at hava struck," demanded the mere boy of himself,
stupefied.

In a semi-comatose state he conducted her on board an up-town car,
ostentatiously paid her fare, leered kindly at her through the rear
window and fell off the steps.

Chapter XV

A forlorn woman went along a lighted avenue. The street was filled
with people desperately bound on missions. An endless crowd darted at
the elevated station stairs and the horse cars were thronged with
owners of bundles.

The pace of the forlorn woman was slow. She was apparently searching
for some one. She loitered near the doors of saloons and watched men
emerge from them. She scanned furtively the faces in the rushing
stream of pedestrians. Hurrying men, bent on catching some boat or
train, jostled her elbows, failing to notice her, their thoughts fixed
on distant dinners.

The forlorn woman had a peculiar face. Her smile was no smile. But
when in repose her features had a shadowy look that was like a sardonic
grin, as if some one had sketched with cruel forefinger indelible lines
about her mouth.

Jimmie came strolling up the avenue. The woman encountered him with an
aggrieved air.

"Oh, Jimmie, I've been lookin' all over fer yehs--," she began.

Jimmie made an impatient gesture and quickened his pace.

"Ah, don't bodder me! Good Gawd!" he said, with the savageness of a
man whose life is pestered.

The woman followed him along the sidewalk in somewhat the manner of a
suppliant.

"But, Jimmie," she said, "yehs told me ye'd--"

Jimmie turned upon her fiercely as if resolved to make a last stand for
comfort and peace.

"Say, fer Gawd's sake, Hattie, don' foller me from one end of deh city
teh deh odder. Let up, will yehs! Give me a minute's res', can't
yehs? Yehs makes me tired, allus taggin' me. See? Ain' yehs got no
sense. Do yehs want people teh get onto me? Go chase yerself, fer
Gawd's sake."

The woman stepped closer and laid her fingers on his arm. "But,
look-a-here--"

Jimmie snarled. "Oh, go teh hell."

He darted into the front door of a convenient saloon and a moment later
came out into the shadows that surrounded the side door. On the
brilliantly lighted avenue he perceived the forlorn woman dodging about
like a scout. Jimmie laughed with an air of relief and went away.

When he arrived home he found his mother clamoring. Maggie had
returned. She stood shivering beneath the torrent of her mother's
wrath.

"Well, I'm d