f Mrs. McCarty, and
Mrs. McCarty's daughters got to thinking a good deal of him. And
Boatswain Bill, who lived at the house of the 'Nine Nations'--the house
they said had a bottomless pit--and English used to fight a deal about
the Miss McCartys, and Bill one night threw English over the high stoop,
down upon the pavement, and broke his arms. They said it was a wonder it
hadn't a broken his neck. Fighting Mary (Mary didn't go by that name
then) came up and took English's part, and whipped Boatswain Bill, and
said she'd whip the whole house of the 'Nine Nations' if it had spunk
enough in it to come on. But no one dare have a set-to with Mary. Mary
used to drink a deal of gin, and say--'this gin and the devil'll get us
all one of these days. I wonder if Mr. Crown'll sell bad gin to his
highness when he gets him?' Well, Bill was sent up for six months, so
the McCartys had peace in the house, and Mrs. McCarty got him little
things, and did for English until his arms got well. Then he got a
little money, (I don't know how he got it,) and Paddy Pie made good
friends with him, and got him from the Rookery, and then all his money.
I used to think all the money in the Points found its way either to the
house of Paddy Pie, or the Bottomless Pit at the house of the 'Nine
Nations,' and all the clothes to the sign of the 'Three Martyrs,' which
the man with the eagle face kept round the corner.

"English used to say in one of his troubled fits, 'I'd like to be a
respectable man, and get out of this, if there was a chance, and do
something for you, George. There's no chance, you see.' And when we went
into Broadway, which we did now and then, and saw what another world it
was, and how rich everything looked, English used to shake his head and
say, 'they don't know how we live, George.'

"Paddy Pie soon quarrelled with English, and being penniless again we
had to shift for ourselves. English didn't like to go back to Mrs.
McCarty, so we used to sleep at Mrs. Sullivan's cellar in 'Cut Throat
Alley.' And Mrs. Sullivan's cellar was only about twelve feet by twenty,
and high enough to stand up in, and wet enough for anything, and so
overrun with rats and vermin that we couldn't sleep. There were nine
rag-beds in the cellar, which as many as twenty-three would sometimes
sleep on, or, if they were not too tipsy, try to sleep on. And folks
used to come into the cellar at night, and be found dead in the morning.
This made such a fuss in the n