Chapter: Jimmie had an idea it wasn't common courtesy for a friend to come to
one's home and ruin one's sister.  But he was not sure how much Pete
knew about the rules of politeness.

The following night he returned home from work at rather a late hour in
the evening.  In passing through the halls he came upon the gnarled and
leathery old woman who possessed the music box.  She was grinning in
the dim light that drifted through dust-stained panes.  She beckoned to
him with a smudged forefinger.

"Ah, Jimmie, what do yehs t'ink I got onto las' night.  It was deh
funnies' t'ing I ever saw," she cried, coming close to him and leering.
She was trembling with eagerness to tell her tale.  "I was by me door
las' night when yer sister and her jude feller came in late, oh, very
late.  An' she, the dear, she was a-cryin' as if her heart would break,
she was.  It was deh funnies' t'ing I ever saw.  An' right out here by
me door she asked him did he love her, did he.  An' she was a-cryin' as
if her heart would break, poor t'ing.  An' him, I could see by deh way
what he said it dat she had been askin' orften, he says: 'Oh, hell,
yes,' he says, says he, 'Oh, hell, yes.'"

Storm-clouds swept over Jimmie's face, but he turned from the leathery
old woman and plodded on up-stairs.

"Oh, hell, yes," called she after him.  She laughed a laugh that was
like a prophetic croak.  "'Oh, hell, yes,' he says, says he, 'Oh, hell,
yes.'"

There was no one in at home.  The rooms showed that attempts had been
made at tidying them.  Parts of the wreckage of the day before had been
repaired by an unskilful hand.  A chair or two and the table, stood
uncertainly upon legs.  The floor had been newly swept.  Too, the blue
ribbons had been restored to the curtains, and the lambrequin, with its
immense sheaves of yellow wheat and red roses of equal size, had been
returned, in a worn and sorry state, to its position at the mantel.
Maggie's jacket and hat were gone from the nail behind the door.

Jimmie walked to the window and began to look through the blurred
glass.  It occurred to him to vaguely wonder, for an instant, if some
of the women of his acquaintance had brothers.

Suddenly, however, he began to swear.

"But he was me frien'!  I brought 'im here!  Dat's deh hell of it!"

He fumed about the room, his anger gradually rising to the furious
pitch.

"I'll kill deh jay!  Dat's what I'll do!  I'll kill deh jay!"

He clutched his hat and sprang toward the door.  But it opened and his
mother's great form blocked the passage.

"What deh hell's deh matter wid yeh?" exclaimed she, coming into the
rooms.

Jimmie gave vent to a sardonic curse and then laughed heavily.

"Well, Maggie's gone teh deh devil!  Dat's what!  See?"

"Eh?" said his mother.

"Maggie's gone teh deh devil!  Are yehs deaf?" roared Jimmie,
impatiently.

"Deh hell she has," murmured the mother, astounded.

Jimmie grunted, and then began to stare out at the window.  His mother
sat down in a chair, but a moment later sprang erect and delivered a
maddened whirl of oaths.  Her son turned to look at her as she reeled
and swayed in the middle of the room, her fierce face convulsed with
passion, her blotched arms raised high in imprecation.

"May Gawd curse her forever," she shrieked.  "May she eat nothin' but
stones and deh dirt in deh street.  May she sleep in deh gutter an'
never see deh sun shine agin.  Deh damn--"

"Here, now," said her son.  "Take a drop on yourself."

The mother raised lamenting eyes to the ceiling.

"She's deh devil's own chil', Jimmie," she whispered.  "Ah, who would
t'ink such a bad girl could grow up in our fambly, Jimmie, me son.
Many deh hour I've spent in talk wid dat girl an' tol' her if she ever
went on deh streets I'd see her damned.  An' after all her bringin' up
an' what I tol' her and talked wid her, she goes teh deh bad, like a
duck teh water."

The tears rolled down her furrowed face.  Her hands trembled.

