LITMIR.BIZ

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leg wit’ a pin. Of course, he toins an’ cuts loose a bluff at Danny, who’s ducked out of reach. As he toins, up goes me small mit, an’ d’ nex’ secont I’m sprintin’ up d’ alley wit ‘d’ swag.

      “Nit; d’ mug wit’ d’ soap don’t chase. He never even makes a holler; I don’t t’ink he caught on. But Danny cuts in after me, an ‘d’ minute he sees we ain’t bein’ followed, or piped, he gives me d’ foot, t’rows me in a heap, an’ grabs off d’ bill. I don’t get a smell of it. An ‘d’ toad skin’s a fiver at that!

      “D’ foist real graft I recalls,” continued Matches, as he took a meditative sip of the grog, “I’m goin’ along wit’ an old fat skirt, called Mother Worden, to Barnum’s Museum down be Ann Street an’ Broadway. Mebbe I’m seven or eight then. Mother Worden used to make up for d’ respectable, see! an’ our togs was out of sight. There was no flies on us when me an’ Mother Worden went fort’ to graft. What was d’ racket? Pickin’ women’s pockets. Mother Worden would go to d’ museum, or wherever there was a crush, an’ lead me about be me mit. She’d steer me up to some loidy, an’ let on she’s lookin’ at whatever d’ other party has her lamps on. Meanwhile, I’m shoved in between d’ brace of ‘em, an’ that’s me cue to dip in wit’ me free hook an’ toin out d’ loidy’s pocket, see! An’ say! it was a peach of a play; an’ a winner. We used to take in funerals, an’ theaytres, an’ wherever there was a gang. Me an’ Mother Worden was d’ whole t’ing; there was nobody’s bit to split out; just us. We was d’ complete woiks.

      “Now an’ then there was a squeal. Once in a while I’d bungle me stunt, an’ d’ loidy I was friskin’ would tumble an’ raise d’ yell. But Mother Worden always ‘pologised, an’ acted like she’s shocked, an’ cuffed me an’ t’umped me, see! an’ so she’d woik us free. I stood for d’ t’umpin’, an’ never knocked. Mother Worden always told me that if we was lagged, d’ p’lice guys would croak me. An’ as d’ wallopin’s she gives me was d’ real t’ing, – bein’ she was hot under d’ collar for me failin’ down wit’ me graft, – d’ folks used to believe her, an’ look on me fin in their pocket, that way, as d’ caper of a kid. Oh, d’ old woman Worden was dead flossy in her day, an’ stood d’ acid all right, all right, every time.

      “But like it always toins out, she finds her finish. One day she makes a side-play on her own account, somethin’ in d’ shopliftin’ line, I t’ink; an’ she’s pinched, an’ takes six mont’s on d’ Island. I never sees her ag’in; at which I don’t break no record for weeps. She’s a boid, was Mother Worden; an’ dead tough at that. She don’t give me none d’ best of it when I’m wit’ her, an’ I’m glad, in a kid fashion, when she gets put away.

      “That’s d’ start I gets. Some other time I’ll unfold to youse how I takes me name of Mollie Matches. Youse can hock your socks! I’ve seen d’ hot end of many an alley! I never chases be Trinity buryin’ ground, but I t’inks of a day when I pitched coppers on one of d’ tombstones, heads or tails, for a saw-buck, wit’ a party grown, before I was old enough an’ fly enough to count d’ dough we was tossin’ for. But we’ll pass all that up to-night. It’s gettin’ late an’ I’ll just put me frame outside another hooker an’ then I’ll hunt me bunk. I can’t set up, an’ booze an’ gab like I onct could; I ain’t neither d’ owl nor d’ tank I was.”

      THE ST. CYRS

      CHAPTER I

      François St. Cyr is a Frenchman. He is absent two years from La Belle France. He and his little wife, Bebe, live not far from Washington Square. They love each other like birds. Yet François St. Cyr is gay, and little Bebe is jealous. Once a year the Ball of France is held at the Garden. Bebe turns up a nose and will not so belittle herself. So François St. Cyr attends the Ball of France alone. However, he does not repine. François St. Cyr is permitted to be more de gage; the ladies more abandon. At least that is the way François St. Cyr explains it.

      It is the night of the Ball of France. François St. Cyr is there. The Garden lights shine on fair women and brave men. It is a masque. The costumes are fancy, some of them feverishly so. A railroad person present says there isn’t enough costume on some of the participants to flag a hand-car. No one has any purpose, however, to flag a hand-car; the deficiency passes unnoticed. Had the railroader spoken of flagging a beer waggon —mon Dieu! that would have been another thing!

      A prize, a casket of jewels, is to be given to the best dressed lady. A bacchante in white satin trimmed with swans’ down and diamonds the size and lustre of salt-cellars is appointed the beneficiary by popular acclaim. François St. Cyr, as one of the directors of the ball, presents the jewels in a fiery speech. The music crashes, the mad whirl proceeds. A supple young woman, whose trousseau would have looked lonely in a collar-box, kicks off the hat of François St. Cyr. Sapriste! how she charms him! He drinks wine from her little shoe!

      CHAPTER II

      The morning papers told of the beauty in swans’ down; the casket of jewels, and the presentation rhetoric of François St. Cyr, flowing like a river of oral fire. Bebe read it with the first light of dawn. Peste! Later, when François St. Cyr came home, Bebe hurled the clock at him from an upper window. Bebe followed it with other implements of light housekeeping. François St. Cyr fled wildly. Then he wept and drank beer and talked of his honour.

      CHAPTER III

      The supple person who kicked the hat of François St. Cyr was a chorus girl. The troop in whose outrages she assisted was billed to infuriate Newark that evening. François St. Cyr would seek surcease in Newark. He would bind a new love on the heart bruised and broken by the jealous Bebe. Mon Dieu! yes!

      The curtain went up. François St. Cyr inhabited a box. He was very still; no mouse was more so. No one noticed François St. Cyr. At last the chorus folk appeared.

      “Brava! mam’selle, brava!” shouted François St. Cyr, springing to his feet, and performing with his hands as with cymbals.

      What merited this outburst? The chorus folk had done nothing; hadn’t slain a note, nor murdered a melody. The audience stared at the shouting François St. Cyr. What ailed the man? At last the audience admonished François St. Cyr.

      “Sit down! Shut up!”

      Those were the directions the public gave François St. Cyr.

      “I weel not sit down! I weel not close up!” shouted François St. Cyr, bending over the box-rail and gesticulating like a monkey whose reason was suffering a strain. Then again to the chorus girl:

      “Brava! mam’selle, brava!”

      The other chorus girls looked disdainfully at the chorus girl whom François St. Cyr honoured, so as to identify her to the contempt of the public.

      CHAPTER IV

      Francois St. Cyr suddenly discharged a bouquet at the stage. It was the size of a butter tub. It mowed a swath through the chorus like a chain shot.

      “Put him out!” commanded the public.

      “Poot heem out!” repeated François St. Cyr with a shriek of sneering contempt. “Canaille! I def-fy you! I am a Frenchman; I do not fee-ar to die!”

      Wafted to his duty on the breath of general opinion, a gend’arme of Newark acquired François St. Cyr, and bore him vociferating from the scene of his triumph.

      As he was carried through the foyer, he raised his voice heroically:

      “Vive le Boulanger!”

      CHAPTER V

      The next public appearance of François St. Cyr was in the Newark Police Court. He was pale and limp, and had thoughts of suicide. He was still clothed in his dress suit, which clung to him as if it, too, felt “des-pond.”

      François St. Cyr was fined $20.

      Bebe, the jealous, the faithful little

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