from a muddled mist of sentiment until her brain burned in
drunken heat. He sat breathless.

Maggie broke a plate.

The mother started to her feet as if propelled.

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

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

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




Chapter III


Jimmie and the old woman listened long in the hall. Above the
muffled roar of conversation, the dismal wailings of babies at
night, the thumping of feet in unseen corridors and rooms, mingled
with the sound of varied hoarse shoutings in the street and the
rattling of wheels over cobbles, they heard the screams of the