"An' den when dat Sadie MacMallister next door to us was sent teh deh
devil by dat feller what worked in deh soap-factory, didn't I tell our
Mag dat if she--"

"Ah, dat's annuder story," interrupted the brother.  "Of course, dat
Sadie was nice an' all dat--but--see--it ain't dessame as if--well,
Maggie was diff'ent--see--she was diff'ent."

He was trying to formulate a theory that he had always unconsciously
held, that all sisters, excepting his own, could advisedly be ruined.

He suddenly broke out again.  "I'll go t'ump hell outa deh mug what did
her deh harm.  I'll kill 'im!  He t'inks he kin scrap, but when he gits
me a-chasin' 'im he'll fin' out where he's wrong, deh damned duffer.
I'll wipe up deh street wid 'im."

In a fury he plunged out of the doorway.  As he vanished the mother
raised her head and lifted both hands, entreating.

"May Gawd curse her forever," she cried.

In the darkness of the hallway Jimmie discerned a knot of women talking
volubly.  When he strode by they paid no attention to him.

"She allus was a bold thing," he heard one of them cry in an eager
voice.  "Dere wasn't a feller come teh deh house but she'd try teh mash
'im.  My Annie says deh shameless t'ing tried teh ketch her feller, her
own feller, what we useter know his fader."

"I could a' tol' yehs dis two years ago," said a woman, in a key of
triumph.  "Yessir, it was over two years ago dat I says teh my ol' man,
I says, 'Dat Johnson girl ain't straight,' I says.  'Oh, hell,' he
says.  'Oh, hell.'  'Dat's all right,' I says, 'but I know what I
knows,' I says, 'an' it 'ill come out later.  You wait an' see,' I
says, 'you see.'"

"Anybody what had eyes could see dat dere was somethin' wrong wid dat
girl.  I didn't like her actions."

On the street Jimmie met a friend.  "What deh hell?" asked the latter.

Jimmie explained.  "An' I'll t'ump 'im till he can't stand."

"Oh, what deh hell," said the friend.  "What's deh use!  Yeh'll git
pulled in!  Everybody 'ill be onto it!  An' ten plunks!  Gee!"

Jimmie was determined.  "He t'inks he kin scrap, but he'll fin' out
diff'ent."

"Gee," remonstrated the friend.  "What deh hell?"



On a corner a glass-fronted building shed a yellow glare upon the
pavements.  The open mouth of a saloon called seductively to passengers
to enter and annihilate sorrow or create rage.

The interior of the place was papered in olive and bronze tints of
imitation leather.  A shining bar of counterfeit massiveness extended
down the side of the room.  Behind it a great mahogany-appearing
sideboard reached the ceiling.  Upon its shelves rested pyramids of
shimmering glasses that were never disturbed.  Mirrors set in the face
of the sideboard multiplied them.  Lemons, oranges and paper napkins,
arranged with mathematical precision, sat among the glasses.  Many-hued
decanters of liquor perched at regular intervals on the lower shelves.
A nickel-plated cash register occupied a position in the exact centre
of the general effect.  The elementary senses of it all seemed to be
opulence and geometrical accuracy.

Across from the bar a smaller counter held a collection of plates upon
which swarmed frayed fragments of crackers, slices of boiled ham,
dishevelled bits of cheese, and pickles swimming in vinegar.  An odor
of grasping, begrimed hands and munching mouths pervaded.

Pete, in a white jacket, was behind the bar bending expectantly toward
a quiet stranger.  "A beeh," said the man.  Pete drew a foam-topped
glassful and set it dripping upon the bar.

At this moment the light bamboo doors at the entrance swung open and
crashed against the siding.  Jimmie and a companion entered.  They
swaggered unsteadily but belligerently toward the bar and looked at
Pete with bleared and blinking eyes.

"Gin," said Jimmie.

"Gin," said the companion.

Pete slid a bottle and two glasses along the bar.  He bended his head
sideways as he assiduously polished away with a napkin at the gleaming
wood.  He had a look of watchfulness upon his features.

