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diff --git a/old/51909.txt b/old/51909.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d87ccf5..0000000 --- a/old/51909.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7156 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Apaches of New York, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Apaches of New York - -Author: Alfred Henry Lewis - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51909] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE APACHES OF NEW YORK *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - - -THE APACHES OF NEW YORK - -By Alfred Henry Lewis - -Author of "Wolfville," - -"The Boss, Peggy O'Neal," - -"The Sunset Trail," - -"The Throwback," - -"The Story of Paul Jones," etc. - -M. A. Donohue & Company - -Chicago New York - -1912 - -[Illustration: 0001] - -[Illustration: 0005] - - -TO - -ARTHUR WEST LITTLE - - -These stories are true in name and time and place. None of them in its -incident happened as far away as three years ago. They were written to -show you how the other half live--in New York. I had them direct from -the veracious lips of the police. The gangsters themselves contributed -sundry details. - -You will express amazement as you read that they carry so slight an -element of Sing Sing and the Death Chair. Such should have been no doubt -the very proper and lawful climax of more than one of them, and would -were it not for what differences subsist between a moral and a legal -certainty. The police know many things they cannot prove in court, the -more when the question at bay concerns intimately, for life or death, a -society where the "snitch" is an abomination and to "squeal" the single -great offense. - -Besides, you are not to forget the politician, who in defense of a -valuable repeater palsies police effort with the cold finger of his -interference. With apologies to that order, the three links of the -Odd Fellows are an example of the policeman, the criminal and the -politician. The latter is the middle link, and holds the other two -together while keeping them apart. - -Alfred Henry Lewis. New York City, Dec. 22, 1911. - - - - - -THE APACHES OF NEW YORK - - - - -I.--EAT-'EM-UP JACK - - -Chick Tricker kept a house of call at One Hundred and Twenty-eight Park -Row. There he sold strong drink, wine and beer, mostly beer, and the -thirsty sat about at sloppy tables and enjoyed themselves. When night -came there was music, and those who would--and could--arose and danced. -One Hundred and Twenty-eight Park Row was in recent weeks abolished. The -Committee of Fourteen, one of those restless moral influences so common -in New York, complained to the Powers of Excise and had the license -revoked. - -It was a mild February evening. The day shift had gone off watch at One -Hundred and Twenty-eight, leaving the night shift in charge, and--all -things running smoothly--Tricker decided upon an evening out. It might -have been ten o'clock when, in deference to that decision, he stepped -into the street. It was commencing to snow--flakes as big and soft and -clinging as a baby's hand. Not that Tricker--hardy soul--much minded -snow. - -Tricker, having notions about meeting Indian Louie, swung across to -Roosevelt Street. Dodging down five steps, he opened the door of a dingy -wine-cellar. It was the nesting-place of a bevy of street musicians, -a dozen of whom were scattered about, quaffing chianti. Their harps, -fiddles and hand-organs had been chucked into corners, and a general air -of relaxation pervaded the scene. The room was blue with smoke, rich -in the odor of garlic, and, since the inmates all talked at once, there -arose a prodigious racket. - -Near where Tricker seated himself reposed a hand-organ. Crouched against -it was a little, mouse-hued monkey, fast asleep. The day's work had -told on him. 'Fatigued of much bowing and scraping for coppers, the -diminutive monkey slept soundly. Not all the hubbub served to shake the -serene profundity of his dreams. - -Tricker idly gave the handle of the organ a twist. Perhaps three notes -were elicited. It was enough. The little monkey was weary, but he knew -the voice and heard in it a trumpet-call to duty. With the earliest -squeak he sprang up--winking, blinking--and, doffing his small red hat, -began begging for pennies. Tricker gave him a dime, not thinking it -right to disturb his slumbers for nothing. The mouse-hued one tucked it -away in some recondite pocket of his scanty jacket, and then, the organ -having lapsed into silence, curled up for another snooze. - -Tricker paid for his glass of wine, and--since he saw nothing of Indian -Louie, and as a source of interest had exhausted the monkey--lounged off -into the dark. - -In Chatham Square Tricker met a big-chested policeman. Tricker knew the -policeman, having encountered him officially. As the latter strutted -along, a small, mustard-colored dog came crouching at his heels. - -"What's the dog for?" Tricker asked. - -Being in an easy mood, the trivial possessed a charm. - -The policeman bent upon the little dog a benign eye. The little dog -glanced up shyly, wagging a wistful tail. - -"He's lost," vouchsafed the policeman, "and he's put it up to me to find -out where he lives." He explained that all lost dogs make hot-foot -for the nearest policeman. "They know what a cop is for," said the -big-chested one. Then, to the little dog: "Come on, my son; we'll land -you all right yet." - -Tricker continued his stroll. At Doyers Street and the Bowery he -entered Barney Flynn's. There were forty customers hanging about. These -loiterers were panhandlers of low degree; they were beneath the notice -of Tricker, who was a purple patrician of the gangs. One of them could -have lived all day on a quarter. It meant bed--ten cents--and three -glasses of beer, each with a free lunch which would serve as a meal. -Bowery beer is sold by the glass; but the glass holds a quart. The -Bowery has refused to be pinched by the beer trust. - -In Flynn's was the eminent Chuck Connors, his head on his arm and his -arm on a table. Intoxicated? Perish the thought! Merely taking his usual -forty winks after dinner, which repast had consisted of four beef-stews. -Tricker gave him a facetious thump on the back, but he woke in a bilious -mood, full of haughtiness and cold reserve. - -There is a notable feature in Flynn's. The East Side is in its way -artistic. Most of the places are embellished with pictures done on the -walls, presumably by the old monsters of the _Police News_. On the rear -wall of Flynn's is a portrait of Washington on a violent white horse. -The Father of his Country is in conventional blue and buff, waving a -vehement blade. - -"Who is it?" demanded Proprietor Flynn of the artist, when first brought -to bay by the violent one on the horse. - -"Who is it?" retorted the artist indignantly. "Who should it be but -Washin'ton, the Father of his Country?" - -"Washin'ton?" repeated Flynn. "Who's Washin'ton?" - -"Don't you know who Washin'ton is? Say, you ought to go to night school! -Washin'ton's th' duck who frees this country from th' English." - -"An' he bate th' English, did he? I can well be-lave it! Yez can see be -th' face of him he's a brave man." Then, following a rapt silence: "Say, -I'll tell ye what! Paint me a dead Englishman right down there be his -horse's fut, an' I'll give ye foor dollars more." - -The generous offer was accepted, and the foreground enriched with a dead -grenadier. - -Coming out of Flynn's, Tricker went briefly into the Chinese Theater. -The pig-tailed audience, sitting on the backs of the chairs with their -feet in the wooden seats, were enjoying the performance hugely. Tricker -listened to the dialogue but a moment; it was unsatisfactory and sounded -like a cat-fight. - -In finding his way out of Doyers Street, Tricker stopped for a moment -in a little doggery from which came the tump-tump of a piano and the -scuffle of a dance. The room, not thirty feet long, was cut in two by -a ramshackle partition. On the grimy wall hung a placard which carried -this moderate warning: - -[Illustration: 0018] - -The management seemed to be in the hands of a morose personage, as red -as a boiled lobster, who acted behind the bar. The piano was of that -flat, tin-pan tone which bespeaks the veteran. It was drummed upon by -a bleary virtuoso, who at sight of Tricker--for whose favor he -yearned--began banging forth a hurly-burly that must have set on edge -the teeth of every piano in the vicinity. The darky who was dancing -redoubled his exertions. Altogether, Tricker's entrance was not without -_eclat_. Not that he seemed impressed as, flinging himself into a chair, -he listlessly called for apollinaris. - -"What do youse pay him?" asked Tricker of the boiled barkeeper, -indicating as he did so the hardworking colored person. - -"Pad-money!"--with a slighting glance. "Pad-money; an' it's twict too -much." - -Pad-money means pay for a bed. - -"Well, I should say so!" coincided Tricker, with the weary yet lofty -manner of one who is a judge. - -In one corner were two women and a trio of men. The men were thieves of -the cheap grade known as lush-workers. These beasts of prey lie about -the East Side grog shops, and when some sailor ashore leaves a place, -showing considerable slant, they tail him and take all he has. They will -plunder their victim in sight of a whole street. No one will tell. The -first lesson of Gangland is never to inform nor give evidence. One -who does is called snitch; and the wages of the snitch is death. The -lush-workers pay a percentage of their pillage, to what saloons they -infest, for the privilege of lying in wait. - -Tricker pointed to the younger of the two women--about eighteen, she -was. - -"Two years ago," said Tricker, addressing the boiled barman, "I had her -pinched an' turned over to the Aid Society. She's so young I thought -mebby they could save her." - -"Save her!" repeated the boiled one in weary disgust. "Youse can't save -'em. I used to try that meself. That was long ago. Now"--tossing his -hand with a resigned air--"now, whenever I see a skirt who's goin' to -hell, I pay her fare." - -One of the three men was old and gray of hair. He used to be a gonoph, -and had worked the rattlers and ferries in his youth. But he got settled -a couple of times, and it broke his nerve. There is an age limit in -pocket-picking. No pickpocket is good after he passes forty years; so -far, Dr. Osier was right. Children from twelve to fourteen do the best -work. Their hands are small and steady; their confidence has not been -shaken by years in prison. There are twenty New York Fagins--the police -use the Dickens name--training children to pick pockets. These Fagins -have dummy subjects faked up, their garments covered with tiny bells. -The pockets are filled--watch, purse, card-case, handkerchief, gloves. -Not until a pupil can empty every pocket, without ringing a bell, is he -fit to go out into the world and look for boobs. - -"If Indian Louie shows up," remarked Tricker to the boiled-lobster -barman, as he made ready to go, "tell him to blow 'round tomorry evenin' -to One Hundred and Twenty-eight." - -Working his careless way back to the Bowery, Tricker strolled north -to where that historic thoroughfare merges into Third Avenue. In Great -Jones Street, round the corner from Third Avenue, Paul Kelly kept the -New Brighton. Tricker decided to look in casually upon this hall of -mirth, and--as one interested--study trade conditions. True, there was -a coolness between himself and Kelly, albeit, both being of the Five -Points, they were of the same tribe. What then? As members of the gang -nobility, had they not won the right to nurse a private feud? De Bracy -and Bois Guilbert were both Crusaders, and yet there is no record of any -lost love between them. - -In the roll of gang honor Kelly's name was written high. Having been -longer and more explosively before the public, his fame was even greater -than Tricker's. There was, too, a profound background of politics to -the New Brighton. It was strong with Tammany Hall, and, per incident, -in right with the police. For these double reasons of Kelly's fame, and -that atmosphere of final politics which invested it, the New Brighton -was deeply popular. Every foot of dancing floor was in constant demand, -while would-be merry-makers, crowded off for want of room, sat in a -triple fringe about the walls. - -Along one side of the dancing room was ranged a row of tables. A young -person, just struggling into gang notice, relinquished his chair at one -of these to Tricker. This was in respectful recognition of the exalted -position in Gangland held by Tricker. Tricker unbent toward the young -person in a tolerant nod, and accepted his submissive politeness as -though doing him a favor. Tricker was right. His notice, even such as it -was, graced and illustrated the polite young person in the eyes of all -who beheld it, and identified him as one of whom the future would hear. - -Every East Side dance hall has a sheriff, who acts as floor manager and -settles difficult questions of propriety. It often happens that, in an -excess of ardor and a paucity of room, two couples in their dancing seek -to occupy the same space on the floor. He who makes two blades of grass -grow where but one grew before, may help his race and doubtless does. -The rule, however, stops with grass and does not reach to dancing. He -who tries to make two couples dance, where only one had danced before, -but lays the bed-plates of a riot. Where all the gentlemen are spirited, -and the ladies even more so, the result is certain in its character, -and in no wise hard to guess. Wherefore the dance hall sheriff is not -without a mission. Likewise his honorable post is full of peril, and he -must be of the stern ore from which heroes are forged. - -The sheriff of the New Brighton was Eat-'Em-Up-Jack McManus. He had been -a prize-fighter of more or less inconsequence, but a liking for mixed -ale and a difficulty in getting to weight had long before cured him of -that. He had won his _nom de guerre_ on the battle-field, where good -knights were wont to win their spurs. Meeting one of whose conduct -he disapproved, he had criticized the offender with his teeth, and -thereafter was everywhere hailed as Eat-'Em-Up-Jack. - -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack wore his honors modestly, as great souls ever do, and -there occurred nothing at the New Brighton to justify that re-baptism. -There he preserved the proprieties with a black-jack, and never once -brought his teeth into play. Did some boor transgress, Eat-'Em-Up-Jack -collared him, and cast him into the outer darkness of Great Jones -Street. If the delinquent foolishly resisted, Eat-'Em-Up-Jack emphasized -that dismissal with his boot. In extreme instances he smote upon him -with a black-jack--ever worn ready on his wrist, although delicately -hidden, when not upon active service, in his coat sleeve. - -Tricker, drinking seltzer and lemon, sat watching the dancers as they -swept by. He himself was of too grave a cast to dance; it would have -mismatched with his position. - -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, who could claim social elevation by virtue of his -being sheriff, came and stood by Tricker's table. The pair greeted one -another. Their manner, while marked of a careful courtesy, was distant -and owned nothing of warmth. The feuds of Kelly were the feuds of -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, and the latter knew that Tricker and Kelly stood not as -brothers. - -As Eat-'Em-Up-Jack paused by Tricker's table, passing an occasional -remark with that visitor from Park Row, Bill Harrington with Goldie Cora -whirled by on the currents of the _Beautiful Blue Danube_. Tricker's -expert tastes rejected with disfavor the dancing of Goldie Cora. - -"I don't like the way she t'rows her feet," he said. - -Now Goldie Cora was the belle of the New Brighton. Moreover, -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack liked the way she threw her feet, and was honest in -his admiration. As much might be said of Harrington, who had overheard -Tricker's remark. Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, defending his own judgment, declared -that Goldie Cora was the sublimation of grace, and danced like a leaf in -a puff of wind. He closed by discrediting not only the opinion but the -parentage of Tricker, and advised him to be upon his way lest worse -happen him. - -"Beat it, before I bump me black-jack off your bean!" was the way it was -sternly put by Eat-'Em-Up-Jack. - -Tricker, cool and undismayed, waved his hand as though brushing aside a -wearisome insect. - -"Can that black-jack guff," he retorted. "Un'er-stan'; your bein' a -fighter don't get youse nothin' wit' me!" - -Harrington came up. Having waltzed the entire length of the _Beautiful -Blue Danube_, he had abandoned Goldie Cora, and was now prepared to -personally resent the imputation inherent in Tricker's remark anent that -fair one's feet. - -"He don't like the way you t'row your feet, eh? I'll make him like it." - -Thus spake Harrington to Goldie Cora, as he turned from her to seek out -Tricker. - -No, Gangland is not so ceremonious as to demand that you lead the lady -to a seat. Dance ended, it is good form to leave her sticking in the -furrow, even as a farmer might his plow, and walk away. - -Harrington bitterly added his views to Eat-'Em-Up-Jack's, and something -was said about croaking Tricker then and there. The threats of -Harrington, as had those of Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, glanced off the cool -surface of Tricker like the moon's rays off a field of ice. He was -sublimely indifferent, and didn't so much as get off his chair. Only his -right hand stole under his coat-skirt in an unmistakable way. - -"Why, you big stiff! w'at be youse tryin' to give me?" was his only -separate notice of Harrington. Then, to both: "Unless you guys is -lookin' to give th' coroner a job, youse won't start nothin' here. Take -it from me that, w'en I'm bounced out of a dump like this, the bouncin' -'ll come off in th' smoke." - -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, being neither so quick nor so eloquent as Tricker, -could only retort, "That's all right! I'll hand you yours before I'm -done!" - -Harrington, after his first outbreak, said nothing, being privily afraid -of Tricker, and more or less held by the spell of his fell repute. -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, who feared no man, was kept in check by his obligations -as sheriff--that, and a sense of duty. True, the situation irked him -sorely; he felt as though he were in handcuffs. But the present was no -common case. Tricker would shoot; and a hail of lead down the length -of the dancing floor meant loss in dollars and cents. This last was -something which Kelly, always a business man and liking money, would -be the first to condemn and the last to condone. It would black-eye -the place; since few care to dance where the ballroom may become a -battle-field and bullets zip and sing. - -"If it was only later!" said Eat-'Em-Up Jack, wistfully. - -"Later?" retorted Tricker. "That's easy. You close at one, an' that's -ten minutes from now. Let the mob make its getaway; an' after that youse -ducks 'll find me waitin' 'round the corner in Thoid Avenue." - -Tricker, manner nonchalant to the point of insult, loitered to the door, -pausing on his way to take a leisurely drink at the bar. - -"You dubs," he called back, as he stepped out into Great Jones Street, -"better bring your gatts!" - -Gatts is East Sidese for pistols. - -Harrington didn't like the looks of things. He was sorry, he said, -addressing Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, but he wouldn't be able to accompany him to -that Third Avenue tryst. He must see Goldie Cora home. The Police had -just issued an order, calculated invidiously to inconvenience and annoy -every lady found in the streets after midnight unaccompanied by an -escort. - -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack hardly heard him. Personally he wouldn't have -turned hand or head to have had the company of a dozen Harringtons. -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, while lacking many things, lacked not at all in heart. - -The New Brighton closed in due time. Eat-'Em-Up-Jack waited until sure -the junction of Great Jones Street and Third Avenue was quite deserted. -As he came 'round the corner, gun in hand, Tricker--watchful as -a cat--stepped out of a stairway. There was a blazing, rattling -fusillade--twelve shots in all. When the shooting was at an end, -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack had vanished. Tricker, save for a reason, would have -followed his vanishing example; there was a bullet embedded in the calf -of his leg. - -Tricker hopped painfully into a stairway, where he might have advantage -of the double gloom. He had lighted a cigarette, and was coolly leaning -against the entrance, when two policemen came running up. - -"What was that shooting?" demanded one. - -"Oh, a couple of geeks started to hand it to each other," was Tricker's -careless reply. - -"Did either get hurt?" - -"One of 'em cops it in th' leg. Th' other blew." - -"What became of the one who's copped?" - -"Oh, him? He hops into one of th' stairways along here." - -The officers didn't see the spreading pool of blood near Tricker's -foot. They hurried off to make a ransack of the stairways, while Tricker -hobbled out to a cab he had signaled, and drove away. - -Twenty-four hours later! - -Not a block from where he'd fought his battle with Tricker, -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack was walking in Third Avenue. He was as lone as Lot's -wife; for he nourished misanthropic sentiments and discouraged company. -It was a moonless night and very dark, the snow still coming down. What -with the storm and the hour, the streets were as empty as a church. - -As Eat-'Em-Up-Jack passed the building farthest from the corner lamp, a -crouching figure stepped out of the doorway. Had it been two o'clock -in the afternoon, instead of two o'clock in the morning, you would have -seen that he of the crouching figure was smooth and dark-skinned as -to face, and that his blue-black hair had been cut after a tonsorial -fashion popular along the Bowery as the Guinea Lop. The crouching one -carried in his hand what seemed to be a rolled-up newspaper. In that -rolled-up paper lay hidden a two-foot piece of lead pipe. - -The crouching blue-black one crept after Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, making no more -noise than a cat. He uplifted the lead pipe, grasping it the while with -both hands. - -Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, as unaware of his peril as of what was passing in the -streets of Timbuctoo, slouched heavily forward, deep in thought, Perhaps -he was considering a misspent youth, and chances thrown away. - -The lead pipe came down. - -There was a dull crash, and Eat-'Em-Up-Jack--without word or cry--fell -forward on his face. Blood ran from mouth and ears, and melted redly -into the snow. - -The crouching blue-black one shrank back into the stairway, and was seen -no more. The street returned to utter emptiness. There remained only -the lifeless body of Eat-'Em-Up-jack. Nothing beyond, save the softly -falling veil of snow, with the street lamps shining through. - - - - -II.--THE BABY'S FINGERS - - -It was a Central Office man who told me how the baby lost its fingers. -I like Central Office men; they live romances and have adventures. The -man I most shrink from is your dull, proper individual to whom nothing -happens. You have seen a hundred such. Rigidly correct, they go -uneventfully to and fro upon their little respectable tracks. Evenings, -from the safe yet severe vantage of their little respectable porches, -they pass judgment upon humanity from across the front fence. After -which, they go inside and weary their wives with their tasteless, pale -society, while those melancholy matrons question themselves, in a spirit -of tacit despair, concerning the blessings of matrimony. In the end, -first thanking heaven that they are not as other men, they retire to -bed, to rise in the dawning and repeat the history of every pulseless -yesterday of their existence. Nothing ever overtakes them that doesn't -overtake a clam. They are interesting, can be interesting, to no one -save themselves. To talk with one an hour is like being lost in the -desert an hour. I prefer people into whose lives intrudes some element -of adventure, and who, as they roll out of their blankets in the -morning, cannot give you, word and minute, just what they will be saying -and doing every hour in the coming twelve. - -My Central Office friend, in telling of the baby's absent fingers, began -by speaking of Johnny Spanish. Spanish has been sent to prison for no -less than seven years. Dribben and Blum arrested him, and when the next -morning he was paraded at the Central Office looking-over, the speech -made upon him by Commissioner Flynn set a resentful pulse to beating in -his swarthy cheek. - -Not that Spanish had been arrested for the baby's lost fingers. That -story in the telling came later, although the wrong it registered had -happened months before. Dribben and Blum picked him up--as a piece of -work it did them credit--for what occurred in Mersher Miller's place. - -As all the world knows, Mersher Miller, or as he is called among his -intimates, Mersher the Strong-Arm, conducts a beer house at 171 Norfolk -Street. It was a placid April evening, and Mersher's brother, as -bottle-tosser, was busy behind the bar. Mersher himself was not in, -which--for Mersher--may or may not have been greatly to the good. - -Spanish came into the place. His hat was low-drawn over his black eyes. -Mersher's brother, wiping glasses, didn't know him. - -"Where's Mersher?" asked Spanish. - -"Not here," quoth Mersher's brother. - -"You'll do," returned Spanish. "Give me ten dollars out of the damper." - -Mersher's brother held this proposal in finance to be foolishly -impossible, and was explicit on that head. He insisted, not without -scorn, that he was the last man in the world to give a casual caller ten -dollars out of the damper or anything else. - -"I'll be back," replied Spanish, "an' I bet then you'll give me that -ten-spot." - -"That's Johnny Spanish," declared a bystander, when Spanish, muttering -his discontent, had gone his threatening way. - -Mersher's brother doubted it. He had heard of Spanish, but had never -seen him. It was his understanding that Spanish was not in town at all, -having lammistered some time before. - -"He's wanted be th' cops," Mersher's brother argued. "You don't suppose -he's sucker enough to walk into their mitts? He wouldn't dare show up in -town." - -"Don't con yourself," replied the bystander, who had a working knowledge -of Gangland and its notables. "That's Spanish, all right. He was out of -town, but not because of the bulls. It's the Dropper he's leary of; an' -now th' Dropper's in hock he's chased back. You heard what he said about -comin' 'round ag'in? Take my tip an' rib yourself up wit' a rod. That -Spanish is a tough kid!" - -The evening wore on at Mersher's; one hour, two hours, three went -peaceably by. The clock pointed to eleven. - -Without warning a lowering figure appeared at the door. - -"There he is!" exclaimed the learned bystander. Then he added with a -note of pride, albeit shaky as to voice: "What did I tell youse?" - -The figure in the doorway strode forward. It was Spanish. A second -figure--hat over eyes--. followed hard on his heels. With a flourish, -possible only to the close student of Mr. Beadle's dime literature, -Spanish drew two Colt's pistols. - -"Come through wit' that ten!" said he to Mersher's brother. - -Mersher's brother came through, and came through swiftly. - -"I thought so!" sneered Spanish, showing his side teeth like a dog whose -feelings have been hurt. "Now come through wit' th' rest!" - -Mersher's brother eagerly gave him the contents of the cash -drawer--about eighty dollars. - -Spanish, having pocketed the money, wheeled upon the little knot of -customers, who, after the New York manner when crime is afoot, had stood -motionless with no thought of interfering. - -"Hands up! Faces to the wall!" cried Spanish. "Everybody's dough looks -good to me to-night!" - -The customers, acting in such concert that it seemed as though they'd -been rehearsed, hands held high, turned their faces to the wall. - -"You keep them covered," said Spanish to his dark companion in arms, -"while I go through 'em." - -The dark companion leveled his own pistol in a way calculated to do -the most harm, and Spanish reaped an assortment of cheap watches and a -handful of bills. - -Spanish came round on Mersher's brother. The latter had stooped down -until his eyes were on a par with the bar. - -"Now," said Spanish to Mersher's brother, "I might as well cook you. -I've no use for barkeeps, anyway, an' besides you're built like a pig -an' I don't like your looks!" - -Spanish began to shoot, and Mersher's brother began to dodge. Ducking -and dodging, the latter ran the length of the bar, Spanish faithfully -following with his bullets. There were two in the ice box, two through -the mirror, five in the top of the bar. Each and all, they had been -too late for Mersher's brother, who, pale as a candle, emerged from the -bombardment breathing heavily but untouched. - -"An' this," cried Ikey the pawnbroker, ten minutes after Spanish had -disappeared--Ikey was out a red watch and sixty dollars--"an' this iss -vat Mayor Gaynor calls 'outvard order an' decency'!" - -It was upon the identification of the learned bystander that Dribben -and Blum went to work, and it was for that stick-up in Mersher's the two -made the collar. - -"It's lucky for you guys," said Spanish, his eye sparkling venomously -like the eye of a snake--"it's lucky for you guys that you got me -wit'out me guns. I'd have croaked one of you bulls sure, an' maybe both, -an' then took th' Dutch way out me-self." - -The Dutch way out, with Spanish and his immediate circle, means suicide, -it being a belief among them that the Dutch are a melancholy brood, and -favor suicide as a means of relief when the burdens of life become more -than they can bear. - -Spanish, however, did not have his gun when he was pinched, and -therefore did not croak Dribben and Blum, and do the Dutch act for -himself. Dribben and Blum are about their daily duties as thief takers, -as this is read, while Spanish is considering nature from between the -Sing Sing bars. Dribben and Blum say that, even if Spanish had had his -guns, he would neither have croaked them nor come near it, and in what -bluffs he put up to that lethal effect he was talking through his hat. -For myself, I say nothing, neither one way nor the other, except that -Dribben and Blum are bold and enterprising officers, and Spanish is the -very heart of quenchless desperation. - -By word of my Central Office informant, Spanish has seen twenty-two -years and wasted most of them. His people dwell somewhere in the wilds -of Long Island, and are as respectable as folk can be on two dollars a -day. Spanish did not live with his people, preferring the city, where he -cut a figure in Suffolk, Norfolk, Forsyth, Hester, Grand, and other East -Side avenues. - -At one time Spanish had a gallery number, and his picture held an -important place in Central Office regard. It was taken out during what -years the inadequate Bingham prevailed as Commissioner of Police. A row -arose over a youth named Duffy, who was esteemed by an eminent Judge. -Duffy's picture was in the gallery, and the judge demanded its removal. -It being inconvenient to refuse the judge, young Duffy's picture was -taken out; and since to make fish of one while making flesh of others -might have invited invidious comment, some hundreds of pictures--among -them that of Spanish--were removed at the same time. - -It pleased Spanish vastly when his mug came out of the gallery. Not that -its presence there was calculated to hurt his standing; not but what it -was bound to go back as a certain incident of his method of life. Its -removal was a wound to police vanity; and, hating the police, he found -joy in whatsoever served to wring their azure withers. - -When, according to the rules of Bertillon, Spanish was thumb-printed, -mugged and measured, the police described him on their books as -Pickpocket and Fagin. The police affirmed that he not only worked the -Broadway rattlers in his own improper person, but--paying a compliment -to his genius for organization--that he had drawn about himself a group -of children and taught them to steal for his sinful use. It is no more -than truth to say, however, that never in New York City was Spanish -convicted as either a Fagin or a pickpocket, and the police--as he -charges--may have given him these titles as a cover for their ignorance, -which some insist is of as deep an indigo as the hue of their own coats. - -Spanish was about seventeen when he began making an East Side stir. -He did not yearn to be respectable. He had borne witness to the hard -working respectability of his father and mother, and remembered nothing -as having come from it more than aching muscles and empty pockets. Their -clothes were poor, their house was poor, their table poor. Why should he -fret himself with ideals of the respectable? - -Work? - -It didn't pay. - -In his blood, too, flowed malignant cross-currents, which swept him -towards idleness and all manner of violences. - -Nor did the lesson of the hour train him in selfrestraint. All over New -York City, in Fifth Avenue, at the Five Points, the single cry was, Get -the Money! The rich were never called upon to explain their prosperity. -The poor were forever being asked to give some legal reason for their -poverty. Two men in a magistrate's court are fined ten dollars each. One -pays, and walks free; the other doesn't, and goes to the Island. Spanish -sees, and hears, and understands. - -"Ah!" cries he, "that boob went to the Island not for what he did but -for not having ten bones!" - -And the lesson of that thunderous murmur--reaching from the Battery to -Kingsbridge--of Get the Money! rushes upon him; and he makes up his mind -to heed it. Also, there are uncounted scores like Spanish, and other -uncounted scores with better coats than his, who are hearing and seeing -and reasoning the same way. - -Spanish stood but five feet three, and his place was among the -lightweights. Such as the Dropper, who tilted the scales at 180, and -whose name of Dropper had been conferred upon him because every time he -hit a man he dropped him--such as Ike the Blood, as hard and heavy as -the Dropper and whose title of the Blood had not been granted in any -spirit of factitiousness--laughed at him. What matter that his heart -was high, his courage proof? Physically, he could do nothing with these -dangerous ones--as big as dangerous! And so, ferociously ready to even -things up, he began packing a rod. - -While Spanish, proceeding as best he might by his dim standards, was -struggling for gang eminence and dollars, Alma, round, dark, vivacious, -eyes as deep and soft and black as velvet, was the unchallenged belle of -her Williamsburg set. Days she worked as a dressmaker, without getting -rich. Nights she went to rackets, which are dances wide open and -unfenced. Sundays she took in picnics, or rode up and down on the -trolleys--those touring cars of the poor. - -Spanish met Alma and worshipped her, for so was the world made. Being -thus in love, while before he, Spanish, had only needed money, now he -had to have it. For love's price to a man is money, just as its price to -a woman is tears. - -Casting about for ways and means, Spanish's money-hunting eye fell upon -Jigger. Jigger owned a stuss-house in Forsyth Street, between Hester and -Grand. Jigger was prosperous beyond the dreams of avarice. Multitudes, -stabbing stuss, thronged his temple of chance. As a quick, sure way to -amass riches, Spanish decided to become Jigger's partner. Between them -they would divide the harvest of Forsyth Street stuss. - -The golden beauty of the thought lit up the dark face of Spanish with -a smile that was like a splash of vicious sunshine. Alma, in the -effulgence of her toilets, should overpower all rivalry! At rout and -racket, he, Spanish, would lead the hard walk with her, and she should -shine out upon Gangland fashion like a fire in a forest. - -His soul having wallowed itself weary in these visions, Spanish sought -Jigger as a step towards making the visions real. Spanish and his -proposition met with obstruction. Jigger couldn't see it, wouldn't have -it. - -Spanish was neither astonished nor dismayed. He had foreseen the -Jiggerian reluctance, and was organized to break it down. When Jigger -declined his proffered partnership--in which he, Jigger, must furnish -the capital while Spanish contributed only his avarice--and asked, "Why -should I?" he, Spanish, was ready with an answer. - -"Why should you?" and Spanish repeated Jigger's question so that his -reply might have double force. "Because, if you don't, I'll bump youse -off." Gangland is so much like Missouri that you must always be prepared -to show it. Gangland takes nothing on trust. And, if you try to run a -bluff, it calls you. Spanish wore a low-browed, sullen, sour look. But -he had killed no one, owned no dread repute, and Jigger was used to -sullen, sour, lowbrowed looks. Thus, when Spanish spoke of bumping -Jigger off, that courtier of fortune, full of a case-hardened -scepticism, laughed low and long and mockingly. He told the -death-threatening Spanish to come a-running. - -Spanish didn't come a-running, but he came much nearer it than Jigger -liked. Crossing up with the perverse Jigger the next evening, at the -corner of Forsyth and Grand, he opened upon that obstinate stuss dealer -with a Colt's-38. Jigger managed to escape, but little Sadie Rotin, -_otat_ eight, was killed. Jigger, who was unarmed, could not return the -fire. Spanish, confused and flurried, doubtless, by the poor result of -his gun-play, betook himself to flight. - -The police did not get Spanish; but in Gangland the incident did him -little good. At the Ajax Club, and in other places where the best -blood of the gangs was wont to unbuckle and give opinions, such -sentiment-makers as the Dropper, Ike the Blood, Kid Kleiney, Little -Beno, Fritzie Rice, Kid Strauss, the Humble Dutchman, Zamo, and the -Irish Wop, held but one view. Such slovenly work was without precedent -as without apology. To miss Jigger aroused ridicule. But to go -farther, and kill a child playing in the street, spelled bald disgrace. -Thereafter no self-respecting lady would drink with Spanish, no -gentleman of gang position would return his nod. He would be given the -frozen face at the rackets, the icy eye in the streets. - -To be sure, his few friends, contending feebly, insisted that it wasn't -Spanish who had killed the little Rotin girl. When Spanish cracked off -his rod at Jigger, others had caught the spirit. A half dozen guns--they -said--had been set blazing; and it was some unknown practitioner who had -shot down the little Rotin girl. What were the heart-feelings of father -and mother Rotin, to see their baby killed, did not appeal as a question -to either the friends or foes of Spanish. Gangland is interested only in -dollars or war. - -That contention of his friends did not restore Spanish in the general -estimation. All must confess that at least he had missed Jigger. And -Jigger without a rod! It crowded hard upon the unbelievable, and could -be accounted for only upon the assumption that Spanish was rattled, -which is worse than being scared. Mere fear might mean no more than an -excess of prudence. To get rattled, everywhere and under all conditions, -is the mean sure mark of weakness. - -While discussion, like a pendulum, went swinging to and fro, -Spanish--possibly a-smart from what biting things were being said in his -disfavor--came to town, and grievously albeit casually shot an unknown. -Following which feat he again disappeared. None knew where he had gone. -His whereabouts was as much a mystery as the identity of the unknown -whom he had shot, or the reason he had shot him. These two latter -questions are still borne as puzzles upon the ridge of gang conjecture. - -That this time he had hit his man, however, lifted Spanish somewhat from -out those lower reputational depths into which missing Jigger had cast -him. The unknown, to be sure, did not die; the hospital books showed -that. But he had stopped a bullet. Which last proved that Spanish -wasn't always rattled when he pulled a gun. The incident, all things -considered, became a trellis upon which the reputation of Spanish, -before so prone and hopeless, began a little to climb. - -The strenuous life doesn't always blossom and bear good fruit. Balked -in his intended partnership with Jigger, and subsequently missing -Jigger--to say nothing of the business of the little Rotin girl, dead -and down under the grass roots--Spanish not only failed to Get the -Money! but succeeded in driving himself out of town. Many and vain were -the gang guesses concerning him. Some said he was in Detroit, giving -professional aid to a gifted booster. The latter was of the feminine -gender, and, aside from her admitted genius for shoplifting, was -acclaimed the quickest hand with a hanger--by which you are to -understand that outside pendant purse wherewith women equip themselves -as they go forth to shop--of all the gon-molls between the two oceans. -Others insisted that Spanish was in Baltimore, and had joined out with -a mob of poke-getters. The great, the disastrous thing, however--and to -this all Gangland agreed--was that he had so bungled his destinies as to -put himself out of New York. - -"Detroit! Baltimore!" exclaimed the Dropper. "W'y, it's woise'n bein' in -stir! A guy might as well be doin' time as live in them burgs!" - -The Dropper, in his iron-fisted way, was sincere in what he said. Later, -he himself was given eighteen spaces in Sing Sing, which exile he might -have missed had he fled New York in time. But he couldn't, and didn't. -And so the Central Office got him, the District Attorney prosecuted -him, the jury convicted him, and the judge sentenced him to that long -captivity. Living in New York is not a preference, but an appetite--like -drinking whiskey--and the Dropper had acquired the habit. - -What was the Dropper settled for? - -Robbery. - -It's too long to tell here, however, besides being another story. Some -other day I may give it to you. - -Spanish, having abandoned New York, could no longer bear Alma loving -company at picnic, rout and racket. What was Alma to do? She lived for -routs, reveled in rackets, joyed in picnics. Must these delights be -swept away? She couldn't go alone--it was too expensive. Besides, it -would evince a lack of class. - -Alma, as proud and as wedded to her social position as any silken member -of the Purple and Fine Linen Gang that ever rolled down Fifth Avenue in -her brougham, revolved these matters upon her wheel of thought. Also, -she came to conclusions. She, an admitted belle, could not consent to -social obliteration. Spanish had fled; she worshipped his black eyes, -his high courage; she would keep a heart-corner vacant for him in case -he came back. Pending his return, however, she would go into society; -and, for those reasons of expense and class and form, she would not go -alone. - -Alma submitted her position to a beribboned jury of her peers. Their -judgment ran abreast of her own. - -"A goil would be a mutt," they said, "to stay cocked up at home. An' yet -a goil couldn't go chasin' around be her lonesome. Alma"--this was their -final word--"you must cop off another steady." - -"But what would Johnny say?" asked Alma; for she couldn't keep her -thoughts off Spanish, of whom she stood a little bit in fear. - -"Johnny's beat it, ain't he?" returned the advisory jury of friends. -"There ain't no kick comin' to a guy what's beat it. He ain't no longer -in th' picture." - -Alma, thus free to pick and choose by virtue of the absence of Spanish, -picked the Dropper. The latter chieftain was flattered. Taking Alma -proudly yet tenderly under his mighty arm, he led her to suppers such -as she had never eaten, bought her drinks such as she had never tasted, -revolved with her at rackets where tickets were a dollar a throw, the -orchestra seven pieces, and the floor shone like glass. It was a cut or -two above anything that Spanish had given her, and Alma, who thought it -going some, failed not to say so. - -Alma was proud of the Dropper; the Dropper was proud of her. She told -her friends of the money he spent; and the friends warmed the cockles of -her little heart by shrilly exclaiming at pleasant intervals: - -"Ain't he th' swell guy!" - -"Betcher boots he's th' swell guy," Alma would rejoin; "an' he's got -money to boin a wet dog! Th' only t'ing that worries me," Alma would -conclude, "is Johnny. S'ppose he blows in some day, an' lays for th' -Dropper?' - -"Th' Dropper could do him wit' a wallop," the friends would consolingly -return. "He'd swing onct; an' after that there wouldn't be no Johnny -Spanish." - -The Round Back Rangers--it was, I think, the Round Backs--gave an -outdoor racket somewhere near Maspeth. The Dropper took Alma. Both were -in high, exultant feather. They danced, they drank, they rode the wooden -horses. No more gallant couple graced the grounds. - -Cheese sandwiches, pig's knuckles and beer brought them delicately to -the banquet board. They were among their friends. The talk was always -interesting, sometimes educational. - -Ike the Blood complained that certain annoying purists were preaching a -crusade against the Raines Law Hotels. Slimmy, celebrated not only for -his slimness, but his erudition, declared that crusades had been the -common curse of every age. - -"W'at do youse know about it?" sourly propounded the Humble Dutchman, -who envied Slimmy his book-fed wisdom. - -"W'at do I know about it?" came heatedly from Slimmy. "Do youse think I -ain't got no education? Th' last time I'm in stir, that time I goes up -for four years, I reads all th' books in th' prison library. Ask th' -warden if I don't. As to them crusades, it's as I tells you. There's -always been crusades; it's th' way humanity's gaited. Every sport, even -if he don't go 'round blowin' about it, has got it tucked somewhere -away in his make-up that he, himself, is th' real thing. Every dub who's -different from him he figgers is worse'n him. In two moves he's out -crusadin'. In th' old days it's religion; th' Paynims was th' fall guys. -Now it's rum, or racin', or Raines Hotels, or some such stall. Once let -a community get the crusade bug, an' something's got to go. There's a -village over in Joisey, an,' there bein' no grog shops an' no vice mills -to get busy wit', they ups an' bounces an old geezer out of th' only -church in town for pitchin' horse-shoes." - -Slimmy called for more beer, with a virtuously superior air. - -"But about them Paynims, Slimmy?" urged Alma. - -"It's hundreds of years ago," Slimmy resumed. "Th' Paynims hung out in -Palestine. Bein' they're Paynims, the Christians is naturally sore on -'em; an' so, when they feels like huntin' trouble, th' crusade spirit'd -flare up. Richard over in England would pass th' woid to Philip in -France, an' th' other lads wit' crowns. - -"'How about it?' he'd say. 