ple that dubbed the
neighborhood he haunted the Pig Market--because pigs are the only ware
not for sale there. Denny never robbed anybody. The only thing he ever
stole was the time he should have spent in working. There was no
denying it, Denny was a loafer. He himself had told Schultz that it
was because his wife and children put him out of their house in
Madison Street five years before. Perhaps if his wife's story had been
heard it would have reversed that statement of facts. But nobody ever
heard it. Nobody took the trouble to inquire. The O'Neil family--that
was understood to be the name--interested no one in Jewtown. One of
its members was enough. Except that Mrs. O'Neil lived in Madison
Street, somewhere "near Lundy's store," nothing was known of her.

"That I will, Denny," repeated the policeman, heartily, slipping him a
dime for luck. "You come around to-morrow, and I will run you in. Now
go along."

But Denny didn't go, though he had the price of two "balls" at the
distillery. He shifted thoughtfully on his feet, and said:--

"Say, Schultz, if I should die now,--I am all full o' rheumatiz, and
sore,--if I should die before, would you see to me and tell the
wife?"

"Small fear of yer dying, Denny, with the price of two drinks," said
the policeman, poking him facetiously in the ribs with his club.
"Don't you worry. All the same, if you will tell me where the old
woman lives, I will let her know. What's the number?"

But the Robber's mood had changed under the touch of the silver dime
that burned his palm. "Never mind, Schultz," he said; "I guess I won't
kick; so long!" and moved off.

The snow drifted wickedly down Suffolk Street Christmas morning,
pinching noses and ears and cheeks already pinched by hunger and want.
It set around the corner into the Pig Market, where the hucksters
plodded knee-deep in the drifts, burying the horse-radish man and his
machine and coating the bare, plucked breasts of the geese that swung
from countless hooks at the corner stand with softer and whiter down
than ever grew there. It drove the suspender-man into the hallway of a
Suffolk Street tenement, where he tried to pluck the icicles from his
frozen ears and beard with numb and powerless fingers.

As he stepped out of the way of some one entering with a blast that
set like a cold shiver up through the house, he stumbled over
something, and put down his hand to feel what it was. It touched a
cold face, and the house rang