d some who hear think it happy.

Sheeny Rose was the master of ceremonies and kept the door. This for a
purpose. In life Nigger Martha had one enemy whom she hated--cock-eyed
Grace. Like all of her kind, Nigger Martha was superstitious. Grace's
evil eye ever brought her bad luck when she crossed her path, and she
shunned her as the pestilence. When inadvertently she came upon her,
she turned as she passed and spat twice over her left shoulder. And
Grace, with white malice in her wicked face, spurned her.

"I don't want," Nigger Martha had said one night in the hearing of
Sheeny Rose--"I don't want that cock-eyed thing to look at my body
when I am dead. She'll give me hard luck in the grave yet."

And Sheeny Rose was there to see that cock-eyed Grace didn't come to
the wake.

She did come. She labored up the long stairs, and knocked, with no one
will ever know what purpose in her heart. If it was a last glimmer of
good, of forgiveness, it was promptly squelched. It was Sheeny Rose
who opened the door.

"You can't come in here," she said curtly. "You know she hated you.
She didn't want you to look at her stiff."

Cock-eyed Grace's face grew set with anger. Her curses were heard
within. She threatened fight, but dropped it.

"All right," she said as she went down. "I'll fix you, Sheeny Rose!"

It was in the exact spot where Nigger Martha had sat and died that
Grace met her enemy the night after the funeral. Lizzie La Blanche,
the Marine's girl, was there; Elsie Specs, Little Mame, and Jack the
Dog, toughest of all the girls, who for that reason had earned the
name of "Mayor of the Bowery." She brooked no rivals. They were all
within reach when the two enemies met under the arc light.

Cock-eyed Grace sounded the challenge.

"Now, you little Sheeny Rose," she said, "I'm goin' to do ye fer
shuttin' of me out o' Nigger Martha's wake."

With that out came her hatpin, and she made a lunge at Sheeny Rose.
The other was on her guard. Hatpin in hand, she parried the thrust and
lunged back. In a moment the girls had made a ring about the two,
shutting them out of sight. Within it the desperate women thrust and
parried, backed and squared off, leaping like tigers when they saw an
opening. Their hats had fallen off, their hair was down, and eager
hate glittered in their eyes. It was a battle for life; for there is
no dagger more deadly than the hatpin these women carry, chiefly as a
weapon of defence in the hour of nee