'Cast your regal peepers toward Palestine. -D'you make them Paynims? Ain't they th' tough lot? They won't eat pork; -they toe in when they walk; they don't drink nothin' worse'n coffee; -they've got brown skins. Also,' says he, 'we can lick 'em for money, -marbles or chalk. W'at d'youse say, me royal brothers? Let's get our -gangs, an' hand them Paynims a swift soak in behalf of the troo faith.' - -"Philip an' the other crowned lads at this would agree wit' Richard. -'Them Paynims is certainly th' worst ever!' they'd say; an' one woid'd -borry another, until the crusade is on. Some afternoon you'd hear the -newsies in th' streets yellin', 'Wux-try!' an' there it'd be in big -black type, 'Richard, Philip an' their gallant bands of Strong-Arms have -landed in Palestine.'" - -"An' then w'at, Slimmy?" cooed Alma, who hung on every word. - -"As far as I can see, th' Christians always had it on th' Paynims, -always had 'em shaded, when it comes to a scrap. Th' Christian lads -had th' punch; an' th' Paynims must have been wise to it; for no sooner -would Richard, Philip an' their roly-boly boys hit th' dock, than th' -Paynims would take it on th' run for th' hills. Their mullahs would -try to rally 'em, be tellin' 'em that whoever got downed fightin' -Christians, the prophet would punch his ticket through for paradise -direct, an' no stop-overs. - -"'That's all right about the prophet!' they'd say, givin' th' mullahs -th' laugh. An' then they'd beat it for th' next ridge." - -"Them Paynims must have been a bunch of dead ones," commented the -Dropper. - -"Not bein' able to get on a match," continued Slimmy, without heeding -the Dropper, "th' Paynims declinin' their game, th' Christian hosts -would rough house th' country generally, an' in a way of speakin' stand -th' Holy Land on its head. Do what they would, however, they couldn't -coax th' Paynims into th' ring wit' 'em; an' so after a while they -decides that Palestine's th' bummest place they'd ever struck. Mebby, -too, they'd begin havin' woid from home that their wives was gettin' -a little gay, or their kids was goin' round marryin' th' kids of their -enemies, an' that one way an' another their domestic affairs was on th' -fritz. At this, Richard'd go loafin' over to Philip's tent, an' say: - -"'Philly, me boy, I don't know how this crusade strikes youse, but if -I'm any judge of these great moral movements, it's on th' blink. An' -so,' he'd go on, 'Philly, it's me for Merrie England be th' night boat.' - -"Wit' that, they'd break for home; an', when they got there, they'd -mebby hand out a taste of th' strap to mamma an' th' babies, just to -teach 'em not to go runnin' out of form th' next time father's far -away." - -"Youse don't bank much on crusades, Slimmy?" Ike the Blood said. - -The Blood had more than a passing interest in the movement, mention of -which had started the discussion, being himself a part proprietor in one -of those threatened Raines Law Hotels. - -"Blood," observed Slimmy, oracularly, "them moral movements is like a -hornet; they stings onct an' then they dies." - -Alma's attention was drawn to Mollie Squint--so called because of an -optical slant which gave her a vague though piquant look. Mollie Squint -was motioning from the outskirts of the little group. Alma pointed to -the Dropper. Should she bring him? Mollie Squint shook her head. - -Leaving the Dropper, Alma joined Mollie Squint. - -"It's Johnny," gasped Mollie Squint. "He wants you; he's over be that -bunch of trees." - -Alma hung back; some impression of peril seized her. - -"Better go," whispered Mollie Squint. "He's onto you an' the Dropper, -an' if you don't go he'll come lookin' for you. Then him an' the -Dropper'll go to th' mat wit' each other, an' have it awful. Give Johnny -one of your soft talks, an' mebby youse can smooth him down. Stall him -off be tellin' him you'll see him to-night at Ding Dong's." - -Mollie Squint's advice seemed good, and as the lesser of two evils Alma -decided to go. Mollie Squint did not accompany her. - -"Tell th' Dropper I'll be back in a moment," said Alma to Mollie Squint, -"an' don't wise him up about Johnny." - -Alma met Spanish at the far corner of the clump of trees. There was no -talk, no time for talk. They were all alone. As she drew near, he pulled -a pistol and shot her through and through the body. - -Alma's moaning cry was heard by the Dropper--that, and the sound of -the shot. When the Dropper reached her, she was lying senseless in the -shadow of the trees--a patch of white and red against the green of the -grass. Spanish was nowhere in sight.. - -Alma was carried to the hospital, and revived. But she would say -nothing, give no names--staunch to the spirit of the Gangs. Only she -whispered feebly to Mollie Squint, when the Dropper had been sent away -by the doctors: - -"Johnny must have loved me a lot to shoot me up like he did. A guy has -got to love a goil good and plenty before he'll try to cook her." - -"Did youse tell th' hospital croakers his name?" asked Mollie Squint. - -"Of course not! I never squealed to nobody. Do youse think I'd put poor -Johnny in wrong?" - -"Then I won't," said Mollie Squint. - -An attendant told Mollie Squint that she must go; certain surgeons had -begun to assemble. Mollie Squint, tears falling, kissed Alma good-by. - -"Give Johnny all me love," whispered Alma. "Tell him I'm no snitch; I'll -stick." - -The Dropper did not have to be told whose bullet had struck down his -star, his Alma. That night, Kid Kleiney with him, he went looking for -Spanish. The latter, as jealous as Satan, was looking for the Dropper. -Of the two, Spanish must have conducted his hunting with the greater -circumspection or the greater luck; for about eleven of the clock he -crept up behind the Dropper, as the latter and Kid Kleiney were walking -in East Broadway, and planted a bullet in his neck. Kid Kleiney 'bout -faced at the crack of the pistol, and was in fortunate time to stop -Spanish's second bullet with one of the big buttons on his coat. Kid -Kleiney fell by the side of the wounded Dropper, jarred off his feet by -the shock.' He was able, however, when the police came up, to help place -the Dropper in an ambulance. - -Spanish? - -Vanished--as usual. - -The police could get no line on him, did get no line on him, until -months later, when, as related--the Dropper having been lagged for -robbery, and safely caged--he came back to stick up the joint of Mersher -the Strong-Arm, and be arrested by Dribben and Blum. - -The baby and I met casually in a Williamsburg street, where Alma -had brought it to take the air, which was bad. Alma was thin-faced, -hollow-eyed, but I could see that she had been pretty. She said she was -twenty and the baby less than a year, and I think she told the truth. - -No one among Alma's friends finds fault with either the baby or herself, -although both are without defence by the canons of high morality. There -is warmth in the world; and, after all, the case of Alma and the baby is -not so much beyond the common, except as to the baby's advent, which was -dramatic and after the manner of Caesar. - -Folk say the affair reflects illustriously upon the hospital. Also, what -surgeons officiated are inclined to plume themselves; for have not Alma -and the baby lived? I confess that those boastful scientists are not -wanting in excuse for strutting, although they ought, perhaps, in honor, -to divide credit with Alma and the baby as being hard to kill. - -It is not an ugly baby as babies go. Not that I pretend to be a judge. -As I paused by its battered perambulator, it held up a rose-leaf hand, -as though inviting me to look; and I looked. The little claw possessed -but three talons; the first two fingers had been shot away. When I asked -how, Alma lowered her head sadly, saying nothing. It would have been -foolish to ask the baby. It couldn't talk. Moreover, since the fingers -were shot away before it was born, it could possess no clear memory as -to details. - -It is a healthy baby. Alma loves it dearly, and can be depended upon to -give it every care. That is, she can be if she lives; and on that head -her worn thinness alarms her friends, who wish she were fatter. Some say -her thinness is the work of the bullet. Others believe that a sorrow is -sapping her heart. - - - - -III.--HOW PIOGGI WENT TO ELMIRA - - -The Bottler was round, inoffensive, well-dressed, affable. He was also -generous, as the East Side employs the term. Any one could touch him -for a quarter upon a plea of beef stew, and if plaintively a bed -were mentioned, for as much as fifty cents. For the Bottler was a -money-maker, and had Suffolk Street position as among its richest -capitalists. - -What bridge whist is to Fifth Avenue so is stuss to the East Side. -No one save the dealer wins at stuss, and yet the device possesses an -alluring feature. When the victim gets up from the table, the bank under -the descriptive of viggresh returns him one-tenth of his losings. No -one ever leaves a stuss game broke, and that final ray of sure sunshine -forms indubitably the strong attraction. Stuss licks up as with a tongue -of fire a round full fifth of all the East Side earns, and to viggresh -should be given the black glory thereof. - -The Bottler owned talents to make money. Morally careless, liking the -easy way, with, over all, that bent for speculation which sets some -folk to dealing in stocks and others to dealing cards, those moneymaking -talents found expression in stuss. Not that the Bottler was so -weak-minded as to buck the game. Wise, prudent, solvent, he went the -other way about it, his theater of operations being 135 Suffolk. Also, -expanding liberally, the Bottler endowed his victims, as--stripped of -their last dollar--they shoved back their hopeless chairs, with not ten, -but fifteen per cent, of what sums they had changed in. This rendered -135 Suffolk a most popular resort, and the foolish stood four deep about -the Bottler's tables every night in the week. - -The Bottler lacked utterly the war-heart, and was in no wise a fighter. -He had the brawn, but not the soul, and this heart-sallowness would have -threatened his standing save for those easy generosities. Gangland is -not dull, and will overlook even a want of courage in one who, for bed -and beef stews, freely places his purse at its disposal. - -There are two great gangs on the East Side. These are the Five Points -and the Monk Eastmans. There are smaller gangs, but each owes allegiance -to either the one or the other of the two great gangs, and fights round -its standard in event of general gang war. - -There is danger in belonging to either of these gangs. But there is -greater danger in not. I speak of folk of the Bottler's ways and walks. -The Five Points and Eastmans are at feud with one another, and the fires -of their warfare are never permitted to die out. Membership in one means -that it will buckler you against the other while you live, and avenge -you should you fall. Membership in neither means that you will be raided -and rough-housed and robbed by both. - -The Bottler's stuss house was--like every other of its kind--a Castle -Dangerous. To the end that the peril of his days and nights be reduced -to minimum, he united himself with the Five Points. True, he could not -be counted upon as a _shtocker_ or strong-arm; but he had money and -would part with it, and gang war like all war demands treasure. Bonds -must be given; fines paid; the Bottler would have his uses. Wherefore -the Five Points opened their arms and their hearts to receive him. - -The Eastmans had suffered a disorganizing setback when the chief, who -gave the sept its name, went up the river for ten years. On the heels of -that sorrowful retirement, it became a case of York and Lancaster; two -claimants for the throne stood forth. These were Ritchie Fitzpatrick and -Kid Twist, both valorous, both with reputations of having killed, both -with clouds of followers at their backs. - -Twist, in whom abode the rudiments of a savage diplomacy, proposed a -conference. Fitzpatrick at that conference was shot to death, and -Kid Dahl, a near friend of Twist, stood for the collar. Dahl was thus -complacent because Fitzpatrick had not died by his hand. - -The police, the gangs and the politicians are not without a sinister -wisdom. When life has been taken, and to punish the slayer would be an -inconvenience, some one who didn't do the killing submits to arrest. -This covers the retreat of the guilty. Also, the public is appeased. -Later, when the public's memory sleeps, the arrested one--for lack of -evidence--is set at liberty. - -When Fitzpatrick was killed, to clear the path to gang leadership -before the aspiring feet of Twist, the police took Dahl, who all but -volunteered for the sacrifice. Dahl went smilingly to jail, while the -real murderer of Fitzpatrick attended that dead personage's wake, and -later appeared at the funeral. This last, however, by the nicer tastes -of Gangland, was complained of as bordering upon vulgarity. - -Fitzpatrick was buried with a lily in his hand, and Twist was hailed -chief of the Eastmans. Dahl remained in the Tombs a reasonable number of -weeks, and then resumed his position in society. It was but natural, and -to the glory of stumbling human nature, that Dahl should dwell warmly in -the grateful regard of Twist. - -Twist, now chief of the Eastmans, cast about to establish Dahl. There -was the Bottler, with his stuss Golconda in Suffolk Street. Were not his -affiliations with the Five Points? Was he not therefore the enemy? The -Bottler was an Egyptian, and Twist resolved to spoil him in the interest -of Dahl. - -Twist, with Dahl, waited upon the Bottler. Argument was short and to -the point. Said Twist: "Bottler, the Kid"--indicating the expectant -Dahl--"is in wit' your stuss graft from now on. It's to be an even -break." - -The news almost checked the beating of the Bottler's heart. Not that he -was astonished. What the puissant Twist proposed was a commonest step in -Gangland commerce--Gangland, where the Scotch proverb of "Take what you -may; keep what you can!" retains a pristine force. For all that, the -Bottler felt dismay. The more since he had hoped that his hooking up -with the Five Points would have kept him against such rapine. - -Following the Twist fulmination, the Bottler stood wrapped in thought. -The dangerous chief of the Eastmans lit a cigar and waited. The poor -Bottler's cogitations ran off in this manner. Twist had killed six men. -Also, he had spared no pains in carrying out those homicides, and could -laugh at the law, which his prudence left bankrupt of evidence. Dahl, -too, possessed a past as red as Twist's. Both could be relied upon to -kill. To refuse Dahl as a partner spelled death. To acquiesce called for -half his profits. His friends of the Five Points, to be sure, could come -at his call. That, however, would not save his game and might not save -his life. Twist's demand showed that he had resolved, so far as he, the -Bottler, was concerned, to rule or ruin. The latter was easy. Any dozen -of the Eastmans, picking some unguarded night, could fall upon his -establishment, confiscate his bankroll, and pitch both him and his -belongings into the street. The Five Points couldn't be forever at -his threatened elbow. They would avenge him, certainly; but vengeance, -however sweet, comes always over-late, and possesses besides no value -in dollars and cents. Thus reasoned the Bottler, while Twist frowningly -paused. The finish came when, with a sickly smile, the Bottler bowed to -the inevitable and accepted Dahl. - -All Suffolk Street, to say nothing of the thoroughfares roundabout, knew -what had taken place. The event and the method thereof did not provoke -the shrugging of a shoulder, the arching of a brow. What should there be -in the usual to invite amazement? - -For six weeks the Bottler and Dahl settled up, fifty-and-fifty, with the -close of each stuss day. Then came a fresh surprise. Dahl presented his -friend, the Nailer, to the Bottler with this terse remark: - -"Bottler, youse can beat it. The Nailer is goin' to be me partner now. -Which lets you out, see?" - -The Bottler was at bay. He owned no stomach for battle, but the -sentiment of desperation, which the announcement of Dahl provoked, drove -him to make a stand. To lose one-half had been bad. To lose all--to be -wholly wiped out in the annals of Suffolk Street stuss--was more than -even his meekness might bear. No, the Bottler did not dream of going to -the police. That would have been to squeal; and even his friends of the -Five Points had only faces of flint for such tactics of disgrace. - -The harassed Bottler barred his doors against Dahl. He would defend his -castle, and get word to the Five Points. The Bottler's doors having been -barred, Dahl for his side at once instituted a siege, despatching -the Nailer, meanwhile, to the nearest knot of Eastmans to bring -reinforcements. - -At this crisis O'Farrell of the Central Office strolled into the -equation. He himself was hunting a loft-worker; of more than common -industry, and had no thought of either the Bottler or Dahl. Happening, -however, upon a situation, whereof the elemental features were Dahl -outside with a gun and the Bottler inside with a gun, he so far recalled -his oath of office as to interfere. - -"Better an egg to-day than a hen to-morrow," philosophized O'Farrell, -and putting aside for the moment his search for the loft-worker, he -devoted himself to the Bottler and Dahl. - -With the sure instinct of his Mulberry Street caste, O'Farrell opened -negotiations with Dahl. He knew the latter to be the dangerous -angle, and began by placing the muzzle of his own pistol against that -marauder's back. - -"Make a move," said he, "and I'll shoot you in two." - -The sophisticated Dahl, realizing fate, moved not, and with that the -painstaking O'Farrell collected his armament. - -Next the Bottler was ordered to come forth. The Bottler obeyed in a -sweat and a tremble. He surrendered his pistol at word of the law, and -O'Farrell led both off to jail. The two were charged with Disturbance. - -In the station house, and on the way, Dahl ceased not to threaten the -Bottler's life. - -"This pinch'll cost a fine of five dollars," said Dahl, glaring round -O'Farrell at the shaking Bottler. "I'll pay it, an' then I'll get square -wit' youse. Once we're footloose, you won't last as long as a drink of -whiskey!" - -The judge yawningly listened, while O'Farrell told his tale of that -disturbance. - -"Five an' costs!" quoth the judge, and called the next case. - -The Bottler returned to Suffolk Street, Dahl sought Twist, while -O'Farrell again took the trail of the loft-worker. - -Dahl talked things over with Twist. There was but one way: the Bottler -must die. Anything short 'of blood would unsettle popular respect for -Twist, and without that his leadership of the Eastmans was a farce. - -The Bottler's killing, however, must be managed with a decent care for -the conventionalities. For either Twist or Dahl to walk in upon that -offender and shoot him to death, while feasible, would be foolish. The -coarse extravagance of such a piece of work would serve only to pile -needless difficulties in the pathway of what politicians must come to -the rescue. It was impertinences of that character which had sent Monk -Eastman to Sing Sing. Eastman had so far failed as to the proprieties, -when as a supplement to highway robbery he emptied his six-shooter up -and down Forty-second Street, that the politicians could not save -him without burning their fingers. And so they let him go. Twist had -justified the course of the politicians upon that occasion. He would -not now, by lack of caution and a reasonable finesse, force them into -similar peril. They must and would defend him; but it was not for him to -render their labors too up-hill and too hard. - -Twist sent to Williamsburg for his friend and ally, Cyclone Louie. -The latter was a bull-necked, highly muscled individual, who was a -professional strong man--so far as he was professionally anything--and -earned occasional side-show money at Coney Island by bending iron bars -about his neck and twisting pokers into corkscrews about his brawny -arms. - -Louie, Twist and Dahl went into council over mutual beer, and Twist -explained the imperative call for the Bottler's extermination. Also, he -laid bare the delicate position of both himself and Dahl. - -In country regions neighbors aid one another in bearing the burdens of -an agricultural day by changing work. The custom is not without what -one might call gang imitation and respect. Only in the gang instance the -work is not innocent, but bloody. Louie, having an appreciation of what -was due a friend, could not do less than come to the relief of Twist and -Dahl. Were positions reversed, would they not journey to Williamsburg -and do as much for him? Louie did not hesitate, but placed himself at -the disposal of Twist and Dahl. The Bottler should die; he, Louie, would -see to that. - -"But when?" - -Twist, replying, felt that the thing should be done at once, and -mentioned the following evening, nine o'clock. The place should be the -Bottler's establishment in Suffolk Street. Louie, of whom the -Bottler was unafraid and ignorant, should experience no difficulty in -approaching his man. There would be others present; but, practiced in -gang moralities, slaves to gang etiquette, no one would open his mouth. -Or, if he did, it would be only to pour forth perjuries, and say that he -had seen nothing, heard nothing. - -Having adjusted details, Louie, Twist and Dahl compared watches. -Watches? Certainly. Louie, Twist and Dahl were all most fashionably -attired and--as became members of a gang nobility--singularly full and -accurate in the important element of a front, _videlicet_, that list of -personal adornments which included scarf pin, ring and watch. Louie, -Dahl and Twist saw to it that their timepieces agreed. This was so that -Dahl and Twist might arrange their alibis. - -It was the next evening. At 8.55 o'clock Twist was obtrusively in the -Delancey Street police station, wrangling with the desk sergeant over -the release of a follower who had carefully brought about his own -arrest. - -"Come," urged Twist to the sergeant, "it's next to nine o'clock now. Fix -up the bond; I've got a date over in East Broadway at nine-thirty." - -While Twist stood thus enforcing his whereabouts and the hour upon the -attention of the desk sergeant, Dahl was eating a beefsteak in a Houston -street restaurant. - -"What time have youse got?" demanded Dahl of the German who kept the -place. - -"Five minutes to nine," returned the German, glancing up at the clock. - -"Oh, t'aint no such time as that," retorted Dahl peevishly. "That -clock's drunk! Call up the telephone people, and find out for sure." - -"The 'phone people say it's nine o'clock," reported the German, hanging -up the receiver. - -"Hully gee! I didn't think it was more'n halfpast eight!" and Dahl -looked virtuously corrected. - -While these fragments of talk were taking place, the Bottler was -attending to his stuss interests. He looked pale and frightened, and -his hunted eyes roved here and there. Five minutes went by. The clock -pointed to nine. A slouch-hat stranger entered. As the clock struck the -hour, he placed the muzzle of a pistol against the Bottler's breast, and -fired twice. Both bullets pierced the heart, and the Bottler fell--dead -without a word. There were twenty people in the room. When the police -arrived they found only the dead Bottler. - -O'Farrell recalled those trade differences which had culminated in the -charge of disturbance, and arrested Dahl. - -"You ain't got me right," scoffed Dahl. - -And O'Farrell hadn't. - -There came the inquest, and Dahl was set free. The Bottler was buried, -and Twist and Dahl sent flowers and rode to the grave. - -The law slept, a bat-eyed constabulary went its way, but the gangs knew. -In the whispered gossip of Gangland every step of the Bottler's murder -was talked over and remembered. He must have been minus ears and eyes -and understanding who did not know the story. The glance of Gangland -turned towards the Five Points. What would be their action? They were -bound to avenge. If not for the Bottler's sake, then for their own. For -the Bottler had been under the shadow of their protection, and gang -honor was involved. On the Five Points' part there was no stumbling of -the spirit. For the death of the Bottler the Five Points would exact the -penalty of blood. - -Distinguished among the chivalry of the Five Points was Kid Pioggi. Only -a paucity of years--he was under eighteen--withheld Pioggi from topmost -honors. Pioggi was not specifically assigned to avenge the departed -Bottler. Ambitious and gallantly anxious of advancement, however, he of -his own motion carried the enterprise in the stomach of his thoughts. - -The winter's snow melted into spring, spring lapsed into early summer. -It was a brilliant evening, and Pioggi was disporting himself at Coney -Island. Also Twist and Cyclone Louie, following some plan of relaxation, -were themselves at Coney Island. - -Pioggi had seated himself at a beer table in Ding Dong's. Twist and -Louie came in. Pioggi, being of the Five Points, was recognized as a foe -by Twisty who lost no time in mentioning it. - -Being in a facetious mood, and by way of expressing his contempt for -that gentleman, Twist made Pioggi jump out of the window. It was no -distance to the ground, and no physical harm could come. But to be -compelled to leave Ding Dong's by way of the window, rubbed wrongwise -the fur of Pioggi's feelings. To jump from a window stamps one with -disgrace. - -Twist and Louie--burly, muscular, strong as horses--were adepts of -rough-and-tumble. Pioggi, little, light and weak, knew that any thought -of physical conflict would have been preposterous. And yet he was no one -to sit quietly down with his humiliation. That flight from Ding Dong's -window would be on every tongue in Gangland. The name of Pioggi would -become a scorning; the tale would stain the Pioggi fame. - -Louie and Twist sat down at the table in Ding Dong's, from which Pioggi -had been driven, and demanded refreshment in the guise of wine. Pioggi, -rage-swollen as to heart, busied himself at a nearby telephone. Pioggi -got the ear of a Higher Influence of his clan. He told of his abrupt -dismissal from Ding Dong's, and the then presence of Louie and Twist. -The Higher Influence instructed Pioggi to keep the two in sight. The -very flower of the Five Points should be at Coney Island as fast as -trolley cars could carry them. - -"Tail 'em," said the Higher Influence, referring to Twist and Louie; -"an' when the fleet gets there go in wit' your cannisters an' bump 'em -off." - -While waiting the advent of his promised forces, Pioggi, maintaining -the while an eye on Twist and Louie to the end that they escape not and -disappear, made arrangements for a getaway. He established a coupe, a -fast horse between the shafts and a personal friend on the box, where -he, Pioggi, could find it when his work was done. - -By the time this was accomplished, Pioggi's recruits had put in an -appearance. They did not descend upon Coney Island in a body, with -savage uproar and loud cries. Much too military were they for that. -Rather they seemed to ooze into position around Pioggi, and they could -not have made less noise had they been so many ghosts. - -The campaign was soon laid out. Louie and Twist still sat over their -wine at Ding Dong's. Now and then they laughed, as though recalling the -ignominious exit of Pioggi. Means must be employed to draw them into -the street. That accomplished, the Five Points' Danites were to drift up -behind them, and at a signal from Pioggi, empty their pistols into their -backs. Pioggi would fire a bullet into Twist; that was to be the signal. -As Pioggi whispered his instructions, there shone a licking eagerness -in the faces of those who listened. Nothing so exalts the gangster like -blood in anticipation; nothing so pleases him as to shoot from behind. - -Pioggi pitched upon one whose name and face were unknown to Twist and -Louie. The unknown would be the bearer of a blind message--it -purported to come from a dancer in one of the cheap theaters of the -place--calculated to bring forth Twist and Louie. - -"Stall 'em up this way," said Pioggi, indicating a spot within touching -distance of that coupe. "It's here we'll put 'em over the jump." - -The place pitched upon for the killing was crowded with people. It was -this very thronged condition which had led to its selection. The crowd -would serve as a cover to Five Points operations. It would prevent a -premature recognition of their assailants by Twist and Louie; it would -screen the slayers from identification by casual citizens looking on. - -Pioggi's messenger did well his work, and Twist and Louie moved -magnificently albeit unsteadily into the open. They were sweeping the -walk clear of lesser mortals, when the voice of Pioggi arrested their -attention. - -"Oh, there, Twist; look here!" - -The voice came from the rear and to the right; Pioggi's position was one -calculated to place the enemy at a double disadvantage. - -Twist turned his head. A bullet struck him above the eye! He staggered! -The lead came in a storm! Twist went down; Louie fell across him! There -were twelve bullets in Twist and eight in Louie. The coroner said that -they were the deadest people of whom he owned official recollection. - -As the forethoughtful Pioggi was dashing away in his coupe, a policeman -gave chase. Pioggi drove a bullet through the helmet of the law. It -stopped pursuit; but Gangland has ever held that the shot was an error. -A little lower, and the policeman would have been killed. Also, the -death of a policeman is apt to entail consequences. - -Pioggi went into hiding in Greenwich, where the Five Points had a -hold-out. There were pullings and haulings and whisperings in dark -political corners. When conditions had been whispered and hauled and -pulled into shape satisfactory, Pioggi sent word to a favorite officer -to come and arrest him. - -Pioggi explained to the court that his life had been threatened; he had -shot only that he himself might live. His age was seventeen. Likewise -there had been no public loss; the going of Twist and Louie had but -raised the average of all respectability. The court pondered the -business, and decided that justice would be fulfilled by sentencing -Pioggi to the Elmira Reformatory. - -The best fashion of the Five Points visited Pioggi in the Tombs on the -morning of his departure. - -"It's only thirteen months, Kid," came encouragingly from one. "You -won't mind it." - -"Mind it!" responded Pioggi, in disdain of the worst that Elmira might -hold for him; "mind it! I could do it standin' on me head." - - - - -IV.