Jimmie and his companion kept their eyes upon the bartender and
conversed loudly in tones of contempt.

"He's a dindy masher, ain't he, by Gawd?" laughed Jimmie.

"Oh, hell, yes," said the companion, sneering widely.  "He's great, he
is.  Git onto deh mug on deh blokie.  Dat's enough to make a feller
turn hand-springs in 'is sleep."

The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle further away
and maintained an attitude of oblivion.

"Gee! ain't he hot stuff!"

"Git onto his shape!  Great Gawd!"

"Hey," cried Jimmie, in tones of command.  Pete came along slowly, with
a sullen dropping of the under lip.

"Well," he growled, "what's eatin' yehs?"

"Gin," said Jimmie.

"Gin," said the companion.

As Pete confronted them with the bottle and the glasses, they laughed
in his face.  Jimmie's companion, evidently overcome with merriment,
pointed a grimy forefinger in Pete's direction.

"Say, Jimmie," demanded he, "what deh hell is dat behind deh bar?"

"Damned if I knows," replied Jimmie.  They laughed loudly.  Pete put
down a bottle with a bang and turned a formidable face toward them.  He
disclosed his teeth and his shoulders heaved restlessly.

"You fellers can't guy me," he said.  "Drink yer stuff an' git out an'
don' make no trouble."

Instantly the laughter faded from the faces of the two men and
expressions of offended dignity immediately came.

"Who deh hell has said anyt'ing teh you," cried they in the same breath.

The quiet stranger looked at the door calculatingly.

"Ah, come off," said Pete to the two men.  "Don't pick me up for no
jay.  Drink yer rum an' git out an' don' make no trouble."

"Oh, deh hell," airily cried Jimmie.

"Oh, deh hell," airily repeated his companion.

"We goes when we git ready!  See!" continued Jimmie.

"Well," said Pete in a threatening voice, "don' make no trouble."

Jimmie suddenly leaned forward with his head on one side.  He snarled
like a wild animal.

"Well, what if we does?  See?" said he.

Dark blood flushed into Pete's face, and he shot a lurid glance at
Jimmie.

"Well, den we'll see whose deh bes' man, you or me," he said.

The quiet stranger moved modestly toward the door.

Jimmie began to swell with valor.

"Don' pick me up fer no tenderfoot.  When yeh tackles me yeh tackles
one of deh bes' men in deh city.  See?  I'm a scrapper, I am.  Ain't
dat right, Billie?"

"Sure, Mike," responded his companion in tones of conviction.

"Oh, hell," said Pete, easily.  "Go fall on yerself."

The two men again began to laugh.

"What deh hell is dat talkin'?" cried the companion.

"Damned if I knows," replied Jimmie with exaggerated contempt.

Pete made a furious gesture.  "Git outa here now, an' don' make no
trouble.  See?  Youse fellers er lookin' fer a scrap an' it's damn
likely yeh'll fin' one if yeh keeps on shootin' off yer mout's.  I know
yehs!  See?  I kin lick better men dan yehs ever saw in yer lifes.
Dat's right!  See?  Don' pick me up fer no stuff er yeh might be jolted
out in deh street before yeh knows where yeh is.  When I comes from
behind dis bar, I t'rows yehs bote inteh deh street.  See?"

"Oh, hell," cried the two men in chorus.

The glare of a panther came into Pete's eyes.  "Dat's what I said!
Unnerstan'?"

He came through a passage at the end of the bar and swelled down upon
the two men.  They stepped promptly forward and crowded close to him.

They bristled like three roosters.  They moved their heads pugnaciously
and kept their shoulders braced.  The nervous muscles about each mouth
twitched with a forced smile of mockery.

"Well, what deh hell yer goin' teh do?" gritted Jimmie.

Pete stepped warily back, waving his hands before him to keep the men
from coming too near.

"Well, what deh hell yer goin' teh do?" repeated Jimmie's ally.  They
kept close to him, taunting and leering.  They strove to make him
attempt the initial blow.

