as sub-section boss. He was
talking to the drivers of the vehicles that went past him, through the
half-blockaded thoroughfare, and he was addressing them, after the true
professional contractor's style, by the names of their loads.

"Hi there, sand," he would cry, "git along lively! Stone, it's you the
boss wants on the other side of the street! Dhry-goods, there's no place
for ye here; take the next turn!" It was a proud day for the old Judge,
and I have no doubt that he talks it over still with his little bent old
crony, and boasts of vain deeds that grow in the telling.

Judge Phoenix is not, however, without mute company. Fair days and
foul are all one to the Judge, but on fair days his companion is brought
out. In front of the grocery is a box with a sloping top, on which are
little bins for vegetables. In front of this box, again, on days when it
is not raining or snowing, a little girl of five or six comes out of the
grocery and sets a little red chair. Then she brings out a smaller girl
yet, who may be two or three, a plump and puggy little thing; and down
in the red chair big sister plunks little sister, and there till next
mealtime little sister sits and never so much as offers to move. She
must have been trained to this unchildlike self-imprisonment, for she is
lusty and strong enough. Big sister works in the shop, and once in a
while she comes out and settles little sister more comfortably in her
red chair; and then little sister has the sole moment of relief from a
monotonous existence. She hammers on big sister's face with her fat
little hands, and with such skill and force does she direct the blows
that big sister often has to wipe her streaming eyes. But big sister
always takes it in good part, and little sister evidently does it, not
from any lack of affection, but in the way of healthy exercise. Then big
sister wipes little sister's nose and goes back into the shop. I suppose
there is some compact between them.

[Illustration]

Of course there is plenty of child life all up and down the sidewalk on
both sides, although little sister never joins in it. My side of the
street swarms with Italian children, most of them from Jersey Street,
which is really not a street, but an alley. Judge Phoenix's side is
peopled with small Germans and Irish. I have noticed one peculiar thing
about these children: they never change sides. They play together most
amicably in the middle of the street or in the gutter, bu