--IKE THE BLOOD - - -Whenever the police were driven to deal with him officially, he called -himself Charles Livin, albeit the opinion prevailed at headquarters -that in thus spelling it, he left off a final ski. The police, in -the wantonness of their ignorance, described him on their books as a -burglar. This was foolishly wide. He should have been listed as a simple -Strong-Arm, whose methods of divorcing other people from their money, -while effective, were coarse. Also, it is perhaps proper to mention that -his gallery number at the Central Office was 10,394. - -It was during the supremacy of Monk Eastman that he broke out, and he -had just passed his seventeenth birthday. Being out, he at once attached -himself to the gang-fortunes of that chief; and it became no more than -a question of weeks before his vast physical strength, the energy of his -courage and a native ferocity of soul, won him his proud war-name of Ike -the Blood. Compared with the herd about him, in what stark elements made -the gangster important in his world, he shone out upon the eyes of folk -like stars of a clear cold night. - -Ike the Blood looked up to his chief, Monk Eastman, as sailors look up -to the North Star, and it wrung his soul sorely when that gang captain -went to Sing Sing. In the war over the succession and the baton of gang -command, waged between Ritchie Fitzpatrick and Kid Twist, Ike the Blood -was compelled to stand neutral. Powerless to take either side, liking -both ambitious ones, the trusted friend of both, his hands were tied; -and later--first Fitzpatrick and then Twist--he followed both to the -grave, sorrow not only on his lips but in his heart. - -It was one recent August day that I was granted an introduction to Ike -the Blood. I was in the company of an intimate friend of mine--he holds -high Central Office position in the police economy of New York. We -were walking in Henry Street, in the near vicinity of that vigorous -organization, the Ajax Club--so called, I take it, because its members -are forever defying the lightnings of the law. My Central Office friend -had mentioned Ike the Blood, speaking of him as a guiding light to such -difficult ones as Little Karl, Whitey Louie, Benny Weiss, Kid Neumann, -Tomahawk, Fritzie Rice, Dagley and the Lobster. - -Even as the names were in his mouth, his keen Central Office glance went -roving through the open doorway of a grogshop. - -"There's Ike the Blood now," said he, and tossed a thumb, which had -assisted in necking many a malefactor with tastes to be violent, towards -the grogshop. - -Since to consider such pillars of East Side Society was the great reason -of my ramble, we entered the place. Ike the Blood was sitting in state -at a table to the rear of the unclean bar, a dozen of his immediate -followers--in the politics of gang life these formed a minor order of -nobility--with him. - -Being addressed by my friend, he arose and joined us; none the less -he seemed reticent and a bit disturbed. This was due to the official -character of my friend, plus the fact that the jealous eyes of those -others were upon him. It is no advantage to a leader, like Ike the -Blood, to be seen in converse with a detective. Should one of his -adherents be arrested within a day or a week, the arrested one reverts -to that conversation, and imagines vain things. - -"Take a walk with us, Ike," said my friend. - -Ike the Blood was obviously reluctant. Sinking his voice, and giving a -glance over his shoulder at his myrmidons--not ten feet away, and every -eye upon him--he remonstrated. - -"Say, I don't want to leave th' push settin' here, to go chasin' off -wit' a bull. Fix it so I can come uptown sometime." - -"Very well," returned my friend, relenting; "I don't want to put you in -Dutch with your fleet." - -There was a whispered brief word or two, and an arrangement for a meet -was made; after which Ike the Blood lapsed into the uneasy circle he had -quitted. As we left the grogshop, we could hear him loudly calling for -beer. Possibly the Central Office nearness of my friend had rendered -him thirsty. Or it may have been that the beer was meant to wet down -and allay whatever of sprouting suspicion had been engendered in the -trustless breasts of his followers. - -It was a week later. - -The day, dark and showery, was--to be exact--the eighth of August. -Faithful to that whispered Henry Street arrangement, Ike the Blood sat -awaiting the coming of my friend and myself in the Bal Tabarin. He -had spoken of the stuss house of Phil Casey and Paper Box Johnny, in -Twenty-ninth Street, but my friend entered a protest. There was his -Central Office character to be remembered. A natural embarrassment must -ensue were he brought face to face with stuss in a state of activity. -Stuss was a crime, by surest word of law, and he had taken an oath -of office. He did not care to pinch either Paper Box or Casey, and -therefore preferred not to be drawn into a situation where the only -alternative would be to either pull their joint or lay the bedplates of -complaint against himself. - -"It's no good time to be up on charges," remonstrated my friend, "for -the commish that's over us now would sooner grab a copper than a crook." - -Thus instructed, and feeling the delicacy of my friend's position, Ike -the Blood had shifted suggestion to the Bal Tabarin. The latter house of -entertainment, in Twenty-eighth Street, was innocent of stuss and indeed -cards in any form. Kept by Sam Paul, it possessed a deserved popularity -with Ike and the more select of his acquaintances. - -Ike the Blood appeared to better advantage in the Bal Tabarin than on -that other, Henry Street, grogshop occasion. Those suspicious ones, of -lowering eye and doubtful brow, had been left behind, and their absence -contributed to his relief, and therefore to his looks. Not that he had -been sitting in the midst of loneliness at the Bal Tabarin; Whitey Dutch -and Slimmy were with him, and who should have been better company than -they? Also, their presence was of itself an honor, since they were of -his own high caste, and many layers above a mere gang peasantry. They -would take part in the conversation, too, and, if to talk and touch -glasses with a Central Office bull were an offense, it would leave them -as deep in the police mud as was he in the police mire. - -Ike the Blood received us gracefully, if not enthusiastically, and -was so polite as to put me on a friendly footing with his companions. -Greetings over, and settled to something like our ease, I engaged myself -mentally in taking Ike's picture. His forehead narrow, back-sloping at -that lively angle identified by carpenters as a quarter-pitch, was not -the forehead of a philosopher. I got the impression, too, that his small -brown eyes, sad rather than malignant, would in any heat of anger -blaze like twin balls of brown fire. Cheek-bones high; nose beaky, -predatory--such a nose as Napoleon loved in his marshals; mouth coarsely -sensitive, suggesting temperament; the broad, bony jaw giving promise -of what staying qualities constitute the stock in trade of a bulldog; no -mustache, no beard; a careless liberality of ear--that should complete -the portrait. Fairly given, it was the picture of one who acted more -than he thought, and whose atmosphere above all else conveyed the -feeling of relentless force--the picture of one who under different -circumstances might have been a Murat or a Massena. - -My friend managed the conversation, and did it with Central Office tact. -Knowing what I was after, he brought up Gangland and the gangs, -upon which topics Whitey Dutch, seeing no reasons for silence, spoke -instructively. Aside from the great gangs, the Eastmans and the Five -Points, I learned that other smaller yet independent gangs existed. -Also, from Whitey's discourse, it was made clear that just as countries -had frontiers, so also were there frontiers to the countries of the -gangs. The Five Points, with fifteen hundred on its puissant muster -rolls, was supreme--he said--between Broadway and the Bowery, Fourteenth -Street and City Hall Park. The Eastmans, with one thousand warriors, -flourished between Monroe and Fourteenth Streets, the Bowery and the -East River. The Gas House Gang, with only two hundred in its nose count, -was at home along Third Avenue between Eleventh and Eighteenth Streets. -The vivacious Gophers were altogether heroes of the West Side. They -numbered full five hundred, each a holy terror, and ranged the -region bounded by Seventh Avenue, Fourteenth Street, Tenth Avenue and -Forty-second Street. The Gophers owned a rock-bottom fame for their -fighting qualities, and, speaking in the sense militant, neither the -Eastmans nor the Five Points would care to mingle with them on slighter -terms than two to one. The fulness of Whitey Dutch, himself of the Five -Points, in what justice he did the Gophers, marked his splendid breadth -of soul. - -Ike the Blood, overhung by some cloud of moodiness, devoted himself -moderately to beer, taking little or less part in the talk. Evidently -there was something bearing him down. - -"I ain't feelin' gay," he remarked; "an' at that, if youse was to ast -me, I couldn't tell youse why." - -As though a thought had been suggested, he arose and started for the -door. - -"I won't be away ten minutes," he said. - -Slimmy looked curiously at Whitey Dutch. - -"He's chased off to one of them fortune-tellers," said Whitey. - -"Do youse take any stock in them ginks who claims they can skin a deck -of cards, or cock their eye into a teacup, an' then put you next to -everyt'ing that'll happen to you in a year?" - -Slimmy aimed this at me. - -Upon my assurance, given with emphasis, that I attached no weight to -so-called seers and fortunetellers, he was so magnanimous as to indorse -my position. - -"They're a bunch of cheap bunks," he declared. "I've gone ag'inst -'em time an' time, an' there's nothin' in it. One of 'em gives me his -woid--after me comin' across wit' fifty cents--th' time Belfast Danny's -in trouble, that Danny'll be toined out all right. Two days later Danny -gets settled for five years." - -"Ike's stuck on 'em," remarked Whitey. - -Slimmy and Whitey Dutch, speaking freely and I think veraciously, told -me many things. Whitey explained that, while he and Slimmy were shining -lights of the Five Points, yet to be found fraternizing with Ike the -Blood--an Eastman--was in perfect keeping with gang proprieties. For, as -he pointed out, there was momentary truce between the Eastmans and the -Five Points. Among the gangs, in seasons of gang peace, the nobles--by -word of Whitey--were expected to make stately calls of ceremony and -good fellowship upon one another, as had been the wont among Highland -chieftains in the days of Bruce and Wallace. - -"Speaking of the Gas House Gang: how do they live?" I asked. - -"Stickin' up lushes mostly." - -"How much of this stick-up work goes on?" - -"Well"--thoughtfully--"they'll pull off as many as twenty-five stick-ups -to-night." - -"There's no such number of squeals coming in at headquarters." - -The contradiction emanated from my Central Office friend, who felt -criticized by inference. - -"Squeals!" exclaimed Whitey Dutch with warmth, "w'y should they squeal? -The Gas House push'd cook 'em if they squealed. Suppose right now I -was to go out an' get put in th' air; do you think I'd squeal? Well, I -should say not; I'm no mutt! They'd about come gallopin' 'round tomorry -wit' bale-sticks, an' break me arms an' legs, or mebby knock me block -off. W'y, not a week ago, three Gas House _shtockers_ stands me up in -Riving-ton Street, an' takes me clock--a red one wit' two doors. Then -they pinches a fiver out of me keck. They even takes me bank-book. - -"W'at license has a stiff like youse got to have $375 in th' bank?' they -says--like that. - -"Next night they comes bluffin' round for me three hundred and -seventy-five dollar plant--w'at do you t'ink of that? But I'm there wit' -a gatt me-self that time, an' ready to give 'em an argument. W'en they -sees I'm framed up, they gets cold feet. But you can bet I don't do no -squealin'!" - -"Did you get back your watch?" - -"How could I get it back?" peevishly. "No, I don't get back me watch. -All the same, I'll lay for them babies. Some day I'll get 'em right, an' -trim 'em to the queen's taste." - -My friend, leading conversation in his specious Central Office way, -spoke of Ike the Blood's iron fame, and slanted talk in that direction. - -"Ike can certainly go some!" observed Slimmy meditatively. "Take it from -me, there ain't any of 'em, even th' toughest ever, wants his game." -Turning to Whitey: "Don't youse remember, Whitey, when he tears into -Humpty Jackson an' two of his mob, over in Thirteenth Street, that time? -There's nothin' to it! Ike simply makes 'em jump t'rough a hoop! Every -lobster of 'em has his rod wit' him, too." - -"They wouldn't have had the nerve to fire 'em if they'd pulled 'em," -sneered Whitey. "Ike'd have made 'em eat th' guttaperchy all off th' -handles, too. Say, I don't t'ink much of that Gas House fleet. They talk -strong; but they don't bring home th' goods, see!" - -It appeared that, in spite of his sanguinary title, Ike the Blood had -never killed his man. - -"He's tried," explained Slimmy, who felt as though the absent one, in -his blood-guiltlessness, required defense; "but he all th' time misses. -Ike's th' woist shot wit' a rod in th' woild." - -"Sure, Mike!"--from Whitey Dutch, his nose in his drink; "he couldn't -hit th' Singer Buildin'." '"How does he make his money?" I asked. - -"Loft worker," broke in my friend. - -The remark was calculated to explode the others into fresh confidences. - -"Don't youse believe it!" came in vigorous denial from Whitey Dutch. -"Ike never cracked a bin in his life. You bulls"--this was pointed -especially at my friend--"say he's a dip, too. W'y, it's a laugh! Ike -couldn't pick th' pocket of a dead man--couldn't put his hand into a -swimmin' tank! That's how fly he is." - -"Now don't try to string me," retorted my friend, severely. "Didn't -Ike fill in with Little Maxie and his mob, when they worked the Jersey -fairs?" - -"But that was only to do the strong-arm work, in case there's a scrap," -protested Whitey. "On th' level, Ike is woise than Big Abrams. He can't -even stall. An' as for gettin' a leather or a watch, gettin' a perfecto -out of a cigar box would be about his limit." - -"That Joisey's a bum place; youse can go there for t'ree cents." - -The last was interjected by Slimmy--who had a fine wit of his own--with -the hopeful notion of diverting discussion to less exciting questions -than pocket-picking at the New Jersey fairs. - -It developed that while Ike the Blood had now and then held up a stuss -game for its bank-roll, during some desperate ebb-tide of his fortunes, -he drew his big income from a yearly ball. - -"He gives a racket," declared Whitey Dutch; "that's how Ike gets his -dough. Th' last one he pulls off nets him about twenty-five hundred -plunks." - -"What price were the tickets?" I inquired. Twenty-five hundred dollars -sounded large. - -"Th' tickets is fifty cents," returned Whitey, "but that's got nothin' -to do wit' it. A guy t'rows down say a ten-spot at th' box-office, like -that"--and Whitey made a motion with his hand, which was royal in its -generous openness. "'Gimme a pasteboard!' he says; an' that ends it; he -ain't lookin' for no change back. Every sport does th' same. Some t'rows -in five, some ten, some guy even changes in a twenty if he's pulled off -a trick an' is feelin' flush. It's all right; there's nothin' in bein' -a piker. Ike himself sells th' tickets; an' th' more you planks down th' -more he knows you like him." It was becoming plain. A gentleman of -gang prominence gives a ball--a racket--and coins, so to speak, his -disrepute. He of sternest and most bloody past takes in the most money. -To discover one's status in Gangland, one has but to give a racket.. -The measure of the box-receipts will be the dread measure of one's -reputation. - -"One t'ing youse can say of Ike," observed Slimmy, wearing the while a -look of virtue, "he never made no money off a woman." - -"Never in all his life took a dollar off a doll!" added Whitey, -corroboratively. - -Ike the Blood reappearing at this juncture, it was deemed best to -cease--audibly, at least--all consideration of his merits. He might have -regarded discussion, so personal to himself, with disfavor. Laughing -lightly, he took his old place at the table, and beckoned the waiter. -Compared with what had been its former cloudy expression, his face wore -a look of relief. - -"Say, I don't mind tellin' youse guys," he said at last, breaking into -an uneasy laugh, "but th' fact is, I skinned round into Sixt' Avenoo to -a fortune teller--a dandy, she is--one that t'rows a fit, or goes into a -trance, or some such t'ing." - -"A fortune teller!" said Slimmy, as though he'd never heard the word -before. - -"It's on account of a dream. In all th' years"--Ike spoke as might one -who had put a century behind him--"in all th' years I've been knockin' -about, an' I've had me troubles, I never gets a notch on me gun, see? -Not that I went lookin' for any; not that I'm lookin' for any now. But -last night I had a dream:--I dreams I croaks a guy. Mebby it's somet'in' -I'd been eatin'; mebby it's because of me havin' a pretty hot argument -th' mornin' before; but anyhow it bothers me--that dream does. You -see"--this to my friend--"I'm figgerin' on openin' a house over in -Twenty-fift' Street, an' these West Side ducks is all for givin' me th' -frozen face. They say I oughter stick down on th' East Side, where -I belongs, an' not come chasin' up here, cuttin' in on their graft. -Anyhow, I dreams I puts th' foist notch on me gun-------" - -"And so you consult a fortune teller," laughed my friend, who was not -superstitious, but practical. - -"Wait till I tells you. As I says, I blows in on that trance party. I -don't wise her up about any dream, but comes t'rough wit' th' little old -one buck she charges, an' says: 'There you be! Now roll your game for -th' limit!'" - -"Which she proceeded to do," broke in my friend. - -"Listen! Th' old dame--after coppin' me dollar--stiffens back an' shuts -her eyes; an' next, th' foist flash out of th' box she says--speakin' -like th' wind in a keyhole: 'You're in th' midst of trouble; a man is -killed!' Then she wakes up. 'W'y didn't youse go t'rough?' I says; T -want th' rest. Who is it gets croaked, th' other dub or me?' Th' old -dame insists that to go back, an' get th' address of th' party who's -been bumped off, she must have another dollar. Oh, they're th' birds, -them fortune tellers, to grab th' dough! But of course I can't stop -there, so I bucks up wit' another bone. 'There you be,' I says; 'now, is -it me that gets it, or does he?" - -"W'at he?" demanded Whitey. - -"How do I know?" The tone and manner were impatient. "It's th' geek I'm -havin' trouble wit'." Ike looked at me, as one who would understand -and perhaps sympathize, and continued: "This time th' old dame says th' -party who's been cooked is some other guy; it ain't me. T can see now -that it ain't you,' she says. 'You're ridin' away in a patrol wagon, -wit' a lot of harness bulls.' That's good so far. 'So I gets th' -collar?' I says. 'How about th' trial?' She answers, 'There ain't no -trial;' an' then she comes out of her trance, same as a diver comes up -out o' the water." - -"Is that all?" asked Slimmy. - -"That's where she lets me off." - -"W'y don't youse dig for another dollar," said Whitey, "an' tell th' old -hag to put on her suit an' go down ag'in for th' rest?" Whitey had been -impressed by that simile of the diver. - -"W'at more is there to get? I ain't killed; an' I ain't tried--that -oughter do me. Th' coroner t'rows me loose, most likely. Anyhow, I ain't -goin' to sit there all day, skinnin' me roll for that old sponge--a -plunk a crack, too." - -"Talk of th' cost of livin'!" remarked Slimmy, with a grin. "Ain't it -fierce, th' way them fortune tellers'll slim a guy's bank-roll for him, -once they has him hooked? They'll get youse to goin'; an' after that -it's like one of them stories w'at ends wit' 'Continued in our next.' -W'y, it's like playin' th' horses, only woise. Th' foist day you goes -out to win; an' after that, you keep goin' back to get even." Ike the -Blood paid no heed to the pessimistic philosophy of Slimmy; he was too -wholly wrapped up in what he had been told. - -"Well," he broke forth, following a ruminative pause, "anyhow, I'd -sooner he gets it than me." - -"There you go ag'in about that 'he,'" protested Whitey, and the manner -of Whitey was querulous. - -"Th' guy she sees me hooked up wit'!" This came off a bit warmly. "You -know w'at I mean." - -"Take it easy!--take it easy!" urged my friend. "What is there to get -hot about? You don't mean to say, Ike, you're banking on that guff the -old dame handed you?" - -"Next week"--the shadow of a smile playing across his face--"I won't -believe it. But it sounds like th' real t'ing now." - -The door of the Bal Tabarin opened to the advent of a weasel-eyed -individual. - -"Hello, Whitey!" exclaimed Weasel-eye cheerily, shaking hands with -Whitey Dutch. "I just leaves a namesake of yours; an' say, he's in bad!" - -"W'at namesake?" - -"Whitey Louie. A bunch of them West Side guerrillas has him cornered, -over in a dump at Twenty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenoo. It looks -like there'd be somethin' doin'; an', as I don't Avant no part of it, I -screws out." - -At the name of Whitey Louie, Ike the Blood arose to his feet. - -"Whitey Louie?" he questioned; "Seventh Avenoo an' Twenty-seventh -Street?" - -"That's th' ticket," replied Weasel-eye; "an' youse can cash on it." - -Ike the Blood hurried out the door. - -"Whitey Louie is Ike's closest pal," observed Whitey Dutch, explaining -the hurried departure. "Will there be trouble?" I asked. - -"I don't t'ink so," said Slimmy. "It's four for one they'll lay down to -Ike." - -"Don't put your swell bet on it!" came warningly from Whitey Dutch; -"them Gophers are as tough a bunch as ever comes down the pike." - -"Tough nothin'!" returned Slimmy: "they'll be duck soup to Ike." - -"Why don't you look into it?" I asked, turning to my friend. As a -taxpayer, I yearned for some return on that $16,000,000 a year which New -York City pays for its police. - -That ornament of the Central Office yawned, and motioned to the waiter -to bring his bill. - -"That sort of thing is up to the cop on the beat," said he. - -"Whitey an' me 'ud get in on it," explained Slimmy--his expression was -one of half apology--"only you see we belong at th' other end of th' -alley. We're Five Points; Ike an' Whitey Louie are Eastmans; an' in a -clash between Eastmans an' Gophers, it's up to us to stand paws-off, -see!" - -"That's straight talk," coincided Whitey. - -"Suppose, seeing it's stopped raining, we drift over there," said my -friend, adjusting his Panama at the exact Central Office angle. - -As we journeyed along, I noticed Slimmy and Whitey Dutch across the -street. It was already written that Whitey Dutch, himself, would be shot -to death in the Stag before the year was out; but the shadow of that -impending taking-off was not apparent in his face. Indeed, from that -face there shone forth only pleasure in anticipation, and a lively -interest. - -"They'd no more miss it than they'd miss a play at the theater," -remarked my friend, who saw where my glance was directed. - -About a ginmill, on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Twenty-seventh -Street, a crowd had collected. A patrol wagon was backing up. - -An officer in uniform tossed a prisoner into the wagon, with no more -ceremony than should attend the handling of a bag of bran. - -"It's Dubillier!" exclaimed Whitey Dutch, naming the prisoner. - -The two Five Pointers had taken position on the edge of the crowd, -directly in front of my friend and me. - -"There's Ike!" said Slimmy, as two policemen were seen pushing their -way towards the patrol wagon, Ike the Blood between them. "Them bulls -is holdin' him up, too, an' his face is as pale as paper! By thunder, -they've nailed him!" - -"I told you them Gophers were tough students," was the comment of Whitey -Dutch. - -My friend began forcing his way forward. As he plowed through the crowd, -Whitey Dutch and Slimmy, having advantage of his wake, kept close at his -heels. - -Slimmy threw me a whispered word: "Be th' way th' mob is actin', I t'ink -Ike copped one." Slimmy, before the lapse of many minutes, was again at -my side, attended by Whitey Dutch. The pair wore that manner of quick -yet neutral appreciation which belongs--we'll say--with such as English -army officers visiting the battlefield of Santiago while the action -between the Spaniards and the Americans is being waged. It wasn't their -fight, it was an Eastman-Gopher fight, but as fullblown Five Pointers it -became them vastly to be present. Also, they might learn something. - -"Ike dropped one," nodded Whitey Dutch, answering the question in my -eye. "It's Ledwich." - -"What was the row about?" I asked. - -"Whitey Louie. The Gophers was goin' to hand it to him; but just then -Ike comes through th' door on th' run, an' wit' that they outs wit' -their rods an' goes to peggin' at him. Then Ike gets to goin' an' cops -Ledwich." - -"Th' best th' Gophers can get," observed Slimmy--and his manner was as -the manner of one balancing an account--"th' best th' Gophers can get is -an even break; an' to do that they'll have to cash on Ike. Whitey Louie? -He makes his get-away all right. Say, Whitey, let's beat it round to the -Tenderloin Station, an' get th' finish." - -The finish was soon told. Ike the Blood lay dead on the station house -floor; a bullet had drilled its dull way through his lungs. An officer -was just telephoning his people in Chrystie Street. - -"Now do youse see?" said Whitey Dutch, correcting what he conceived to -be Slimmy's skepticism; "that fortune tellin' skirt handed out th' right -dope. 'One croaked!--Ike in th' hurry-up wagon!--no trial!' That's th' -spiel she makes; an' it falls true, see!" - -"Ike oughter have dug down for another bone," returned Slimmy, more than -half convinced; "she'd have put him hep to that bullet in his breather, -mebby." - -"W'at good 'ud that have done?" - -"Good? If he'd got th' tip, he might have ducked--you can't tell." - -"It's a bad business," I commented to my friend, who had rejoined me. - -"It would be a good thing"--shrugging his cynical Central Office -shoulders--"if, with a change of names, it could happen every day in -the year. By the way, I forgot my umbrella; let's go back to the Bal -Tabarin." - - - - -V.--INDIAN LOUIE - - -No one knew his real name, not even the police, and the police, let me -tell you, know much more than they can prove. The Central Office never -once had the pleasure of mugging and measuring and parading him at the -morning bawling out, and the Mulberry Street records to the last were -barren concerning him. For one brief space and only one did Mulberry -Street nourish hopes. That was when he himself let it be thought that -somewhere, sometime, somehow, he had taken some one's life. At this, -Mulberry Street fairly shook the wide earth like a tablecloth in search -of proof, but got not so much as one poor crumb of confirmation. - -It was at Big Jack's in Chatham Square that local history first laid -eyes on him. Big Jack is gone now; the Committee of Fourteen decided -upon him virtuously as an immoralist, handed him the fatal blue paper, -and he perished. Jack Sirocco--who was himself blue-papered in a Park -Row hour--keeps the place now. - -Starting from Big Jack's, he soon began to be known in Flynn's, and -Nigger Mike's, and about the Chatham Club. When his pals spoke to him -they called him Louie. When they spoke of him they called him Indian -Louie, or Spanish Louie, to the end that he be identified among the -hosts of East Side Louies, who were and are as many as the leaves on a -large tree. - -Rumor made Indian Louie a native of South America, and his dark skin, -black eyes, thin lips, high cheek-bones and high curved nose helped -rumor out in this. Also, he was supposed to be of Spanish or Portuguese -extraction. - -When Louie was buried, this latter assumption received a jolt. His -funeral, conducted by a rabbi, was according to strictest Hebrew -ceremonial. - -Two pieces of porcelain were laid upon his eyes, as intimating that he -had seen enough. A feather, which a breath would have disturbed, -was placed upon his upper lip. This was to evidence him as fully and -conclusively dead, although on that point, in all conscience, the -coroner's finding should have been enough. The flowers, which Gangland -sent to prove its grief, were put aside because too gay and pleasant. -The body was laid upon straw. A would-be pallbearer, since his name was -Cohen, had to be excluded from the rites, as any orthodox Jew could have -told him must be the case. For death and the dead are unclean; and a -Cohen, who by virtue of his name is of the high-priest caste--Aaron was -a Cohen--and tends the altars, must touch nothing, approach nothing, -that is unclean. The funeral was scrupulously held before the second -sun went down, and had to be hurried a little, because the morgue -authorities, hobbled of red tape, move as slowly as the sea itself in -giving up the dead. The coffin--of poorest pine--was knocked to pieces -in the grave, before the clods of earth were shoveled in and the -doomsday sods laid on. The garments of him who acted as principal -mourner were faithfully torn; that is to say, the rabbi cut a careful -slit in the lapel of that mourner's waistcoat where it wouldn't show. - -You will see from this, that every detail was holy by most ancient -Jewish prescription. And the business led to talk. Those about Flynn's, -Nigger Mike's and the Chatham Club, to say naught of members of the -Humpty Jackson gang, and others who in his latter days had been near -if not dear to him, confessed that it went far in contradiction of any -Spanish or Portuguese ancestry for Louie. - -Louie was a mystery, and studied to be so. And to be a mystery is as -difficult as being a hypocrite. One wrong word, one moment off your -guard, and lo, a flood of light! The mystery vanishes, the hypocrisy is -laid bare. You are no longer a riddle. Or, if so, then a riddle that has -been solved. And he who was a riddle, but has been solved, is everywhere -scoffed at and despised. - -Louie must have possessed a genius for mystery, since not once did he -fall down in that difficult role. He denied nothing, confirmed nothing, -of the many tales told about him. A waif-word wagged that he had been in -the army, without pointing to any regiment; and that he had been in the -navy, without indicating what boat. Louie, it is to be thought, somewhat -fostered this confusion. It deepened him as a mystery, and made him more -impressive. - -Louie was careful, also, that his costume should assist. He made up -all in black--black shoes, black trousers, black coat, black hat of -semi-sombrero type. Even in what may be spoken of as the matter of -linen--although there was no linen about it--he adhered to that funereal -hue, and in lieu of a shirt wore a sweater, collar close up to the -chin, and all as black as his coat. As he walked the streets, black eyes -challenging, threatening, from underneath the black, wide-rimmed hat, he -showed not from top to toe a fleck of white. - -Among what tales went here and there concerning Louie, there was one -which described him as the deadest of dead shots. This he accentuated by -a brace of big Colt's pistols, which bore him constant company, daylight -and dark. There was no evidence of his having used this artillery, no -word of any killing to his perilous glory. Indeed, he couldn't have -pointed to so much as one wounded man. - -Only once did those pistols come into play. Valenski's stuss house, in -Third Avenue near Fourteenth Street, was put in the air. The hold-ups -descended upon Valenski's, grabbed $80 which was on the table, and sent -Valenski into his safe for $300 more. While this went on, Louie stood -in the door, a gun in each fist, defying the gaping, staring, pop-eyed -public to interfere. He ran no risk, as everyone well knew. The East -Side, while valorous, never volunteers. There was no more chance of -outside interference to save Valenski from being plundered, than of -outside contributions to make him up another roll. - -The incident might have helped in building up for Louie a reputation, -had it not been that all that was starkly heroic therein melted when, -two days later, the ravished $380 was privily restored to Valenski, with -the assurance that the entire business was a jest. Valenski knew -nothing humorous had been intended, and that his bundle was returned in -deference only to the orders of one high in politics and power. Also, it -was the common feeling, a feeling no less cogent for not being put into -words, that had Louie been of the wood from which champions are carved, -the $380 would never have come back. To refrain from some intended -stick-up upon grave orders given, might mean no more than prudence and -a right discipline. But to send back money, once in actual hand and when -the risk and work of which it stood the harvest had been encountered -and performed, was to fly in the face of gang ethics. An order to that -effect, however eminent its source, should have been met with stony -refusal. - -There was one tale which should go, perhaps, to the right side of the -reputational ledger, as indicating that Louie had nerve. Crazy Charlie -was found dead in the mouth of a passageway, which opened off Mulberry -Street near the Bowery. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. No one -of sense supposed Louie did that throat slashing. - -Crazy Charlie was a hop-head, without a dollar in his jeans, and Louie -never did anything except for money. He would no more have gone about a -profitless killing, than he would have wasted time and effort by fishing -in a bathtub. - -For all that, on the whispered hint of the Ghost--who himself was killed -finally as a snitch--two plain-clothes men from the Eldridge Street -station grabbed Louie. They did not tell him the reason of the pinch. -Neither did they spread it on the books. The police have a habit of -protecting themselves from the consequences of a foolish collar by a -specious system of concealment, and put nothing on the blotter until -sure. - -When searched at the desk, Louie's guns were discovered. Also, from -inside his waistcoat was taken a seven-inch knife, which, as said the -police sergeant, might have slit the windpipe of Crazy Charlie or any -other bug. But, as anyone with eyes might see, the knife was as purely -virginal as when it came from a final emery wheel in its far-off -Sheffield home. It had slit nothing. - -Still, those plain-clothes dicks did not despair. They hoped to startle -Louie into a confession. With a view to his moral and physical stampede, -they conveyed Louie in a closed patrol wagon, at mirk midnight, to the -morgue. He hadn't been told what he was charged with; he didn't know -where he was going. - -The wagon backed up to the morgue door. Louie had never visited the -morgue before, though fated in the end to appear there officially. The -plainclothes men, one at each shoulder, steered him inside. All was -thick blackness; you couldn't have seen your own nose. Feeling their -wordless way, the painstaking plain-clothes folk manhandled Louie into -position. - -Then they flashed on a flood of electric light. - -There, within two feet of Louie, and squarely beneath his eyes, lay the -dead Crazy Charlie, posed so as to show effectively that gruesome slash -across the throat. Louie neither started nor exclaimed. Gazing down on -the dead Charlie, he searched forth a cigarette and turned to one of his -plain-clothes escorts for a match. - -"Do you see this?" demanded the plain-clothes man, slewing round the -dead head until that throat-gash yawned like some horrid mouth. - -The plain-clothes man was wroth to think he should have worked so hard -to achieve so little. - -"Yes," retorted Louie, as cold as a wedge. "Also, I'll tell you bulls -another thing. You think to rattle me. Say, for ten cents I'd sit on -this stiff all night an' smoke a pipe." - -Those plain-clothes artists gave Louie up. They turned him loose at the -morgue door. - -The affair worked round, and helped Louie to a better position in the -minds of all fair men. It fell in lucky, too, since it more than stood -off a setback which overtook him about the same time. Louie had called -upon the Irish Wop, at the latter's poolroom in Fourth Avenue. This -emigrant from Mayo was thin and slight and sickly, and Louie argued -that he might bully him out of a handful of money. Putting on a darkest -frown, he demanded fifty dollars, and intimated that dire indeed would -be the consequences of refusal. - -"Because," said Louie, "when I go out for anything I get it, see?" - -The Wop coughed timidly and made a suggestion. "Come round in half an -hour," said he, "when the last race from New Orleans is in; I'll have -the cush ready for yez." - -Louie withdrew, and the Wop shoved the poker into the blazing -big-bellied stove. - -An hour later, that New Orleans race having been run, Louie returned. -The poker being by this time white-hot, the Wop drew it forth from the -stove. There were no stage waits. Applying the poker to the shrinking -rear of Louie, the Wop compelled that yearner after fifty dollars to -leap screechingly from a second-storey window. - -"That's phwy I puts th' windy up," explained the Wop; "I didn't want -that chape skate to bre-a-ak th' glassh. Indian Louie! Spanish Louie!" -he repeated with measureless contempt. "Let me tell youse ginks wan -thing." This to a circle who had beheld the flight of Louie. "If ever -that bum shows up here ag'in, I'll put him out av business altogether. -Does he think a two-cint Guinea from Sout' Ameriky can bluff a -full-blown Mick?" - -Louie's flight through the Wop's window, as had his steadiness at the -morgue, went the gossipy rounds. It didn't injure him as much as you -might think. - -"For who," said the general voice, "would face and fight a white-hot -poker?" - -On the whole, public sentiment was inclined to sustain Louie in that -second-storey jump. - -From what has been written, it will not astonish you to hear that, upon -the important matter of courage, Louie's place in society had not been -absolutely fixed. Some said one thing, some another. There are game men -in Gangland; and there exist others who aren't the real thing. Sardinia -Frame believes, with the Irish Wop, that Louie belonged in the latter -class. Also, Sardinia Frank is entitled to an opinion. For he was born -in Mulberry Bend, and has himself been tried twice on charges of murder. - -It was Sardinia Frank, by the way, who smote upon Eat-'em-up Jack with -that effective lead pipe, albeit, there being no proof, he was never -arrested for it. No, he doesn't admit it, even among intimates and where -such admission would be respected as sacred. But when joked concerning -it, he has ever worn a cheerful, satisfied look--like the pictures -of the cat that ate the canary--and while careful not to accept, was -equally careful not to reject, the compliment implied. Moreover, when -the dead Eat-'em-up-Jack was picked up, the lead pipe used to break his -skull had been tucked jocosely under his arm. It was clear to knowing -ones that none except Sardinia Frank would have thought of such a jest. -To him it would have come readily enough, since death always appealed to -his sense of humor. - -Clad in a Tuxedo and an open-face suit, Sardinia Frank, at the time -I questioned him, was officiating as peace-preserver in the Normandie -rathskeller. By way of opener, I spoke of his mission on the rathskeller -earth. - -"I'm here to keep out everybody I know," said he simply. - -There was a pathetic side to this which, in his ingenuousness, Frank -failed wholly to remark. - -"About Indian Louie?" I at last said. - -It was within an hour after Louie had been killed. - -"I'll tell youse about Louie," returned Frank. "Of course, he's dead, -an' lyin' on a slab in th' morgue right now. They 'phoned me woid ten -minutes ago. But that don't make no difference. He was a bluff; he -wasn't th' goods. He went around wit' his hat over his eyes, bulldozin' -everybody he could, an' lettin' on to be a hero. An' he's got what -heroes get." - -"Did you ever get tangled up with him?" I asked. - -"Let me show you," and Frank became confidential. "This'll give youse a -line. One time he's got two hundred bones. Mollie Squint climbs into a -yap-wagon an' touches a rube for it. Louie takes it, an' plants it wit' -Nigger Mike. That's about six months ago. Th' next night, me bein' wise -to it, I chases to Mike an' says, 'Louie's over to Jigger's, pointin' -stuss, an' he wants th' two hundred.' So Mike hands me th' dough. I -splits it five ways wit' th' gang who's along, each of us gettin' his -little old bit of forty dollars apiece. - -"Louie, when he finds out next day, makes an awful beef. He tells -everybody he's goin' to hand it to me--goin' to cook me on sight, see? I -hears of it, an' I hunts Louie up in Jack Sirocco's. - -"'Say, Louie,' I says, 'about that cookin' me. Th' bully way would be to -come right now over to Hoboken, an' bump me off to-night. I'll go wit' -youse. An' there won't be no hang-over, see; 'cause no one in Joisey'll -care, an' no one in New York'll know.' - -"Do youse think Louie'll come? Not on your necktie! He didn't want me -game--just wanted to talk, that's all. - -"'Not youse, Frank,' he said; 'I ain't gunnin' for youse. It's Nigger -Mike; he's th' guy I'm goin' to croak. He oughtn't to have let youse -have th' money.' No, of course, he don't go after Mike; that's simply -his crawl. - -"Take it from me," Frank concluded, "Louie wasn't th' goods. He'd run a -bluff, but he never really hoited a guy in his whole life. As I says, he -goes about frownin', an' glarin', an' givin' people th' fiery eye, an' -t'rowin' a chest, an' lettin' it go broadcast that he's a hero. An' for -a finish he's got w'at heroes get." - -Such was the word of Sardinia Frank. - -When he fell with two bullets through his brain, and two more through -his body, Louie had $170 in his pocket, $700 in his shoe, and $3,000 -in the Bowery Bank. This prosperity needn't amaze. There was, for one -thing, a racket reason to be hereinafter set forth. Besides, Pretty -Agnes and Mollie Squint both walked the streets in Louie's loved behalf, -and brought him all in the way of riches that came to their lure. Either -was sure for five dollars a day, and Mollie Squint, who could graft a -little, once came in with $800. Both Pretty Agnes and Mollie Squint most -fiercely adored Louie, and well did he know how to play one loving heart -against the other. Some say that of the pair he preferred Pretty Agnes. -If so, he wasn't fool enough to let her find it out. She might have -neglected her business to bask in his sweet society. - -Besides, when it came to that, Louie's heart was really given to -a blonde burlesquer, opulent of charm. This _artiste_ snubbed and -neglected Louie for the love of a stage manager. But she took and spent -Louie's money, almost if not quite as fast as Pretty Agnes and Mollie -Squint could bring it to him from the streets. - -Louie never made any place his hangout long. There was no element of -loyalty in him, whether for man or for woman, and he went from friend -to friend and gang to gang. He would stay nowhere, remain with no one, -after his supremacy had been challenged. And such hardy natures as Biff -Ellison, Jimmy Kelly, Big Mike Abrams, Chick Tricker and Jack Sirocco -were bound to challenge it. They had a way, too, of putting the acid on -an individual, and unless his fighting heart were purest gold they'd -surely find it out. And Louie never stood the test. Thus, beginning at -Big Jack's in Chatham Square, Louie went from hangout to hangout, mob to -mob, until, working through Nigger Mike's, the Chatham Club and -Sharkey's, he came at last to pal in with the Humpty Jackson guerrillas. - -These worthies had a stamping ground in a graveyard between First and -Second Avenue, in the block bounded north and south by Twelfth and -Thirteenth Streets. There Louie was wont to meet such select company as -Monahokky, Nigger Ruhl, Candy Phil, the Lobster Kid, Maxie Hahn, and the -Grabber. As they lolled idly among the tombstones, he would give them -his adventures by flood and by field. Louie, besides being conceited, -was gifted with an imagination and liked to hear himself talk. Not that -he felt obliged to accuracy in these narrations. It was enough that he -made them thrilling, and in their telling shed an effulgent ray upon -himself. - -While he could entertain with his stories, Louie was never popular. -There was that doubt about his courage. Also, he was too frugal. No one -had ever caught the color of his money. Save in the avaricious instance -of the big blonde burlesquer, as hungry as false, he held by the selfish -theology that it is more blessed to receive than to give. - -Taking one reason and another, those about Louie at the finish were -mainly the Humpty Jackson bunch. His best hangout of any fashion was the -Hesper Club. Had Humpty Jackson remained with his own, Louie might -have been driven, in search of comradeship, to go still further afield. -Humpty was no weakling, and while on the surface a whining, wheedling, -complaining cripple, owned his volcanic side, and had once shot it out, -gun to gun and face to face, with no less a paladin than Jimmy Kelly. -Louie would have found the same fault with Humpty that he had found with -those others. Only Humpty didn't last long enough after Louie joined his -forces. Some robbery came off, and a dull jury held Humpty responsible. -With that, the judge sent him up for a long term of years, and there he -sticks to-day. Humpty took the journey crying that he had been jobbed by -the police. However that may have been, his going made it possible -for Louie to remain with the Jacksons, and shine at those ghoulish, -graveyard meetings, much longer than might otherwise have been the case. - -While Louie had removed to the remote regions about Fourteenth Street -and Third Avenue, and was seldom seen in Chatham Square or Chinatown, -he was not forgotten in those latter precincts. Jew Yetta brought up -his name one evening in the Chatham Club, and spoke scornfully of him in -conjunction with the opulent blonde. - -"That doll's makin' a farmer of Louie," was the view of Jew Yetta. - -"At that," remarked the Dropper--for this was in the days of his liberty -and before he had been put away--"farmer or no farmer, it's comin' -easier for him now than when he was in the navy, eatin' sow-belly out of -a harness cask an' drinkin' bilge. W'at's that ship he says he's sailin' -in, Nailer?" continued the Dropper. "Ain't it a tub called _Atalanta?_" - -"There never is a ship in the navy named _Atalanta_." - -This declaration, delivered with emphasis, emanated from old Jimmy, who -had a place by himself in East Side consideration. Old Jimmy was about -sixty, with a hardwood-finish face and 'possum-colored hair. He had been -a river pirate in the old days, and roamed the midnight waters for what -he might pick up. Those were times when he troubled the police, who -made him trouble in return. But one day old Jimmy salvaged a rich man's -daughter, who--as though to make his fortune--had fallen overboard from -a yacht, and bored her small hole in the water within a rod or two of -Jimmy's skiff. Certainly, he fished her out, and did it with a boat -hook. More; he sagaciously laid her willowy form across a thwart, to -the end that the river water flow more easily from her rosebud mouth. -Relieved of the water, the rescued beauty thanked Jimmy profusely; and, -for his generous part, her millionaire father proceeded to pension his -child's preserver for life. The pension was twenty-five dollars a week. -Coming fresh and fresh with every Monday, Jimmy gave up his piracies and -no longer haunted in the name of loot the nightly reaches of the river. -Indeed, he became offensively idle and honest. - -"No sir," repeated old Jimmy; "there never is a ship in our navy named -_Atalanta_." - -"All th' same," retorted the dropper, "I lamps a yacht once w'at's -called _Atalanta_." - -"An' who says No?" demanded old Jimmy, testily. "I'm talkin' about th' -United States Navy. But speakin' of Louie, it ain't no cinch he's ever -in th 'navy. I'd sooner bet he's been in jail." - -"An' if he was," said Jew Yetta, "there ain't no one here who's got -anything on him." - -"W'at does Atalanta mean, anyway?" questioned the Dropper, who didn't -like the talk of jails. "Is it a place?" - -"Nixie," put in Slimmy, the erudite, ever ready to display his learning. -"Atalanta's the name of a skirt, who b'longs 'way back. She's some soon -as a sprinter, too, an' can run her one hundred yards in better than ten -seconds. Every god on Olympus clocked this dame, an' knew what she could -do." - -"W'at's her story?" asked the Dropper. - -"It gets along, d'ye see, where Atalanta's folks thinks she ought to get -married. But she won't have it; she'd sooner be a sprinter. With that, -they crowd her hand; an' to get shut of 'em, she finally tacks it up on -the bulletin board that she'll chase to th' altar only with some student -who can beat her at a quarter mile dash. 