g the corner
from Broadway into Houston Street immediately in front of Harding and
Leslie; and as she swept around, her long dress trailing on the
pavement, a careless fellow, lounging along, cigar in mouth, and eyes
everywhere else than at his feet, stepped full upon her skirt, and
before she could check the impetus of her sudden turn, literally tore
the garment from her, the dark folds of the dress falling on the
pavement and leaving the under-clothing painfully exposed. The girl
turned suddenly, one of those harsh oaths upon her lips which even more
than any action betray the fallen woman, and hissed out a malediction on
his brutal carelessness. The man, probably one who literally knew no
better, instead of remembering the provocation, apologizing for the
injury he had done and offering to make any reparation in his power,
replied by an oath still more shocking than that of the lost girl,
hurled at her the most opprobrious epithet which man bestows upon woman
in the English language, and one by far too obscene to be repeated in
these pages,--and was passing on, leaving the poor girl to gather her
torn drapery as she best could, when his course was suddenly arrested.

A tall figure had come up from below during the altercation, unnoticed
by either; and the instant after the man had disgraced his humanity by
that abuse of a fallen woman, he found himself seized by the collar with
a hand that managed him as if he had been a child, and himself full off
the sidewalk into the street, and among the wheels of the passing
omnibuses, with the quick sharp words ringing in his ear:

"The devil take you! If you can't learn to walk along the pavement
without tearing off women's dresses and afterwards abusing them, go out
into the street with the brutes, where you belong!"

The two friends noticed, casually, that a policeman stood on the upper
corner, and at this act of violence on the part of the new-comer, they
naturally expected to see him interfere to preserve the peace, if not
make an arrest; but he was either too lazy to cross the street, (such
things have been,) or too well satisfied that the coarse ruffian had met
the treatment he deserved, to make any step forward. The fellow, thus
suddenly sent to the company of worn-out omnibus-horses and swearing
stage-drivers on a slippery pavement, turned with an oath, when he
recovered himself, made a movement as if to return to the sidewalk and
seek satisfaction for the violence,