my beat, and when I looked up sudden the
other day at the captain, hanged if for a minit he didn't have red,
curly hair. Say you will marry me, Nancy, and we will be the happiest
bunch in the Bronx." When he had been talking to me it seemed I was just
choked up two ways, one with happiness and the other with misery. I said
to him, "Oh, Tom, I couldn't marry you." He said, "Why not, don't you
love me?" "It ain't that, Tom," I said, "but my family is all crooks.
You couldn't marry _me_." He said, "Well, what has that got to do with
it? I don't see how they can stop me marrying you. Most of them is in
jail anyway." I couldn't help but laugh, as he was so earnest about it,
but I said, "Why, Tom, if they knowed down at Central Office that you
had married me, they might break you. All the bulls know father." And
then Tom got mad. "Break me--what would they break me for? I guess I got
the right to marry the finest little girl in New York if I want to and I
would just as soon take you right up to the chief himself and say
'Chief, this is Nancy Lane and I am going to marry her. Her father is
old Bill Lane, and the worst crook this side of the Pacific, but my
little girl is white and clean right through.' And do you know what he
would do? He would give you one look over with that clever eye of his,
and say, 'Put a rose in your hair and go as far as you like, _and_
because you have shown common sense for once in your life, you will be
made a captain next week.'" I laughed and couldn't say nothing much, and
he moved over close to me again and laid my face against his coat, and
put his head down on my hair, kinda patting my face soft with his big
hand. He said, "Nancy darling, you do like me a little bit, don't you? I
will be so good to you, little one, and I will stand between you and all
your troubles. You have had your share, and you never need to have no
more, cause when things don't go right, all you need to do is to run to
big Tom Cassidy, and rub your little face up and down the front of his
big coat, and squeeze a little water out of one eye, and put a little
tremble in your voice, and he would go out and lick a St. Patrick's Day
procession for you." Then he was quiet but went on after a while soft
and tender like, "I sure do love you, little one. Don't you care for me
a little?" "Oh, Tom," I said, "it ain't little, it is lots." Then he
said, "Why won't you say we will be married?" And I said, "Tom, I care
more for you than f