is Thomas Hardy.”

Hardy, Stevenson, Zola, Flaubert, Balzac, and Æschylus.

THERE is plenty of dash and adventure in this book, told with a humor whose most delightful quality is its unstudied naturalness. The critics are all laughing, not at the book, but with it.

“Chantay Seechee Red is the sort of cowpuncher it benefits one to meet even between the covers of a book.”—N. Y. Evening Post.

“Mark Twain has written no more delicious stories.”—Philadelphia Inquirer.

“A delightful study of life in the West.”—Newark Call.

“The wind blows through it, and the meaning of it is health and joy.”—N. Y. Sun.

“The creator of Red Saunders has an exuberant sense of humor.”—N. Y. Evening Telegram.

Second Edition $1.25

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The ragged edge: A tale of ward life & politics

THE RAGGED EDGE

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE