On finding the nearest telephone I reported him to the children’s society for indecency in the presence of children. Then I reported the filthy condition of his flat to the Health Department, and on meeting a policeman farther along the block I told him of the whole performance. Having been a member of the Woman’s Police Reserve about a year, I had learned when to appeal to a brother cop.
The next morning as I passed along that block it seemed to me that everybody in sight wore a broad grin. Their enemy had been routed. The Health Department made him clean his flat, an agent of the children’s society paid him a visit, and the officer on that beat had threatened to take him to court if ever he caught his dogs on the street without a license tag and a muzzle.
The second largest dog in my district lived in a wine-cellar on East Twenty-ninth Street. A pencil scrawl came to me complaining that a dog at that address had no license. The writer of the scrawl demanded to know why an honest man like himself had to pay for a license while the crooks in the cellar did not. Needless to say the honest man forgot to sign his name.
It was late in the afternoon when I set out to investigate the wine-cellar. I had deciphered the name and number and was starting down the steps when, almost as if by magic, the pavement swarmed with gesticulating women and children.
An unusual feature of this writhing crowd was that no one made a sound. Not one word did they speak. But they made it plain that I was not to go down to that cellar.
“Why not?” I halted on the second step and demanded of a woman near me. “Why not?”
“Sicilians,” she whispered, indicating the cellar. “Black Hand.” And laying hold of my sleeve she tried to pull me back.
“I don’t care a whoop,” I told her. “I’m an American.” And down the steps I went and into the wine-shop.
Having entered every saloon in my district I literally did not care a whoop about a place in which only wine was sold. It proved to be larger than I had expected—wide, deep, and so dark that the faces of the men seated at the farthest tables made me think of the flame of a lamp when seen through a chimney black with smoke.
So far as I could make out in one quick glance around there were a number of small, round tables at each of which were seated several men. All of these men appeared to be drinking, and many of them playing some game.