d he softly in her ear. "Dis all blows over. See? Deh ol'
woman 'ill be all right in deh mornin'. Come ahn out wid me! We'll
have a hell of a time."

The woman on the floor cursed. Jimmie was intent upon his bruised
fore-arms. The girl cast a glance about the room filled with a chaotic
mass of debris, and at the red, writhing body of her mother.

"Go teh hell an' good riddance."

She went.

Chapter X

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 throu