bust his father's face" was the pride of
the block.

"Will yez look at de kid? Ain't he a foine one?" shouted Mr. Riley, with
peals of laughter; and the men smoking their pipes at the fence set the
youngster on with admiring taunts. Mike was just turned three. His great
stunt, when his father was not at hand, was to fall off everything in
sight. Daily alarms brought from the relief party of hurrying mothers the
unvarying cry, "Who's got hurted? Is it Mike?" But only Mike's feelings
were hurt. Doleful howls, as he hove in sight, convoyed and comforted by
Kate, aged seven, gave abundant proof that in wind and limb he was all
that could be desired.

This was Mr. Riley in his hours of ease and domesticity. Mr. Riley rampant
was a very different person. His arrival was invariably heralded by the
smashing of the top of the kitchen stove, followed by the summary ejection
of the once beloved family, helter-skelter, from the tenement. Three times
the Bureau had been at the expense of having the stove top mended to keep
the little Rileys from starving and freezing at once, and it was looking
forward with concern to the meat-cutter's next encounter with his
grievance. For there was a psychological reason for the manner of his
outbreaks. The Rileys had once had a boarder, when Kate was a baby. He
happened to be Mrs. Riley's brother, and he left, presuming on the
kinship, without paying his board. As long as the meat-cutter was sober he
remembered only the pleasant comradeship with his brother-in-law, and
extended the hospitality of a neighborly fireside to his wife's relations.
But no sooner had he taken a drink or two than the old grievance loomed
large, and grew, as he went on, into a capital injury, to be avenged upon
all and everything that in any way recalled the monstrous wrong of his
life. That the cooking-stove should come first was natural, from his
point of view. Upon it had been prepared the felonious meals, by it he had
smoked the pipe of peace with the false friend. The crash in the kitchen
had become the unvarying signal for the hasty exit of the rest of the
family and the organizing of Kate into a scouting party to keep Mrs. Riley
and the Bureau informed about the progress of events in the house where
the meat-cutter raged alone.

Mrs. Riley was a loyal, if not always a patient, woman--who can blame
her?--and accepted the situation as part of the marital compact, clearly
comprehended, perhaps foreshadowed, in her v