other time,
when the doorman at the police station was locking him up, he managed to
get on the free side of the door, and, drunk as he was, slammed it on the
policeman and locked him in. Then he sat down outside, lighted his pipe
and cracked jokes at the helpless anger of his prisoner. Murphy was a
humorist in his way. Had he also been a poet he might have secured his
discharge as did his chum on the Island who delivered himself thus in his
own defense before the police judge:

"Leaves have their time to fall,
And so likewise have I.
The reason, too, is the same,
It comes of getting dry.
The difference 'twixt leaves and me--
I fall more harder and more frequently."

But Murphy was no poet, and his sense of humor was of a kind too fraught
with peril to life and limb. When he was arraigned the nineteenth time,
the judge in the Essex Market Court lost patience when I tried to persuade
him to break the Island routine and hold the man for the Special Sessions,
and ordered me sternly to "Stand down, sir! This court is not to be
dictated to by anybody." I had to remind his Honor that unless he could be
persuaded to deal rationally with Mr. Murphy the court might yet come to
be charged before the Grand Jury with being accessory to wife murder, for
assuredly it was coming to that. It helped, and Murphy's case was
considered in Sessions, where a sentence of two years and a half was
imposed upon him. While serving it he died.

The children had meanwhile grown into young men and women. The first
summer, when we sent the two girls to a clergyman's family in the
country, they stole some rings and came near wrecking all our plans. But
those good people had sense, and saw that the children stole as a magpie
steals--the gold looked good to them. They kept them, and they have since
grown into good women. To be sure, it was like a job of original creation.
They had to be built, morally and intellectually, from the ground up. But
in the end we beat Poverty Gap. The boys? That was a harder fight, for the
gutter had its grip on them. But we pulled them out. At all events, they
did better than their father. When they were fifteen they wore neckties,
which in itself was a challenge to the traditions of the Gap. I don't
think I ever saw Mr. Murphy with one, or a collar either. They will never
be college professors, but they promised fair to be honest workingmen,
which was much.

What to do with the mother was a so