I was accounted one of the strong fellows among the boys of Abner's Court as well as one of the conspicuous figures among them. Compactly built, broad-shouldered, with a small, firm mouth like my mother's, a well-formed nose and large, dark eyes, I was not a homely boy by any means, nor one devoid of a certain kind of magnetism
One of my recollections is of my mother administering a tongue-lashing to a married young woman whom she had discovered flirting in the dark vestibule with a man not her husband
A few minutes later the young woman came in and begged my mother not to tell her husband
"If I was your husband I would skin you alive."
"Oh, don't tell him! Take pity! Don't."
"I won't. Get out of here, you lump of stench."
"Oh, swear that you won't tell him! Do swear, dearie. Long life to you.
Health to every little bone of yours."
"First you swear that you'll never do it again, you heap of dung."
"Strike me blind and dumb and deaf if I ever do it again. There."