ttle, in which he had
performed the feat that entitled him to honorable mention henceforth
in the felonious annals of the gang. There was no surrender in his
sullen look as he stood before the desk, his hard face disfigured
further by a streak of half-dried blood, reminiscent of the night's
encounter. The fight had gone against him--that was all right. There
was a time for getting square. Till then he was man enough to take his
medicine, let them do their worst.

It was there, plain as could be, in his set jaws and dogged bearing as
he came out, numbered now and indexed in the rogues' gallery, and
started for the police court between two officers. It chanced that I
was going the same way, and joined company. Besides, I have certain
theories concerning toughs which my friend the sergeant says are rot,
and I was not averse to testing them on the Kid.

But the Kid was a bad subject. He replied to my friendly advances with
a muttered curse, or not at all, and upset all my notions in the most
reckless way. Conversation had ceased before we were halfway across to
Broadway. He "wanted no guff," and I left him to his meditations
respecting his defenceless state. At Broadway there was a jam of
trucks, and we stopped at the corner to wait for an opening.

It all happened so quickly that only a confused picture of it is in my
mind till this day. A sudden start, a leap, and a warning cry, and the
Kid had wrenched himself loose. He was free. I was dimly conscious of
a rush of blue and brass; and then I saw--the whole street saw--a
child, a toddling baby, in the middle of the railroad track, right in
front of the coming car. It reached out its tiny hand toward the madly
clanging bell and crowed. A scream rose wild and piercing above the
tumult; men struggled with a frantic woman on the curb, and turned
their heads away--

And then there stood the Kid, with the child in his arms, unhurt. I
see him now, as he set it down, gently as any woman, trying with
lingering touch to unclasp the grip of the baby hand upon his rough
finger. I see the hard look coming back into his face as the
policeman, red and out of breath, twisted the nipper on his wrist,
with a half-uncertain aside to me, "Them toughs there ain't no
depending on, nohow." Sullen, defiant, planning vengeance, I see him
led away to jail. Ruffian and thief! The police blotter said so.

But, even so, the Kid had proved that my theories about toughs were
not rot. Who knows but