mple-hearted friend
whom, the truth be told, I patronized perforce. Then I looked about more
carefully, and saw a dozen photographs of a woman, sometimes alone,
sometimes holding a pretty child, and the faces were the faces I had
seen in the victoria. I feigned not to have seen them; but Larry, who
had watched me, said:

"Look again, Bob; for that is the woman you saw in the carriage, and
that is the child."

So I took up a photograph and looked at it long. The face had something
more dangerous than beauty in it--the face of a Cleopatra with a look in
the deep restless eyes I did not fancy; but I did not tell that to Larry
Moore. Then I put it back in its place and turned and said gravely:

"Are you sure that you want to tell me, Larry Moore?"

"I do," he said. "Sit down."

He did not seek preliminaries, as I should have done, but began at once,
simply and directly--doubtless he was retelling the story more to
himself than to me.

"She was called Fanny Montrose," he said, "a slip of a girl, with
wonderful golden hair, and big black eyes that made me tremble, the day
I went into the factory at Bridgeport, the day I fell in love. 'I'm
Larry Moore; you may have heard of me,' I said, going straight up to her
when the whistle blew that night, 'and I'd like to walk home with you,
Fanny Montrose.'

"She drew back sort of quick, and I thought she'd been hearing tales of
me up in Fall River; so I said: 'I only meant to be polite. You may have
heard a lot of bad of me, and a lot of it's true, but you never heard
of Larry Moore's being disrespectful to a lady,' and I looked her in the
eye and said: 'Will you let me walk home with you, Fanny Montrose?'

"She swung on her foot a moment, and then she said: 'I will.'

"I heard a laugh go up at that, and turned round, with the bit in my
teeth; but it was only the women, and you can't touch them. Fanny
Montrose hurried on, and I saw she was upset by it, so I said humbly:
'You're not sorry now, are you?'

"'Oh, no,' she said.

"'Will you catch hold of my arm?' I asked her.

"She looked first in my face, and then she slipped in her hand so
prettily that it sent all the words from my tongue. 'You've just come to
Bridgeport, ain't you?' she said timidly.

"'I have,' I said, 'and I want you to know the truth. I came because I
had to get out of Fall River. I had a scrap--more than one of them.'

"'Did you lick your man?' she said, glancing at me.

"'I licked every one of th