'No lobsters need apply!' says -she. Also, there's conditions. Under the rules, if some chump calls th' -bluff, an' can't make good--if she lands him loses--her papa's headsman -will be on th' job with his axe, an' that beaten gink'll get his block -whacked off." - -"An' does any one go against such a game?" queried Jew Yetta. - -"Sure! A whole fleet of young Archibalds and Reginalds went up ag'inst -it. They all lose; an' his jiblets wit' th' cleaver chops off their -youthful beans. - -"But the luck turns. One day a sure-thing geek shows up whose monaker is -Hippomenes. Hippy's a fly Indian; there ain't goin' to be no headsman in -his. Hippy's hep to skirts, too, an' knows where th' board is off their -fence. He organizes with three gold apples, see, an' every time little -Atalanta Shootin' Star goes flashin' by, he chucks down one of 'em in -front of her. She simply eats it up; she can't get by not one; an' she -loses so much time grabbin' for 'em, Hippy noses in a winner." - -"Good boy!" broke forth the Dropper. "An' do they hook up?" - -"They're married; but it don't last. You see its Venus who shows Hippy -how to crab Atalanta's act an' stakes him to th' gold apples. An' later, -when he double-crosses Venus, that goddess changes him an' his baby mine -into a-couple of lions." - -The Irish Wop had been listening impatiently. It was when Governor -Hughes flourished in Albany, and the race tracks were being threatened. -The Wop, as a pool-room keeper, was vastly concerned. - -"I see," said the Wop, appealing directly to old Jimmy as the East Side -Nestor, "that la-a-ad Hughes is makin' it hot for Belmont an' Keene an' -th' rist av th' racin' gang. Phwat's he so ha-a-ard on racin' for? Do -yez look on playin' th' ponies as a vice, Jimmy?" - -"Well," responded old Jimmy with a conservative air, "I don't know as -I'd call it a vice so much as a bonehead play." - -"They call it th' shpo-r-rt av kings," observed die Wop, loftily. - -Old Jimmy snorted. "Sport of kings!" said he. "Sport of come-ons, -rather. Them Sport-of-kings gezebos 'll go on, too, an' give you a -lot of guff about racin' bein' healthy. But they ain't sayin' a word -concernin' th' mothers an' youngones livin' in hot two-room tenements, -an' jumpin' sideways for grub, while th' husbands and fathers is blowin' -in their bank-rolls in th' bettin' ring, an' gettin' healthy. An' th' -little jocks, too--mere kids! I've wondered th' Gerries didn't get after -'em. But I suppose th' Gerries know who to pass up, an' who to pinch, as -well as th' oldest skipper on th' Force." - -"F'r all that," contended the Wop, stubbornly, "thim la-a-ads that's -mixed up wit' th' racin' game is good feltys." - -"Good fellows," repeated old Jimmy with contempt. "I recollect seein' a -picture once, a picture of a girl--a young wife, she is--lyin' with her -head on an untouched dinner table--fallen asleep, poor thing! Th' clock -in the picture is pointin' to midnight. There she's been waitin' with -th' dinner she's cooked with her own little lovin' mitts, for that souse -of a husband to come home. Under th' picture it says, 'For he's a jolly -good fellow!'" - -"Somebody'd ought to have put a head on him!" quoth Jew Yetta, whose -sympathies were both active and militant. - -"Say," went on Jimmy, "that picture gets on my nerves. A week later -I'm down be th' old Delmonico joint at Twenty-sixth an' Broadway. It's -meb-by one o'clock in th' mornin'. As I'm goin' by th' Twenty-sixt' -Street door, out floats a fleet of Willies, stewed to the gills, singin' -in honor of a dude who's in th' middle, 'For he's a jolly good fellow.' - -"'Who's that galoot?' I asks th' dub who's slammin' carriage doors at -the curb. 'Is he a married man?' - -"'He's married all right," says th' door-slammin' dub. - -"Wit that I tears into him. It's a good while ago, an' I could slug -a little. Be th' time th' copper gets there, I've got that jolly good -fellow lookin' like he'd been caught whistlin' _Croppies Lie Down_ at -Fiftieth Street an' Fift' Avenoo when th' Cathedral lets out." - -"Well, I'm not married," remarked the Wop, snappishly;--"I'm not -married; I niver was married; an' I niver will be married aloive." - -"Did youse notice?" remarked the Dropper, "how they gets a roar out of -old Boss Croker? He's for racin' all right." - -"Naturally," said old Jimmy. "Him ownin' race horses, Croker's for th' -race tracks. He don't cut no ice." - -"How much do yez figger Croker had cleaned up, Jimmy, when he made his -getaway for Ireland?" asked the Wop, licking an envious lip. - -"Without comin' down to book-keepin'," returned old Jimmy, carelessly, -"my understandin' is that, be havin' th' whole wad changed into thousand -dollar bills, he's able to get it down to th' dock on a dray." - -The Grabber came in. He beckoned Slimmy, and the two were at once -immersed in serious whisperings. - -"What are youse two stews chinnin' about?" called out the Dropper -lazily, from across the room. "Be youse thinkin' of orderin' th' beer?" - -"It's about Indian Louie," replied Slimmy, angrily. "Th' Grabber here -says Louie's out to skin us." - -"Indian Louie," remarked the Wop, with a gleam in his little gray eye. -"That's th' labberick w'at's goin' to shti-i-ick up me poolroom f'r thim -fifty bones. Anny wan that'd have annything to do wit' a bum loike him -ought to get skinned." - -"W'at's he tryin' to saw off on youse?" asked the Dropper. - -"This is th' proposition." It was the Grabber now. "Me an' Slimmy here -goes in wit' Louie to give that racket last week in Tammany Hall. Now -Louie's got th' whole bundle, an' he won't split it. Me an' Slimmy's -been t'run down for six hundred good iron dollars apiece." - -"An' be yez goin' to let him get away wit' it?" demanded the Wop. - -"W'at can we do?" asked the Grabber, disconsolately. - -"It's that big blonde," declared Jew Yetta' with acrimony. "She's goin' -through Louie for every dollar. I wonder Mollie Squint an' Pretty Agnes -don't put her on th' fritz." - -The Hesper Club was in Second Avenue between Sixth and Seventh Streets. -It was one o'clock in the morning when Indian Louie took his accustomed -seat at the big table in the corner. - -"How's everybody?" he asked, easily. "I oversleeps meself, or I'd been -here hours ago." - -"W'at tires you?" asked Candy Phil. Not that he cared, but merely by way -of conversation. - -"It's th' big feed last night at Terrace Garden. I'm two days trainin' -for it, an' all day gettin' over it. Them swell blowouts is something -fierce!" and Louie assumed a wan and weary air, intended to be superior. - -"So you was at Terrace Garden?" said Nigger Ruhl. - -"Was I? Youse should have seen me! Patent leathers, white choker, and a -diamond in th' middle of me three-sheet big enough to trip a dog." - -"There's nothin' in them dress suits," protested Maxie Hahn. "I'm -ag'inst 'em; they ain't dimmycratic." - -"All th' same, youse've got to wear 'em at these swell feeds," said -Candy Phil. "They'd give youse th' gate if you don't. An' as for not -bein' dimmycratic"--Candy Phil had his jocose side--"they make it so you -can't tell th' high-guys from th' waiters, an' if that ain't dimmycratic -what is? Th' only thing I know ag'inst 'em is that youse can't go to th' -floor wit' a guy in 'em. You've got to cut out th' scrappin', an' live -up to the suit, see?" The Grabber strolled in, careless and smiling. -Louie fastened him with eyes of dark suspicion, while Maxie Hahn, the' -Lobster Kid and Candy Phil began pushing their chairs out of the line of -possible fire. For they knew of those monetary differences. - -"Not a chance, sports," remarked the Grabber, reassuringly. "No one's -goin' to start anything. Let's take a drink," and the Grabber beat upon -the table as a sign of thirst. "I ain't after no one here." - -"Be youse alludin' to me, Grabber?" asked Louie, with a frown like a -great cloud. "I don't like them cracks about startin' somethin'." - -"Keep your shoit on," expostulated the Grabber, clinking down the change -for the round of beers; "keep your shoit on, Louie. I ain't alludin' -at nobody nor nothin', least of all at youse. Besides, I just gets a -message for you--only you don't seem in no humor to receive it." - -"Who's it from?" asked Louie. - -"It's Laura"--Laura was the opulent blonde--"Mollie Squint an' Pretty -Agnes runs up on her about an hour ago at Twelfth Street an' Second -Avenoo, an' Mollie bounces a brick off her coco. A copper comes along -an' chases Mollie an' Pretty Agnes. I gets there as they're carry in' -Laura into that Dago's joint be th' corner. Laura asks me if I sees -youse to tell w'at's happened her; that's all." - -"Was Mollie and Agnes sloughed in?" asked Louie, whose practical mind -went first to his breadwinners. - -"No, they faded into th' next street. Th' cop don't want to pinch 'em -anyway." - -"About Laura; was she hoited much?" - -"Ten stiches, an' a week in Roosevelt Hospital; that's the best she can -get." - -"I must chase round an' look her over," was Louie's anxious conclusion. -"W'at's that Dago joint she's at?" - -"It's be th' corner," said the Grabber, "an' up stairs. I forgets the -wop's monaker." As Louie hesitated over these vague directions, the -Grabber set down his glass. "Say, to show there's no hard feelin', I'll -go wit' youse." - -As Louie and the Grabber disappeared through the door, Candy Phil threw -up both hands as one astonished to the verge of nervous shock. - -"Well, w'at do youse think of that?" he exclaimed. "I always figgered -Louie had bats in his belfry; now I knows it. They'll croak him sure!" -Nigger Ruhl and the Lobster Kid arose as though to follow. At this, -Candy Phil broke out fiercely. - -"W'at's wrong wit' youse stews? Stick where you be!" - -"But they'll cook Louie!" expostulated the Lobster Kid. - -"It ain't no skin off your nose if they do. W'y should youse go buttin' -in?" - -Louie and the Grabber were in Twelfth Street, hurrying towards Second -Avenue. Not a soul, except themselves, was abroad. The Grabber walked on -Louie's right, which showed that either the latter was not the gunplayer -he pretended, or the word from Laura had thrown him off his guard. - -Suddenly, as the pair passed a dark hallway, the Grabber's left arm -stole round Louie's neck. - -"About that dough, Louie!" hissed the Grabber, at the same time -tightening his left arm. - -Louie half turned to free himself from the artful Grabber. As he did so, -the Grabber's ready right hand brought his pistol into action, and -one bullet and then another flashed through Louie's brain. A slim form -rushed out of the dark hallway, and fired two bullets into Louie's body. -Louie was dead before he struck the pavement. - -The Grabber, with his slim companion, darted through the dark hallway, -out a rear door and over a back fence. Sixty seconds later they were -quietly walking in Thirteenth Street, examples of law-abiding peace. - -"It was th' easiest ever, Slimmy!" whispered the Grabber, when he had -recovered his breath. "I knew that stall about Laura'd fetch him." - -"Who was at th' Hesper Club?" - -"On'y Candy Phil, th' Lobster Kid an' two or three other blokes. Every -one of 'em's a right guy. They won't rap." - -"Thim la-a-ads," remarked the Wop, judiciously, when he heard of Louie's -taking off--"thim la-a-ads musht 'av lost their heads. There's six or -seven hundred bones on that bum, an' they niver copped a splinter!" - -The word came two ways to the Central Office. One report said "Indian -Louie" and another "Johnny Spanish." Detective O'Farrell invaded -Chinatown, and dug up Big Mike Abrams, that the doubt might be removed. - -"It's Indian Louie, all right," said Big Mike, following a moment's -silent survey of the rigid form. Then, in a most unlooked for vein of -sentiment: "They all get here at last!" - -"That's no dream!" agreed the morgue attendant. "An', say, Mike"--he -liked his joke as well as any other--"I've been expectin' you for some -time." - -"Sure!" returned Big Mike, with a friendly grin; "I'll come chasin' -along, feet foist, some mornin'. But don't forget that while I'm waitin' -I'm workin'. I've sent two stiffs down here to youse already, to help -keep you goin' till I comes. Accordin' to th' chances, however, me own -turn oughtn't to be so very far away." - -Big Mike Abram's turn was just three weeks away. - -"Who were those two, Mike, you sent down here to the morgue?" asked -O'Farrell, carelessly. - -O'Farrell had a catlike fame for slyness. - -"Say," grinned Big Mike, derisively; "look me over! I ain't wearin' no -medals, am I, for givin' meself up to you bulls?" - - - - -VI.--HOW JACKEEN SLEW THE DOC - - -In person he was tall, languid, slender, as neat as a cat, and his -sallow face--over which had settled the opium pallor--was not an ugly -face. Also, there abode such weakness, some good, and no harm in him. -His constitution was rickety. In the winter he coughed and invited -pneumonia; in the summer, when the sun poured down, he trembled on the -brink of a stroke. But neither pneumonia nor sunstroke ever quite killed -him. - -It was written that Jackeen would do that--Jackeen Dalton, _alias_ -Brady; and Jackeen did it with five bullets from an automatic-38. Some -said that opium was at the bottom of it; others laid it to love. It is -still greatly talked over in what pipe joints abound in Mott, Pell and -Doyers, not to mention the wider Catherine Street, in the neighborhood -of number Nineteen, where he had his flat and received his friends. - -They called him the Doc. Twenty years ago the Doc studied dentistry -with his father, who flourished reputably as a tooth surgeon at the Troy -Dental Parlors in Roosevelt Street. The father died before the Doc had -been given a diploma; and the Doc, having meanwhile picked up the -opium habit, was never able afterwards to see the use. Why should he be -examined or ask for a license? What foolishness! Magnanimously waving -aside every thought of the sort, he plunged into the practice of his -cheerless art among those who went in and out of Chinatown, and who -lived precariously by pocket-picking, porch-climbing, safe-blowing and -all-round strong-arm methods; and, careless of the statute in such case -made and provided, he proceeded to file and drill and cap and fill and -bridge and plug and pull their aching cuspids, bicuspids and molars, -and all with as quick an instinct and as deft a touch as though his eyes -were sharpened and his hand made steady by the dental sheepskins of a -dozen colleges. That he was an outlaw among tooth-drawers served only to -knit him more closely to the hearts of his patients--themselves merest -outlaws among men. - -The Doc kept his flat in Catherine Street as bright and burnished as -the captain's cabin of a man-of-war. There was no prodigious wealth of -furniture, no avalanche of ornament to overwhelm the taste. Aside from -an outfit of dental tools, the most expensive belongings appeared to -be what lamps and pipes and kindred paraphernalia were required in the -smoking of opium. - -Those who visited the Doc were compelled to one formality. Before he -would open his door, they must push the bell four times and four times -tap on the panel. Thus did they prove their friendly identity. Lawful -dentists, in their jealousy, had had the Doc arrested and fined, -from time to time, for intromitting with the teeth of his fellow worms -without a license. Hence that precautionary quartet of rings, followed -by the quartet of taps, indicative that a friend and not a foe was at -his gate. - -The Doc had many callers who came to smoke opium. For these he did -divers kindly offices, mostly in the letter-writing line. As they -reclined and smoked, they dictated while the Doc transcribed, and many -and weird were the epistles from Nineteen Catherine Street which -found their way into the mails. For this service, as for his opium -and dentistry, the Doc's callers never failed to press upon him an -honorarium. And so he lived. - -Love, that flowerlike sentiment for which--as some jurist once -remarked of justice--all places are palaces, all seasons summer, is not -incompatible with either dentistry or opium. The Doc had a sweetheart -named Lulu. Lulu was very beautiful and very jealous. Also, she was -broadly popular. All Chinatown made songs to the deep glories of her -eyes, which were supposed to have excited the defeated envy of many -stars. The Doc, in what odd hours he could snatch from tooth-drawing and -opium-smoking, worshipped at the shrine of Lulu; and Lulu was wrapped up -in the Doc. Number Nineteen Catherine Street served as their Garden of -Eden. - -Now it is among the many defects of opium that it renders migratory the -fancy. An ebon evidence of this was to be given at number Nineteen. The -I love of the Doc became, as it were, pipe-deflected, and one day left -Lulu, and, after a deal of fond circling, settled like some errant dove -upon a rival belle called May. - -Likewise, there was a dangerous side to this dulcet, new situation. The -enchanting May, when the Doc chose her for his goddess, vice Lulu thrown -down, could not be described as altogether disengaged. Was she not also -the goddess of Jackeen? Had not that earnest safe-robber laid his heart -at her feet? - -Moreover, there were reasons even more substantial. The gentle May was -in her way a breadwinner. When the fortunes of Jackeen were low, she -became their mutual meal-ticket. May was the most expert shoplifter in -all of broad New York. If not upon heart arguments, then upon arguments -of the pocket, not to say stomach, Jackeen might be expected to fiercely -resent any effort to win her love away. - -Jackeen? - -Not much is to be told by an appearance, although physiognomists have -sung otherwise. The egg of the eagle is less impressive than the egg of: -the goose. And yet it hotly houses in its heart an' eagle. The egg of -the nightingale shows but-meanly side by side with the egg of the crow. -And: yet it hides within its modest bosom the limpid music of the moon. - -So it is with men. - -Jackeen was not an imposing personality. But neither is the tarantula. -He was five feet and an inch in stunted stature, and weighed a mean -shadow under one hundred and ten pounds. Like the Doc--who had stolen -his love away--Jackeen's hollow cheeks were of that pasty gray which -speaks of opium. Also, from opium, the pupils of his vermin eyes -had become as the points of two dull pins. Shrivelled, degenerate, a -tattered rag of humanity, Jackeen was none the less a perilous spirit, -and so the Doc--too late--would learn. - -From that Eden at Nineteen Catherine Street, the fair Lulu had been put -into the street. This was to make pleasant room for the visits of the -fairer May. Jackeen was untroubled, knowing nothing about it. He was for -the moment too wholly engaged, being in the throes of a campaign against -the Savoy theatre safe, from which strongbox he looked forward to a -harvest of thousands. - -The desolate Lulu went everywhere seeking Jackeen, to tell him of his -wrongs. Her search was vain; those plans touching the Savoy safe had -withdrawn him from his accustomed haunts. One night, however, the safe -was blown and plundered. Alas and alack! Jackeen's share, from those -hoped-for thousands, dwindled to a paltry sixty dollars--not enough for -a single spree! - -In his resentment, Jackeen, with the aid of a bevy of friends, -hastily stuck-up a wayfarer, whom he met in Division Street. The -wayfarer's pockets proved empty. It was even more of a waterhaul than -had been the Savoy safe. The double disappointment turned Jackeen's -mood to gall and it was while his humor was thus bilious that he one day -walked into the Chatham Club. - -There was a distinguished company gathered at the Chatham Club. Nannie -Miller, Blinky the Lob-bygow, Dago Angelo, Roxie, Jimida, Johnny Rice, -Stagger, Jimmy Foy, and St. Louis Bill--all were there. And these were -but a handful of what high examples sat about the Chatham Club, and with -calls for beer, and still more beer, kept Nigger Mike and his assistants -on the joyful jump. - -When Jackeen came in, Mike greeted him warmly, and placed a chair next -to that of Johnny Rice. Conversation broke out concerning the dead -and departed Kid Twist. While Twist was an Eastman and an enemy of -Roxie--himself of the Five Points--the latter was no less moved to speak -in highest terms of him. He defended this softness by remarking: - -"Twist's dead, see! An' once a guy's been put to bed wit' a shovel, if -youse can't speak well of him youse had better can gabbin' about him -altogether. Them's my sentiments." - -Dago Angelo, who had been a friend of the vanished Twist, applauded -this, and ordered beer. - -Twist--according to the veracious Roxie--had not been wanting in -brilliancy as a Captain of Industry. He had showed himself ingenious -when he took his poolroom into the Hatmakers' Union, as a safeguard -against raids by the police. - -Upon another occasion, strictly commercial--so said Roxie--Twist had -displayed a generalship which would have glorified a Rockefeller. -Baby Flax, named for the soft innocuousness of his countenance, kept -a grogshop in Houston Street. One quiet afternoon Twist abruptly broke -that cherubic publican's windows, mirrors, glasses, bottles. - -Lighting a cigar, Twist stood in the midst of that ruin undismayed. - -"What's up?" demanded the policeman, who came hot-foot to the scene. - -"Well," vouchsafed Twist, between puffs, "there's a party chases in, -smashes things, an' then beats it up the street wit'out sayin' a woid." - -The policeman looked at Baby Flax. - -"It's straight," chattered that ill-used proprietor, who, with the -dangerous eye of Twist upon him, wouldn't have told the truth for gold -and precious stones. - -"What started youse, Twist?" asked a friend. - -"It's this way," explained Twist. "I'm introducin' a celery -bitters--because there's cush in it. I goes into Baby Flax's an' asks -him to buy. He hands me out a 'No!' So I ups an' puts his joint on the -bum. After this, when I come into a dump, they'll buy me bitters, see! -Sure, I cops an order for two cases from Flax before I leaves." - -Leaving Twist to sleep in peace, and by way of turning the laugh on that -gentleman, Roxie related an adventure with Nigger Mike. It was when that -sub-chief of the Eastmans kept at number Twelve Pell, by word of the -vivacious Roxie, he, with certain roysterers belonging to the Five -Points, had gone to Mike's to drink beer. They were the foe. But no -less he served them, as he was doing now, for such was and is the bland -etiquette of the gangs. - -One o'clock struck, and Mike locked his door. Key turned, the beer -flowed on unchecked. - -At half after one, when Mike himself was a law-breaker under the excise -statute by full thirty criminal minutes, Roxie with his Five Points -merrymakers arose, beat up Mike and his few retainers, skinned the -damper for fifty bones, and departed singing songs of victory. - -Mike was powerless. - -As was well said by Roxie: "W'at could he do? If he makes a roar to th' -cops for us puttin' his joint in th' air, we'd have whipped one over on -him for bein' open after hours." - -Mike laughed with the rest at Roxie's reminiscence. It was of another -day. - -"W'at's th' matter wit' your mouth, Mike?" asked St. Louis Bill, for -there was a lisping queerness, not only about Mike's talk, but about his -laugh. - -Nigger Mike proceeded to lay bare the causes of that queerness. While -engaged in a joint debate--years ago, it was--with a gentleman given as -much to sudden petulances as to positive views, he had lost three of his -teeth. Their place had been artifically but not artistically supplied. - -"An' lately they've been feelin' funny," explained Mike, alluding to the -supplemental teeth, "an' I toins 'em over to th' Doc to fix. That guy -who made 'em for me foist must have been a bum dentist. An' at that, -w'at do you t'ink he charges? I'm a Dutchman if he don't lash me to th' -mast for forty bucks! He says th' gold plate is wort' twenty." - -"Well, Mike," said Nannie Miller, who'd been listening, "I don't want -to make you sore, but on the level you talk like your mouth is full of -mush. I'd make th' Doc come through wit' 'em as soon as I could." - -"He says he'll bring 'em in to-morry," returned Mike. - -"It's ten to one you don't see 'em for a week," declared the pessimistic -St. Louis Bill. "Youse can't tell nothin' about them hop-heads. They say -'to-morry' when they mean next year." - -St. Louis Bill, being virtuously superior to opium, never lost a chance -to speak scornfully of those who couldn't make that boast. - -Mike, at the discouraging view expressed, became doleful. "Say," he -observed, "I'd look like a sucker, wouldn't I, if anything happens th' -Doc, an' I don't get 'em?" - -St. Louis Bill assured Mike that he would indeed look like a sucker, -and re-declared his conviction--based upon certain occult creepings and -crawlings in his bones--that Mike had seen the last of those teeth. - -"Take my steer," said St. Louis Bill in conclusion; "treat them teeth -you gives th' Doc as a dead issue, an' go get measured for some more. -Twenty dollars wort' of gold, you says! It ain't no cinch but the Doc's -hocked 'em for hop." - -"Nothin' to that!" returned Mike, decisively. "Th' Doc's a square guy. -Them teeth is all safe enough. Only, as you says, bein' he hits the -pipe, he may be slow about chasin' in wit' 'em." - -While Nigger Mike and his guests are in talk, run your eye over the -scene. Those citizens of Gangland assembled about the Chatham Club -tables would have made a study, and mayhap a chapter, for Lombroso. -Speaking generally, they are a stunted litter, these gangmen, and seldom -stand taller than five feet four. Their weight wouldn't average one -hundred and twenty pounds. They are apt to run from the onslaught of an -outsider. This is not perhaps from cowardice; but they dislike exertion, -even the exertion of fighting, and unless it be to gain money or spoil, -or a point of honor is involved--as in their duels and gang wars--they -back away from trouble. In their gang battles, or when fighting the -police, their strategy is to lie flat on the ground and shoot. Thus -they save themselves a clubbing, and the chances from hostile lead are -reduced. - -To be sure there are exceptions. Such as Chick Tricker, Ike the Blood, -Big Mike Abrams, Jack Sirocco, the Dropper, and the redoubtable Jimmy -Kelly never fly and always fight. No one ever saw their backs. - -You are inclined to doubt the bloody character of those gang battles. -Why doesn't one hear of them?--you ask. Because the police conceal as -much as may be all word and all sign of them. For the public to know -might get the police criticized, and they are granted enough of that -without inviting it through any foolish frankness. The hospitals, -however, will tell you of a weekly average of fifty patients, suffering -from knife or gun-shot wounds, not to name fractures born of bottles, -bricks and blackjacks. A bottle judiciously wielded, or a beer stein -prudently broken in advance to assure a jagged edge, is no mean weapon -where warriors are many and the fields of battle close. - -While Roxie rattled on, and the others gave interested ear, Jackeen was -commenting in discouraged whispers to Johnny Rice on those twin setbacks -of the Division Street stick-up and the Savoy safe. - -"It looks like nobody's got any dough," replied Rice, in a spirit of -sympathy. "Take me own self. I ain't made a touch youse could call a -touch, for a mont' of Sundays. Me rag, Josie, an' I was chin-nin' about -it on'y last night, an' Josie herself says she never sees th' town so -dead." - -"It's somethin' fierce!" returned Jackeen, moodily. - -More beer, and a moment of silence. - -"W'at's you' goil May doin'?" asked Rice. - -"She's graftin' a little," responded Jackeen; "but w'at wit' th' stores -full of private dicks a booster can't do much." - -"Well, you can bet May ought to know!" returned Rice. "As a derrick, -she' got the Darby Kid an' the best of 'em beat four ways from th' jack. -She could bring home th' bacon, if any of them hoisters could." - -Then appeared Lulu the houseless--Lulu, the forlorn and outcast Eve of -that Catherine Street Eden! - -Lulu stood a polite moment behind the chair of Jackeen. At a lull in the -talk, she whispered a word in his ear. He looked up, nodded, and then -followed her out into Doyers Street. - -"It's this way," said Lulu. "May's copped th' Doc from me, see! An' -she's givin' you the cross, Jackeen. You ought to hand her out a good -heatin'. She's over hittin' the pipe wit' th' Doc right now." - -"G'wan!" came jealously from Jackeen. - -"Honest! You come wit' me to number Nineteen, an' I'll show youse." - -Jackeen paused as though weighing the pros and cons. - -"Let me go get Ricey," he said at last. "He's got a good nut, an' I'll -put th' play up to him." - -"All right," responded Lulu, impatient in her desolation; "but get a -move on! I've wised you; an' now, if you're any good at all, you'll -take May out of number Nineteen be th' mop. W'at license has she, or any -other skirt for that matter, got to do me out of me Doc?" - -The last ended in a howl. - -Leaving Lulu in the midst of her complaints, Jackeen wheeled back into -the Chatham Club for a word with Rice. Even during his absence, a change -had come over the company. He found Rice, St. Louis Bill and Nannie -Miller, holding anxious confab with a ratfaced person who had just come -in. - -"See here, Jackeen," said St. Louis Bill in an excited whisper, "there's -been a rap about that Savoy safe trick, an' th' bulls are right now -lookin' for th' whole mob. They say it's us, too, who put that rube in -the air over in Division Street." - -"An' th' question is," broke in Nannie Miller, who was quick to act, "do -we stand pat, or do we do a lammister?" - -"There's on'y one answer to that," said St. Louis Bill. "For my end of -it I'm goin' to lamm." - -Jackeen had May and his heart troubles upon the back of his regard. -Still he heard; and he arrived at a decision. He would run--yes; -for flight was preferable to four stone walls. But he must have -revenge--revenge upon the Doc and May. - -"Wit' th' bulls after me, an' me away, it 'ud be comin' too soft for -'em," thought Jackeen. - -"W'at do youse say?" asked St. Louis Bill, who was getting nervous. - -"How did youse get the woid?" demanded Jackeen, turning upon Ratface. It -was he who had brought the warning. - -"I'm a stool for one of the bulls," replied Ratface, "an' it's him tells -me you blokes is wanted, see!" - -"So you're stoolin' for a Central Office cop?" - -Jackeen's manner was fraught with suspicion. "How do we know you're -givin' us th' correct dope?" - -"Miller knows me," returned Ratface, "an' so does Bill. They'll tell -youse I'm a right guy. That stool thing is only a stall. I gets more out -of the bull than he gets out of me. Sure; I give him a dead one now an' -then, just be way of puttin' in a prop for meself. But not youse;--w'en -it's any of me friends I puts 'em hep, see!" - -"Do you sign for this duck?" demanded Jackeen of St. Louis Bill. "He's a -new one on me." - -"Take it from me, he's all right," said St. Louis Bill, decisively. -"Why, you ought to know him, Jackeen. He joined out wit' that mob of -gons Goldie Louie took to Syracuse last fall. He's no farmer, neither; -Ricey there ain't got nothin' on him as a tool." - -This endorsement of Ratface settled all doubt. Jackeen's mind was made -up. Addressing the others, he said: - -"Fade's the woid! I'll meet youse over in Hoboken to-night at Beansey's. -Better make th' ferry one at a time." - -"W'at do youse want to wait till night for?" asked Nannie Miller. "Th' -foist t'ing you know you'll get th' collar." - -"I'm goin' to take the chance, though," retorted Jackeen. "It's some -private business of me own. An' say"--looking at Rice--"I want a pal. -Will youse stick, Ricey?" - -"Sure, Mike!" said Rice, who had nerve and knew how to be loyal. - -Thus it was adjusted. Ratface went his way, to exercise his gifts -of mendacity upon his Central Office principal, while the others -scattered--all save Jackeen and Rice. - -Jackeen gave his faithful friend the story of his wrongs. - -"I wouldn't have thought it of the Doc," was the pensive comment of -Rice. He had exalted the Doc, because of his book learning, and groaned -to see his idol fall. "No, I wouldn't have guessed it of him! Of course, -it's different wit' a doll. They'd double-cross their own mothers." - -Over in Catherine Street at number Nineteen the Doc was teaching May how -to cook opium. The result fell below the Doc's elevated notions. - -"You aren't to be compared with Lulu," he complained, as he trimmed the -peanut-oil lamp. "All Chinatown couldn't show Lulu's equal for cooking -hop. She had a genius for it." - -The Doc took the needle from May, and cooked for himself. May looked -discouraged and hurt. - -"It's all right," said the Doc, dreamily, replying to the look of -injury. "You'll get it right in time, dear. Only, of course, you'll -never quite equal Lulu; that would be impossible." - -The Doc twirled the little ball of opium in the flame of the lamp, -watching the color as it changed. May looked on as upon the labors of a -master. - -"I'll smoke a couple of pipes," vouchsafed the Doc; "then I must get -to work on Nigger Mike's, teeth. Mike's a good fellow; they're all -good fellows over at the Chatham Club," and the Doc sank back upon the -pallet. - -There was the sound of someone in the hall. Then came those calmative -four rings and four taps. - -"That's Mike now," said the Doc, his eyes half closed. "Let him in; I -suppose he's come for his teeth. I'll have to give him a stand-off. -Mike ought to have two sets of teeth. Then he could wear the one while -I'm fixing the other. It's a good idea; I'll tell him." - -May, warned by some instinct, opened the door but a timorous inch. What -she saw did not inspire confidence, and she tried with all her little -strength to close and bolt it. - -Too late! - -The door was flung inward, and Jackeen, followed by Rice, entered the -room. They paid no heed to the opium fumes; almost stifling they were, -but Jackeen and Rice had long been used to them. - -May gazed at Jackeen like one planet-struck. The Doc, moveless on the -pallet, hardly raised his opium-weighted lids. - -"This is a fine game I'm gettin'!" - -Jackeen sneered out the words. The Doc pulled tranquilly at his pipe; -while May stood voiceless, staring with scared eyes. - -"I'd ought to peg a bullet into you," continued Jackeen, addressing May. - -He had drawn his heavy gun. May stood as if the sight of the weapon had -frozen her. Jackeen brought it down on her temple. The Doc never moved. -Peace--the peace of the poppy--was on his brow and in his heart. May -fell to the floor, her face a-reek with blood. - -"Now you've got yours!" said Jackeen. - -May struggled unsteadily to her feet, and began groping for the door. - -"That ought to do youse till I get back," was Jackeen's good-by. "You'll -need a few stitches for that." - -Unruffled, untroubled, the Doc drew blandly at the mouthpiece of the -pipe. - -Jackeen surveyed him. - -"Go on!" cried Rice; "hand it to him, if you're goin' to!" - -Rice was becoming fretted. He hadn't Jackeen's sustaining interest. -Besides, he was thinking of that word from the Central Office, and how -much safer he would be with Beansey, on the Hoboken side of the Hudson. - -Jackeen took a step nearer. The Doc smiled, eyes just showing through -the dreamy lids. - -"Turn it loose!" cried Rice. - -The gun exploded five times, and five bullets ploughed their way into -the Doc's body. - -Not a cry, not a movement! The bland, pleased smile never left the -sallow face. With his mouth to the pipestem, the Doc dreamed on. - -In the street, Jackeen and Rice passed Lulu. As they brushed by her, -Rice fell back a pace and whispered: - -"He croaked th' Doc." - -Lulu gave a gulping cry and hurried on. - -"Is that you, Lulu?" asked the Doc, his drug-uplifted soul untouched, -untroubled by what had passed, and what would come. Still, he must have -dimly known; for his next words, softly spoken, were: "I'm sorry about -Mike's teeth! Cook me a pill, dear; I want one last good smoke." - - - - -VII.