"Keep back, now!  Don' crowd me," ominously said Pete.

Again they chorused in contempt.  "Oh, hell!"

In a small, tossing group, the three men edged for positions like
frigates contemplating battle.

"Well, why deh hell don' yeh try teh t'row us out?" cried Jimmie and
his ally with copious sneers.

The bravery of bull-dogs sat upon the faces of the men.  Their clenched
fists moved like eager weapons.

The allied two jostled the bartender's elbows, glaring at him with
feverish eyes and forcing him toward the wall.

Suddenly Pete swore redly.  The flash of action gleamed from his eyes.
He threw back his arm and aimed a tremendous, lightning-like blow at
Jimmie's face.  His foot swung a step forward and the weight of his
body was behind his fist.  Jimmie ducked his head, Bowery-like, with
the quickness of a cat.  The fierce, answering blows of him and his
ally crushed on Pete's bowed head.

The quiet stranger vanished.

The arms of the combatants whirled in the air like flails.  The faces
of the men, at first flushed to flame-colored anger, now began to fade
to the pallor of warriors in the blood and heat of a battle.  Their
lips curled back and stretched tightly over the gums in ghoul-like
grins.  Through their white, gripped teeth struggled hoarse whisperings
of oaths.  Their eyes glittered with murderous fire.

Each head was huddled between its owner's shoulders, and arms were
swinging with marvelous rapidity.  Feet scraped to and fro with a loud
scratching sound upon the sanded floor.  Blows left crimson blotches
upon pale skin.  The curses of the first quarter minute of the fight
died away.  The breaths of the fighters came wheezingly from their lips
and the three chests were straining and heaving.  Pete at intervals
gave vent to low, labored hisses, that sounded like a desire to kill.
Jimmie's ally gibbered at times like a wounded maniac.  Jimmie was
silent, fighting with the face of a sacrificial priest.  The rage of
fear shone in all their eyes and their blood-colored fists swirled.

At a tottering moment a blow from Pete's hand struck the ally and he
crashed to the floor.  He wriggled instantly to his feet and grasping
the quiet stranger's beer glass from the bar, hurled it at Pete's head.

High on the wall it burst like a bomb, shivering fragments flying in
all directions.  Then missiles came to every man's hand.  The place had
heretofore appeared free of things to throw, but suddenly glass and
bottles went singing through the air.  They were thrown point blank at
bobbing heads.  The pyramid of shimmering glasses, that had never been
disturbed, changed to cascades as heavy bottles were flung into them.
Mirrors splintered to nothing.

The three frothing creatures on the floor buried themselves in a frenzy
for blood.  There followed in the wake of missiles and fists some
unknown prayers, perhaps for death.

The quiet stranger had sprawled very pyrotechnically out on the
sidewalk.  A laugh ran up and down the avenue for the half of a block.

"Dey've trowed a bloke inteh deh street."

People heard the sound of breaking glass and shuffling feet within the
saloon and came running.  A small group, bending down to look under the
bamboo doors, watching the fall of glass, and three pairs of violent
legs, changed in a moment to a crowd.

A policeman came charging down the sidewalk and bounced through the
doors into the saloon.  The crowd bended and surged in absorbing
anxiety to see.

Jimmie caught first sight of the on-coming interruption.  On his feet
he had the same regard for a policeman that, when on his truck, he had
for a fire engine.  He howled and ran for the side door.

The officer made a terrific advance, club in hand.  One comprehensive
sweep of the long night stick threw the ally to the floor and forced
Pete to a corner.  With his disengaged hand he made a furious effort at
Jimmie's coat-tails.  Then he regained his balance and paused.

"Well, well, you are a pair of pictures.  What in hell yeh been up to?"

Jimmie, with his face drenched in blood, escaped up a side street,
pursued a short distance by some of the more law-loving, or excited
individuals of the crowd.

