Calvary Alley | Page 3

a force that sent them both rolling in the gutter.
Blind with fury, the boy scrambled to his feet, and, seizing a rock, hurled it with all his strength after the retreating Dan. The missile flew wide of its mark and, whizzing high over the fence, crashed through the great rose window that was the special pride of Calvary Cathedral.
The din of breaking glass, the simultaneous appearance of a cross-eyed policeman, and of Mason, the outraged janitor, together with the horrified realization of what had happened, brought the frenzied combatants to their senses. Amid a clamor of accusations and denials, the policeman seized upon two culprits and indicated a third.
"You let me go!" shrieked Mac. "My father'll make it all right! Tell him who I am, Mason! Make him let me go!"
But Mason was bent upon bringing all the criminals to justice.
"I'm going to have you all up before the juvenile court, rich and poor!" he declared excitedly. "You been deviling the life out of me long enough! If the vestry had 'a' listened at me and had you up before now, that window wouldn't be smashed. I told the bishop something was going to happen, and he says, 'The next time there's trouble, you find the leaders and swear out a warrant. Don't wait to ask anybody!'"
By this time every window in the tenement at the blind end of the alley had been converted into a proscenium box, and suggestions, advice, and incriminating evidence were being freely volunteered.
"Who started this here racket, anyhow?" asked the policeman, in the bored tone of one who is rehearsing an oft-repeated scene.
"I did," declared Nance Molloy, with something of the feminine gratification Helen of Troy must have felt when she "launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium."
"You Nance!" screamed a woman from a third-story window. "You know you never done no such a thing! I was settin' here an' seen ever'thing that happened; it was them there boys."
"So it was you, Dan Lewis, was it?" said the policeman, recognizing one of his panting victims, the one whose ragged shirt had been torn completely off, leaving his heaving chest and brown shoulders bare. "An' it ain't surprised, I am. Who is this other little dude?"
"None of your business!" cried Mac furiously, trying to wrench himself free. "I tell you my father will pay for the darned old window."
"Aisy there," said the policeman. "Does anybody know him?"
"It's Mr. Clarke's son, up at the bottle works," said Mason.
"You let me go," shrieked the now half-frantic boy. "My father 'll make you pay for this. You see if he don't!"
"None o' your guff," said the policeman. "I ain't wantin' to keep you now I got your name. Onny more out o' the boonch, Mr. Mason?"
Mason swept a gleaning eye over the group, and as he did so he spied the footprint, in the concrete.
"Who did that?" he demanded in a fresh burst of wrath.
Those choir boys who had not fled the scene gave prompt and incriminating testimony.
"No! she never!" shouted the woman from the third floor, now suspended half-way out of the window. "Nance Molloy was up here a-washin' dishes with me. Don't you listen at them pasty-faced cowards a-puttin' it off on a innercent little girl!"
But the innocent little girl had no idea of seeking refuge in her sex. Hers had been a glorious and determining part in the day's battle, and the distinction of having her name taken down with those of the great leaders was one not to be foregone.
"I did do it," she declared excitedly. "That there boy dared me to. Ketch me takin' a dare offen a avenoo kid!"
"What's your name, Sis?" asked the policeman.
"Nance Molloy."
"Where do you live?"
"Up there at Snawdor's. That there was Mis' Snawdor a-yellin' at me."
"Is she yer mother?"
"Nope. She's me step."
"And yer father?"
"He's me step too. I'm a two-step," she added with an impudent toss of the head to show her contempt for the servant of the law, a blue-coated, brass-buttoned interloper who swooped down on you from around corners, and reported you at all times and seasons.
By this time Mrs. Snawdor had gotten herself down the two flights of stairs, and was emerging from the door of the tenement, taking down her curl papers as she came. She was a plump, perspiring person who might have boasted good looks had it not been for two eye-teeth that completely dominated her facial landscape.
"You surely ain't fixin' to report her?" she asked ingratiatingly of Mason. "A little 'leven-year-ole orphin that never done no harm to nobody?"
"It's no use arguing," interrupted Mason firmly. "I'm going to file out a warrant against them three children if it's the last act of my mortal life. There ain't a boy in the alley that gives me any more trouble