--LEONI THE TROUBLE MAKER - - -It was a perfect day for a funeral. The thin October air had in it a -half-chill, like the cutting edge of the coming winter, still six weeks -away. The leaves, crisp and brown from early frosts, seemed to rustle -approval of the mournful completeness of things. - -Florists' shops had been ransacked, greenhouses laid waste, the leading -carriages were moving jungles of blossoms. It was magnificent, and -as the procession wound its slow way into Calvary, the heart of the -undertaker swelled with pride. Not that he was justified; the glory -was the glory of Paper-Box Johnny, who stood back of all this gloomy -splendor with his purse. - -"Remember," was Paper-Box's word to the undertaker, "I'm no piker, an' -neither was Phil; so wade in wit' th' bridle off, an' make th' spiel -same as if you was buryin' yourself." - -Thus exhorted, and knowing the solvency of Paper-Box, the undertaker had -no more than broken even with his responsibilities. - -Later, Paper-Box became smitten of concern because he hadn't thought to -hire a brass band. A brass band, he argued, breathing Chopin's Funeral -March, would have given the business a last artistic touch. - -"I'd ought to have me nut caved in for forget-tin' it," he declared; -"but Phil bein' croaked like he was, got me rattled. I'm all in th' air -right now! Me head won't be on straight ag'in for a mont'." - -In the face of Paper-Box's self-condemnation, ones expert in those -sorrowful matters of crape and immortelles, averred that the funeral was -a credit to Casey, and regrets were expressed that the bullet in that -dead hero's brain forbade his sitting up in the hearse and enjoying what -was being done in his honor. - -As the first shovelful of earth awoke the hollow responses of the -coffin, there occurred what story writers are fond of describing as a -dramatic incident. As though the hollow coffin-note had been the dead -voice of Casey calling, Dago Frankie knelt at the edge of the grave. -Lifting his hands to heaven, he vowed to shed without mercy the blood of -Goldie Louie and Brother Bill Orr, on sight. The vow was well received -by the uncovered ring of mourners, and no one doubted but Casey's -eternal slumbers would be the sounder for it. - -In the beginning, she went by the name of Leoni; the same being -subsequently lengthened, for good and sufficient reasons, to Leoni the -Trouble Maker. As against this, however, her monaker, with the addition, -"Badger," as written upon her picture--gallery number 7409--to be found -in that interesting art collection maintained by the police, was given -as Mabel Grey. - -Leoni--according to Detective Biddinger of that city's Central -Office--was born in Chicago, upon a spot not distant from the banks of -the classic Drainage Canal. She came to New York, and began attracting -police attention about eight years ago. In those days, radiant as a -star, face of innocent beauty, her affections were given to an eminent -pickpocket known and dreaded as Crazy Barry, and it was the dance she -led that bird-headed person's unsettled destinies which won her the _nom -de cour_ of Trouble Maker. - -It was unfortunate, perhaps, since it led to many grievous -complications, that Leoni's love lacked every quality of the permanent. -Hot, fierce, it resembled in its intensity a fire in a lumber yard. -Also, like a fire in a lumber yard, it soon burned itself out. Her heart -was as the heart of a wild goose, and wondrous migratory. - -Having loved Crazy Barry for a space, Leoni turned cool, then cold, then -fell away from him altogether. At this, Crazy Barry, himself a volcano -of sensibility, with none of Leoni's saving genius to grow cold, waxed -wroth and chafed. - -While in this mixed and storm-tossed humor, he came upon Leoni in the -company of a fellow gonoph known as McTafife. In testimony of what -hell-pangs were tearing at his soul, Crazy Barry fell upon McTaffe, and -cut him into red ribbons with a knife. He would have cut his throat, and -spoke of doing so, but was prevailed upon to refrain by Kid Jacobs, who -pointed out the electrocutionary inconveniences sure to follow such a -ceremony. - -"They'd slam youse in th' chair, sure!" was the sober-headed way that -Jacobs put it. - -Crazy Barry, one hand in McTafife's hair, had drawn the latter's head -across his knee, the better to attend to the throat-cutting. Convinced, -however, by the words of Jacobs, he let the head, throat all unslashed, -fall heavily to the floor. After which, first wiping the blood from -his knife on McTafife's coat--for he had an instinct to be neat--he -lam-mistered for parts unknown, while McTafife was conveyed to the New -York Hospital. This chanced in the Sixth Avenue temple of entertainment -kept by the late Paddy the Pig. - -Once out of the hospital and into the street, McTafife and the fair -Leoni found no trouble in being all the world to one another. Crazy -Barry was a thing of the past and, since the Central Office dicks wanted -him, likely to remain so. - -McTafife was of the swell mob. He worked with Goldie Louie, Fog-eye -Howard and Brother Bill Orr. Ask any Central Office bull, half learned -in his trade of crook-catcher, and he'll tell you that these names are -of a pick-purse peerage. McTaffe himself was the stinger, and personally -pinched the poke, or flimped the thimble, or sprung the prop, of -whatever boob was being trimmed. The others, every one a star, were -proud to act as his stalls; and that, more than any Central Office -assurance, should show how near the top was McTaffe in gonoph -estimation. - -Every profession has its drawbacks, and that of picking pockets -possesses several. For one irritating element, it is apt to take the -practitioner out of town for weeks on end. Some sucker puts up a roar, -perhaps, and excites the assiduities of the police; or there is a prize -fight at Reno, or a World's Fair at St. Louis, or a political convention -at Chicago, or a crowd-gathering tour by some notable like Mr. Roosevelt -or Mr. Taft, which gives such promise of profit that it is not to be -refused. Thus it befell that McTaffe, with his mob, was greatly abroad -in the land, leaving Leoni deserted and alone. - -Once McTaffe remained away so long that it caused Leoni uneasiness, if -not alarm. - -"Mack's fell for something," was the way she set forth her fears to -Big Kitty: "You can gamble he's in hock somewheres, or I'd have got the -office from him by wire or letter long ago." - -When McTaffe at last came back, his face exhibited pain and defeat. He -related how the mob had been caught in a jam in Chihuahua, and Goldie -Louie lagged. - -"The rest of the fleet managed to make a getaway," said McTaffe, "all -but poor Goldie. Those Greasers have got him right, too; he's cinched -to do a couple of spaces sure. When I reached El Paso, I slimmed me roll -for five hundred bucks, an' hired him a mouthpiece. But what good is a -mouthpiece when there ain't the shadow of a chance to spring him?" - -"So Goldie got a rumble, did he?" said Leoni, with a half sigh. - -Her tones were pensive to the verge of tears; since her love for Goldie -was almost if not quite equal to the love she bore McTaffe. - -Goldie Louie lay caged in the Chihuahua calaboose, and Sanky Dunn -joined out with McTaffe and the others in his place. With forces thus -reorganized, McTaffe took up the burdens of life again, and--here one -day and gone the next--existence for himself and Leoni returned to -old-time lines. - -Leoni met Casey. With smooth, dark, handsome face, Casey was the -superior in looks of either McTaffe or Goldie Louie. Also, he had fame -as a gun-fighter, and for a rock-like steadiness under fire. He was -credited, too, by popular voice, with having been busy in the stirring, -near vicinity of events, when divers gentlemen got bumped off. This had -in it a fascination for Leoni, who--as have the ladies of every age and -clime--dearly loved a warrior. Moreover, Casey had money, and, unlike -those others, he was always on the job. This last was important to -Leoni, who at any moment might find herself at issue with the powers, -and Casey, because of his political position, could speak to the judge. - -Leoni loved Casey, even as she had aforetime loved McTaffe, Goldie Louie -and Crazy Barry. True, Casey owned a wife. But there arose nothing in -his conduct to indicate it; and since he was too much of a gentleman to -let it get in any one's way, Leoni herself was so generous as to treat -it as a technicality. - -McTaffe and his mob returned from a losing expedition through the West. -Leoni asked as to results. - -"Why," explained McTaffe, sulkily, "th' trip was not only a waterhaul, -but it leaves me on the nut for twelve hundred bones." - -McTaffe turned his pockets inside out, by way of corroboration. - -While thus irritated because of that financial setback, McTaffe heard -of Leoni's blushing nearness to Casey. It was the moment of all moments -when he was least able to bear the blow with philosophy. - -And McTaffe stormed. Going farther, and by way of corrective climax, he -knocked Leoni down with a club. After which--according to eye-witnesses, -who spoke without prejudice--he proceeded to beat her up for fair. - -Leoni told her adventures to Casey, and showed him what a harvest of -bruises her love for him had garnered. Casey, who hadn't been born and -brought up in Mulberry Bend to become a leading light of Gangland for -nothing, took his gun and issued forth on the trail of McTaffe. McTaffe -left town. Also, that he didn't take his mob with him proved that -not graft, but fear of Casey, was the bug beneath the chip of his -disappearance. - -"He's sherried," Casey told Leoni, when that ill-used beauty asked if he -had avenged her bruises. "But he'll blow in ag'in; an' when he does I'll -cook him." - -Goldie Louie came up from Chihuahua, his yellow hair shot with gray, -the prison pallor in the starved hollows of his cheeks. Mexicans are -the most merciless of jailers. Fog-eye Howard, who was nothing if not -a gossip, wised him up as to Leoni's love for Casey. In that connection -Fog-eye related how McTaffe, having rebuked Leoni's heart wanderings -with that convincing club, had now become a fugitive from Casey's gun. - -Having heard Fog-eye to the end, Goldie faithfully hunted up Leoni and -wore out a second club on her himself. Again did Leoni creep to Casey -with her woes and her wrongs, and again did that Knight of Mulberry Bend -gird up his fierce loins to avenge her. - -Let us step rearward a pace. - -After the Committee of Fourteen, in its uneasy purities, had caused -Chick Tricker's Park Row license to be revoked, Tricker, seeking a -livelihood, became the owner of the Stag in Twenty-eighth Street, just -off Broadway. That license revocation had been a financial jolt, and -now in new quarters, with Berlin Auggy, whom he had brought with him -as partner, he was striving, in every way not likely to invoke police -interference to re-establish his prostrate destiny. - -It was the evening next after the one upon which Goldie Louie, following -the example of the vanished McTaffe, had expressed club-wise his -disapproval of Leoni's love for Casey. The Stag was a riot of life and -light and laughter; music and conversation and drink prevailed. In the -rear room--fenced off from the bar by swinging doors--was Goldie Louie, -together with Fog-eye Howard, Brother Bill Orr and Sanky Dunn. There, -too, Whitey Dutch was entertaining certain of the choicest among the -Five Pointers. Scattered here and there were Little Red, the Baltimore -Rat, Louis Buck, Stager Bennett, Jack Cohalan, the Humble Dutchman, and -others of renown in the grimy chivalry of crime. There were fair ones, -too, and the silken sex found dulcet representation in such unchallenged -belles as Pretty Agnes, Jew Yetta, Dutch Ida, and Anna Gold. True, an -artist in womanly beauty might have found defects in each of these. And -if so? Venus had a mole on her cheek, Helen a scar on her chin. - -Tricker was not with his guests at the Stag that night. His father -had been reported sick, and Tricker was in filial attendance at the -Fourteenth Street bedside of his stricken sire. In his absence, Auggy -took charge, and under his genial management beer flowed, coin came in, -and all Stag things went moving merrily. - -Whitey Dutch, speaking to Stagger Bennett concerning Pioggi, aforetime -put away in the Elmira Reformatory for the Coney Island killing of -Cyclone Louie and Kid Twist, made quite a tale of how Pioggi, having -served his time, had again shown up in town. Whitey mentioned, as a -matter for general congratulation, that Pioggi's Elmira experience had -not robbed him of his right to vote, as would have been the blighting -case had he gone to Sing Sing. - -"There's nothing in that disfranchisement thing, anyhow," grumbled -the Humble Dutchman, who sat sourly listening. "I've been up th' -river twict, an' I've voted a dozen times every election since. Them -law-makin' stiffs is goin' to take your vote away! Say, that gives me a -pain!" - -The Humble Dutchman got off the last in tones of supreme contempt. - -Grouped around a table near the center, and under convoy of a Central -Office representative who performed towards them in the triple role of -guide, philosopher and friend, were gathered a half dozen Fifth Avenue -males and females, all members in good standing of the Purple and -Fine Linen Gang. Auggy, in the absence of Tricker, had received them -graciously, pressed cigars and drinks upon them, declining the while -their proffered money of the realm in a manner composite of suavity and -princely ease. - -"It's an honor, loides an' gents," said Auggy, "merely to see your maps -in the Stag at all. As for th' booze an' smokes, they're on th' house. -Your dough don't go here, see!" - -The Purple and Fine Linen contingent called their visit slumming. If -they could have heard what Auggy, despite his beaming smiles and royal -liberality touching those refreshments, called both them and their -visit, after they had left, it might have set their patrician ears -afire. - -Having done the Stag, and seen and heard and misunderstood things to -their slumming souls' content, the Purple and Fine Linen Gang said -goodbye. They must drop in--they explained--at the Haymarket, just -around the corner in Sixth Avenue. Auggy invited them to come again, but -was visibly relieved once they had gone their slumming way. - -"I was afraid every minute some duck'd start something," said Auggy, -"an' of course if anything did break loose--any little t'ing, if it -ain't no more than soakin' some dub in th' jaw--one of them Fift' Avenoo -dames's 'ud be bound to t'row a fit." - -"Say!" broke in Anna Gold resentfully; "it's somethin' fierce th' way -them high s'ciety fairies comes buttin' in on us. W'at do they think -they're tryin' to give us, anyway? For th' price of a beer, I'd have -snatched one of them baby-dolls baldheaded. I'd have nailed her be th' -mop; an' w'en I'd got t'rough doin' stunts wit' her, she wouldn't have -had to tell no one she'd been slummin'." - -"Now, forget it!" interposed Auggy warningly. "You go reachin' for any -skirt's puffs round here, an' it'll be the hurry-up wagon at a gallop -an' you for the cooler, Anna. The Stag's a quiet joint, an' that -rough-house stuff don't go. Chick won't stand for no one to get hoited." - -"Oh, Chick won't stand for no one to get hoited!" retorted the acrid -Anna, in mighty dudgeon. "An' the Stag's a quiet joint! Why, it ain't -six weeks since a guy pulls a cannister in this very room, an' shoots -Joe Rocks full of holes. You helps take him to the hospital yourself." - -"Cut out that Joe Rocks stuff," commanded Aug-gy, with vast heat, "or -you'll hit the street on your frizzes--don't make no mistake!" - -Observing the stormy slant the talk was taking, Whitey Dutch -diplomatically ordered beer, and thus put an end to debate. It was a -move full of wisdom. Auggy was made nervous by the absence of Tricker, -and Anna the Voluble, on many a field, had shown herself a lady of -spirit. - -While the evening at the Stag thus went happily wearing towards the -smaller hours, over in Twenty-ninth Street, a block away, the stuss -game of Casey and Paper-Box Johnny was in full and profitable blast. -Paper-Box himself was in active charge. Casey had for the moment -abandoned business and every thought of it. Leoni had just informed -him of those visitations at the hands of Goldie Louie, and set him to -thinking on other things than cards. - -"An' he says," concluded Leoni, preparing to go, "after he's beat me -half to death, 'now chase 'round an' tell your Dago friend, Casey, that -my monaker ain't McTaffe, an' that if he starts to hand me anythin', -I'll put him down in Bellevue for the count.'" - -The dark face of Casey displayed both anger and resolution. He made -neither threat nor comment, but his eyes were full of somber fires. -Leoni departed with an avowed purpose of subjecting her injuries to the -curative effects of arnica, while Casey continued to gloom and glower, -drinking deeply the while to take the edge off his feelings. - -Harry Lemmy, a once promising prize-fighter of the welter-weight -variety, showed up. Also, he had no more than settled to the drink, -which Casey--whom the wrongs of his idolized Leoni could not render -unmindful of the claims of hospitality--had ordered, when Jack Kenny and -Charlie Young appeared. - -The latter, not alive to the fatal importance of such news, spoke of the -Stag, which he had left but the moment before, and of the presence there -of Goldie Louie. - -"McTaffe's stalls, Fog-eye, Brother Bill an' Sanky Dunn, are lushin' -wit' him," said Young. "You know Sanky filled in wit' th' mob th' time -Goldie gets settled in Mexico." - -Goldie Louie, only a block away, set the torch to Casey's heart. - -"Where's Dago Frankie?" he asked. - -Dago Frankie was his nearest and most trusted friend. - -"He's over in Sixt' Avenoo shootin' craps," replied Lemmy. "Shall I go -dig him up?" - -"It don't matter," said Casey, after a moment's thought. Then, getting -up from his chair, he inquired, "Have you guys got your cannons?" - -"Sure t'ing!" came the general chorus, with a closer from Kenny. - -"I've got two," he said. "A sport might get along wit'out a change of -shoits in Noo York, but he never ought to be wit'out a change of guns." - -"W'at's on, Phil?" asked Charlie Young, anxiously, as Casey pulled a -magazine pistol, and carefully made sure that its stomach was full of -cartridges; "w'at's on?" - -"I'm goin' over to the Stag," replied Casey. "If you ducks'll listen -you'll hear a dog howl in about a minute." - -"We'll not only listen, but we'll go 'long," returned Young. - -Lemmy and Kenny fell behind the ethers. "W'at's th' muss?" whispered -Lemmy. - -"It's Leoni," explained Kenny guardedly. "Goldie give her a wallop or -two last night, an' Phil's goin' to do him for it." - -Casey strode into the Stag, his bosom a storm-center for every black -emotion. The sophisticated Auggy smelled instant trouble on him, as one -smells fire in a house. Bending over the friendly shoulder of Whitey -Dutch, Auggy spoke in a low tone of warning. - -"There's Phil Casey," he said, "an' t'ree of his bunch. It's apples to -ashes he's gunnin' for Goldie. If Chick were here, now, he'd somehow put -the smother on him." - -"Give him a call-down your own self," was Whitey's counsel. "W'at with -Chick's license bein' revoked in Park Row, an' Joe Rocks goin' to the -hospital from here only a little over a mont' ago, the least bit -of cannonadin' 's bound to put th' joint in Dutch all the way from -headquarters to the State excise dubs in Albany." - -"I know it," returned Auggy, in great trouble of mind. "If a gun so much -as cracks once, it'll be th' fare-you-well of the Stag." - -"Well, w'at do youse say?" demanded the loyal Whitey. "I'm wit' youse, -an' I'm wit' Chick, an' I'm wit' Goldie. Give th' woid, an' I'll pull in -a harness bull from off his beat." - -"No, none of that! Chick'd sooner burn the joint than call a cop." - -"I'll go give Casey a chin," said Whitey, "meb-by I can hold him down. -You put Goldie wise. Tell him to keep his lamps on Casey, an' if Casey -reaches for his gatt to beat him to it." - -Casey the decisive moved swiftly, however, and the proposed peace -intervention failed for being too slow. Casey got a glimpse of Goldie -through the separating screen doors. It was all he wanted. The next -moment he had charged through. - -Chairs crashed, tables were overthrown, women shrieked and men cursed. -Twenty guns were out. Casey fired six times at Goldie Louie, and six -times missed that lucky meddler with other people's pocket-books. Not -that Casey's efforts were altogether thrown away. His first bullet -lodged in the stomach of Fog-eye, while his third broke the arm of -Brother Bill. - -Whitey Dutch reached Casey as the latter began his artillery practice, -and sought by word and moderate force to induce a truce. Losing -patience, however, Whitey, as Casey fired his final shot, pulled his own -gun and put a bullet through and through that berserk's head. As Casey -fell forward, a second bullet--coming from anywhere--buried itself in -his back. - -"By the Lord, I've croaked Phil!" was the exclamation of Whitey, -addressed to no one in particular. - -They were Whitey's last words; some one shoved the muzzle of a gun -against his temple, and he fell by the side of Casey. - -No sure list of dead and wounded for that evening's battle of the Stag -will ever be compiled. The guests scattered like a flock of blackbirds. -Some fled limping and groaning, others nursing an injured arm, while -three or four, too badly hurt to travel, were dragged into nooks of -safety by friends who'd come through untouched. There was blood to the -east, blood to the west, on the Twenty-eighth Street pavements, and a -wounded gentleman was picked up in Broadway, two blocks away. The -wounded one, full of a fine prudence and adhering strictly to gang -teachings, declared that the bullet which had struck him was a bullet of -mystery. Also, he gave his word of honor that, personally, he had never -once heard of the Stag. - -When the police reached the field of battle--wearing the ill-used airs -of folk who had been unwarrantably disturbed--they found Casey and -Whitey Dutch dead on the floor, and Fog-eye groaning in a corner. To -these--counting the injured Brother Bill and the prudent one picked up -in Broadway, finally identified as Sanky Dunn--rumor added two dead and -eleven wounded. - -Leoni? - -The Central Office dicks who met that lamp of loveliness the other -evening in Broadway reported her as in abundant spirits, and more -beautiful than ever. She had received a letter from McTaffe, she said, -who sent his love, and her eyes shone like twin stars because of the joy -she felt. - -"Mack always had a good heart," said Leoni. - -Paper-Box Johnny--all in tears--bore sorrowful word of her loss to Mrs. -Casey, calling that matron from her slumbers to receive it. Paper-Box -managed delicately. - -"It's time to dig up black!" sobbed Paper-Box; "they've copped Phil. - -"Copped Phil?" repeated Mrs. Casey, sleepily. "Where is he?" - -"On a slab in the morgue. Youse'd better chase yourself over." - -"All right," returned Mrs. Casey, making ready to go back to bed, "I -will after awhile." - - - - -VIII. THE WAGES OF THE SNITCH - - -Knowledge is power, and power is a good thing, as you yourself well -know. Since Eve opened the way, and she and Adam paid the price--a high -one, I sometimes think--you are entitled to every kind of knowledge. -Also, you are entitled to all that you can get. - -But having acquired knowledge, you are not entitled to peddle it out in -secret to Central Office bulls, at a cost of liberty and often life to -other men. When you do that you are a snitch, and have thrown away your -right to live. Anyone is free to kill you out of hand, having regard -only to his own safety. For such is the common law of Gangland. - -Let me ladle out a cautionary spoonful. - -As you go about accumulating knowledge, you should fix your eye upon -one or two great truths. You must never forget that when you are close -enough to see a man you are close enough to be seen. It is likewise -foolish, weakly foolish, to assume that you are the only gas jet in -the chandelier, the only pebble on the beach, or possess the only kodak -throughout the entire length of the boardwalk. Bear ever in mind that -while you are getting the picture of some other fellow, he in all human -chance is snapping yours. - -This last is not so much by virtue of any law of Gangland as by a law of -nature. Its purpose is to preserve that equilibrium, wanting which, -the universe itself would slip into chaos and the music of the spheres -become but the rawest tuning of the elemental instruments. The stars -would no longer sing together, but shriek together, and space itself -would be driven to stop its ears. Folk who fail to carry these grave -matters upon the constant shoulder of their regard, get into trouble. - -At Gouverneur hospital, where he died, the register gave his name as -"Samuel Wendell," and let it go at that. The Central Office, which finds -its profit in amplification, said, "Samuel Wendell, _alias_ Kid Unger, -_alias_ the Ghost," and further identified him as "brother to Johnny the -Mock." - -Samuel Wendell, _alias_ Kid Unger, _alias_ the Ghost, brother to Johnny -the Mock, was not the original Ghost. Until less than two years ago the -title was honorably worn by Mashier, who got twenty spaces for a night -trick he turned in Brooklyn. Since Mashier could not use the name in -Sing Sing, Wendell, _alias_ Kid Unger, brother to Johnny the Mock, -adopted it for his own. It fitted well with his midnight methods and -noiseless, gliding, skulking ways. Moreover, since it was upon his own -sly rap to the bulls, who made the collar, that Mashier got pinched, he -may have felt himself entitled to the name as part of his reward. The -Indian scalps his victim, and upon a similar principle Wendell, -_alias_ Unger, brother to Johnny the Mock, when Mashier was handed that -breath-taking twenty years, may have decided to call himself the Ghost. - -It will never be precisely known how and why and by whose hand the Ghost -was killed, although it is common opinion that Pretty Agnes had much -to do with it. Also, common opinion is more often right than many might -believe. In view of that possible connection with the bumping off of the -Ghost, Pretty Agnes is worth a word. She could not have been called old. -When upon a certain Saturday evening, not remote, she stepped into Jack -Sirocco's in Chatham Square, her years counted fewer than nineteen. -Still, she had seen a good deal--or a bad deal--whichever you prefer. - -Pretty Agnes' father, a longshoreman, had found his bread along the -docks. None better ever-shaped for a boss stevedore, or trotted up a -gangplank with a 280-pound sack of sugar on his back. One day he fell -between the side of a moored ship and the stringpiece of the wharf; and -the ship, being at that moment ground against the wharf by the swell -from a passing steamer, he was crushed. Those who looked on called him a -fool for having been killed in so poor a way. He was too dead to resent -the criticism, and after that his widow, the mother of Pretty Agnes, -took in washing. - -Her mother washed, and Pretty Agnes carried home the clothes. This went -on for three years. One wind-blown afternoon, as the mother was hanging -out clothes on the roof--a high one--and refreshing her energies with -intermittent gin from the bottle of her neighbor, the generous Mrs. -Callahan, she stepped backward down an airshaft. She struck the flags -ten stories below, and left Pretty Agnes to look out for herself. - -Looking out for herself, Pretty Agnes worked in a sweatshop in -Division Street. Here she made three dollars a week and needed five. -The sweatshop owner--for she was a dream of loveliness, with a fog of -blue-black hair and deep brown eyes--offered to make up the lacking two, -and was accepted. - -Round, ripe, willowy, Pretty Agnes graduated from the Division Street -sweatshop to a store in Twenty-third Street. There she served as a cloak -model, making fourteen dollars a week while needing twenty. The -manager of the cloak store was as generous as had been the owner of the -sweatshop, and benevolently made up the absent six. - -For Pretty Agnes was lovelier than ever. - -All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy. Also, it has the same -effect on Jill. Pretty Agnes--she had a trunkful of good clothes and -yearned to show them--went three nights a week to one of those dancing -academies wherewith the East Side was and is rife. As she danced she met -Indian Louie, and lost no time in loving him. - -Having advantage of her love, that seeker after doubtful dollars showed -Pretty Agnes where and how she could make more money than would come -to her as a cloak model in any Twenty-third Street store. Besides, he -jealously disapproved of the benevolent manager, though, all things -considered, it is hard to say why. - -Pretty Agnes, who had grown weary of the manager and to whom Louie's -word was law, threw over both the manager and her cloak-model position. -After which she walked the streets for Louie--as likewise did Mollie -Squint--and, since he often beat her, continued to love him from the -bottom of her heart. - -Between Pretty Agnes and Mollie Squint, Louie lived sumptuously. Nor -could they themselves be said to have altogether suffered; for each knew -how to lick her fingers as a good cook should. Perhaps Louie was -aware that his darlings held out on him, but regarded it as just an -investment. He must have known that to dress well stood first among the -demands of their difficult profession, which was ancient and had been -honorable, albeit in latter days ill spoken of. - -Louie died, and was mourned roundly by Pretty Agnes for eight weeks. -Then she gave her love to Sammy Hart, who was out-on-the-safe. Charlie -Lennard, _alias_ Big Head, worked pal to Sammy Hart, and the Ghost went -with them as outside man and to help in carrying the tools. - -Commonly Sammy and Big Head tackled only inferior safes, in cracking -which nothing nobler nor more recondite than a can-opener was demanded. -Now and then, however, when a first-class box had to be blown and soup -was an absolute requirement, the Ghost came in exceeding handy. No yegg -who ever swung under and traveled from town to town without a ticket, -knew better than did the Ghost how to make soup. - -The soup-making process, while ticklish, ought to be worth reading -about. A cake of dynamite is placed in the cold bottom of a kettle. Warm -water is added, and the kettle set a-simmer over a benzine lamp. As -the water heats, the dynamite melts into oil, and the oil--being -lighter--rises to the top of the water. - -The oil is drawn softly off with a syringe, and as softly discharged -into a bottle half filled with alcohol. The alcohol is to prevent -explosion by jarring. Soup, half oil, half alcohol, can be fired with a -fuse, but will sustain quite a jolt without resenting it. - -This was not true in an elder day, before our box workers discovered -that golden alcoholic secret. There was a yegg once who was half in, -half out, of the window of a P. O. Pie had the bottle of soup in his -hip pocket. The sash fell, struck the consignment of hip-pocket soup, -and all that was found of the yegg were the soles of his shoes. Nothing -so disconcerting would have happened had the Ghost made the soup. - -The Ghost, while believed in by Big Head and Sammy, was distrusted by -Pretty Agnes. She distrusted him because of his bad repute as a snitch. -She called Sammy's attention to what tales were abroad to the black -effect that the Ghost was a copper in his mildewed soul, and one time -and another had served stoolpigeon to many dicks. - -Sammy took no stock in these reports, and told Pretty Agnes so. - -"Th' Ghost's all right," he said; "he's been wit' me an' Big Head when -we toins off twenty joints." - -"He may go wit' you," retorted Pretty Agnes, "for twenty more tricks, -an' never rap. But mark me woids, Sammy; in th' end he'll make a present -of youse to th' bulls." - -Sammy only laughed, holding that the feminine intelligence, while -suspicious, was not a strong intelligence. - -"Well," said Sammy, when he had ceased laughing, "if th' Ghost does -double-cross me, w'at'll youse do?" - -"W'at'll I do? As sure as my monaker is Pretty Agnes, I'll have him -cooked." - -"Good goil!" said Sammy Hart. - -Gangland discusses things social, commercial, political, and freely -forms and gives opinions. From a panic in Wall Street to the making of -a President, nothing comes or goes uncommented upon and unticketed -in Gangland. Even the fashions are threshed out, and sage judgments -rendered concerning frocks and hats and all the latest hints from Paris. -This you can test for yourself, on any evening, at such hubs of popular -interest as Sirocco's, Tony's, Jimmy Kelly's or the Chatham Club. - -Sirocco's was a-swarm with life that Saturday evening when Pretty Agnes -dropped in so casually. At old Jimmy's table they were considering the -steel trust investigation, then proceeding--ex-President Roosevelt had -that day testified--and old Jimmy and the Irish Wop voiced their views, -and gave their feelings vent. Across at Slimmy's the dread doings of a -brace of fair ones, who had excited Coney Island by descending upon that -lively suburb in harem skirts, was under discussion. - -Speaking of the steel trust investigation and its developments, old -Jimmy was unbelting after this wise. Said he, bringing down his hairy -fist with a whack that startled every beer glass on the table into an -upward jump of full three inches: - -"Th' more I read of th' doin's of them rich guys, th' more I begin to -think that th' makin' of a mutt lurks in every million dollars. Say, -Wop, they don't know how to pick up a hand an' play it, after it's been -dealt 'em. Take 'em off Wall Street an' mix 'em up wit' anything except -stocks, an' they can't tell a fire plug from a song an' dance soubrette. -If some ordinary skate was to go crabbin' his own personal game th' -way they do theirs, th' next you'd hear that stew would be in -Blooming-dale." - -"Phwat's eatin' yez now, Jimmy?" inquired the Wop, carelessly. "Is it -that steel trusht thing th' pa-a-apers is so full of?" - -"That an' th' way Morgan an' th' balance of that fur-lined push fall -over themselves. Th' big thing they're shy on is diplomacy. When it -comes to diplomacy, they're a lot of dead ones." - -"An' phwat's diplom'cy?" - -The Wop didn't like big words; his feeling was to first question, then -resent them. - -"Phwat's diplom'cy?" he repeated. - -"Diplomacy," said old Jimmy, "is any cunnin' move that lands th' trick. -You wake up an' hear a noise; an' you think it's some porch-climber, -like th' Nailer here, turnin' off th' joint. At that, not knowin' but -he's framed up with a gun, you don't feel like goin' to th' mat with -him. What do you do? Well, you use diplomacy. You tosses mebby a -dumbbell over th' bannisters, an' lets it go bumpin' along from step -to step, makin' more row than some geezer failin' down stairs with a -kitchen stove. Th' racket throws a scare into th' Nailer, an' he beats -it, see?" - -"An' that's diplom'cy!" said the Wop. - -"Also, it's exactly what them Wall Streeters ain't got. Look at th' way -they're always fightin' Roosevelt. For twenty-five years they've been -roustin' Teddy; an' for twenty-five years they've done nothin' but keep -him on th' map. When Teddy was in Mulberry Street th' Tammany ducks gets -along with him as peaceful as a basketful of pups. Diplomacy does it; -that, an' payin' strict attention to Teddy's blind side. 'What's th' use -of kickin' in th' gate,' says they, 'when we knows where a picket's off -th' fence?' You remember Big Florrie Sullivan puttin' young Brady on th' -Force? Teddy's in Mulberry Street then. Do you think Big Florrie goes -queerin' th' chances, be tellin' Teddy how Brady passes th' cush box -in Father Curry's church? Not on your life! It wouldn't have been -diplomacy; Teddy wouldn't have paid no attention. Big Florrie gets in -his work like this: - -"'Say, Commish,' he says, 'I sees th' fight of my life last night. -Nineteen rounds to a knockout! It's a left hook to th' jaw does it.' - -"'No!' Teddy says, lightin' up like Chinatown on th' night of a Chink -festival; 'you int'rest me! Pull up a stool,' says he, 'an' put your -feet on th' desk. There; now you're comfortable, go on about th' fight. -Who were they?' - -"'A lad from my district named Brady,' says Big Florry, 'an' a -dock-walloper from Williamsburg. You ought to have seen it, Commish! -Oh, Brady's th' goods! Pie's th' lad to go th' route! He's all over that -Williamsburg duffer like a cat over a shed roof! He went 'round him like -a cooper 'round a barrel!' - -"Big Florrie runs on like that, using diplomacy, an' two weeks later -Brady's thumpin' a beat." - -"Ye're r-r-right, Jimmy," said the Wop, after a pause which smelled -of wisdom; "I agrees wit' yez. Morgan, Perkins, Schwab an' thim rich -omadauns is th' bum lot. Now I think av it, too, Fatty Walsh minchons -that wor-r-rd diplom'cy to me long ago. Yez knew Fatty, Jimmy?" - -"Fatty an' me was twins." - -"Fatty's th' foine la-a-ad; on'y now he's dead--Mary resht him! Th' time -I'm in th' Tombs for bouncin' th' brick off th' head av that Orangeman, -who's whistlin' th' Battle av th' Boyne to see how long I can shtand it, -Fatty's th' warden; an' say, he made th' place home to me. He's talkin', -Fatty is, wan day about Mayor Hughey Grant, an' it's then he shpeaks av -diplom'cy. He says Hughey didn't have anny." - -"Don't you believe it!" interrupted old Jimmy; "Fatty had Hughey down -wrong. When it comes to diplomacy, Hughey could suck an egg an' never -chip th' shell." - -"It's a special case loike. Fatty's dishtrict, d'yez see, has nothin' in -it but Eyetalians. Wan day they'r makin' ready to cilibrate somethin'. -Fatty's in it, av course, bein' leader, an' he chases down to th' City -Hall an' wins out a permit for th' Dago parade." - -"What's Hughey got to do with that?" - -"Lishten! It shtrikes Hughey, him bein' Mayor, it'll be th' dead wise -play, when Fatty marches by wit' his Guineas, to give them th' gay, -encouragin' face. Hughey thinks Fatty an' his pushcart la-a-ads is -cilibratin' some Dago Saint Patrick's day, d'yez see. It's there Fatty -claims that Hughey shows no diplom'cy; he'd ought to have ashked." - -"Asked what?" - -"I'm comin' to it. Fatty knows nothin' about phwat's on Hughey's chest. -His first tip is when he sees Hughey, an' th' balance av th' Tammany -administration cocked up in a hand-me-down grandstand they've faked -together in City Hall Park. Fatty pipes 'em, as he an' his Black -Hand bunch comes rowlin' along down Broadway, an' th' sight av that -grandshtand full av harps, Hughey at th' head, almosht gives him heart -failure. - -"Fatty halts his Eyetalians, sets them to ma-a-arkin' toime, an' comes -sprintin' an' puffin' on ahead. - -"'Do a sneak!' he cries, when he comes near enough to pass th' wor-r-rd. -'Mother above! don't yez know phwat these wops av mine is cilibratin'? -It's chasin' th' pope out av Rome. Duck, I tell yez, duck!" - -"Sure; Hughiy an' th' rist av th' gang took it on th' run. Fatty could -ma-a-arch all right, because there's nobody but blackhanders in his -dish-trict. But wit' Hughey an' th' others it's different. They might -have got his grace, th' archbishop, afther thim." - -"Goin' back to Teddy," observed old Jimmy, as he called for beer, "them -rich lobsters is always stirrin' him up. An' they always gets th' worst -of it. They've never brought home th' bacon yet. Tie's put one over on -'em every time. - -"Yez can gamble that Tiddy's th' la-a-ad that can fight!" cried the Wop -in tones of glee; "he's th' baby that's always lookin' f'r an argument!" -Then in a burst, both rapturous and irrelevant: "tie's th' idol av th' -criminal illimint!" - -"I don't think that's ag'inst him," interjected the Nailer, defensively. - -"Nor me neither," said old Jimmy. "When it comes down to tacks, who's -quicker wit' th' applaudin' mitt at sight of an honest man than th' -crim'nal element?--only so he ain't bumpin' into their graft. Who is it -hisses th' villyun in th' play till you can hear him in Hoboken? Ain't -it some dub just off the Island? Once a Blind Tom show is at Minor's, -an' a souse in th' gallery is so carried away be grief at th' death of -Little Eva, he falls down two flights of stairs. I gets a flash at him -as they tosses him into th' ambulance, an' I hopes to join th' church if -it ain't a murderer I asks Judge Battery Dan to put away on Blackwell's -for beatin' up his own little girl till she can't get into her frock. -Wall Streeters an' college professors, when it comes to endorsin' an -honest man, can't take no medals off th' crim'nal element." - -"Phwy has Morgan an' th' rist av thim Wall Street geeks got it in f'r -Tiddy?" queried the Wop. "Phwat's he done to 'em?" - -"Nothin'; only they claims it ain't larceny if you steal more'n a -hundred thousand dollars, an' Teddy won't stand for a limit." - -"If that's phwat they're in a clinch about, then I'm for Tiddy," -declared the Wop. "Ain't it him, too, that says th' only difference -bechune a rich man an' a poor man is at th' bank? More power to -him!--why not? Would this beer be annythin' but beer, if it came through -a spigot av go-o-old, from a keg av silver, an' th' bar-boy had used a -dia-mond-shtudded bung-starter in tappin' it?" - -Over at Slimmy's table, where the weaker sex predominated, the talk was -along lighter lines. Mollie Squint spoke in condemnation of those harem -skirts at Coney Island. - -"What do youse think," she asked, "of them she-scouts showin' up at Luna -Park in harem skirts? Coarse work that--very coarse. It goes to prove -how some frails ain't more'n half baked." - -"Why does a dame go to th' front in such togs?" asked Slimmy -disgustedly. - -"Because she's stuck on herself," said the Nailer, who had drifted over -from old Jimmy and the Wop, where the talk was growing too heavy for -him; "an' besides, it's an easy way of gettin' th' spot-light. Take -anything like this harem skirt stunt, an' oodles of crazy Mollies'll -fall for it. Youse can't hand it out too raw! So if it's goin' to stir -things up, an' draw attention, they're Johnny-at-the-rat-hole every -time!" - -"We ladies," remarked Jew Yetta, like a complacent Portia giving -judgment, "certainly do like to be present at th' ball game! An' if we -can't beat th' gate--can't heel in--we'll climb th' fence. Likewise, -we're right there whenever it's th' latest thing. Especially, if we've -got a face that'd stop traffic in th' street. Do youse remember"--this -to Anna Gold--"when bicycles is new, how a lot of old iron-bound -fairies, wit' maps that'd give youse a fit of sickness, never wastes a -moment in wheelin' to th' front?" - -"Do I remember when bicycles is new?" retorted Anna Gold, resentfully. -"How old do youse think I be?" - -"Th' Nailer's right," said Slimmy, cutting skilfully in with a view to -keeping the peace. "Th' reason why them dames breaks in on bicycles, -an' other new deals, is because it attracts attention; an' attractin' -attention is their notion of bein' great. Which shows that they don't -know th' difference between bein' famous an' bein' notorious." - -Slimmy, having thus declared himself, looked as wise as a treeful of -owls. - -"Well, w'at is th' difference?" demanded Anna Gold. - -"What's th' difference between fame an' notoriety?" repeated Slimmy, -brow lofty, manner high. "It's th' difference, Goldie, between havin' -your picture took at th' joint of a respectable photographer, an' -bein' mugged be th' coppers at th' Central Office. As to harem skirts, -however, I'm like Mollie there. Gen'rally speakin', I strings wit' th' -loidies; but when they springs a make-up like them harem skirts, I pack -in. Harem skirts is where I get off." - -"Of course," said Big Kitty, who while speaking little spoke always to -the point, "youse souses understands that them dolls who shakes up Coney -has an ace buried. They're simply a brace of roof-gardeners framin' up a -little ink. I s'pose they fig-gered they'd make a hit. Did they?"