baa-a ever so loudly, it is not for her. It is bound for
the white tent on the shore, shunned even here, where sits a solitary
watcher gazing wistfully all day toward the city that has passed out
of his life. Perchance it may bring to him a message from the far-away
home where the birds sang for him, and the waves and the flowers spoke
to him, and "Unclean" had not been written against his name. Of all on
the Pest Island he alone is hopeless. He is a leper, and his sentence
is that of a living death in a strange land.

NIGGER MARTHA'S WAKE

A woman with face all seared and blotched by something that had burned
through the skin sat propped up in the doorway of a Bowery restaurant
at four o'clock in the morning, senseless, apparently dying. A
policeman stood by, looking anxiously up the street and consulting his
watch. At intervals he shook her to make sure she was not dead. The
drift of the Bowery that was borne that way eddied about, intent upon
what was going on. A dumpy little man edged through the crowd and
peered into the woman's face.

"Phew!" he said, "it's Nigger Martha! What is gettin' into the girls
on the Bowery I don't know. Remember my Maggie? She was her chum."

This to the watchman on the block. The watchman remembered. He knows
everything that goes on in the Bowery. Maggie was the wayward daughter
of a decent laundress, and killed herself by drinking carbolic acid
less than a month before. She had wearied of the Bowery. Nigger Martha
was her one friend. And now she had followed her example.

She was drunk when she did it. It is in their cups that a glimpse of
the life they traded away for the street comes sometimes to these
wretches, with remorse not to be borne.

It came so to Nigger Martha. Ten minutes before, she had been sitting
with two boon companions in the oyster saloon next door, discussing
their night's catch. Elsie "Specs" was one of the two; the other was
known to the street simply as Mame. Elsie wore glasses, a thing
unusual enough in the Bowery to deserve recognition. From their
presence Martha rose suddenly, to pull a vial from her pocket. Mame
saw it, and, knowing what it meant in the heavy humor that was upon
Nigger Martha, she struck it from her hand with a pepper-box. It fell,
but was not broken. The woman picked it up, and staggering out,
swallowed its contents upon the sidewalk--that is, as much as went
into her mouth. Much went over her face, burning it. She fell
shri