Later, from a corner safely dark, he saw the policeman, the ally and
the bartender emerge from the saloon.  Pete locked the doors and then
followed up the avenue in the rear of the crowd-encompassed policeman
and his charge.

On first thoughts Jimmie, with his heart throbbing at battle heat,
started to go desperately to the rescue of his friend, but he halted.

"Ah, what deh hell?" he demanded of himself.



In a hall of irregular shape sat Pete and Maggie drinking beer.  A
submissive orchestra dictated to by a spectacled man with frowsy hair
and a dress suit, industriously followed the bobs of his head and the
waves of his baton.  A ballad singer, in a dress of flaming scarlet,
sang in the inevitable voice of brass.  When she vanished, men seated
at the tables near the front applauded loudly, pounding the polished
wood with their beer glasses.  She returned attired in less gown, and
sang again.  She received another enthusiastic encore.  She reappeared
in still less gown and danced.  The deafening rumble of glasses and
clapping of hands that followed her exit indicated an overwhelming
desire to have her come on for the fourth time, but the curiosity of
the audience was not gratified.

Maggie was pale.  From her eyes had been plucked all look of
self-reliance.  She leaned with a dependent air toward her companion.
She was timid, as if fearing his anger or displeasure.  She seemed to
beseech tenderness of him.

Pete's air of distinguished valor had grown upon him until it
threatened stupendous dimensions.  He was infinitely gracious to the
girl.  It was apparent to her that his condescension was a marvel.

He could appear to strut even while sitting still and he showed that he
was a lion of lordly characteristics by the air with which he spat.

With Maggie gazing at him wonderingly, he took pride in commanding the
waiters who were, however, indifferent or deaf.

"Hi, you, git a russle on yehs!  What deh hell yehs lookin' at?  Two
more beehs, d'yeh hear?"

He leaned back and critically regarded the person of a girl with a
straw-colored wig who upon the stage was flinging her heels in somewhat
awkward imitation of a well-known danseuse.

At times Maggie told Pete long confidential tales of her former home
life, dwelling upon the escapades of the other members of the family
and the difficulties she had to combat in order to obtain a degree of
comfort.  He responded in tones of philanthropy.  He pressed her arm
with an air of reassuring proprietorship.

"Dey was damn jays," he said, denouncing the mother and brother.

The sound of the music which, by the efforts of the frowsy-headed
leader, drifted to her ears through the smoke-filled atmosphere, made
the girl dream.  She thought of her former Rum Alley environment and
turned to regard Pete's strong protecting fists.  She thought of the
collar and cuff manufactory and the eternal moan of the proprietor:
"What een hell do you sink I pie fife dolla a week for?  Play?  No, py
damn."  She contemplated Pete's man-subduing eyes and noted that wealth
and prosperity was indicated by his clothes.  She imagined a future,
rose-tinted, because of its distance from all that she previously had
experienced.

As to the present she perceived only vague reasons to be miserable.
Her life was Pete's and she considered him worthy of the charge.  She
would be disturbed by no particular apprehensions, so long as Pete
adored her as he now said he did.  She did not feel like a bad woman.
To her knowledge she had never seen any better.

At times men at other tables regarded the girl furtively.  Pete, aware
of it, nodded at her and grinned.  He felt proud.

"Mag, yer a bloomin' good-looker," he remarked, studying her face
through the haze.  The men made Maggie fear, but she blushed at Pete's
words as it became apparent to her that she was the apple of his eye.

Grey-headed men, wonderfully pathetic in their dissipation, stared at
her through clouds.  Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with faces of
stone and mouths of sin, not nearly so pathetic as the grey heads,
tried to find the girl's eyes in the smoke wreaths.  Maggie considered
she was not what they thought her.  She confined her glances to Pete
and the stage.

The orchestra played negro melodies and a versatile drummer pounded,
whacked, clattered and scratched on a dozen machines to make noise.

Those glances of the men, shot at Maggie from under half-closed lids,
made her tremble.  She thought them all to be worse men than Pete.