--this -was in reply to Mollie Squint, who had asked the question. "Well, if -becomin' th' reason why th' bull on post rings in a riot call, an' -brings out th' resoives, is your idee of a hit, Mollie, them dames is -certainly th' big scream." - -"Them harem skirts won't do!" observed the Nailer, firmly; "youse hear -me, they won't do!" - -"An' that goes f'r merry widdy hats, too," called out the Wop, from -across the room. "Only yister-day a big fat baby rounds a corner on me, -an' bang! she ketches me in th' lamp wit' th' edge av her merry widdy. -On the livil, I thought it was a cross-cut saw! She came near bloindin' -me f'r loife. As I side-steps, a rooshter's tail that's sproutin' out av -th' roof, puts me other optic on th' blink. I couldn't have seen a shell -av beer, even if Jimmy here was payin' fer it. Harem skirts is bad; but -th' real minace is merry widdys." - -"I thought them lids was called in," remarked Slimmy. - -"If they was," returned the Wop, "they got bailed out ag'in. Th' one I'm -nailed wit' is half as big as Betmont Pa-a-ark. Youse could 've raced a -field av two-year olds on it." - -"Well," remarked the Nailer, resignedly, "it's th' fashion, an' it's up -to us, I s'pose, to stand it. That or get off the earth." - -"Who invints th' fashions?" and here the Wop appealed to the deep -experience of old Jimmy. - -"Th' French." - -Old Jimmy--his pension had just been paid--motioned to the waiter to -again take the orders all 'round. - -"Th' French. They're the laddy-bucks that shoves 'em from shore. Say -'Fashion!' an' bing! th' French is on th' job, givin' orders." - -"Thim Frinch 're th' great la-a-ads," commented the Wop, admiringly. -"There's a felly on'y this mornin' tellin' me they can cook shnails so's -they're almosht good to eat." - -"Tell that bug to guess ag'in, Wop," said Mollie Squint. "Snails is -never good to eat. As far as them French are concerned, however, I go -wit' old Jimmy. They're a hot proposition." - -Jack Sirocco had been walking up and down, his manner full of -uneasiness. - -"What's wrong, Jack?" at last asked old Jimmy, who had observed that -proprietor's anxiety. - -Sirocco explained that divers gimlet-eyed gentlemen, who he believed -were emissaries of an antivice society, had been in the place for hours. - -"They only now screwed out," continued Sirocco. Then, dolefully: "It'd -be about my luck, just as I'm beginnin' to get a little piece of change -for myself, to have some of them virchoo-toutin' ginks hand me a wallop. -I wonder w'at good it does 'em to be always tryin' to knock th' block -off somebody. I ain't got nothin' ag'inst virchoo. Vir-choo's all right -in its place. But so is vice." - -Old Jimmy's philosophy began manoeuvring for the high ground. - -"This vice and virtue thing makes me tired," he said; "there's too much -of it. Also, there's plenty to be said both ways. Th' big trouble wit' -them anti-vice dubs is that they're all th' time connin' themselves. -They feel moral when it's merely dyspepsia; they think they're virchous -when they're only sick. In th' end, too, virchoo always falls down. -Virchoo never puts a real crimp in vice yet. Virchoo's a sprinter; an' -for one hundred yards it makes vice look like a crab. But vice is a -stayer, an' in th' Marathon of events it romps in winner. Virchoo likes -a rockin'-chair; vice puts in most of its time on its feet. Virchoo -belongs to th' Union; it's for th' eight hour day, with holidays an' -Saturday afternoons off. Vice is always willin' to break th' wage -schedule, work overtime or do anythin' else to oblige. Virchoo wants two -months in th' country every summer; vice never asks for a vacation since -th' world begins." - -The Wop loudly cheered old Jimmy's views. Sirocco, however, continued -gloomy. - -"For," said the latter with a sigh, "I can feel it that them anti-vice -guys has put th' high-sign on me. They'll never rest now until they've -got me number." - -Pretty Agnes, on comin' in, had taken a corner table by herself. She -heard, but did not join in the talk. She even left untouched the glass -of beer, which, at a word from old Jimmy, a waiter had placed before -her. Silent and sad, with an expression which spoke of trouble present -or trouble on its way, she sat staring into smoky space. - -"W'at's wrong wit' her?" whispered Slimmy, who, high-strung and -sensitive, could be worked upon by another's troubles. - -"Why don't youse ask her?" said Big Kitty. - -Slimmy shook a doubtful head. "She ain't got no use for me," he -explained, "since that trouble wit' Indian Louie." - -"She sure couldn't expect you an' th' Grabber," remarked Anna Gold, -quite scandalized at the thought of such unfairness, "to lay dead, while -Louie does you out of all that dough!" - -"It's th' rent," said Jew Yetta. She had been canvassing Pretty -Agnes out of the corners of her eyes. "I know that look from me own -experience. She can't come across for the flat, an' some bum of an agent -has handed her a notice." - -"There's nothin' in that," declared Mollie Squint. "She could touch me -for th' rent, an' she's hep to it." Then, in reproof of the questioning -looks of Anna Gold: "Sure; both me an' Agnes was stuck on Indian Louie, -but w'at of that? Louie's gone; an' besides, I never blames her. It's me -who's th' butt-in; Agnes sees Louie first." - -"Youse 're wrong, Yetta," spoke up the Nailer, confidently. "Agnes ain't -worryin' about cush. There ain't a better producer anywhere than Sammy -Hart. No one ever sees Sammy wit'out a roll." - -The Nailer lounged across to Pretty Agnes; Mollie Squint, whose heart -was kindly, followed him. - -"W'y don't youse lap up your suds?" queried the Nailer, pointing to the -beer. Without waiting for a return, he continued, "Where's Sammy?" - -"Oh, I don't know," returned Pretty Agnes, her manner half desperate. -"Nailer, I'm simply fretted batty!" - -"W'at's gone crooked, dear?" asked Mollie Squint, soothingly. "Youse -ain't been puttin' on th' mitts wit' Sammy?" - -"No," replied Pretty Agnes, the tears beginning to flow; "me an' Sammy's -all right. On'y he won't listen!" Then suddenly pointing with her -finger, she exclaimed; "There! It's him I'm worryin' about!" - -The Nailer and Mollie Squint glanced in the direction indicated by -Pretty Agnes. The Ghost had just come in and was sidling into a chair. -It must be admitted that there was much in his appearance to dislike. -His lips were loose, his eyes half closed and sleepy, while his chin -was catlike, retreating, unbased. In figure he was undersized, -slope-shouldered, slouching. When he spoke, his voice drawled, and the -mumbled words fell half-formed from the slack angles of his mouth. He -was an eel--a human eel--slippery, slimy, hard to locate, harder still -to hold. To find him you would have to draw off all the water in the -pond, and then poke about in the ooze. - -"It's him that's frettin' me," repeated Pretty Agnes. "He's got me -wild!" - -The Nailer donned an expression, cynical and incredulous. - -"W'at's this?" said he. "W'y Agnes, youse ain't soft on that mutt, be -youse? Say, youse must be gettin' balmy!" - -"It ain't that," returned Pretty Agnes, indignantly. "Do youse think I'd -fall for such a chromo? I'd be bughouse!" - -"Bughouse wouldn't half tell it!" exclaimed Mollie Squint fervently. -"Him?"--nodding towards the Ghost. "W'y he's woise'n a wet dog!" - -"Well," returned the puzzled Nailer, who with little imagination, owned -still less of sentimental breadth, "if youse ain't stuck on him, how's -he managin' to fret youse? Show me, an' I'll take a punch at his lamp." - -"Punchin' wouldn't do no good," replied Pretty Agnes, resignedly. "This -is how it stands. Sammy an' Big Head's gettin' ready to do a _schlam_ -job. They've let th' Ghost join out wit' 'em, an' I know he's goin' to -give 'em up." - -The Nailer looked grave. - -"Unless youse've got somethin' on him, Agnes." he remonstrated, "you -oughtn't to make a squawk like that. How do youse know he's goin' to -rap?" - -"Cause he always raps," she cried fiercely. "Where's Mashier? Where's -Marky Price? Where's Skinny Goodstein? Up th' river!--every mother's son -of 'em! An' all his pals, once; every one! He's filled in wit' th' best -boys that ever cracked a bin. An' every one of 'em's doin' their bits, -while he's here drinkin' beer. I tell youse th' Ghost's a snitch! Youse -can see 'Copper' written on his face." - -"If I t'ought so," growled the Nailer, an evil shine in his beady eyes, -"I'd croak him right here." Then, as offering a solution: "If youse 're -so sure he's a stool, w'y don't youse tail him an' see if he makes a -meet wit' any bulls?" - -"Tail nothin'!" scoffed Pretty Agnes, bitterly; "me mind's made up. All -I'll do is wait. If Sammy falls, it'll be th' Ghost's last rap. I know -a party who's crazy gone on me. For two weeks I've been handin' him th' -ice pitcher. All I has to do is soften up a little, an' he'll cook th' -Ghost th' minute I says th' woid." - -Pretty Agnes, as though the sight of the Ghost were too much for her -feelings, left the place. The Ghost himself, appeared uneasy, and didn't -remain long. - -The Nailer turned soberly to Mollie Squint. "Do youse t'ink," said he, -"there's anythin' in that crack of Agnes?" - -"Search me!" returned Mollie Squint, conservatively. "I ain't sayin' a -woid." - -"It's funny about youse skoits," remarked the Nailer, his manner an -imitation of old Jimmy's. "Here's Agnes talkin' of havin' th' Ghost -trimmed in case he tips off Sammy to th' dicks, an' yet when Slimmy an' -th' Grabber puts Indian Louie over th' jump, neither Agnes nor you ever -so much as yelps!" - -"You don't understand," said Mollie Squint, tolerantly. "Sammy's nice -to Agnes. Louie? Th' best he ever hands us is to sting us for our rolls, -an' then go blow 'em on that blonde. There's a big difference, Nailer, -if youse could only see it." - -"Well," replied the Nailer, who boasted a heart untouched, "all I can -say is youse dolls are too many for me! You've got me wingin'." - -Midnight! - -The theatre of operations was a cigar store, in Canal Street near the -Bowery. The Ghost was on the outside. The safe was a back number; to -think of soup would have been paying it a compliment. After an hour's -work with a can-opener, Sammy and Big Head declared themselves within -ten minutes of the money. All that remained was to batter in the -inner-lining of the box. - -Big Head cocked a sudden and suspicious ear. - -"What's that?" he whispered. - -Sammy had just reversed the can-opener, for an attack upon that -sheet-iron lining. He paused in mid-swing, and listened. - -"It's a pinch," he cried, crashing down the heavy iron tool with a -cataract of curses. "It's a pinch, an' th' Ghost is in on it. Agnes had -him right!" - -It was a pinch sure enough. Even as Sammy spoke, Rocheford and -Wertheimer of the Central Office were covering them with their pistols. - -"Hands up!" came from Wertheimer. - -"You've got us bang right!" sighed Big Head. - -Outside they found Cohen, also of the Central Office, with the ruffles -on the Ghost. - -"That's only a throw-off," sneered Sammy, pointing to the bracelets. - -The Ghost began to whine. The loose lips became looser than ever, the -drooping lids drooped lower still. - -"W'y, Sammy," he remonstrated weepingly, "youse don't t'ink I'd go an' -give youse up!" - -"That's all right," retorted Sammy, with sullen emphasis. "Youse'll get -yours, Ghost." - -Had the Ghost been wise he would have remained in the Tombs; it was his -best chance. But the Ghost was-not wise. Within the week he was walking -the streets, and trying to explain a freedom which so sharply contrasted -with the caged condition of Big Head and Sammy Hart. Gangland turned its -back on him; his explanations were not received. And, sluggish and thick -as he was, Gangland made him feel it. - -It was black night in University Place. The Ghost was gumshoeing his -way towards the Bridge Saloon. A taxicab came slowly crabbing along the -curb. It stopped; a quick figure slipped out and, muzzle on the very -spot, put a bullet through the base of the Ghost's brain. - -The quick figure leaped back into the cab. The door slammed, and the cab -dashed off into the darkness at racing speed. - -In that splinter of time required to start the cab you might have -seen--had you been near enough--two white small hands clutch with a kind -of rapturous acceptance at the quick figure, as it sprang into the cab, -and heard the eager voice of a woman saying "Promise for promise, and -word for word! Who wouldn't give soul and body for th' death of a -snitch?--for a snake that will bite no more?" - - - - -IX.--LITTLE BOW KUM - - -Since then no Chinaman will go into the room. I had this from Loui -Fook, himself an eminent member of the On Leon Tong and a leading -merchant of Chinatown. Loui Fook didn't pretend to know of his own -knowledge, but spoke by hearsay. He said that the room was haunted. No -one would live there, being too wise, although the owner had lowered the -rent from twenty dollars a month to ten. Ten monthly dollars should -be no inducement to live in a place where, at odd, not to say untoward -hours, you hear sounds of scuffling and wing-beating, such as is made -by a chicken when its head is chopped off. Also, little Bow Kum's blood -still stains the floor in a broad red patch, and refuses to give way to -soap and water. The wife of the Italian janitor--who cannot afford to -be superstitious, and bemoans a room unrented--has scrubbed half through -the boards in unavailing efforts to wash away the dull red splotch. - -Detective Raphael of the Central Office heard of the ghost. He thought -it would make for the moral uplift of Chinatown to explode so foolish a -tale. - -Yong Dok begged Raphael not to visit the haunted room where the blood of -little Bow Kum spoke in dumb, dull crimson from the floor. It would set -the ghosts to talking. - -"Then come with me, and act as interpreter," quoth Raphael, and he threw -Yong Dok over his heavy shoulder and began to climb the stairs. - -Yong Dok fainted, and lay as limp as a wet bath towel. Loui Fook said -that Yong Dok would die if taken to the haunted room, so Raphael forbore -and set him down. In an hour Yong Dok had measurably recovered, but -Tchin Foo insists that he hasn't been the same man since. - -Low Fong, Low Tching and Chu Wah, three hatchet men belonging to the -Four Brothers, were charged with the murder. But the coroner let Chu -Wah go, and the special sessions jury disagreed as to Low Fong and Low -Tching; and so one way and another they were all set free. - -It is difficult to uncover evidence against a Chinaman. They never -talk, and their faces are as void of expression as the wrong side of a -tombstone. In only one way does a Chinaman betray emotion. When guilty, -and pressed upon by danger, a pulse beats on the under side of his arm, -just above the elbow. This is among the golden secrets known to what -Central Office men do duty along Pell, Mott and Doyers streets, but for -obvious reasons it cannot be used in court. - -Although the white devils' law failed, the Chinese law was not so -powerless. Because of that murder, eight Four Brothers and five On Leon -Tongs have been shot dead. Also, slippered feet have stolen into the -sleeping rooms of offensive ones, as they dreamed of China the Celestial -far away beyond the sunset, and unseen bird-claw fingers have turned -on the white devils' gas. In this way a dozen more have died. They have -awakened in Chinatown to the merits of the white devils' gas as a method -of assassination. It bids fair to take the place of the automatic gun, -just as the latter shoved aside the old-time barbarous hatchet. - -Little Bow Kum had reached her nineteenth year when she was killed. Her -husband, Tchin Len, was worth $50,000. He was more than twice as old as -little Bow Kum, and is still in Mott Street waiting for her spirit to -return and strangle her destroyers. This will one day come to pass, and -he is waiting for that day. Tchin Len has another wife in Canton, but he -does not go back to her, preferring to live in Chinatown with the memory -of his little lost Bow Kum. - -Little Bow Kum was born in the Canton district, China. Her father's name -was Wong Hi. Her mother's name doesn't matter, because mothers do not -amount to much in China. As she lay in her mother's lap, a chubby, -wheat-hued baby, they named her Bow Kum, which means Sweet Flower, for -they knew she would be very beautiful. - -When little Bow Kum was five years old, Wong Hi, her father, sold her -for $300. Wong Hi was poor, and $300 is a Canton fortune. Also, the sale -had its moral side, since everyone knows that children are meant to be a -prop and support to their parents. - -Little Bow Kum was bought and sold, as was well understood by both Wong -Hi, the father, and the man who chinked down his hard three hundred -silver dollars as the price, with the purpose of rearing her to a -profession which, while not without honor among Orientals, is frowned -upon by the white devils, and never named by them in best society. Much -pains were bestowed upon her education; for her owner held that in the -trade which at the age of fifteen she was to take up, she should be able -to paint, embroider, quote Confucius, recite verses, and in all things -be a mirror of the graces. Thus she would be more valuable, being more -attractive. - -Little Bow Kum accepted her fate and made no protest, feeling no impulse -so to do. She knew that she had been sold, and knew her destiny; but she -felt no shock, was stricken by no desire to escape. What had happened -and would happen, had been for hundreds and thousands of years the life -story of a great feminine fraction of her people. Wherefore, the thought -was at home in her blood; her nature bowed to and embraced it. - -Of course, from the white devils' view-point the fate designed for -little Bow Kum was as the sublimation of the immoral. But you must -remember that morality is always a question of geography and sometimes a -question of race. Climates, temperatures, also play their part. - -Then, too, there is that element of support. In the tropics, where -life is lazy, easy, and one may pick a dinner from every tree, man is -polygamous. In the ice locked arctics, where one spears his dinner out -of the cold, reluctant sea, and goes days and days without it, man is -polyandrous, and one wife has many husbands. In the temperate zone, -where life is neither soft nor hard and yet folk work to live, man is -monogamous, and one wife to one husband is the only good form. - -Great is latitude! - -Take the business of steeping the senses in drinks or drugs. That -eternal quantity of latitude still worms its way into the equation. In -the arctic zone they drink raw alcohol, in the north temperate whiskey, -in the south temperate wine, while in the tropics they give up drinking -and take to opium, hasheesh and cocaine. - -Little Bow Kum watched her fifteenth year approach--that year when she -would take up her profession--without shame, scandal or alarm. - -Had you tried to show her the horrors of her situation, she wouldn't -have understood. She was beautiful beyond beauty. This she knew very -well, and was pleased to have her charms confessed. Her owner told her -she was a lamp of love, and that he would not sell her under $3,000. -This of itself was the prettiest of compliments, since he had never -before asked more than $2,000 for a girl. Koi Ton, two years older than -herself, had brought just $2,000; and Koi Ton was acknowledged to be a -vision from heaven. And so when Bow Kum learned that her price was to -be $3,000, a glow overspread her--a glow which comes to beauty when it -feels itself supreme. - -Little Bow Kum was four feet tall, and weighed only seventy pounds. Her -color was the color of old ivory--that is, if you can imagine old ivory -with the flush and blush of life. She had rose-red lips, onyx eyes, and -hair as black as a crow's wing. One day her owner went mad with opium. -As he sat and looked at her, and her star-like beauty grew upon him, -he struck her down with a bamboo staff. This frightened him; for he saw -that if he kept her he would kill her because of her loveliness. So, -knowing himself and fearing her beauty, he sent little Bow Kum to San -Francisco, and never laid eyes on her again. - -Having ripened into her fifteenth year, and the value of girls being up -in San Francisco, little Bow Kum brought the price--$3,000--which her -owner had fixed for her. She kissed the hand of Low Hee Tong, her new -owner; and, having been adorned to the last limit of Chinese coquetry, -went with him to a temple, dedicated to some Mongolian Venus, which he -maintained in Ross Alley. Here little Bow Kum lived for nearly four -years. - -Low Hee Tong, the Ross Alley owner of little Bow Kum, got into trouble -with the police. Something he did or failed to do--probably the -latter--vastly disturbed them. With that, waxing moral, they decided -that Low Hee Tong's Temple of Venus in Ross Alley was an eyesore, and -must be wiped out. - -And so they pulled it. - -Little Bow Kum--so small, so much the rose-flower which her name -implied--aroused the concern of the judge. He gave her to a Christian -mission, which years before had pitched its tent in Frisco's Chinatown -with a hope of saving Mongol souls, which hope had failed. Thereafter -little Bow Kum lived at the mission, and not in Ross Alley, and was -chaste according to the ice-bound ideals of the white devils. - -The mission was ruled over by a middle-aged matron with a Highland name. -This good woman was beginning to wonder what she should do with little -Bow Kum, when that almond-eyed floweret came preferring a request. -Little Bow Kum, while dwelling in Ross Alley, had met Tchin Len and -thought him nice. Tchin Len owned a truck-farm near Stockton, and was -rich. Would the Highland matron, in charge of the mission, write -a letter to Tchin Len, near Stockton, and ask that bewitching -truck-gardener to come down and see little Bow Kum? - -"Because," explained little Bow Kum, in her peculiar English, "I likee -Tchin Len to mally me." - -The Highland matron considered. A husband in the case of little Bow Kum -would supply a long-felt want. Also, no harm, even if no good, could -flow from Tchin Len's visit, since she, the Highland matron, sternly -purposed being present while Tchin Len and little Bow Kum conferred. - -The matron wrote the letter, and Tchin Len came down to San Francisco. -He and little Bow Kum talked quietly in a language which the managing -matron did not understand. But she knew the signs; and therefore when, -at the close of the conversation, they explained that they had decided -upon a wedding, she was not astonished. She gave them her blessing, -about which they cared nothing, and they pledged each other their faith -after the Chinese manner--which is curious, but unimportant here--about -which they cared much. - -Tchin Len went back to his Stockton truck garden, to put his house in -order against the wifely advent of little Bow Kum. It is not of record -that Tchin Len said anything about his Canton wife. The chances are that -he didn't. A Chinaman is no great hand to mention his domestic affairs -to anybody. Moreover, a wife more or less means nothing to him. It is -precisely the sort of thing he would forget; or, remembering, make no -reference to, lest you vote him a bore. What looks like concealment -is often only politeness, and goodbreeding sometimes wears the face of -fraud. - -It was settled that Tchin Len should marry little Bow Kum, and the -latter, aided and abetted by the watchful mission matron, waited for the -day. Affairs had reached this stage when the unexpected came rapping at -the door. Low Hee Tong, who paid $3,000 for little Bow Kum and claimed -to own her, had been keeping an eye on his delicate chattel. She might -be living at the mission, but he no less bore her upon the sky-line of -his calculations. Likewise he knew about the wedding making ready with -Tchin Len. He didn't object. He simply went to Tchin Len and asked for -$3,000. It was little enough, he said; especially when one considered -that--excluding all others--he would convey to Tchin Len in perpetuity -every right in and to little Bow Kum, who was so beautiful that she was -hated by the moon. - -Tchin Len said the price was low enough; that is, if Low Hee Tong -possessed any interest in little Bow Kum to convey, which he doubted. -Tchin Len explained that he would talk things over with the mission -matron of the Highland name, and later let Low Hee Tong know. - -Low Hee Tong said that this arrangement was agreeable, so long as it was -understood that he would kill both Tchin Len and little Bow Kum in case -he didn't get the money. - -Tchin Len, after telling little Bow Kum, laid the business before the -mission matron with the Highland name. Naturally, she was shocked. She -said that she was amazed at the effrontery of Low Hee Tong! Under the -white devils' law he couldn't possess and therefore couldn't pretend to -any title in little Bow Kum. Tchin Len would be wild to pay him $3,000. -Low Hee Tong was lucky to be alive!--only the mission matron didn't put -it in precisely these words. If Tchin Len had $3,000 which he didn't -need, he might better contribute it to the mission which had sheltered -his little Bow Kum. It would be criminal to lavish it upon a yellow -Pagan, who threatened to shed blood. - -Tchin Len heard this with pigtailed phlegm and politeness, and promised -to think about it. He said that it would give him no joy to endow Low -Hee Tong with $3,000; he was willing that much should be understood. - -Little Bow Kum was placidly present at the discussion. When it ended she -placidly reminded Tchin Len that he knew what she knew, namely, that he -in all probability, and she in all certainty, would be killed if Low Hee -Tong's claim were refused. Tchin Len sighed and confessed that this was -true. For all that, influenced by the mission matron with the Highland -name, he was loth to give up the $3,000. Little Bow Kum bent her -flower-like head. Tchin Len's will was her law, though as the penalty of -such sweet submission death, bitter death, should be her portion. - -Tchin Len and the mission matron held several talks; and Tchin Len and -Low Hee Tong held several talks. But the latter did not get the -$3,000. Still he threatened and hoped on. It was beyond his Chinese, -comprehension that Tchin Len could be either so dishonest or so dull -as not to pay him that money. Tchin Len was rich, and no child. Yes; he -would pay. And Low Hee Tong, confident of his position, made ready his -opium layout for a good smoke. - -The mission matron and Tchin Len hit upon a plan. Tchin Len would -privily marry little Bow Kum--that must precede all else. Upon that -point of wedding bells, the mission matron was as moveless as Gibraltar. -The knot tied, Tchin Len should sell out his Stockton truck-farm and -move to New York. Then he was to send money, and the mission matron was -to outfit little Bow Kum and ship her East. With the wretched Low Hee -Tong in San Francisco, and Tchin Len and little Bow Kum in far New York, -an intervening stretch of three thousand five hundred miles might be -expected to keep the peace. - -Tchin Len and little Bow Kum were married. A month later, Tchin Len left -for New York with $50,000 under his bridal blouse. He settled down -in Mott Street, dispatched New York exchange for $800 to the mission -matron, who put little Bow Kum aboard the Overland Express at Oakland, -together with three trunks and a ticket. Little Bow Kum arrived in -due and proper time, and Tchin Len--who met her in Jersey City--after -saluting her in the Chinese fashion, which is cold and lacks enthusiasm, -bore her away to Seventeen Mott, where he had prepared for her a nest. - -There are three septs among Chinamen. These are the On Leon Tong, the -Hip Sing Tong and the Four Brothers. The two first are associations; -the last is a fraternity. You can join the Hip Sing Tong or the On Leon -Tong. Your sole chance of becoming a Four Brother lies in being born -into the tribe. - -Loui Fook told me these things late one night in the Port Arthur -restaurant, where the red lamps glow and there is an all-pervading smell -of preserved ginger, and added that the Four Brothers was very ancient. -Its sources were lost in the dimmest vistas of Chinese antiquity, said -Loui Fook. - -"One thousand years old?" I asked. - -"Much older." - -"Five thousand?" - -"Much older." - -"Ten thousand?" - -"Maybe!" - -From which I inferred that the Four Brothers had beheld the dawn and -death of many centuries. - -Every member of the Four Brothers is to be known by his name. When you -cut the slippered trail of a Chinaman whose name begins with Low or Chu -or Tching or Quong, that Chinaman is a Four Brothers. A Chinaman's first -name is his family name. In this respect he runs counter to the habit -of the white devils; just as he does in the matter of shirts, which the -white devil tucks in and the Chinaman does not. Wherefore, the names -of Low, Chu, Tching and Quong, everywhere the evidence of the Four -Brothers, are family names. - -Loui Fook gave me the origin of the Four Brothers--he himself is an On -Leon Tong. Many thousands of years ago a Chinaman was travelling. Dusty, -weary, he sat down by a well. His name was Low. Another travel-stained -Chinaman joined him. They talked, and liked each other much. The second -traveler's name was Chu. Then a third sat down, and the three talked -and liked each other much. His name was Tching. Lastly, came a fourth -Chinaman, and the weary dust lay deep upon his sandals. His name was -Quong. He was equally talked to by the others, and by them equally well -liked. They--the four--decided, as they parted, that forever and forever -they and their descendants should be as brothers. - -Wherefore the Four Brothers. - -Low Hee Tong was a member of the Four Brothers--a descendant of the -earliest Chinaman at that well, back in the world's morning. When he -found that Tchin Len had married little Bow Kum and stolen her away to -New York, his opium turned bitter and he lost his peace of mind. Low Hee -Tong wrote a Chinese letter, giving the story of his injuries, and -sent it via the white devils' mails to Low Hee Jit, chief of the Four -Brothers. - -Low Hee Jit laid the case before Lee Tcin Kum, chief of the On Leon -Tong. The wise men of the On Leon Tong appointed a hearing. Low Hee Jit -came with the wise men of the Four Brothers to the company rooms of the -On Leon Tong. Tchin Len and little Bow Kum were there. The question -was, should the On Leon Tong command Tchin Len to pay Low Hee Tong -$3,000--the price of little Bow Kum? - -Lee Tcin Kum and the wise men of the On Leon Tong, after long debate, -said that Tchin Len should pay Low Hee Tong nothing. And they argued -after this wise. The white devils' law had taken hold of little Bow Kum, -and destroyed Low Hee Tong's title. She was no longer his property. She -might marry whom she would, and the bridegroom owe Low Hee Tong nothing. - -This was in the On Leon Tong's Company rooms in Mott Street. - -Low Hee Jit and the wise men of the Four Brothers opposed this. -Particularly they declined the white devils' laws as of controlling pith -and moment. Why should a Chinaman heed the white devils' laws? The white -devils were the barbarous inferiors of the Chinese. The latter as a race -had long ago arrived. For untold ages they had been dwelling upon the -highest peaks of all possible human advancement. The white devils, -centuries behind, were still blundering about among the foothills far -below. It was an insult, between Chinaman and Chinaman, for Lee Tcin Kum -and the wise men of the On Leon Tong to quote the white devils' laws, or -assume to yield them respect. - -With this the council broke up. - -War was declared by the Four Brothers against the On Leon Tong, and the -dead-walls of Chinatown were plastered with the declaration. Since the -white devils could not read Chinese, they knew nothing of all this. But -the On Leon Tong knew, and the Four Brothers knew, and both sides began -bringing in their hatchet-men. - -When a Chinaman is bent on killing, he hires an assassin. This is not -cowardice, but convenience. The assassin never lives in the town -where the killing is to occur. He is always imported. This is to make -detection difficult. The Four Brothers and the On Leon Tong brought -in their hatchet-men from Chicago, from Boston, from Pittsburg, from -Philadelphia. - -Some impression of the extent of this conscription might be gathered -from the following: When last New Year the On Leon Tong gave a public -dinner at the Port Arthur, thirty hatchet-men were on the roof and -eighty in the street. This was to head off any attempt the Four Brothers -might make to blow that banquet up. I received the above from an -esteemed friend of mine, who was a guest at the dinner, but left when -told what profuse arrangements had been made to insure his skin. - -Tchin Len and little Bow Kum kept up the fires of their love at -Seventeen Mott. They took their daily chop suey and sharkfin, not to -mention their bird's-nest soup, across the way at Twenty-two with their -friends, Sam Lee and Yong Dok. - -It was a showery, August afternoon. Tchin Len had been all day at his -store, and little Bow Kum was sitting alone in their room. Dismal as -was the day outside, the room showed pleasant and bright. There were -needlework screens, hangings of brocade and silk, vases of porcelain, -statuettes in jade. The room was rich--a scene of color and Chinese -luxury. - -Little Bow Kum was the room's best ornament--with her jade bracelets, -brocade jacket, silken trousers, golden girdle, and sandaled feet as -small as the feet of a child of six. It would be twenty minutes before -the Chinese dinner hour, when she was to join Tchin Len across the -street, and she drew out pen and ink and paper that she might practice -the white devils' way of writing; and all with the thought of some day -sending a letter of love and gratitude to the mission matron with the -Highland name. - -So engrossed was little Bow Kum that she observed nothing of the soft -opening of the door, or the dark savage face which peered through. -The murderer crept upon her as noiselessly as a shadow. There was a -hawk-'like swoop. About the slender throat closed a grip of steel. The -fingers were long, slim, strong. She could not cry out. The dull glimmer -of a Chinese knife--it was later picked up in the hall, a-drip with -blood--flashed before her frightened eyes. She made a convulsive clutch, -and the blade was drawn horribly through her baby fingers. - -Over across, not one hundred feet away, sat Tchin Len and his two -friends in the eating room of Twenty-two. It was a special day, and they -would have chicken and rice. This made them impatient for the advent of -little Bow Kum. She was already ten minutes behind the hour. His -friends rallied Tchin Len about little Bow Kum, and evolved a Chinese -joke to the effect that he was a slave to her beauty and had made a -foot-rest of his heart for her little feet. Twenty minutes went by, and -his friends had grown too hungry to jest. - -Tchin Len went over to Seventeen, to bring little Bow Kum. As he pushed -open the door, he saw the little silken brocaded form, like a child -asleep, lying on the floor. Tchin Len did not understand; he thought -little Bow Kum was playing with him. - -Poor little Bow Kum. - -The lean fingers had torn the slender throat. Her baby hand was cut half -in two, where the knife had been snatched away. The long blade had been -driven many times through and through the little body. A final slash, -hari-kari fashion and all across, had been the awful climax. - -His friends found Tchin Len, seated on the floor, with little Bow Kum in -his arms. Grief was neither in his eyes nor in his mouth, for his mind, -like his heart, had been made empty. - -Tchin Len waits for the vengeance of little Bow Kum to fall upon her -murderers. Some say that Tchin Len was a fool for not paying Low Hee -Tong the $3,000. Some call him dishonest. All agree that the cross-fire -of killings, which has raged and still rages because of it, can do -little Bow Kum no good. - - - - -X.--THE COOKING OF CRAZY BUTCH - - -This is not so much to chronicle the bumping off of Crazy Butch, as to -open a half-gate of justice in the maligned instance of the Darby Kid. -There is subdued excitement in and about the Central Office. There is -more excitement, crossed with a color of bitterness, in and about the -Chatham Club. The Central Office, working out a tip, believes it has cut -the trail of Harry the Soldier, who, with Dopey Benny, is wanted for the -killing of Crazy Butch. The thought which so acrimoniously agitates -the Chatham Club is "Who rapped?" with the finger of jealous suspicion -pointing sourly at the Darby Kid. - -That you be not misled in an important particular, it is well perhaps to -explain that the Darby Kid is a girl--a radiant girl--and in her line -as a booster, a girl of gold. She deeply loved Crazy Butch, having first -loved Harry the Soldier. If she owned a fault, it was that in matters of -the heart she resembled the heroine of the flat boatman's muse. - - There was a womern in our town - - In our town did dwell. - - She loved her husband dear-i-lee - - An' another man twict as well. - -But that is not saying she would act as stool-pigeon. To charge that -the Darby Kid turned copper, and wised up the Central Office dicks -concerning the whereabouts of Harry the Soldier, is a serious thing. The -imputation is a grave one. Even the meanest ought not to be disgraced -as a snitch in the eyes of all Gangland, lightly and upon insufficient -evidence. There were others besides the Darby Kid who knew how to locate -Harry the Soldier. Might not one of these have given a right steer -to the bulls? Not that the Darby Kid can be pictured as altogether -blameless. She indubitably did a foolish thing. Having received that -letter, she should never have talked about it. Such communications -cannot be kept too secret. Some wretched talebearer must have been -lounging about the Chatham Club. Why not? The Chatham Club can no more -guarantee the character of its patrons than can the Waldorf-Astoria. - -The evening was a recent one. It was also dull. There wasn't an overflow -of customers, hardly enough in waiting on them, to take the stiffness -out of Nigger Mike's knees. - -It was nine of the clock, and those two inseparables, the Irish Wop and -old Jimmy, sat in their usual chairs. The Wop spoke complainingly of the -poolroom trade, which was even duller than trade at the Chatham Club. - -"W'at wit' killin' New York racin'," said the Wop dismally, "an' w'at -wit' raidin' a guy's joint every toime some av them pa-a-pers makes a -crack, it's got th' poolrooms on th' bum. For meself I'm thinkin' av -closin'. Every day I'm open puts me fifty dollars on th' nut. An' Jimmy, -I've about med up me moind to put th' shutters up." - -"Mebby you're in wrong with th' organization." - -"Tammany? Th' more you shtand in wit' Tammany, th' ha-a-arder you get -slugged." - -Old Jimmy signalled to Nigger Mike for beer. "Over to th' Little Hungary -last night," remarked old Jimmy casually, "them swell politicians has a -dinner. I was there." - -The last came off a little proudly. - -"They tell me," said the Wop with a deprecatory shrug, "that Cha-a-arley -Murphy was there, too, an' that Se-r-rgeant Cram had to go along to -heel an' handle him. I can remimber whin chuck steak an' garlic is -about Cha-a-arley's speed. Now, whin he's bushtin' 'em open as Chief -av Tammany Hall, it's an indless chain av champagne an' tur'pin an' -canvashback, with patty-de-foy-grass as a chaser." - -Old Jimmy shook a severe yet lofty head. "If some guy tells you, -Wop, that Charley needs anybody in his corner at a dinner that -guy's stringin' you. Charley can see his way through from napkins to -toothpicks, as well as old Chauncey Depew. There's a lot of duffers -goin' 'round knockin' Charlie. They're sore just because he's gettin' -along, see? They'll tell you how if you butt him up ag'inst a -dinner table, he'll about give you an imitation of a blind dog in a -meat-shop--how he'll try to eat peas with a knife an' let 'em roll down -his sleeve an' all that. So far as them hoboes knockin' Charley goes, -it's to his credit. You don't want to forget, Wop, they never knock a -dead one." - -"In th' ould gas house days," enquired the Wop, "wasn't Cha-a-arley a -conducthor on wan av th' crosstown ca-a-ars?" - -"He was! an' a good one too. That's where he got his start. He quit -'em when they introduced bell punches; an' I don't blame him! Them big -companies is all alike. Which of 'em'll stand for it to give a workin' -man a chance?" - -"Did thim la-a-ads lasht night make spaches?" - -"Speeches? Nothin' but Trusts is to be th' issue this next pres'dential -campaign." - -"Now about thim trushts? I've been wantin' to ashk yez th' long time. -I've been hearin' av trushts for tin years, an' Mary save me! if I'd -know wan if it was to come an' live next dure." - -"Well, Wop," returned old Jimmy engigmatically, "a trust is anything -you don't like--only so it's a corp'ration. So long as it stands in with -you an' you like it, it's all right, see? But once it takes to handin' -you th' lemon, it's a trust." - -"Speakin' av th' pris'dency, it looks loike this fat felly Taft's out to -get it in th' neck." - -"Surest ever! Th' trusts is sore on him; an' th' people is sore on him. -He's a frost at both ends of th' alley." - -"W'at crabbed him?" - -"Too small in th' hat-band, too big in th' belt. Them republicans better -chuck Taft in th' discard an' take up Teddy. There's a live one! There's -th' sturdy plow-boy of politics who'd land 'em winner!" - -The Nailer came strolling in and pulled up a chair. - -"Roosevelt, Jimmy," said he, "couldn't make th' run. Don't he start th' -argument himself, th' time he's elected, sayin' it's his second term an' -he'll never go out for th' White House goods again?" - -"Shure he did," coincided the Wop. "An' r-r-right there he give himsilf -th' gate. You're right, Nailer; he's barred." - -"Teddy oughtn't to have got off that bluff about not runnin' ag'in," -observed old Jimmy thoughtfully. "He sees it himself now. Th' next -day after he makes his crack, a friend of mine, who's down to th' White -House, asks him about it; is it for the bleachers,' says my friend, 'or -does it go?' - -"'Oh, it goes!' says Teddy. - -"'Then,' says my friend, 'you'll pardon me, but I don't think it was up -to you to say it. It may wind up by puttin' everybody an' everything in -Dutch. No sport can know what he'll want to do, or what he ought to do, -four years ahead. Bein' pres'dent now, with four years to draw to, you -can no more tell whether or no you'll want to repeat than you can tell -what you'll want for dinner while you're eatin' lunch. Once I knew a guy -who's always ready to swear off whiskey, when he's half full. Used to -chase round to th' priest, on his own hunch; to sign th' pledge, every -time he gets a bun. Bein' soaked, he feels like he'll never want another -drink. After he'd gone without whiskey a couple of days, however, he'd -wake up to it that he's been too bigoted. He'd feel that he's taken -too narrow a view of th' liquor question, an' commence to see things in -their true colors.' That's what my friend told him. And now that Teddy's -show-in' signs, I've wondered whether he recalls them warnin' words." - -"W'at'll th' demmycrats do?" asked the Nailer. "Run Willyum Jennin's?" - -"They will," retorted the Wop scornfully, "if they want to get th' hoot. -Three toimes has this guy Bryan run--an' always f'r th' end book. D'yez -moind, Jimmy, how afther th' Denver Convention lie cha-a-ases down to -th' depot to shake ha-a-ands wit' Cha-a-arley Murphy? There's no class -to that! Would Washin'ton have done it?--Would Jefferson?" - -"How was he hoited be shakin' hands wit' Murphy?" - -The Nailer's tones were almost defiant. He had been brought up with a -profound impression of the grandeur of Tammany Hall. - -"How was he hur-r-rted? D'yez call it th' cun-nin' play f'r him to be at -th' depot, hand stretched out, an' yellin' 'Mitt me, Cha-a-arley, mitt -me?' Man aloive, d'yez think th' country wants that koind av a ska-a-ate -in th' White House?" - -The acrid emphasis of the Wop was so overwhelming that it swept the -Nailer off his feet. - -The Wop resumed: - -"Wan thing, that depot racket wasn't th' way to carry New York. Th' way -to bring home th' darby in th' Empire Shtate is to go to th' flure wit' -Tammany at th' ringin' av th' gong. How was it Cleveland used to win? -Was it be makin' a pet av Croker, or sendin' th' organization flowers? -An' yez don't have to be told what happened to Cleveland. An' Tammany, -moind yez, tryin' to thump his proshpecks on th' nut ivery fut av th' -way! If Willyum Jinnin's had been th' wise fowl, he'd have took his -hunch fr'm th' career av Cleveland, an' rough-housed Tammany whiniver -an' wheriver found. If he'd only knocked Tammany long enough an' -ha-a-ard enough, he'd have had an anchor-nurse on th' result." - -"This sounds like treason, Wop," said old Jimmy in tones of mock -reproach. "Croker was boss in th' Cleveland days. You'll hardly say that -Charlie ain't a better chief than Croker?" - -"Jimmy, there's as much difference bechune ould man Croker an' -Cha-a-arley Murphy as bechune a buffalo bull an' a billy-goat. To make -Murphy chief was loike settin' a boy to carryin' hod. While yez couldn't -say f'r shure whether he'd fall fr'm th' laddher or simply sit down -wit' th' hod, it's a cinch he'd niver get th' bricks to th' scaffold. -Murphy's too busy countin' th' buttons on his Prince Albert, an' -balancin' th' gold eye-glasshes on th' ridge av his nose, to lave him -anny toime f'r vict'ry." - -"While youse guys," observed the Nailer, with a great air of knowing -something, "is indulgin' in your spiels about Murphy, don't it ever -strike youse that he's out to make Gaynor pres'dent?" - -"Gaynor?" repeated old Jimmy, in high offence. "Do you think Charlie's -balmy? If it ever gets so that folks of th' Gaynor size is looked on as -big enough for th' presidency, I for one shall retire to th' booby house -an' devote th' remainder of an ill-spent life to cuttin' paper dolls. -An' yet, Nailer, I oughtn't to wonder at youse either for namin' him. -There's a Demmycrat Club mutt speaks to me about that very thing at th' -Little Hungary dinner." - -"'Gaynor is a college graduate,' says the Demmycrat Clubber. 