"Who started it?" asked the magistrate.

"She did, your honor. She ain't never home when I wants my vittles cooked, and she blows my money so there ain't nothing in the house to eat for meself. She's always startin' things, and she did this time when I tells her to come on home...."

"Just a minute," interrupted the magistrate. "What is the cause of this, little woman? Who struck you on the eye?"

The woman's lips trembled, and she glanced at the big fellow beside her. He glowered down at her with a threatening twist of his mouth.

"Why, your honor, you see, the baby was sick, and Joe, he went out with the boys pay night, and we didn't have a cent in the flat, and I had to..."

"Shut up, or I'll bust you when I get you alone!" muttered Joe, until the judge pounded on the table with his gavel.

"You won't be where you can bust her!" sharply exclaimed the magistrate. "Go on, little woman. When did he hit you?"

The wife trembled and hesitated. The magistrate nodded encouragingly.

"Why weren't you home?" he asked softly.

"My neighbor, Mrs. Goldberg, likes the baby, and she was showing me how to make some syrup for its croup, your honor, sir. We haven't got any light--it's a quarter gas meter, and there wasn't anything to cook with, and I had the baby in her flat, and Joe he just got home--he hadn't been there ... since ... Sat.u.r.day night ... I didn't have anything to eat--since then, myself."

Joe whirled about threateningly, but the officer caught his uplifted arm.

"She lies. She ain't straight, that's what it is. Hanging around them _Sheenies_, and sayin' it's the baby. She lies!"

The little woman's face paled, and she staggered back, her tremulous fingers clutching at the empty air as her great eyes opened with horror at his words.

"I'm not _straight_? Oh, oh, Joe! You're killing me!"

She moaned as though the man had beat her again.

"Six months!" rasped out the magistrate between his teeth. "And I'm going to put you under a peace bond when you get out. Little woman, you're dismissed."

Joe was roughly jostled out into the detention room again by the rosy-cheeked policeman, whose face was neither so jolly nor rosy now.

The woman sobbed, and leaned across the rail, her outstretched arms held pleadingly toward the magistrate.

"Oh, judge, sir ... don't send him up for six months. How can the baby and I live? We have no one, not one soul to care for us, and I'm expecting..."

Mercifully her nerves gave way, and she fainted. The gruff old court attendant, now as gentle as a nurse, caught her, and with the gateman, carried her at the judge's direction, toward his own private office, whither hurried Mrs. Grey, the matron.

The magistrate blew his nose, rubbed his gla.s.ses, and irritably looked at the next paper.

"Jimmie Olinski. Officer Burke. Hurry up, I want to call recess!" he exclaimed.

Burke, in a daze of thoughts, pulled himself together, and then took the arm of Jimmie the Monk, who advanced with manner docile and obsequious. He was not a stranger to the path to the rail. Another officer led Annie forward. Burke took the chair.

"Don't waste my time," snapped the magistrate. "What's this? Another fight?"

Officer 4434 explained the situation.

"Do you want to complain, woman?" asked the magistrate.

"Complain, why yer honor, dis cop is lyin' like a house afire. Dis is me gent' friend, an' I got me face hoit by dis cop hittin' me when he b.u.t.ted into our conversation. Dis cop a.s.saulted us both, yer honor."

"That'll do. Shut up. You know what this is, don't you, Burke? The same old story. Why do you waste time on this sort of thing unless you've got a witness? You know one of these women will never testify against the man, no matter how much he beats and robs her."

"But, your honor, the man a.s.saulted her and a.s.saulted me," began Burke.

"She doesn't count. That's the pity of it, poor thing. I'll hold him over to General Sessions for a criminal trial on a.s.saulting you."

In the back of the room a stout man in a fur overcoat arose.

It was Shultberger. He came down the aisle.

As he did so, unnoticed by Officer 4434, three of Shultberger's companions arose and quietly left the courtroom by the front entrance.

"Oxcuse me, Chudge, but may I offer bail for my friend, little Jimmie?"

He had some papers in his hand, for this was what might be called a by-product of his saloon business; Shultberger was always ready for the a.s.sistance of his clients.

The magistrate looked sharply at him. "Down here again, eh? I'd think those deeds and that old brick house would be worn out by this time, Shultberger, from the frequency with which you juggle it against the liberty of your friends."

"It's a fine house, Chudge, and was a.s.sessed."

"Yes--go file your papers," snapped the magistrate. "You can report back to your station house, officer. There is no charge against this girl--she is merely held as material witness. She'll never testify.

She's discharged. Take my advice, Burke, and play safe with these gun-men. You're in a neighborhood which needs good precaution as well as good intentions. Good night."

The magistrate rose, declaring a recess for one hour, and Officer 4434 left the court through the police entrance.

As he turned the corner of the old Court building, he repeated to himself the question which had forced itself so strongly upon him: "Who is to blame? Who has to pay? The men or the women?"

Again he saw, mentally, the sobbing, drunken Irish woman with the two daughters who had no home life. He saw the brutal Joe, and his fainting wife as he cast the horrible words "not straight" into her soul. He saw that the answer to his question, and the shallow society youngsters, who had left the courtroom to see "real life" at Rector's, were not disconnected from that answer.

But he did not see a dark form behind a stone b.u.t.tress at the corner of the old building. He did not see a brick which came hurtling through the air from behind him.

He merely fell forward, mutely--with a fractured skull!

CHAPTER II

WHEN LOVE COMES VISITING

It was a very weak young man who sojourned for the next few weeks in the hospital, hovering so near the shadow of the Eternal Fixed Post that nurses and internes gave him up many times.

"It's only his fine young body, with a fine clean mind and fine living behind it, that has brought him around, nurse," said Doctor MacFarland, the police surgeon of Burke's precinct, as he came to make his daily call.

"He's been very patient, sir, and it's a blessing to see him able to sit up now, and take an interest in things. Many a man's mind has been a blank after such a blow and such a fracture. He's a great favorite, here," said the pretty nurse.