id, then a young
tough qualifying with one of the many gangs about the Hook for the
penitentiary, crossed her path. Ever after she was his slave, and followed
where he led.

The path they trod together was not different from that travelled by
hundreds of young men and women to-day. By way of the low dives and
"morgues" with which the East Side abounds, it led him to the Island and
her to the street. When he was sent up the first time, his mother died of
a broken heart. His father, a well-to-do mechanic in the Seventh Ward, had
been spared that misery. He had died before the son was fairly started on
his bad career. The family were communicants at the parish church, and
efforts without end were made to turn the Kid from his career of wicked
folly. His two sisters labored faithfully with him, but without avail.
When the Kid came back from the Island to find his mother dead, he did not
know his oldest sister. Grief had turned her pretty brown hair a snowy
white.

He found his girl a little the worse for rum and late hours than when he
left her, but he "took up" with her again. He was loyal at least. This
time he tried, too, to be honest. His mother's death had shocked him to
the point where his "nerve" gave out. His brother gave him charge of one
of his saloons and the Kid was "at work" keeping bar, with the way to
respectability, as it goes on the East Side, open to him, when one of his
old pals, who had found him out, turned up with a demand for money. He was
a burglar and wanted a hundred dollars to "do up a job" in the country.
The Kid refused, and his brother came in during the quarrel that ensued,
flew into a rage, and grabbing the thief by the collar, threw him into the
street. He went his way shaking his fist and threatening vengeance on
both.

It was not long in coming. A jewelry store in Bridgeport was robbed and
two burglars were arrested. One of them was the man "Jim" McDuff had
thrown out of his saloon. He turned State's evidence and swore that the
Kid was in the job too. He was arrested and held in bail of ten thousand
dollars. The Kid always maintained that he was innocent. His family
believed him, but his past was against him. It was said, too, that back of
the arrest was political persecution. His brother the saloon-keeper, who
mixed politics with his beer, was the under dog just then in the fight in
his ward. The situation was discussed from a practical standpoint in the
McDuff household, and it ended