"Come, let's go," she said.

As they went out Maggie perceived two women seated at a table with some
men.  They were painted and their cheeks had lost their roundness.  As
she passed them the girl, with a shrinking movement, drew back her
skirts.



Jimmie did not return home for a number of days after the fight with
Pete in the saloon.  When he did, he approached with extreme caution.

He found his mother raving.  Maggie had not returned home.  The parent
continually wondered how her daughter could come to such a pass.  She
had never considered Maggie as a pearl dropped unstained into Rum Alley
from Heaven, but she could not conceive how it was possible for her
daughter to fall so low as to bring disgrace upon her family.  She was
terrific in denunciation of the girl's wickedness.

The fact that the neighbors talked of it, maddened her.  When women
came in, and in the course of their conversation casually asked,
"Where's Maggie dese days?" the mother shook her fuzzy head at them and
appalled them with curses.  Cunning hints inviting confidence she
rebuffed with violence.

"An' wid all deh bringin' up she had, how could she?" moaningly she
asked of her son.  "Wid all deh talkin' wid her I did an' deh t'ings I
tol' her to remember?  When a girl is bringed up deh way I bringed up
Maggie, how kin she go teh deh devil?"

Jimmie was transfixed by these questions.  He could not conceive how
under the circumstances his mother's daughter and his sister could have
been so wicked.

His mother took a drink from a squdgy bottle that sat on the table.
She continued her lament.

"She had a bad heart, dat girl did, Jimmie.  She was wicked teh deh
heart an' we never knowed it."

Jimmie nodded, admitting the fact.

"We lived in deh same house wid her an' I brought her up an' we never
knowed how bad she was."

Jimmie nodded again.

"Wid a home like dis an' a mudder like me, she went teh deh bad," cried
the mother, raising her eyes.

One day, Jimmie came home, sat down in a chair and began to wriggle
about with a new and strange nervousness.  At last he spoke
shamefacedly.

"Well, look-a-here, dis t'ing queers us!  See?  We're queered!  An'
maybe it 'ud be better if I--well, I t'ink I kin look 'er up an'--maybe
it 'ud be better if I fetched her home an'--"

The mother started from her chair and broke forth into a storm of
passionate anger.

"What!  Let 'er come an' sleep under deh same roof wid her mudder agin!
Oh, yes, I will, won't I?  Sure?  Shame on yehs, Jimmie Johnson, for
sayin' such a t'ing teh yer own mudder--teh yer own mudder!  Little did
I t'ink when yehs was a babby playin' about me feet dat ye'd grow up
teh say sech a t'ing teh yer mudder--yer own mudder.  I never taut--"

Sobs choked her and interrupted her reproaches.

"Dere ain't nottin' teh raise sech hell about," said Jimmie.  "I on'y
says it 'ud be better if we keep dis t'ing dark, see?  It queers us!
See?"

His mother laughed a laugh that seemed to ring through the city and be
echoed and re-echoed by countless other laughs.  "Oh, yes, I will,
won't I!  Sure!"

"Well, yeh must take me fer a damn fool," said Jimmie, indignant at his
mother for mocking him.  "I didn't say we'd make 'er inteh a little tin
angel, ner nottin', but deh way it is now she can queer us!  Don' che
see?"

"Aye, she'll git tired of deh life atter a while an' den she'll wanna
be a-comin' home, won' she, deh beast!  I'll let 'er in den, won' I?"

"Well, I didn' mean none of dis prod'gal bus'ness anyway," explained
Jimmie.

"It wasn't no prod'gal dauter, yeh damn fool," said the mother.  "It
was prod'gal son, anyhow."

"I know dat," said Jimmie.

For a time they sat in silence.  The mother's eyes gloated on a scene
her imagination could call before her.  Her lips were set in a
vindictive smile.

"Aye, she'll cry, won' she, an' carry on, an' tell how Pete, or some
odder feller, beats 'er an' she'll say she's sorry an' all dat an' she
ain't happy, she ain't, an' she wants to come home agin, she does."