'Is he?' -says I. 'Well then he ought to chase around to that college an' make -'em give him back his money. They swindled him.' 'Look at th' friends he -has!' says th' Clubber. 'I've been admirin' 'em,' I says. 'What with one -thing an' another, them he's appointed to office has stole everything -but th' back fence.' 'But didn't Croker, in his time, hook him up with -Tammany Hall?' says th' Clubber; 'that ought to show you!' 'Croker -did,' says I; 'it's an old Croker trick. Croker was forever get-tin' th' -Gaynors an' th' Shepherds an' th' Astor-Chanlers an' th' Cord Meyers an' -all them high-fly-in' guys into Tammany. He does it for th' same reason -they puts a geranium in a tenement house window.' 'An' w'at may that -be?' asks the Clubber. 'Th' geranium's intended,' says I, 'to engage -th' eye of th' Health Inspector, an' distract his attention from th' -drain.'" - -The Darby Kid, a bright dancing light in her eyes and all a-flutter, -rushed in. The Nailer crossed over to a table at which sat Mollie -Squint. The Darby Kid joined them. - -"W'at do youse think?" cried the Darby Kid. "I'm comin' out of me flat -when th' postman slips me a letter from Harry th' Soldier." - -"Where is he?" asked Mollie Squint. - -"That's th' funny part. He's in th' Eyetalian Army, an' headed for -Africa. That's a fine layout, I don't think! An' he says I'm th' only -goil he ever loves, an' asts me to join him! Ain't he got his nerve?" - -"W'y? You ain't mad because he croaks Butch?" - -"No. But me for Africa!--the ideer!" - -"About Dopey Benny?" said the Nailer. - -"Harry says Benny got four spaces in Canada. It's a bank trick--tryin' -to blow a box in Montreal or somethin'." - -"Then you won't join Harry?" remarked Mollie Squint. - -"In Africa? When I do, I'll toin mission worker." - -The next day the Central Office knew all that the Darby Kid knew as to -Harry the Soldier. But why say it was she who squealed? The Nailer -and Mollie Squint were quite as well informed as herself, having read -Harry's letter. - -To begin at the foundation and go to the eaves--which is the only right -way to build either a house or a story. Crazy Butch had reached his -twenty-eighth year, when he died and was laid to rest in accordance with -the ceremonial of his ancient church. He was a child of the East Side, -and his vices out-topped his virtues upon a principle of sixteen to one. - -The parents of Butch may be curtly dismissed as unimportant. They -gave him neither care nor guidance, but left him to grow up, a moral -straggler, in what tangled fashion he would. Never once did they show -him the moral way in which he should go. Not that Butch would have taken -it if they had. - -To Butch, as to Gangland in general, morality was as so much lost -motion. And, just as time-is money among honest folk, so was motion -money with Butch and his predatory kind. Old Jimmy correctly laid down -the Gangland position, which was Butch's position. Said old Jimmy: - -"Morality is all to the excellent for geeks with dough to burn an' time -to throw away. It's right into the mitts of W'ite Chokers, who gets paid -for bein' good an' hire out to be virchuous for so much a year. But -of what use is morality to a guy along the Bowery? You could take a -cartload of it to Simpson's, an' you couldn't get a dollar on it." - -Not much was known of the childhood of Butch, albeit his vacuous lack -of book knowledge assisted the theory that little or less of it had been -passed in school. Nor was that childhood a lengthy one, for fame began -early to collect upon Butch's scheming brow. He was about the green and -unripe age of thirteen when he went abroad into the highways and byways -of the upper city and stole a dog of the breed termed setter. This -animal he named Rabbi, and trained as a thief. - -Rabbi, for many months, was Butch's meal ticket. The method of their -thievish procedure was simple but effective. Butch--Rabbi alertly at -his godless heels--would stroll about the streets looking for prey. When -some woman drifted by, equipped of a handbag of promise, Butch pointed -out the same to the rascal notice of Rabbi. After which the discreet -Butch withdrew, the rest of it--as he said--being up to Rabbi. - -Rabbi followed the woman, his abandoned eye on the hand-bag. Watching -his chance, Rabbi rushed the woman and dexterously whisked the handbag -from out her horrified fingers. Before the woman realized her loss, -Rabbi had raced around a nearest corner and was lost to all pursuit. -Fifteen minutes later he would find Butch at Willett and Stanton -Streets, and turn over the touch. - -Rabbi hated a policeman like a Christian. The sight of one would send -him into growling, snarling, hiding. None the less, like all great -characters, Rabbi became known; and, in the end, through some fraud -which was addressed to his softer side and wherein a canine Delilah -performed, he Avas betrayed into the clutches of the law. - -This mischance marked the close, as a hanger-snatcher, of the invaluable -Rabbi's career. Not that the plain-clothes people who caught him affixed -a period to his doggish days. Even a plains-clothes man isn't entirely -hard. Rabbi's captors merely found him a home in the Catskills, where he -spent his days in honor and his nights in sucking unsuspected eggs. - -When Rabbi was retired to private life, Butch, in his bread-hunting, -resolved to seek new paths. Among the cruder crimes is house-breaking -and to it the amateur law-breaker most naturally turns. Butch became a -house-worker with special reference to flats. - -In the beginning, Butch worked in the day time, or as they say in -Gangland, "went out on _skush._" Hating the sun, however, as all true -criminals, must, he shifted to night jobs, and took his dingy place -in the ranks of viciousness as a _schlamwerker_. As such he turned off -houses, flats and stores, taking what Fate sent him. Occasionally he -varied the dull monotony of simple burglary by truck-hopping. - -Man cannot live by burglary alone, and Butch was not without his -gregarious side. Seeking comradeship, he united himself with the Eastman -gang. As a gangster he soon distinguished himself. He fought like a -berserk; and it was a sort of war-frenzy, which overtook him in battle, -that gave him his honorable prefix. - -Monk Eastman thought well of Butch. Not even Ike the Blood stood -nearer than did Butch to the heart of that grim gang captain. Eastman's -weakness was pigeons. When he himself went finally to Sing Sing, he -asked the court to permit him another week in the Tombs, so that he -might find a father for his five hundred feathered pets. - -In the days when Butch came to strengthen as well as ornament his -forces, Eastman kept a bird store in Broome Street, under the New Irving -Hall. Eastman also rented bicycles. Those who thirsted to stand well -with him were sedulous to ride a wheel. They rented these uneasy engines -of Eastman, with the view of drawing to themselves that leader's favor. -Butch, himself, was early astride a bicycle. One time and another he -paid into Eastman's hands the proceeds of many a _shush_ or _schlam_ -job; and all for the calf-developing privilege of pedalling about the -streets. - -Butch conceived an idea which peculiarly endeared him to Eastman. In -Forsyth Street was a hall, and Butch--renting the same--organized an -association which, in honorable advertisement of his chief's trade of -pigeons and bicycles, he called the Squab-Wheelmen. Eastman himself -stood godfather to this club, and at what times he reposed himself from -his bike and pigeon labors, played pool in its rooms. - -There occurred that which might have shaken one less firmly established -than Butch. As it was, it but solidified him and did him good. The world -will remember the great gang battle, fought at Worth and Center Streets, -between the Eastmans and the Five Points. The merry-making was put an -end to by those spoil sports, the police, who, as much without noble -sympathies as chivalric instincts, drove the contending warriors from -the field at the point of their night sticks. - -Brief as was the fray, numerous were the brave deeds done. On one -side or the other, the Dropper, the Nailer, Big Abrams, Ike the Blood, -Slimmy, Johnny Rice, Jackeen Dalton, Biff Ellison and the Grabber -distinguished themselves. As for Butch, he was deep within the warlike -thick of things, and no one than he came more to the popular front. - -Sequential to that jousting, a thought came to Butch. The Squab-Wheelmen -were in nightly expectation of an attack from the Five Pointers. By way -of testing their valor, and settle definitely, in event of trouble, who -would stick and who would duck, Butch one midnight, came rushing up the -stairway, which led to the club rooms, blazing with two pistols at once. -Butch had prevailed upon five or six others, of humor as jocose as his -own, to assist, and the explosive racket the party made in the narrow -stairway was all that heart could have wished. It was comparable only -to a Mott Street Chinese New Year's, as celebrated in front of the Port -Arthur. - -There were sixty members in the rooms of the Squab-Wheelmen when Butch -led up his feigned attack, and it is discouraging to relate that most -if not all of them fled. Little Kishky, sitting in a window, was so -overcome that he fell out backwards, and broke his neck. Some of those -who fled, by way of covering their confusion, were inclined to make -a deal of the death of Little Kishky and would have had it set to the -discredit of Butch. Gangland opinion, however, was against them. If -Little Kishky hadn't been a quitter, he would never have fallen out. -Butch was not only exonerated but applauded. He had devised--so declared -Gangland--an ideal method of separating the sheep who would fly from the -goats who would stay and stand fire. - -Then, too, there was the laugh. - -Gangland was quick to see the humorous side; and since humanity is prone -to decide as it laughs, Gangland overwhelmingly declared in favor of -Butch. - -It was about this time that Butch found himself in a jam. His _schlam_ -work had never been first class. It was the want of finish to it which -earned him the name of Butch. The second night after his stampede of the -Squab-Wheelmen, his clumsiness in a Brooklyn flat woke up a woman, who -woke up the neighborhood. Whereupon, the neighborhood rushed in and sat -upon the body of Butch, until the police came to claim him. -Subsequently, a Kings County judge saw his way clear to send Butch up -the river for four weary years. And did. - -Butch was older and soberer when he returned. Also, his world had -changed. Eastman had been put away, and Ritchie Fitzpatrick ruled in -his place. Butch cultivated discretion, where before he had been hot and -headlong, and no longer sought that gang prominence which was formerly -as the breath to his nostrils. - -Not that Butch altogether turned his back upon his old-time associates. -The local Froissarts tell how he, himself, captained a score or so of -choice spirits among the Eastmans, against the Humpty Jackson gang, -beat them, took them prisoners and plundered them. This brilliant -action occurred in that Fourteenth Street graveyard which was the common -hang-out of the Humpty Jacksons. Also, Humpty Jackson commanded his -partisans in person, and was captured and frisked with the rest. -Butch gained much glory and some money; for the Jacksons--however it -happened--chanced to be flush. - -Butch, returning from Sing-Sing exile, did not return to his _schlam_ -work. That trip up-the-river had shaken him. He became a Fagin, and -taught boys of tender years to do his stealing for him. - -Butch's mob of kids counted as many as twenty, all trained in -pocket-picking to a feather-edge. As aiding their childish efforts, -it was Butch's habit to mount a bicycle, and proceed slowly down the -street, his fleet of kids going well abreast of him on the walks. Acting -the part of some half-taught amateur of the wheel, Butch would bump -into a man or a woman, preferably a woman. There would be cries and -a scuffle. The woman would scold, Butch would expound and explain. -Meanwhile the wren-head public packed itself ten deep about the center -of excitement. - -It was then that Butch's young adherents pushed their shrewd way in. -Little hands went flying, to reap a very harvest of pokes. Butch began -building up a bank account. - -As an excuse for living, and to keep his mob together, Butch opened -a pool parlor. This temple of enjoyment was in a basement in Willett -Street near Stanton. The tariff was two-and-a-half cents a cue, and what -Charley Bateses and Artful Dodgers worked for Butch were wont to refresh -themselves at the game. - -Butch made money with both hands. He took his share as a Fagin. Then, -what fragmentary remnants of their stealings he allowed his young -followers, was faithfully blown in by them across his pool tables. - -Imagination rules the world. Butch, having imagination, extended -himself. Already a Fagin, Butch became a _posser_ and bought stolen -goods for himself. Often, too, he acted as a _melina_ and bought for -others. Thus Butch had three strings to his business bow. He was getting -rich and at the same time keeping out of the fingers of the bulls. This -caused him to be much looked up to and envied, throughout the length and -breadth of Gangland. - -Butch was thus prosperous and prospering when it occurred to him to fall -in love. Harry the Soldier was the Mark Antony of the Five Points, his -Cleopatra the Darby Kid. There existed divers reasons for adoring the -Darby Kid. There was her lustrous eyes, her coral mouth, her rounded -cheek, her full figure, her gifts as a shop lifter. As a graceful crown -to these attractions, the Darby Kid could pick a pocket with the best -wire that ever touched a leather. In no wise had she been named the -Darby Kid for nothing. Not even Mollie Squint was her superior at -getting the bundle of a boob. They said, and with truth, that those -soft, deep, lustrous eyes could look a sucker over, while yet that -unconscious sucker was ten feet away, and locate the keck wherein he -carried his roll. Is it astonishing then that the heart of Butch went -down on its willing knees to the Darby Kid? - -Another matter:--Wasn't the Darby Kid the chosen one of Harry the -Soldier? Was not Harry a Five Pointer? Had not Butch, elbow to elbow, -with his great chief, Eastman, fought the Five Pointers in the battle -at Worth and Center? It was a triumph, indeed, to win the heart of the -Darby Kid. It was twice a triumph to steal that heart away from Harry -the Soldier. - -The Darby Kid crossed over from Harry the Soldier to Butch, and brought -her love along. Thereafter her smiles were for Butch, her caresses for -Butch, her touches for Butch. Harry the Soldier was left desolate. - -Harry the Soldier was a gon of merit and deserved eminence. That he -had been an inmate not only of the House of Refuge but the Elmira -Reformatory, should show you that he was a past-master at his art. His -steady partner was Dopey Benny. With one to relieve the other in the -exacting duties of stinger, and a couple of good stalls to put up an -effective back, trust them, at fair or circus or theatre break, to make -leathers, props and thimbles fly. - -It was Gangland decision that for Butch to win the Darby Kid away from -Harry the Soldier, even as Paris aforetime took the lovely Helen from -her Menelaus, touched not alone the honor of Harry but the honor of the -Five Points. Harry must revenge himself. Still more must he revenge the -Five Points. It had become a case of Butch's life or his. On no milder -terms could Harry sustain himself in Gangland first circles. His name -else would be despised anywhere and everywhere that the fair and the -brave were wont to come together and unbuckle socially. - -Butch, tall and broad and strong, smooth of face, arched of nose, was -a born hawk of battle. Harry the Soldier, dark, short, of no muscular -power, was not the physical equal of Butch. Butch looked forward with -confidence to the upcome. - -"An' yet, Butch," sweetly warned the Darby Kid, her arms about his neck, -"you mustn't go to sleep at the switch. Harry'll nail you if youse do. -It'll be a gun-fight, an' he's a dream wit' a gatt." - -"Never mind about that gatt thing! Do youse think, dearie, I'd let that -Guinea cop a sneak on me?" - -It was a cool evening in September. A dozen of Butch's young gons were -knocking the balls about his pool tables. Butch himself was behind the -bar. Outside in Willett Street a whistle sounded. Butch picked up a -pistol off the drip-board, just in time to peg a shot at Harry the -Soldier as that ill-used lover came through the front door. Dopey Benny, -Jonathan to the other's David, was with Harry. Neither tried to shoot. -Through a hail of lead from Butch's pistol, the two ran out the back -door. No one killed; no one wounded. Butch had been shooting too high, -as the bullet-raked ceiling made plain. - -Butch explained his wretched gun play by saying that he was afraid of -pinking some valued one among his boy scouts. - -"At that," he added, "it's just as well. Them wops 'll never come back. -Now when they see I'm organized they'll stay away. There ain't no sand -in them Sicilians." - -Butch was wrong. Harry, with Dopey Benny, was back the next night. This -time there was no whistle. Harry had sent forward a force of skirmishers -to do up those sentinels, with whom Butch had picketed Willett' Street. -Butch's earliest intimation that there was something doing came when a -bullet from the gun of Harry broke his back. Dopey Benny stood off the -public, while Harry put three more bullets into Butch. The final three -were superfluous, however, as was shown at the inquest next day. - -The Darby Kid was abroad upon her professional duties as a gon-moll, -when Harry hived Butch. Her absence was regretted by her former lover. - -"Because," said he, as he and Dopey Benny fled down Stanton Street, "I'd -like to have made the play a double header, and downed the Kid along -wit' Butch." - -It was not so written, however. Double headers, whatever the field of -human effort, are the exception and not the rule of life. - -It was whispered that Harry the Soldier and Dopey Benny remained three -days in the Pell Street room of Big Mike Abrams before their get-away. -They might have been at the bottom of the lower bay, for all the Central -Office knew. Butch was buried, and the Darby Kid wept over his grave. -After which she cheered up, and came back smiling. There is no good in -grief. Besides, it's egotistical, and trenches upon conceit. - -The Central Office declares that, equipped of the right papers, it will -bring Harry the Soldier back from Africa. Also, it will go after Dopey -Benny in Kanuckland, when his time is out. The chair--says the Central -Office--shall yet have both. - -Old Jimmy doesn't think there's a chance, while the jaundiced Wop openly -scoffs. Neither believes in the police. Meanwhile dark suspicions hover -cloudily over the Darby Kid. Did she rap? She says not, and offers to -pawn her soul. - -"Why should I?" asks the Darby Kid. "Of course I'd sooner it was Butch -copped Harry. But it went the other way; an' why should I holler? Would -beefin' bring Butch back?" - - - - -XI.--BIG MIKE ABRAMS - - -This was after Nigger Mike had gone into exile in cold and sorrowful -Toronto, and while Tony Kelly did the moist honors at Number Twelve -Pell. Nigger Mike, you will remember, hurried to his ruin on the -combined currents of enthusiasm and many drinks, had registered a score -or two of times; for he meditated casting full fifty votes at the coming -election, in his own proper person, and said so to his friends. - -As Mike registered those numerous times, the snap-shot hirelings of -certain annoying reformers were busy popping him with their cameras. His -friends informed him of this, and counselled going slow. But Mike was -beyond counsel, and knew little or less of cameras--never having had -his picture taken save officially, and by the rules of Bertillon. In the -face of those who would have saved him, he continued to stagger in -and out upon that multifarious registration, inviting destruction. The -purists took the pictures to the District Attorney, their hirelings told -their tales, and Mike perforce went into that sad Toronto exile. He is -back now, however, safe, sober, clothed and in his right mind; but that -is another story. - -The day had been a sweltering July day for all of Chinatown. Now that -night had come, the narrowness of Pell and Doyers and Mott Streets was -choked with Chinamen, sitting along the curb, lolling in doorways, or -slowly drifting up and down, making the most of the cool of the evening. - -Over across from Number Twelve a sudden row broke out. There were -smashings and crashings, loopholed, as it were, with shrill Mongolian -shrieks. The guests about Tony's tables glanced up with dull, -half-interested eyes. - -"It's Big Mike Abrams tearin' th' packin' out of th' laundry across th' -street," said Tony. - -Tony was at the front door when the war broke forth, and had come aft -to explain. Otherwise those about his tables might have gone personally -forth, seeking a solution of those yellings and smashings and -crashings for themselves, and the flow of profitable beer been thereby -interrupted. At Tony's explanation his guests sat back in their chairs, -and ordered further beer. Which shows that Tony had a knowledge of his -business. - -"About them socialists," resumed Sop Henry, taking up the talk where it -had broken off; "Big Tom Foley tells me that they're gettin' something -fierce. They cast more'n thirty thousand votes last Fall." - -"Say," broke in the Nailer, "I can't understand about a socialist. He -must be on the level at that; for one evenin', when they're holdin' a -meetin' in the Bowery, a fleet of gons goes through a dozen of 'em, -an', exceptin' for one who's an editor, and has pulled off a touch -somewheres, there ain't street car fare in all their kecks. That shows -there's nothin' in it for 'em. Th' editor has four bones on him--hardly -enough for a round of drinks an' beef stews. Th' mob blows it in at -Flynn's joint, down be th' corner." - -"I'm like you, Nailer," agreed Sop Henry. "Them socialists have -certainly got me goin'. I can't get onto their coives at all." - -"Lishten, then." This came from the Irish Wop, who was nothing if not -political. "Lishten to me. Yez can go to shleep on it, I know all about -a socialist. There's ould Casey's son, Barney--ould Casey that med a -killin' in ashphalt. Well, since his pah-pah got rich, young Casey's -a socialist. On'y his name ain't Barney now, it's Berna-a-ard. There's -slathers av thim sons av rich min turnin' socialists. They ain't strong -enough to git a fall out av either av th' big pa-a-arties, so they rush -off to th' socialists, where be payin' fer th' shpot light, they're -allowed to break into th' picture. That's th' way wit' young Barney, -ould Ashphalt Casey's son. Wan evenin' he dr-r-ives up to Lyon's wit' -his pah-pah's broom, two bob-tailed horses that spint most av their time -on their hind legs, an' th' Casey coat av arms on the broom dure, th' -same bein' a shtick av dynamite rampant, wit' two shovels reversed on a -field av p'tatoes. 'How ar-r-re ye?' he says. 'I want yez to jump in an' -come wit' me to th' Crystal Palace. It's a socialist meet-in',' he says. -'Oh, it is?' says I; 'an' phwat's a socialist? Is it a game or a musical -inshtrumint?' Wit' that he goes into p'ticulars. 'Well,' thinks I, -'there's th' ride, annyhow; an' I ain't had a carriage ride since -Eat-'em-up-Jack packed in--saints rest him! So I goes out to th' broom; -an' bechune th' restlessness av thim bob-tailed horses an' me not seein' -a carriage fer so long, I nearly br-r-roke me two legs gettin' in. -However, I wint. An' I sat on th' stage; an' I lishtened to th' -wind-jammin'; an' not to go no further, a socialist is simply an -anarchist who don't believe in bombs." - -There arose laughter and loud congratulatory sounds about the door. -Next, broadly smiling, utterly complacent, Big Mike Abrams walked in. - -"Did youse lobsters hear me handin' it to th' monkeys?" he asked, and -his manner was the manner of him who doubts not the endorsement of men. -"That chink, Low Foo, snakes two of me shirts. I sends him five, an' -he on'y sends back three. So I caves in his block wit' a flatiron. You -ought to pipe his joint! I leaves it lookin' like a poolroom that won't -prodooce, after the wardman gets through." - -"An' Low Foo?" queried Tony, who had shirts of his own. - -"Oh, a couple of monks carries him to his bunk out back. It'll take -somethin' more'n a shell of hop to chase away his troubles!" Mike -refreshed himself with a glass of beer, which he called suds. "Say," he -continued with much fervor, "I wisht I could get a job punchin' monks at -a dollar a monk!" - -Mike Abrams, _alias_ Big Mike, was a pillar of Chinatown, and added -distinctly to the life of that quarter. He was nearly six feet tall, -with shoulders as square as the foretopsail yard of a brig. His nervous -arms were long and slingy, his bony hands the size of hams. Neither the -Dropper nor yet Big Myerson could swap blows with him, and his hug--if -it came to rough-and-tumble--was comparable only to the hug of Mersher -the Strong Arm, who had out-hugged a bear for the drinks. - -While he lived, Little Maxie greatly appreciated Big Mike. Little Maxie -is dead now. He ranked in the eyes of Mulberry Street as the best tool -that ever nailed a leather. To be allowed to join out with his mob -was conclusive of one's cleverness as a gon. For Maxie would have no -bunglers, no learners about him. - -And, yet, as he himself said, Big Mike's value - -Jay not in any deftness of fingers, but in his stout, unflinching heart, -and a knock-down strength of fist like unto the blow of a maul. - -"As a stall he's worse'n a dead one," Maxie had said. "No one ever put -up a worse back. But let a sucker raise a roar, or some galoot of a -country sheriff start something--that's where Mike comes on. You know -last summer, when I'm followin' Ringling's show? Stagger, Beansey an' -Mike's wit' me as bunchers. Over at Patterson we had a rumble. I got a -rube's ticker, a red one. He made me; an' wit' that youse could hear th' -yell he lets out of him in Newark. A dozen of them special bulls which -Ringling has on his staff makes a grab at us. Youse should have lamped -Mike! Th' way he laid out them circus dicks was like a tune of music. -It's done in a flash, an' every last guy of us makes his get-away. Hock -your socks, it's Mike for me every time! I'd sooner he filled in wit' a -mob of mine than th' best dip that ever pinched a poke." - -Big Mike had been a fixed star in the Gangland firmament for years. He -knew he could slug, he knew he could stay; and he made the most of these -virtues. When not working with Little Maxie, he took short trips into -the country with an occasional select band of yeggs, out to crack a P. -O. or a jug. At such times, Mike was the out-side man--ever a post of -responsibility. The out-side man watches while the others blow the box. -In case things take to looking queer or leary, he is to pass the whistle -of warning to his pals. Should an officer show unexpectedly up, he must -stand him off at the muzzle of his gatt, and if crowded, shoot and shoot -to kill. He is to stand fast by his partners, busy with wedges, fuse and -soup inside, and under no circumstances to desert them. Mike was that -one of ten thousand, who had the nerve and could be relied upon to do -and be these several iron things. Wherefore, he lived not without honor -in the land, and never was there a fleet of yeggs or a mob of gons, but -received him into its midst with joy and open hearts. - -Mike made a deal of money. Not that it stuck to hum; for he was born -with his hands open and spent it as fast as he made it. Also, he drank -deeply and freely, and moreover hit the pipe. Nor could he, in the -latter particular, be called a pleasure smoker nor a Saturday nighter. -Mike had the habit. - -At one time Mike ran an opium den at Coney Island, and again on the -second floor of Number Twelve Pell. But the police--who had no sure way -of gauging the profits of opium--demanded so much for the privilege that -Mike was forced to close. - -"Them bulls wanted all I made an' more," complained Mike, recounting his -wrongs to Beansey. "I had a 50-pipe joint that time in Pell, an' from -the size of the rake-off the captain's wardman asks, you'd have thought -that every pipe's a roulette-wheel." - -"Couldn't you do nothin' wit' 'em?" asked Bean-sey, sympathetically. - -"Not a t'ing. I shows 'em that number-one hop is $87.50 a can, an' -yen-chee or seconds not less'n $32. Nothin' doin'! It's either come -across wit' five hundred bones th' foist of every month, or quit." - -Mike sighed over his fair prospects, blighted by the ignorant avarice of -the police. - -"W'at was youse chargin' a smoke?" inquired Beansey. - -"Two bits a shell. Of course, that's for yen-chee. I couldn't give -'em number-one for two bits. After all, w'at I cares most for is me -cats--two long-haired Persians." - -"Cats?" repeated Beansey, suspiciously. "W'at be youse handin' me?" - -Beansey by the way, knew nothing of opium. - -"W'at am I handin' youse?" said Mike. "I'm handin' you th' goods. Cats -get th' habit same as people. My cats would plant be some party who's -cookin' a pill, an' sniff th' hop an' get as happy as anybody. Take 'em -off the pipe, an' it's th' same as if they're Christians. Dogs, too. Let -'em once get th' habit, an' then take 'em away from a pipe joint, an' -they has pains in their stummicks, an' twists an' yowls till you think -they're goin' mad. When th' cops shut down on me, I has to give me cats -to th' monk who's runnin' th' opium dump on th' top floor. Sure t'ing! -They'd have croaked if I hadn't. They're on'y half happy, though; for -while they gets their hop they misses me. Them toms an' me has had many -a good smoke." - -Folks often wondered at the intimacy between Mike and Little Maxie--not -that it has anything to do with this story. Little Maxie--his name on -the Central Office books was Maxie Fyne, _alias_ Maxie English, _alias_ -Little Maxie, _alias_ Sharapatheck--was the opposite of Big Mike. He was -small; he was weak; he didn't drink; he didn't hit the pipe. Also, at -all times, and in cold blood, he was a professional thief. His wife, -whom he called "My Kytie"--for Little Maxie was from Houndsditch, and -now and then his accent showed it--was as good a thief as he, but on a -different lay. Her specialty was robbing women. She worked alone, as all -good gon-molls do, and because of her sure excellencies was known as the -Golden Hand. - -Little Maxie and his Golden Hand, otherwise his Kytie--her name was -Kate--had a clean little house near Washington Square on the south. -They owned a piano and a telephone--the latter was purely defensive--and -their two children went to school, and sat book to book with the -children of honest men and women. - -The little quiet home, with its piano and defensive telephone, is gone -now. Little Maxie died and his Golden Hand married again; for there's no -false sentiment in Gangland. If a husband's dead he's dead, and there's -nothing made by mourning. Likewise, what's most wanted in any husband is -that he should be a live one. - -Little Maxie died in a rather curious way. Some say he was drowned by -his pals, Big Mike among them. The story runs that there was a quarrel -over splitting up a touch, and the mob charged Little Maxie with holding -out. Be that as it may, the certainty is that Little Maxie and his mob, -being in Peekskill, got exceeding drunk--all but Little Maxie--and went -out in a boat. Being out, Little Maxie went overboard abruptly, and -never came up. Neither did anybody go after him. The mob returned to -town to weep--crocodile tears, some said--into their beer, as they told -and re-told their loss, and in due time Little Maxie's body drifted -ashore and was buried. That was the end. Had it been some trust-thief of -a millionaire, there would have been an investigation. But Little Maxie -was only a pick-pocket. - -Big Mike, like all strong characters, had his weakness. His weakness -was punching Chinamen; fairly speaking, it grew to be his fad. It wasn't -necessary that a Chinaman do anything; it was enough that he came within -reach. Mike would knock him cold. In a single saunter through Pell -Street, he had been known to leave as many as four senseless Chinamen -behind him, fruits of his fist. - -"For," said Mike, in cheerful exposition of the motive which underlay -that performance, "I do so like to beat them monks about! I'd sooner -slam one of 'em ag'inst th' wall than smoke th' pipe." - -One time and another Mike punched two-thirds of all the pig-tailed heads -in Chinatown. Commonly he confined himself to punching, though once or -twice he went a step beyond. Lee Dok he nearly brained with a stool. But -Lee Dok had been insultingly slow in getting out of Mike's way. - -Mike was proud of his name and place as the Terror of Chinatown. Whether -he walked in Mott or Pell or Doyers Street, every Chinaman who saw him -coming went inside and locked his door. - -Those who didn't see him and so go inside and dock their doors--and -they were few--he promptly soaked. And if to see a Chinaman run was as -incense to Mike's nose, to soak one became nothing less than a sweet -morsel under his tongue. The wonder was that Mike didn't get shot or -knifed, which miracle went not undiscussed at such centers as Tony's, -Barney Flynn's, Jimmy Kelly's and the Chatham Club. But so it was; the -pig-tailed population of Chinatown parted before Mike's rush like so -much water. - -One only had been known to resist--Sassy Sam, who with a dwarf's body -possessed a giant's soul. - -Sassy Sam was a hatchet-man of dread eminence, belonging to the Hip Sing -Tong. Equipped of a Chinese sword, of singular yet murderous appearance, -he chased Mike the length of Pell Street. Mike out-ran Sassy Sam, which -was just as well. It took three shells of hop to calm Mike's perturbed -spirit; for he confessed to a congenital horror of steel. - -"That's straight," said Mike, as with shaking fingers he filled his -peanut-oil lamp, and made ready to cook himself a pill, "I never could -stand for a chive. An' say"--he shuddered--"that monk has: one longer'n -your arm." - -Sassy Sam and his snickersnee, however, did not cure Mike of his -weakness for punching the Mongolian head. Nothing short of death could -have done that. - -Some six months prior to his caving in the skull of Low Foo, because -of those shirts improperly missing, Mike did that which led to -consequences. Prompted by an overplus of sweet, heady Chinese rum, -or perhaps it was the heroic example of Sassy Sam, Ling Tchen, being -surprised by Mike in Pell Street, did not--pig-tail flying--clatter -inside and lock his door. More and worse, he faced Mike, faced him, -coughed contumeliously and spat upon the cobbles. To merely soak Ling -Tchen would have been no adequate retort--Ling Tchen who thus studied to -shame him. Wherefore Mike killed him with a clasp knife, and even went -so far as to cut off the dead Tchen's head. The law might have taken -notice of this killing, but some forethoughtful friend had had wit -enough to tuck a gun beneath the dead Tchen's blouse, and thus it became -at once and obviously a case of self-defence. - -There was a loose screw in the killing of Ling Tchen. The loose screw -dwelt not in the manner of that killing, which had been not only -thorough but artistic. Indeed, cutting off Ling Tchen's head as a finale -was nothing short of a stroke of genius. The loose screw was that Ling -Tchen belonged to the Hip Sing Tong; and the Hip Sing Tongs lived in -Pell Street, where Mike himself abode. To be sure, since Ling Tchen did -the provoking, Mike had had no choice. Still, it might have come off -better had Ling Tchen been an On Leon Tong. An On Leon Tong belongs in -Mott Street and doesn't dare poke his wheat-hued nose into Pell Street, -where the Four Brothers and the Hip Sing Tongs are at home. - -Mike's room was in the rear, on the second floor of Number Twelve. -It pleased and soothed him, he said, as he smoked a pill, to hear the -muffled revelry below in Tony's. He had just come from his room upon -that shirt occasion which resulted so disastrously for Low Fee. - -Mike was among friends in Tony's. Having told in full how he did up Low -Foo, and smashed that shirt thief's laundry, Mike drank two glasses of -beer, and said that he thought now he'd go upstairs and have a smoke. - -"There must be somethin' in lickin' a chink," expounded Mike, "that -makes a guy hanker for th' hop." - -"It's early yet; better stick 'round," urged Tony, politely. "There -is some high-rollers from Newport up here on a yacht, an' crazy to see -Chinatown in th' summer when th' blankets is off. Th' dicks w'at's got -'em in tow, gives me th' tip that they'll come lungin' in here about -ten. They're over in Mott Street now, takin' a peek at the joss house -an' drinkin' tea in the Port Arthur." - -"I don't want to meet 'em," declared Mike. "Them stiffs makes me sick. -If youse'd promise to lock th' doors, Tony, an' put 'em all in th' air -for what they've got on 'em, I might stay." - -"That'd be a wise play, I don't think," remarked the Dropper, who had -just come in. "Tony'd last about as long as a dollar pointin' stuss. -Puttin' a chink on th' bum is easy, an' a guy can get away wit' it; -but lay a finger on a Fift' Avenoo Willie-boy, or look cockeyed at a -spark-fawney on th' finger of one of them dames, an' a judge'll fall -over himself to hand youse twenty years." - -"Right youse be, Dropper!" said the sophistcated Tony. - -Mike climbed the creaking stairway to his room. - -Below, in Tony's, the beer, the gossip, the music, the singing and the -dancing went on. Pretty Agnes sang a new song, and was applauded. That -is, she was applauded by all save Mollie Squint, who uplifted her nose -and said that "it wasn't so much." - -Mollie Squint was invited to sing, but refused. - -About ten o'clock came the Newport contingent, fresh from quaffing tea -and burning joss sticks. They were led by a she-captain of the Four -Hundred, who shall go here as Mrs. Vee. Mrs. Vee, young, pretty, -be-jeweled, was in top spirits. For she had just been divorced from her -husband, and they put brandy into the Port Arthur tea if you tell them -to. - -Tony did the honors for Number Twelve. He and Mrs. Vee, surrounded by a -fluttering flock of purple doves, all from aristocratic cotes, became -as thick as thieves. The Dropper, who was not wanting in good looks and -could spiel like a dancing master, went twice around the room with Mrs. -Vee--just for a lark, you know--to a tune scraped from Tony's fiddles -and thumped from that publican's piano. After which, Mrs. Vee and her -flutter of followers, Willieboys and all, went their purple way. - -Tony, with never flagging courtesy, escorted them to the door. What he -beheld filled his somewhat sluggish soul with wonder. Pell Street was -thronged with Chinamen. They were sitting or standing, all silent, faces -void of meaning. The situation, too, was strange in this. A Chinaman -could have told you that they were all of the Hip Sing Tong, and not a -Four Brothers among them. He wouldn't of course, for a Chinaman tells -a white devil nothing. Pell, by the way, was as much the home street of -the Four Brothers as of the Hip Sing Tong. - -Tony expressed his astonishment at the pigtailed press which thronged -the thoroughfare. - -"This is how it is," vouchsafed the explanatory Tony to Mrs. Vee and -her purple fluttering doves. "Big Mike's just after standin' Low Foo's -wash-shop on its nut, an' these monks are sizin' up th' wreck. When -anything happens to a monk his tong makes good, see?" - -Tony might not have said this had he recalled that Low Foo was a Four -Brothers, and understood that no one not a Hip Sing Tong was in the -crowd. Tony, however, recalled nothing, understood nothing; for he -couldn't tell one Chinaman from another. - -"How interesting!" cooed Mrs. Vee, in response to Tony's elucidation; -and with that her flock of purple doves, in fluttering agreement, cooed, -"How interesting!" - -"Did youse lamp th' ice on them dames?" asked Sop Henry, when the -slumming Mrs. Vee and her suite were out of ear-shot. - -Sop had an eye for diamonds. - -"That bunch ain't got a thing but money!" observed the Wop, his eyes -glittering enviously. "I wisht I had half their cush." - -"Money ain't th' whole box of tricks." - -This deep declaration emanated from old Jimmy. Old Jimmy's home was a -rear room on Second Street near the Bowery, which overlooked a graveyard -hidden in the heart of the block. There, when not restoring himself at -Tony's or Sirocco's or Lyon's, old Jimmy smoked a vile tobacco known -as Sailors' Choice, in a vile clay pipe as black as sin, and meditated. -Having nothing to do but think, he evolved in time into a philosopher, -and it became his habit to unload chunks of wisdom on whomsoever seemed -to stand in need. Also, since he was warlike and carried a knife, -and because anyone in hard luck could touch him for a dollar, he was -listened to politely in what society he favored with his countenance. - -"Money ain't th' whole box of tricks," old Jimmy repeated, severely, -wagging a grizzled head at the Wop, "an' only you're Irish an' ignorant -you wouldn't have to be told so." - -"Jimmy, you're nutty," returned the Wop. "Never mind me bein' nutty," -retorted old Jimmy, dogmatically. "I know all about th' rich." Then, in -forgetfulness of his pension and the liberal source of it, he continued: -"A rich man is so much like a fat hog that he's seldom any good until -he's dead." - -Old Jimmy called for beer; wisdom is always dry. "Say?" observed the -Dropper, airily, "do youse guys know that I'm thinkin' I'll just about -cop off some dame with millions of dough, an' marry her." - -"Would she have youse?" inquired Mollie Squint, with the flicker of a -sneer. - -"It's easy money," returned the Dropper; "all I has to do is put out me -sign, see? Them rich frails would fall for me in a hully second." - -"You crooks can't think of a thing but money," snorted old Jimmy. "Marry -a rich dame! A guy might as well get a job as valet or butler or footman -somewhere an' let it go at that. Do you mutts know what love is? Th' one -married chance of happiness is love. An' to love, folks must be poor. -Then they have to depend upon each other; and it's only when people -depend upon each other they love each other." - -"Jimmy," quoth the Dropper, with mock sadness. "I can see your finish. -You'll land in Bloomingdale, playin' wit' a string of spools." - -"Did you ever," demanded old Jimmy, disregarding the irreverent Dropper, -"see some strapping young party, up against the skyline on an iron -building, workin' away wit' one of them rivetin' guns? Well, somewhere -between th' two rivers there's a girl he's married to, who's doin' -a two-step 'round a cook stove, fryin' steak an' onions for him, -an' keepin' an eye out that their kids don't do a high dive off th' -fire-escape. Them two people are th' happiest in th' world. Such -boneheads as you can't appreciate it, but they are. Give 'em a million -dollars an' you'll spoil it. They'd get a divorce; you'd put that -household on th' toboggan. If this Mister Vee, now, had been poor an' -drove a truck instead of bein' rich an' drivin' a 6-horse coach, an' -if Mrs. Vee had been poor an' done a catch-as-catch-can with th' family -washtub instead of havin' money to burn an' hirein' a laundress, she'd -never have bucked th' divorce game, but lived happy ever after." - -"But, Jimmy," interposed Tony, "I've seen poor folks scrap." - -"Sure," assented Jimmy; "all married folks scrap--a little. But them's -only love spats, when they're poor. Th' wife begins 'em. She thinks -she'll just about try hubby out, an' see can he go some. Th' only risk -is him bein' weak enough to let her win. She don't want to win; victory -would only embarrass her. What she's after is a protector; an' if hubby -lets her put him on th' floor for th' count, she don't know where she's -at. She's dead sure she's no good; an' if he's a quitter she's left all -in th' air. Havin' floored him, she thinks to herself, 'This thing -protect me? Why, I can lick him myself!' After that, hubby might better -keep close tabs on little Bright-eyes, or some mornin' he'll call the -family roll an' she won't answer. Take a boy an' a girl, both young, -both square, both poor--so they'll need each ether--an', so he's got her -shaded a little should it come to th' gloves, two bugs in a rug won't -have nothin' on them." - -Old Jimmy up-ended his glass, as one who had settled grave matters, -while the Dropper and the Wop shook contemplative heads. - -"An' yet," said the Wop, after a pause, "goin' back to them rich babies -who was here, I still say I wisht I had their bundle." - -"It's four for one," returned old Jimmy, his philosophy again forging -to the fore--"it's four for one, Wop, you'd have a dead bad time. What -street shows th' most empty houses? Ain't it Fift' Ave-noo? Why be they -empty? Because the ginks who lived in 'em didn't have a good time in -'em. If they had they'd have stuck. A guy don't go places, he leaves -places. He don't go to Europe, he leaves New York." - -Old Jimmy turned to Tony. - -"Fill up th' crockery. I'm talkin' 'way over th' heads of these bums." - -"Ain't he a wonder?" whispered Pretty Agnes to the Nailer. - -"I should say as much," responded the admiring Nailer. "He ought to -be sellin' gold bricks. He's talked th' Dropper an' th' Wop into a hard -knot." - -The Dropper was not to be quelled, and insisted that Jimmy was -conversing through his sou'wester. - -"I don't think so," broke in Jew Yetta; "I strings wit' Jimmy. Take -a tumble to yourself, Dropper. If you was to marry one of them money -dames, you'd have to go into high society. An' then what? W'y, you'd -look like a pig on a front porch." - -"Don't youse bet on it," declared the Dropper loftily. "There's nothin' -in that high society stuff. A smart guy like me could learn his way -t'rough in a week." - -"Could he?" said the Nailer, and his tones were tones of derision. - -"That's w'at I says!" replied the Dropper. Then, heatedly: "W'y, do you -geeks think I've never been north of Fourteenth Street? Youse make me -tired, Nailer. While you was up-th'-river, for toinin' off that loft in -Chambers Street, don't I go to a shindy at th' Demmycrat Club in honor -of Sen'tor Depew? There was loidies there--th' real thing, too. An' -wasn't I another time at th' Charlie Murphy dinner? Talk of high -society!