and have us pinched," demurred Ragsy. "I don't
believe in slugging no woman in a houseful of people."

"Gent'men," said Mr. Peters, severely, through his russet stubble,
"remember that you are speaking of my wife. A man who would lift his
hand to a lady except in the way of--"

"Maguire," said Ragsy, pointedly, "has got his bock beer sign out. If
we had a dollar we could--"

"Hush up!" said Mr. Peters, licking his lips. "We got to get that
case note somehow, boys. Ain't what's a man's wife's his? Leave it to
me. I'll go over to the house and get it. Wait here for me."

"I've seen 'em give up quick, and tell you where it's hid if you kick
'em in the ribs," said Kidd.

"No man would kick a woman," said Peters, virtuously. "A little
choking--just a touch on the windpipe--that gets away with 'em--and
no marks left. Wait for me. I'll bring back that dollar, boys."

High up in a tenement-house between Second Avenue and the river lived
the Peterses in a back room so gloomy that the landlord blushed to
take the rent for it. Mrs. Peters worked at sundry times, doing odd
jobs of scrubbing and washing. Mr. Peters had a pure, unbroken record
of five years without having earned a penny. And yet they clung
together, sharing each other's hatred and misery, being creatures
of habit. Of habit, the power that keeps the earth from flying to
pieces; though there is some silly theory of gravitation.

Mrs. Peters reposed her 200 pounds on the safer of the two chairs and
gazed stolidly out the one window at the brick wall opposite. Her
eyes were red and damp. The furniture could have been carried away on
a pushcart, but no pushcart man would have removed it as a gift.

The door opened to admit Mr. Peters. His fox-terrier eyes expressed
a wish. His wife's diagnosis located correctly the seat of it, but
misread it hunger instead of thirst.

"You'll get nothing more to eat till night," she said, looking out of
the window again. "Take your hound-dog's face out of the room."

Mr. Peters's eye calculated the distance between them. By taking her
by surprise it might be possible to spring upon her, overthrow her,
and apply the throttling tactics of which he had boasted to his
waiting comrades. True, it had been only a boast; never yet had he
dared to lay violent hands upon her; but with the thoughts of the
delicious, cool bock or Culmbacher bracing his nerves, he was near
to upsetting his own theories of the treatment due by a gentleman