mourning from the effect of a recent street fight, was unable,
even by the aid of the undamaged eye and the keyhole, to get the
slightest inkling of what was going on inside.

When the door was finally opened and McGaw and Crimmins came out, they
brought with them an aroma the pungency of which was explained by two
empty glasses and a black bottle decorating one end of the only table in
the room.

As Crimmins stepped down from the broken stoop, with its rusty
rain-spout and rotting floor-planks, Billy overheard this parting remark
from his father: "Thry the ile furst, Crimmy, an' see what she'll do;
thin give her the vinegar; and thin," with an oath, "ef that don't
fetch'er, come back here to me and we'll give 'er the red pepper."

Brother Knight Crimmins waved his hand to the speaker. "Just leave'er to
me, Dan," he said, and started for Tom's house. Crimmins was delighted
with his mission. He felt sure of bringing back her application within
an hour. Nothing ever pleased him so much as to work a poor woman into
an agony of fright with threats of the Union. Wives and daughters had
often followed him out into the street, begging him to let the men
alone for another week until they could pay the rent. Sometimes, when
he relented, the more grateful would bless him for his magnanimity. This
increased his self-respect.

Tom met him at the door. She had been sitting up with a sick child of
Dick Todd, foreman at the brewery, and had just come home. Hardly a week
passed without some one in distress sending for her. She had never seen
Crimmins before, and thought he had come to mend the roof. His first
words, however, betrayed him:--

"The Knights sent me up to have a word wid ye."

Tom made a movement as if to shut the door in his face; then she paused
for an instant, and said curtly, "Come inside."

Crimmins crushed his slouch-hat in his hand, and slunk into a chair by
the window. Tom remained standing.

"I see ye like flowers, Mrs. Grogan," he began, in his gentlest voice.
"Them geraniums is the finest I iver see"--peering under the leaves of
the plants. "Guess it's 'cause ye water 'em so much."

Tom made no reply.

Crimmins fidgeted on his chair a little, and tried another tack. "I
s'pose ye ain't doin' much just now, weather's so bad. The road's awful
goin' down to the fort."

Tom's hands were in the side pockets of her ulster. Her face was aglow
with her brisk walk from the tenements. She never took her eyes f