"I marched into the door just across the hall from you here, and faced Mr. James Minturn, and gave him names, and dates, and addresses, even the copper's name I'd got; and I told him all I've told you, and considerable more. He wasn't so fiery as the lady, so I told him the whole thing, but he never opened his trap. He just sat still and stony, listened till I quit, and finally he heaved a big breath and looked at me sort of dazed like and he said: 'What do you want, boy?'
"That made me red hot so I said: 'I want you to know that I saw the same woman bust one of your boys a good crack, over the head, a few minutes ago.'
"That made him jump, but he didn't say or do anything, so I got up and went—and—the same woman was in the park with the same boys yesterday, and they're the biggest little devils there. What's the answer?"
"A heartbroken man," said Douglas Bruce. "Now let me tell you, Mickey."
Then he told Mickey all he knew of James Minturn.
"All the same, he ought to be able to do something for his own kids, 'stead of boys who don't need it half so bad," commented Mickey. "Why honest, I don't know one street kid so low that he'd kick a little girl—after she'd been beat up scandalous, for his meanness to start on. Honest, I don't! I don't care what he is doing for the boy he has got, that boy doesn't need help half so much as his own; I can prove it to you, if you'll come with me to the park 'most any morning."
"All right, I'll come," said Douglas promptly.
"Well I couldn't say that they would be there this minute," said
Mickey, "but I can call you up the first time I see they are."
"All right, I'll come, if it's possible. I'd like to see for myself. So this gives you a settled prejudice against the Big Brother movement, Mickey?"
"In my brogans, what would it give you?"