--if that ain't high society, what is?" - -Having squelched the Nailer, the Dropper proceeded more moderately. - -"I remember th' scare that's t'run into me at the Depew racket. I've -been put up ag'inst some hot propositions, but if ever I'm faded it's -then when, for th' foist time, I lamps a full-blown dame in evenin' -dress. On th' dead, I felt like yellin' 'Police!'" - -"Phwat was it scared yez, Dropper?" asked the Wop. - -"It ain't that I'm so scared as rattled. There's too much free-board to -them evenin' dresses." - -"An' the Charlie Murphy banquet," said Pretty Agnes, wistfully. "Didn't -yez get cold feet?" - -"Naw, I don't git cold feet. I admits I falls down, I don't try to -sidestep that; but it wasn't my fault. Do it over again, an' I'd go -t'rough wit' bells on." - -"How did youse fall down?" - -"It's be accident; I takes th' wrong steer, that's all. I makes it a -point, knowin' I'm none too wise, to plant meself when we pulls up to -the feed opposite to a gilded old bunk, who looked like ready money. 'Do -as he does, Dropper' I says to meself, 'an' you're winner in a walk!' -So, when he plays a fork, I plays a fork; if he boards a chive, I boards -a chive; from soup to birds I'm steerin' be his wake. Then all of a -sudden I cops a shock. We've just made some roast squabs look like five -cents worth of lard in a paper bag, an' slopped out a bunch of fizz to -wash 'em down, when what does that old Rube do but up an' sink his hooks -in a bowl of water. Honest, I like to 've fell in a fit! There I'd been -feelin' as cunning as a pet fox, an' me on a dead one from th' jump!" - -"Did any of them smart Alecks give youse th' laugh?" asked the Nailer. - -"Give me th' laugh," repeated the Dropper, disgustedly. "I'd have -smashed whoever did in th' eye." - -While beer and conversation were flowing in Number Twelve, a -sophisticated eye would have noted divers outside matters which might or -might not have had a meaning. On the heels of Big Mike's laundry deeds -of desolation and destruction at Low Foo's, not a Chinaman was visible -in Pell Street. It was the same when Mike came out of Tony's and climbed -the stairs to his room. Mike safely retired from the field, a handful -of Four Brothers--all of them Lows and of the immediate clan of Low -Foo--showed up, and took a slanteyed squint at what ruin had been -wrought. They spoke not above a murmur, but as nearly as a white devil -might gather a meaning, they were of the view that no monsoon could have -more thoroughly scrap-heaped the belongings of Low Foo. - -Other Chinamen began to gather, scores upon scores. These were Hip Sing -Tongs, and they paid not the slightest heed to Low Foo's laundry, or -what was left of it. What Four Brothers were abroad did not mingle with -the Hip Sing Tongs, although the two tribes lived in friendship. The -Four Brothers quietly withdrew, each to his own den, and left the Hip -Sing Tongs in possession of the street. - -Being in possession, the Hip Sing Tongs did nothing beyond roost on the -curb, or squat in doorways, or stand idly about. Now and then one smoked -a cigarette. - -About 11.20 o'clock, a Chinaman entered Pell Street from the Bowery. -Every one of the Hip Sing Tongs looked at him; none of them spoke to -him. Only, a place was made for him in the darkness of the darkest -doorway. Had some brisk Central Office intelligence been there and -consulted its watch, it might have occurred to such intelligence that -had the newcomer arrived from Philadelphia over the B. & O. by -latest train, he--assuming him to have taken the ferry with proper -dispatch--would have come poking into Pell Street at precisely that -hour. - -Trinity struck midnight. - -The bells sounded dim and far away. It was as though it were the ghost -of some dead midnight being struck. At the sound, and as if he heard in -it a signal, the mysterious Chinaman came out of the double darkness of -the doorway in which he had been waiting, and crossed to the stairway -that led up to the room of Mike. Not a whisper came from the waiting -Hip Sing Tongs, who watched him with that blend of apathy and eagerness -observable only in the Oriental. No one went with the mysterious -Chinaman. Nor did the stairs creak--as with Big Mike--beneath his velvet -shoes. - -Five minutes passed. - -The mysterious one emerged from Mike's stairway as silently as he had -entered it. He tossed a claw-like hand palm outward, toward the waiting, -watching Hip Sing Tongs, and then went slippering towards the Bowery. -Had that brisk Central Office intelligence been there to see, it might -have reflected, recalling a time table, that by taking the Cortlandt -Street ferry, the mysterious one would be in time for the 12.30 train to -Philadelphia over the Pennsylvania. - -Before the mysterious one had reached the Bowery, those scores of -waiting, watching Hip Sing Tongs had vanished, and Pell Street was as -empty as the promise of a politician. - -"Now," whispered Ching Lee to Sam Kum, who kept the chop suey shop, as -they turned to go--"now he meet Ling Tchen, mebby so!" - -One o'clock. - -Tony began to think about locking his front door. This, out of respect -for the law. Not that beer and revelry were to cease in Number Twelve, -but because such was Tony's understanding with the precinct skipper. -Some reformer might come snooping else, and lodge complaint against that -skipper with the Commissioner of Police. - -Just as Tony, on bidding "Good-bye!" to Mrs. Vee and her purple -fluttering flock, had been impressed by the crowded condition of Pell -Street, so now, when he made ready to lock up, was he impressed by that -causeway's profound emptiness. - -"Say," he cried to his guests in the rear, "you stews come here! This is -funny; there ain't a chink in sight!" - -"D'youse think th' bulls are gettin' ready for a raid?" asked Sop Henry. -Sop, with the Nailer and the Wop, had joined Tony in the door. "Perhaps -there's somethin' doin' over at th' Elizabeth Street station, an' the -wardman's passed th' monks th' tip." - -"Nothin' in that," responded Tony, confidently. "Wouldn't I be put wise, -too?" - -Marvelling much, Tony fastened his door, and joined old Jimmy, Pretty -Agnes and the others in the rear room. When he got there, he found old -Jimmy sniffing with suspicious nose, and swearing he smelled gas. - -"One of your pipes is leakin', Tony," said Jimmy, "leakin' for fair, -too, or I'm a Dago!" - -Tony, in refutation, called attention to a patent truth. He used -electric light, not gas. - -"But they use gas upstairs," he added. Then, half-anxiously; "It can't -be some hop-head has blown out the gas?" - -The thought was enough to start the Dropper, ever full of enterprise. - -"Let's have a look," said he. "Nailer you an' th' Wop come wit' me." - -Tony again opened the front door, and the Dropper, followed by the Wop -and the Nailer, filed into the stairway that led to the floor above. -They made noise enough, blundering and stumbling in the sudden hurry of -spirit which had gripped them. As they reached the landing near Mike's -door, the odor of gas was even more pronounced than in Tony's rear room. - -The hall was blind black with the thick darkness that filled it. - -"How about this?" queried the Dropper. "I thought a gas jet was always -boinin' in th' hall." - -The Dropper, growing fearful, hung back. With that, the Wop pushed -forward and took the lead. Only for a moment. Giving a cry, he sprang -back with such sudden force that he sent the Dropper headlong down the -stairs. - -"Th' Virgin save us!" exclaimed the Wop, "but I touched somethin' soft!" - -"What's th' row?" demanded Tony, coming to the foot of the stairs. - -At the Dropper's request, Tony brought a candle, used by him in -excursions to those crypts wherein he kept his whiskey. - -In a moment all was plain. That something soft which had so told upon -the Wop was a rubber tube. There was a gas jet in the hall. One end -of the rubber tube had been fastened over the gas jet, and the other -stuffed into the keyhole of Mike's door. Trap arranged, the gas had been -set flowing full blast. - -"Well, what do youse think of that?" exclaimed Tony, who understood at a -glance. - -With one swift move, Tony turned off the gas and tore away the rubber -tube. There was no talk of keys. He placed his powerful shoulder against -the door, and sent it crashing. The out-rush of gas drove them, choking -and gasping, into the open air. - -"Take it from me," said the Dropper, as soon as he could get his breath, -"they've croaked Mike." - -"But the window," urged the Nailer; "mebbe Mike has the window open!" - -"Not a chance!" retorted the Dropper. "No one has his window up while he -hits th' pipe. They don't jibe, fresh air an' dope." - -The Dropper was right. Big Mike, stark and still and yellow, lay dead in -his bed--the last place his friends would have anticipated--poisoned by -gas. - -"Better notify th' cops," advised Jimmy, the practical. - -"Who did it?" sobbed Pretty Agnes. "Mike never handed it to himself.". - -"Who did it?" repeated the Dropper, bitterly. "Th' chinks did it. It's -for Low Foo's laundry." - -"You're down wrong, Dropper," said old Jimmy. "It's that Ling Tchen -trick. I knew them Hip Sings would get Mike." - - - - -XII.--THE GOING OF BIFF ELLISON - - -The jury returned a verdict of guilty. Thereupon the judge, fixing -Ellison with hard and thoughtful eye, gave him "from eight to twenty -years." When a man gets "from eight to twenty years" he is worth writing -about. He would be worth writing about, even though it had been for such -crimes of the commonplace as poke-getting at a ferry or sticking up a -drunken sailor. And Ellison was found guilty of manslaughter. - -Razor Riley would have been sentenced along with Ellison, only he had -conveniently died. When the Gophers gather themselves together, they -give various versions of Razor Riley's taking off. Some say he perished -of pneumonia. Others lay it to a bullet in his careless mouth. In any -case, he was dead, and therefore couldn't, in the nature of things, -accompany Ellison to Sing Sing. - -Razor was a little one-hundred-and-ten-pound man, with weak muscles and -a heart of fire. He had, razorwise, cut and slashed his way into -much favorable mention, when that pneumonia or bullet--whichever it -was--stopped short his career. - -While the width of the city apart, he and Ellison were ever friends. -They drank together, fought together, and held their foes as they held -their money, in common. - -When the jury said "Guilty," it filled Ellison with resentful amazement. -His angry wonder grew as the judge coldly mentioned that "from eight -to-twenty years." He couldn't understand! The politicians had promised -to save him. It was only upon such assurance that he had concluded to -return. Safe in Baltimore, he could have safely continued in Baltimore. -Lured by false lights, misled by spurious promises, he had come back to -get "from eight to twenty years!" Cray and Savage rounded him up. All -his life a cop-fighter, he would have given those Central Office stars a -battle, had he realized what was in store for him and how like a rope of -sand were the promises of politicians! - -My own introduction to Ellison and Razor Riley was in the Jefferson -Market court. That was several years ago. The day was the eighteenth of -March, and Magistrate Corrigan had invited me to a seat on the bench. -Ellison and Razor were arraigned for disorderly conduct. They had pushed -in the door of a Sixth Avenue bird and animal store, kept by an agitated -Italian, and in the language of the officer who made the collar, "didn't -do a thing to it." - -"They are guilty, your honor," said their lawyer, manner deprecatory -and full of conciliation, with a view to softening the magisterial -heart--"they are guilty. And yet there is this in their defense. They -had been celebrating Saint Patrick's Day, over-celebrating it, perhaps, -your honor, and they didn't know what they were about. That's the mere -truth, your honor. Befuddled by too much and too fervently celebrating -the glorious day, they really didn't know what they were about." - -The lawyer waved a virtuous hand, as one who submitted affairs to the -mercy of an enlightened court. - -Magistrate Corrigan was about to impose sentence, when the agitated -Italian broke forth. - -"Don't I get-a my chance, judge?" he called out. "Certainly," returned -Magistrate Corrigan, "what is it you want to say?" - -"Judge, that-a guy"--pointing the finger of rebuttal at the lawyer--"he -say theese mans don't know what-a they do. One lie! They know what-a -they do all right. I show you, judge. They smash-a th' canaries, they -knock-a th' blocks off-a th' monks, they tear-a th' tails out of th' -macaws, but"--here his voice rose to a screech--"they nevair touch-a th' -bear." - -Magistrate Corrigan glanced at the policeman. The latter explained that, -while Ellison and Razor had spread wreck and havoc among the monkeys -and macaws, they had avoided even a remotest entanglement with a huge -cinnamon bear, chained in the center of the room. They had prudently -plowed 'round the bear. - -"Twenty-five and costs!" said Magistrate Corrigan, a smile touching -the corners of his mouth. Then, raising a repressive palm towards the -lawyer, who betrayed symptoms of further oratory: "Not a word. Your -people get off very lightly. Upon the point you urge that these men -didn't know what they were about, the testimony of our Italian friend is -highly convincing." - -When a gentleman goes to Sing Sing for longer than five years, it is -Gangland good manners to speak of him in the past tense. Thus, then, -shall I speak of Ellison. His name, properly laid down, was James -Ellison. As, iron on wrists, a deputy at his elbow, he stepped aboard -the train, he gave his age as thirty-nine. - -His monaker of Biff came to him in the most natural way in the world. -Gangland is ever ready to bestow a title. Therefore, when a recalcitrant -customer of Fat Flynn's, having quaffed that publican's beer and then -refused to pay for it, was floored as flat as a flounder by a round -blow from Ellison's fist, Gangland, commemorating the event, renamed him -Biff. - -Ellison was in his angular, awkward twenties when he made his initial -appearance along the Bowery. He came from Maryland, no one knew why and -a youthful greenness would have got him laughed at, had it not been for -a look in his eye which suggested that while he might be green he might -be game. - -Having little education and no trade Ellison met existence by hiring out -as bar-keeper to Fat Flynn, who kept a grog shop of singular vileness -at 34 Bond. Its beer glasses were vulgarly large, its frequenters of the -rough-neck school. But it was either work in Flynn's or carry a hod, and -Ellison, who was not fanatically fond of hard labor, and preferred -to seek his bread along lines of least resistance, instantly and -instinctively resolved on the side of Flynn's. - -Gangland is much more given to boxing gloves than books, and the -conversation at Flynn's, as it drifted across the bar to Ellison--busy -drawing beer--was more calculated to help his hands than help his head. -Now and then, to be sure, there would come one who, like Slimmy, had -acquired a stir education, that is, a knowledge of books such as may -be picked up in prison; but for the most those whom Ellison met, in the -frothy course of business, were not the ones to feed his higher nature -or elevate his soul. It was a society where the strong man was the best -man, and only fist-right prevailed. - -Ellison was young, husky, with length of reach and plenty of hitting -power, and, as the interests of Flynn demanded, he bowed to his -environment and beat up many a man. There were those abroad in Bond -Street whom he could not have conquered. But, commonly sober and -possessed besides of inborn gifts as a matchmaker, he had no trouble -in avoiding these. The folks whom he hooked up with were of the _genus_ -cinch, _species_ pushover, and proceeding carefully he built up in time -a standing for valor throughout all the broad regions lying between -Fourteenth Street and City Hall Park. - -Let it be said that Ellison had courage. It was his prudence which -taught him to hold aloof from the tough ones. Now and then, when a tough -one did insist on war, Ellison never failed to bear himself with spirit. -Only he preferred to win easily, with little exertion and no injury -to his nose and eyes. For Ellison, proud of his appearance, was by -Gangland's crude standards the glass of fashion and the mould of -form, and flourished the idol of the ladies. Also, a swollen nose or a -discolored eye is of no avail in winning hearts. - -Every dispenser of beer is by way of being a power in politics. Some -soar higher, some with weaker wing--that is a question of genius. One -sells beer and makes himself chief of Tammany Hall. Another rises on -the tides of beer to a district leadership. Still others--and it is here -that Ellison comes in--find their lower beery level as Tammany's -shoulder-hitting aides. - -In the last role, Ellison was of value to Tammany Hall. Wherefore, -whenever he fell into the fingers of the police--generally for -assault--the machine cast over him the pinion of its prompt protection. -As the strong-arm pet of the organization, he punched and slugged, -knocked down and dragged out, and did all these in safety. Some -soft-whispering politician was sure to show a magistrate--all ears--that -the equities were on the side of Ellison, and what black eyes or broken -noses had been distributed went where they truly belonged and would do -the most Tammany good. - -In his double role of beer dispenser and underthug of politics, Ellison -stood high in Gangland opinion. From Flynn's in Bond Street he went to -Pickerelle's in Chrystie Street. Then he became the presiding influence -at a dive of more than usual disrepute kept by one Landt, which had -flung open its dingy doors in Forsyth Street near Houston. - -Ellison' took an impressive upward step at this time. That is, he -nearly killed a policeman. Nicely timing matters so that the officer was -looking the other way, he broke a bottle over the blue-coat's head. The -blue-coat fell senseless to the floor. Once down and helpless, Ellison -hoofed him after the rules of Gangland, which teach that only fools are -fair, until the hoofed one was a pick-up for an ambulance. - -The officer spent two weeks in a hospital cot, Ellison two hours in -a station house cell. The politicians closed the officer's mouth, and -opened Ellison's cell. The officer got well after a while, and he and -Ellison grew to be good friends. The politicians said that there -was nothing in it for either the officer or Ellison to remain at -loggerheads. No man may write himself "politician" who does not combine -the strength to prosecute a war, with the wisdom to conclude a peace. -Hence, at the command of the politicians, Ellison and the smitten -officer struck hands, and pooled their differences. - -Ellison, smooth-faced, high-featured, well-dressed, a Gangland cavalier, -never married. Or if he did he failed to mention it. He was not a -moll-buzzer; no one could accuse him of taking money from a woman. He -lived by the ballot and the bung-starter. In addition once a year he -gave a racket, tinder the auspices of what he called the "Biff Ellison -Association," and as his fame increased his profits from a single racket -were known to reach $2,000. - -At one time Ellison challenged fortune as part proprietor of Paresis -Hall, which sink of sin, as though for contrast, had been established -within the very shadow of Cooper Union. Terminating his connection with -Paresis Hall, he lived a life of leisure between Chick Tricker's Park -Row "store" and Nigger Mike's at Number Twelve Pell. - -Occasionally he so far unbuckled as to escort some lady to or from -Sharkey's in Fourteenth Street. Not as a lobbygow; not for any -ill-odored fee of fifty cents. But as a gentleman might, and out of -sheer politeness. The law, as enforced from Mulberry Street, was prone -to take a narrow view of ladies who roamed alone the midnight streets. -The gallant Ellison was pleasantly willing to save night-bound dames of -his acquaintance from this annoyance. That was all. - -Who has not heard of the celebrated Paul Kelly? Once upon a time, a -good woman reading a newspaper saw reference to Paul Kelly in some -interesting connection. She began to burn with curiosity; she wanted to -meet Paul Kelly, and said so to her husband. Since her husband had been -brought up to obey her in all things, he made no objection. - -Guided by a pathfinder from the Central Office, the gentleman went forth -to find Paul Kelly, his wife on his arm. They entered Lyon's restaurant -in the Bowery; the place was crowded. Room was made for them at a table -by squeezing in three chairs. The lady looked about her. Across, stale -and fat and gone to seed, sat an ex-eminent of the prize ring. At -his elbow was a stocky person, with a visage full of wormwood and a -chrysanthemum ear. He of the ear was given to misguided volubilities, -more apt to startle than delight. - -The woman who wanted to see Paul Kelly looked at the champion gone -to sulky seed, listened to the misguided conversationist with the -chrysanthemum ear, and wished she hadn't come. She might have been -driven from the field, had it not been for a small, dark personage, with -black eyes and sallow cheeks, who sat next her on the left. His voice -was low and not alarming; his manner bland but final. And he took quiet -and quieting charge of the other two. - -The dark, sallow little man led those two others in the wordy way they -should go. When the talk of him of the unsatisfactory ear approached -the Elizabethan so closely as to inspire terror, he put him softly yet -sufficiently back in his hole. Also, when not thus employed, in holding -down the conversational lid, he talked French to one man, Italian to -another, English to all. Purringly polite, Chesterfield might have -studied him with advantage. - -The woman who wanted to see Paul Kelly was so taken with the little dark -man's easy mastery of the situation, that she forgot the object of the -expedition. When she was again in the street, and had drawn a deep, -clear breath or two of long relief, she expressed astonishment that one -possessed of so much grace and fineness, so full of cultured elegancies, -should be discovered in such coarse surroundings. - -"Surely, he doesn't belong there," she said. "Who is he?" - -"Who is he?" repeated the Central Office delegate in a discouraged tone. -"I thought your hubby wised you up. That's Paul Kelly." - -Paul Kelly owned the New Brighton in Great Jones Street. One evening, as -the orchestra was tuning its fiddles for the final _valse_, a sudden but -exhaustive bombardment then and there broke loose. In the hot midst of -it, some cool hand turned off the lights. They were never again turned -on. The guests departed through window and by way of door, and did not -come back. It was the end of the New Brighton. - -Gangland, which can talk betimes, can also keep a secret. Coax, cozen, -cross-question as you will, you cannot worm from it the secret of that -New Brighton bombardment. Ask, and every one is silent. There is a -silence which is empty, there is a silence which is full. Those who will -not tell why the New Brighton was shot up that night are silent with the -silence which is full. - -As usual, the Central Office is not without its theories. The Central -Office is often without the criminal, but never without the explanation. -One Mulberry Street whisper declared that it was a war over a woman, -without saying which woman. Another whisper insisted that money lay at -the roots of the business, without saying what money. Still another ran -to the effect that it was one of those hit-or-miss mix-ups, in their -sort extemporaneous, in their up-come inexplicable, the distinguishing -mark of which is an utter lack of either rhyme or reason. - -One officer with whom I talked pointed to Ellison and Harrington as the -principals. Paul Kelly, he said, was drawn into it as incident to his -proprietorship of the New Brighton, while the redoubtable Razor became -part of the picture only through his friendship for Ellison. Another -officer, contradicting, argued that there had been a feud of long -standing between Razor and Paul Kelly; that Ellison was there in Razor's -behalf, and Harrington got killed because he butted in. Both officers -agreed that the rumpus had nothing to do with Eat-'em-up-Jack's run in -with Chick Tricker, then sundry months astern, or the later lead-pipe -wiping out of Jack. - -The story of the taking off of Eat-'em-up-Jack has already been told. -The New Brighton missed Jack. He whom Paul Kelly brought to fill his -place no more than just rattled about in it. The new sheriff did not -possess Jack's nice knowledge of dance hall etiquette, and his blackjack -lacked decision. Some even think that had Jack been there that night, -what follows might never have occurred at all. As said one who held this -view: - -"If Eat-'em-up-Jack had been holdin' down th' floor, th' New Brighton -wouldn't have looked so easy to Biff an' Razor, an' they might have -passed it up." - -The dancing floor of the New Brighton was crowded with Gangland chivalry -and fashion. Out in the bar, where waiters came rushing bearing trays of -empty glasses to presently rushingly retire loaded to the beery guards, -sat Paul Kelly and a select bevy. The talk was of business mixed with -politics, for a campaign was being waged. - -"After election," said Paul, "I'm going to close up this joint. I've got -enough; I'm going to pack in." - -"What's th' row?" asked Slimmy, who had drawn up a chair. - -"There's too much talking," returned Paul. "Only the other day a bull -was telling me that I'm credited with being the first guy along the -Bowery to carry a gun." - -"He's crazy," broke in Harrington, who with the lovely Goldie Cora had -joined the group. "There were cannisters by the ton along the Bowery -before ever you was pupped." - -The Irish Wop, whose mind ran altogether upon politics, glanced up from -a paper. - -"Spakin' av th' campaign," said he, "how comes it things is so quiet? No -one givin' th' banks a bawlin' out, no one soakin' th' railroads, no one -handin' th' hot wallops to th' trusts! Phwat's gone wrong wit' 'em? -I've found but wan man--jusht wan--bein' th' skate who's writin' in th' -pa-a-aper here,"--and the Wop held up the paper as Exhibit A--"who acts -loike he has somethin' to hand out. Lishten: After buck-dancin' a -bit, he ups and calls Willyum Jinnins Bryan th' 'modern Brutus,' says -'Caesarism is abroad,' an' that Willyum Jinnins is th' only laddybuck who -can put it on th' bum." - -"It's one of them hot-air students," said Harrington. - -"But about this Brutus-Caesar thing? Are they wit' th' organization?" - -"It's what a swell mouth-piece like Bourke Cock-ran calls a 'figger -of speech'," interjected Slimmy, ever happy to be heard concerning the -ancients. "Cesar an' Brutus were a couple of long-ago Dagoes. Accordin' -to th' dope they lived an' croaked two thousand years ago." - -"Only a pair av old wops, was they! An' dead an' gone at that! Sure I -thought be th' way this writin' gezebo carried on about 'em they was -right here on th' job, cuttin' ice. An' they're nothin' more'n a brace -av old dead Guineas after all!" - -The Wop mused a moment over the unprofitable meanness of the discovery. -Then his curiosity began to brighten up a trifle. - -"How did yez come to be so hep to 'em, Slimmy?" - -"Be studyin'--how-else? An' then there's Counsellor Noonan. You ought -to hear him when he gets to goin' about Brutus and Caesar an' th' rest -of th' Roman fleet. To hear Noonan you'd think he had been one of their -pals." - -"Th' Counsellor's from Latrim," said the Wop; "I'm a Mayo man meself. -An' say, thim Latrim la-a-ads are th' born liars. Still, as long as the -Counsellor's talkin' about phwat happened two thousand years ago, yez -can chance a bet on him. It's only when he's repo-o-rtin' th' evints av -yisterday he'll try to hand yez a lemon." - -"I wisht I was as wise as youse, Slimmy," said Goldie Cora, wistfully -rubbing her delicate nose. "It must be dead swell to know about Caesar -an' th' rest of them dubs." - -"If they was to show up now," hazarded the Wop, "thim ould fellies 'ud -feel like farmers." - -"Oh, I don't know," observed Slimmy: "they was lyin', cheatin', -swindlin', snitchin', double-crossin' an' givin' each other th' -rinkey-dink in th' old days same as now. This Caesar, though, must have -been a stiff proposition. He certainly woke up young! When he's only -nineteen, he toins out one mornin', yawns, puts on his everyday toga, -rambles down town, an' makes a hurrah touch for five million of dollars. -Think of it!--five million!--an' him not twenty! He certainly was a -producer--Caesar was!" - -"Well, I should yell," assented Harrington. - -"An' then phwat?" asked the Wop. - -"This what," said Slimmy. "Havin' got his wad together, Caesar starts -in to light up Rome, an' invites the push to cut in. When he's got 'em -properly keyed up, he goes into the forum an' says, 'Am I it?' An' the -gang yells, 'You're it'!" - -"Caesar could go some," commented Goldie Cora, admiringly. - -"Rome's a republic then," Slimmy went on, "an' Caesar has himself elected -the main squeeze. He declares for a wide-open town; his war cry is 'No -water! No gas! No police!'" - -"Say, he was a live one!" broke in Harrington; "he was Rome's Big Tim!" - -"Listen!" commanded Goldie Cora, shaking her yellow head at Harrington. -"Go on, Slimmy." - -"About this time Brutus commences to show in th' runnin'. Brutus is -th' head of th' Citizens' Union, an' him an' his fellow mugwumps put -in their time bluffin' an' four-flushin' 'round about reform. They had -everybody buffaloed, except Caesar. Brutus is for closin' th' saloons, -puttin' th' smother on horse racin', an' wants every Roman kid who plays -baseball Sunday pinched." - -"He gives me a pain!" complained Goldie Cora. - -"An' mind you, all th' time Brutus is graftin' with both hooks. He's -in on the Aqueduct; he manages a forty per cent, hold out on the Appian -way; an' what long green he has loose he loans to needy skates in Spain -at pawn shop rates, an' when they don't kick in he uses the legions to -collect. Brutus is down four ways from the jack on everything in sight. -Nothin's calculated to embarrass him but a pair of mittens." - -"An' at that," remarked Harrington, who had a practical knowledge of -politics, "him an' his mugwump bunch didn't have nothin' on th' New -York reformers. Do youse guys remember when the city bought th' ferries? -There was------" - -"I'd sooner hear Slimmy," said Goldie Cora. - -"Me too," agreed the Wop. - -Slimmy looked flattered. "Well, then," he continued, "all this time -Caesar is the big screech, an' it makes Brutus so sore he gets to be a -bug. So he starts to talkin'. 'This Caesar guy,' says Brutus, 'won't do.' - -"'Right you be,' says Cassius, who's always been a kicker. 'That's what -I've been tellin' you lobsters from th' jump.' - -"With this an old souse named Casca sits up, an' says he ain't seen -nothin' wrong about Caesar. - -"'Oh, roll over!' says Cassius. 'Why even the newsboys are on. You know -Caesar's wardman--that fresh baby, Mark Antony? It's ribbed up right now -that at th' Lupercal he's to hand Caesar a crown.' - -"Casca an' th' other bone-heads turns to Brutus. - -"'Yes,' says Brutus, answerin' their looks; 'Cassius has got good -information. He's givin' youse th' correct steer.'" - -"An' did Caesar cop off the crown?" asked Goldie Cora, eagerly. - -Slimmy shook his head. - -"Th' Lupercal comes 'round," said he, "an' Mark Antony is there with -bells on. He makes a funny crack or two about a crown, but nothin' -goes. Th' wind-up is that Brutus, Cassius, Casca, an' th' rest of th' -Citizens' Union, gang Caesar later in th' forum, go at him with their -chives, an' cut an' slash till his hide won't hold his principles." - -"An' wasn't there," demanded the Wop, with heat, "so much as wan -strong-arm la-a-ad up at Caesar's end av th' alley, wit' th' nerve to git -even?" - -"Never fear!" returned Slimmy, reassuringly; "th' day they plant Caesar, -Mark Antony goes in to make th' funeral spiel. He's th' Roman Senator -Grady, Mark Antony is, an' he burns 'em up. Brutus an' his bunch get th' -tip up at their club house, an' take it on th' run. With that, Caesar's -gang gets to goin', an' they stand Rome on its nut from the Capitoline -Hill to the Tarpeian Rock. Brutus an' the' other mugwumps gets it where -th' baby wore th' beads, an' there ain't been a Seth Low or a Fulton -Cutting along th' Tiber from that day to this. Oh, they've got us left -standin' sideways, them Guineas have, in some things." - -About the time Slimmy began his lucid setting forth of Brutus, Caesar and -their political differences, Ellison and Razor, down at Nigger Mike's in -Pell Street, were laying their heads together. A bottle of whiskey stood -between them, for they required inspiration. There were forty people -in the room, some dancing, some drinking, some talking. But no one came -near Ellison and Razor, for their manner showed that they did not wish -to be disturbed. As the Nailer observed, "They had a hen on," and when -gentlemen have a hen on they prefer being quiet. - -"I've no use for Paul Kelly," whispered Razor in response to some remark -of Ellison's. "You bet he knows enough not to show his snout along -Eighth Avenue. He'd get it good if he did." - -"My notion," said Ellison, "is to turn th' trick right now." - -"Just th' two of us?" - -"Why not?" - -"He'd have his guerillas; youse have got to figure on that." - -"They wouldn't stand th' gaff. It's the difference between guys who -knows what they wants, and guys who don't. Once we started, they'd tear -th' side out the Brighton in the get-away." - -"All right," said Razor, bringing down his hand; "I'm wit' you." - -"Just a moment," and Ellison motioned Razor back into his chair. "If -Paul's dancin', we must stall him into th' bar. I don't want to hoit any -of them skirts." - -It was the delightful habit of Slimmy, on the tail of one of his -lectures, to order beer for his hearers. That's why he was listened to -with so much interest. Were every lecturer to adopt Slimmy's plan, he -would never fail of an audience. Also, his fame would grow. - -Slimmy, having finished with Caesar and the others, had just signed up -to the waiter to go his merry rounds, when Ellison and Razor slipped in -from the street. Their hands were on their guns, their eyes on Kelly. - -Harrington saw it coming. - -"Your gatt, Paul, your gatt!" he shouted. - -The rule in Gangland is to let every man kill his own snakes. -Harrington's conduct crowded hard upon the gross. It so disgusted Razor -that, to show Harrington what he thought of it, he half turned and laced -a bullet through his brain. - -"Now you've got something of your own to occupy your mind," quoth Razor. - -Ellison was too old a practitioner to be drawn aside by the Harrington -episode. He devoted himself unswervingly to Paul Kelly. Ellison's first -bullet cut a hole through Kelly's coat and did no further harm. The -lights were switched out at this crisis, and what shooting followed came -off in the dark. There was plenty of it. The air seemed sown as thickly -full of little yellow spits of flame as an August swamp of fireflies. -Even so, it didn't last. It was as short lived as a July squall at sea. -There was one thunder and lightning moment, during which the pistols -flashed and roared, and then--stillness and utter silence! - -It was fairish pistol practice when you consider conditions. Paul Kelly -had three bullets in him when four weeks later he asked the coppers to -come and get him. He had been up in Harlem somewhere lying low. And you -are not to forget Harrington. There were other casualties, also, which -the police and politicians worked hand in hand to cover up. - -Five minutes went by after the shooting; ten minutes!--no one was in a -hurry. At last a policeman arrived. He might have come sooner, but the -New Brighton was a citadel of politics. Would you have had him lose his -shield? - -The policeman felt his official way into the barroom:--empty as a drum, -dark as the inside of a cow! - -He struck a match. By its pale and little light he made out the dead -Harrington on the floor. Not a living soul, not even Goldie Cora! - -Goldie Cora? - -Said that practical damsel, when the matter was put up to her by Big -Kitty, who being sentimental called Goldie Cora a quitter for leaving -her dead love lying in his blood, "What good could I do? If I'd stuck -I'd have got pinched; an' then--me in th' Tombs--I'd have stood a swell -chance, I don't chink, of bein' at Bill's funeral." - - -THE END. - - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Apaches of New York, by Alfred Henry Lewis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE APACHES OF NEW YORK *** - -***** This file should be named 51909.txt or 51909.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/0/51909/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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