late at night, as his father had done before him. He reeled about
the room, swearing at his relations, or went to sleep on the floor.

The mother had gradually arisen to that degree of fame that
she could bandy words with her acquaintances among the police-
justices. Court-officials called her by her first name. When she
appeared they pursued a course which had been theirs for months.
They invariably grinned and cried out: "Hello, Mary, you here
again?" Her grey head wagged in many a court. She always besieged
the bench with voluble excuses, explanations, apologies and
prayers. Her flaming face and rolling eyes were a sort of familiar
sight on the island. She measured time by means of sprees, and was
eternally swollen and dishevelled.

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

Maggie observed Pete.

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