LITMIR.BIZ

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      Foley's keen gray eyes suddenly softened. He looked for a moment above the tree tops to the clouds sailing across the blue. "I guess you're right, Mr. Seaton," he said, "I guess you're right! Well, poor Nucky! And I must be getting back. Good day, Mr. Seaton."

      "Good day, Foley!"

      And Nucky, staring curiously from the Square, saw the apartment house door close on the tall, well-dressed stranger, and saw a taxi-cab driver offer a lift to his ancient enemy, Officer Foley.

      "Thinks he's smart, don't he!" he muttered aloud, starting slowly back toward the Café Roma. "I wonder what uplifter he's got after me now?"

      In the Café Roma, Nucky sat down at a little table and ordered a bowl of ministrone with red wine. He did not devour his food as the normal boy of his age would have done. He ate slowly and without appetite. When he was about half through the meal, a young Irishman in his early twenties sat down opposite him.

      "Hello, Nucky! What's doin'?"

      "Nothin' worth talking about. What's doin' with you?"

      "O, I been helping Marty, the Dude, out. He's going to be alderman from this ward, some day."

      "That's the idea!" cried Nucky. "That's what I'd like to be, a politician. I'd rather be Mayor of N' York than king of the world."

      "I thought you wanted to be king o' the dice throwers," laughed the young Irishman.

      "If I was, I'd buy myself the job of Mayor," returned Nucky. "Coming over to-night?"

      "I might, 'long about midnight. Anything good in sight?"

      "I hope so," Nucky's hard face looked for a moment boyishly worried.

      "Business ain't been good, eh?"

      "Not for me," replied Nucky. "Luigi seems to be goin' to the bank regular. You bet that guy don't risk keepin' nothin' in the house."

      "I shouldn't think he would with a wonder like you around," said the young Irishman with a certain quality of admiration in his voice.

      Nucky's thin chest swelled and he paid the waiter with an air that exactly duplicated the café manner of Marty, the Dude. Then, with a casual nod at Frank, he started back toward Luigi's, for his evening's work.

      It began to snow about ten o'clock that night. The piles of dirty ice and rubbish on MacDougal Street turned to fairy mountains. The dead horse in Minetta Lane might have been an Indian mound in miniature. An occasional drunken man or woman, exuding loathsome, broken sentences, reeled past Officer Foley who stood in the shadows opposite Luigi's house. He was joined silently and one at a time by half a dozen other men. Just before midnight, a woman slipped in at the front door. And on the stroke of twelve, Foley gave a whispered order. The group of officers crossed the street and one of them put a shoulder against the door which yielded with a groan.

      When the door of the large room on the second floor burst open, Nucky threw down his playing cards and sprang for the window. But Foley forestalled him and slipped handcuffs on him, while Nucky cursed and fought with all the venom that did the eight or ten other occupants of the room. Tables were kicked over. A small roulette board smashed into the sealed fire-place. Brown Liz broke a bottle of whiskey on an officer's helmet and the reek of alcohol merged with that of cigarette smoke and snow-wet clothes. Luigi freed himself for a moment and turned off the gas light roaring as he did so.

      "Get out da back room! Da backa room!"

      But it was a well-planned raid. No one escaped, and shortly, Nucky was climbing into the patrol wagon that had appeared silently before the door. That night he was locked in a cell with a drunken Greek. It was his first experience in a cell. Hitherto, Officer Foley had protected him from this ignominy. But Officer Foley, as he told Nucky, was through with him.

      The Greek, except for an occasional oath, slept soddenly. The boy crouched in a corner of the cell, breathing rapidly and staring into black space. At dawn he had not changed his position or closed his eyes.

      It was two days later that Officer Foley found a telephone message awaiting him in the police station. "Mr. John Seaton wants you to call him up, Foley."

      Foley picked up the telephone. Mr. Seaton answered at once. "It was nothing in particular, Foley, except that I wanted to tell you that the red-headed boy and his name, particularly that name, in Minetta Lane, have haunted me. If he gets in trouble again, you'd better let me know."

      "You're too late, Mr. Seaton! He's in up to his neck, now." The officer described the raid. "The judge has given him eighteen months at the Point and we're taking him there this afternoon."

      "You don't mean it! The young whelp! Foley, what he needs is a licking and a mother to love him, not reform school."

      "Sure, but no matter how able a New York policeman is, Mr. Seaton, he can't be a mother! And it's too late! The judge is out o' patience."

      "Look here, Foley, hasn't he any friends at all?"

      "There's several that want to be friends, but he won't have 'em. He's sittin' in his cell for all the world like a bull pup the first time he's tied."

      Mr. Seaton cleared his throat. "Foley, let me come round and see him before you send him over the road, will you?"

      "Sure, that can be fixed up. Only don't get sore when the kid snubs you."

      "Nothing a boy could do could hurt me, Foley. You remember that Jack was not exactly an angel."

      "No, that's right, but Jack was always a good sport, Mr. Seaton.

       That's why it's so hard to get hold of these young toughs down here!

       They ain't sports!" And Foley hung up the receiver with a sigh.

      Mr. Seaton preferred to introduce himself to Nucky. The boy was sitting on the edge of his bunk, his red hair a beautiful bronze in the dim daylight that filtered through the high window.

      "How are you, Enoch?" said Mr. Seaton. "My name is John Seaton. Officer Foley pointed you out to me the other day as a lad who was making bad use of a good name. That's a wonderful name of yours, do you realize it?"

      "Every uplifter I ever met's told me so," replied Nucky, ungraciously, without looking up.

      Mr. Seaton smiled. "I'm no uplifter! I'm a New York lawyer! Supposing you take a look at me so's to recognize me when we meet again."

      Nucky still kept his gaze on the floor. "I know what you look like. You got gray hair and brown eyes, you're thin and tall and about fifty years old."

      "Good work!" exclaimed Enoch's caller. "Now, look here, Enoch, can't I help you out of this scrape?"

      "Don't want to be helped out. I was doin' a man's job and I'll take my punishment like a man."

      Seaton spoke quickly. "It wasn't a man's job. It was a thief's job.

       You're taking your sentence like a common thief, not like a man."

      "Aw, dry up and get out o' here!" snarled Nucky, jumping to his feet and looking his caller full in the face.

      Seaton did not stir. In spite of its immaturity, its plainness and its sullenness, there was a curious dignity in Nucky's face, that made a strong appeal to his dignified caller.

      "You guys always preachin' to me!" Nucky went on, his boyish voice breaking with weariness and excitement. "Why don't you look out for your own kids and let me alone?"

      "My only boy is beyond my care. He was killed three years ago," returned Seaton. "I've had nothing to do with boys since. And I don't give a hang about you. It's your name I'm interested in. I hate to see a fine name in the hands of a prospective gunman."

      "And you can't get me with the sob stuff, either," Nucky shrugged his shoulders.

      Seaton scowled, then he laughed. "You're a regular tough, eh, Enoch? But you know even toughs occasionally use their brains. Do you want to go to reform school?"

      "Yes,

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