Outside in the hall, the stairs creaked to the steps of several. Voices called. Doors opened and shut. Windows went up and down. From top to bottom the old building was astir.
Big Tom strode to the door and listened. Gradually, as quiet prevailed in the Barber flat, the other flats fell into silence, while the watchers in the hall stole away. Presently the longshoreman gave a chuckle. Nobody cared to interfere with him. He came sauntering back to Johnnie.
The boy was lying prone now, his eyes shut, his breast heaving. As Big Tom stood over him, his whole little ragged figure shivered, and he sucked in his breath through his clenched teeth.
"Ha-a-a!" laughed Barber. "So y' will stick in y'r nose! Well, I'll learn y'!" Catching Johnnie up in one big hand, he carried him to the table and laid him over its edge, arms outstretched, the yellow head between them, and the thin legs hanging down toward the floor. Then taking up that length of rope with which he had beaten the boy, he tied the spent body beside that of the well-nigh fainting girl.
"Now there the two o' y'll stay till mornin'," he announced when he was done. "Then maybe y' won't be so fresh about runnin' this place."
The sun was now below the tops of the houses to the west, and the kitchen was beginning to darken. Big Tom got down the lamp, lighted it, and carried it to the bedroom. "All right, Pa," he said cheerfully, "I'm comin' t' put y' t' bed now. Y' want y'r milk first, don't y'? Well, Tommie'll git it for y'." He returned to the cupboard for the milk bottle, gave a smiling look at the two heads leaned on the table, and disappeared to bed.
Presently some one tapped timidly on the hall door; but as there was no reply, the caller went softly away. A bit later, a gruff voice was heard on the landing, speaking inquiringly, and there were whispered answers. But the gruff voice died away on the stairs, along with heavy footsteps. Then only the distant rumble of the Elevated Railroad could be heard occasionally, or the far, seaward whistle of some steamer, or the scrape and screak of a street-car.
And so night settled upon the flat.