With grim humor, the mother imitated the possible wailing notes of the
daughter's voice.

"Den I'll take 'er in, won't I, deh beast.  She kin cry 'er two eyes
out on deh stones of deh street before I'll dirty deh place wid her.
She abused an' ill-treated her own mudder--her own mudder what loved
her an' she'll never git anodder chance dis side of hell."

Jimmie thought he had a great idea of women's frailty, but he could not
understand why any of his kin should be victims.

"Damn her," he fervidly said.

Again he wondered vaguely if some of the women of his acquaintance had
brothers.  Nevertheless, his mind did not for an instant confuse
himself with those brothers nor his sister with theirs.  After the
mother had, with great difficulty, suppressed the neighbors, she went
among them and proclaimed her grief.  "May Gawd forgive dat girl," was
her continual cry.  To attentive ears she recited the whole length and
breadth of her woes.

"I bringed 'er up deh way a dauter oughta be bringed up an' dis is how
she served me!  She went teh deh devil deh first chance she got!  May
Gawd forgive her."

When arrested for drunkenness she used the story of her daughter's
downfall with telling effect upon the police justices.  Finally one of
them said to her, peering down over his spectacles: "Mary, the records
of this and other courts show that you are the mother of forty-two
daughters who have been ruined.  The case is unparalleled in the annals
of this court, and this court thinks--"

The mother went through life shedding large tears of sorrow.  Her red
face was a picture of agony.

Of course Jimmie publicly damned his sister that he might appear on a
higher social plane.  But, arguing with himself, stumbling about in
ways that he knew not, he, once, almost came to a conclusion that his
sister would have been more firmly good had she better known why.
However, he felt that he could not hold such a view.  He threw it
hastily aside.

 The night after Mary tells Maggie to "go teh hell," Jimmie hears that the old woman saw Maggie crying and asking Pete if he loved her. Perhaps because he has been a party to this kind of scene before, Jimmie recognizes what it means: going home, he tells Mary that "Maggie's gone teh deh devil," the novel's euphemism for premarital sex. Mary immediately launches into a self-pitying, moralizing rant, asking, in a moment of supreme irony, "who would tink such a bad girl could grow up in our fambly?" Jimmie, for his part, resolves to "wipe up deh street" with Pete. Accordingly, Jimmie and his friend Billie find Pete at the bar where he works as bartender. After provocative posturing, the three get into a fistfight--fiercely and lyrically depicted--that wrecks the bar and results in the arrests of Pete and Billie; Jimmie abandons his friend and escapes. There is, presumably, a short passage of time. We are shown Jimmie and Maggie in a fairly disreputable bar--"a hall of irregular shape." After leaving her family, Maggie has become utterly dependent on Pete, who has assumed the character of a hero and a savior in her eyes: "wealth and prosperity was in his clothes. She imagined a future rose-tinted, because of its distance from all that she previously experienced. " She does not consider herself disgraced: "she did not feel like a bad woman. To her knowledge she had never seen any better." In another scene, which we imagine to follow chronologically, at a distance of some unspecified "number of days," Jimmie returns home to find his mother "raving" about what she sees as the utterly unwarranted and unpredictable disgrace visited upon the family by Maggie's actions. Jimmie has faint rumblings of introspection and sympathy--"he wondered if some of the women of his acquaintance had brothers"--but he quickly suppresses his sympathies, and, like his mother, continues to damn his sister publicly. Maggie and Pete are seated in the lowest in their chain of progressively degraded drinking halls. It is three weeks after Maggie has left home, and she has become utterly dependent on her seducer. But Pete, in turn, is seduced; in the bar, he sees an old acquaintance--and, presumably, paramour--Nellie, who is on a date with a "mere boy." Nellie flirts with Pete and eventually gets him to leave with her. Maggie, shocked at Pete's sudden abandonment, sits stunned, and eventually makes her way home to her family's tenement.

