"Umph," was the expressive comment.
"What did you follow me over here to-night for?" demanded Braddock fiercely, after thirty steps.
"You know why, Brad. Don't ask."
"This is my affair," went on the big man. "I was doing no harm, sitting across there. Can't a man sneak off for a single look at his own child—in the dark, at that—without being hounded by—Say, you must stop dogging me, d' you hear? I'm not a rat. I'm a human being. I've got feelings. I wanted to have a look at her. She's my girl and—"
"Not so loud, Brad. Remember who you are with. You are in bad company, old man. Don't draw attention to the fact. Take a word of advice from me. Keep away from that house. Don't—"
"I don't want to hear anything more out of you," grated Braddock. "I know what I'm doing. I'm living up to my promise, ain't I? Didn't I say I'd see Mary before I—Say," he broke off incontinently, his thoughts leaping backward, "that was my girl that said good night to the swells back there—mine! Did you see how prettily she was dressed? Did you hear how sweet her voice was? I—I—" Something came up in the man's throat to cut off the words; and a long silence fell between them.
Not until they were turning into Fourth Avenue did Dick Cronk speak again. Somehow he felt the emotion that struggled in the breast of the man beside him. For the first time in his life he was sorry for him.
"Where are you going now, Tom?" he asked, knowing full well what the spiritless answer would be.
"To that hell-hole of a place you call home," said Braddock. Dick slipped his hand through the other's arm; they turned oft into one of the cross streets, wending their way through the sodden community, one with his head erect, the other with his chin on his breast, his hands in his coat pockets.
Half an hour later a cab stopped at a corner not far from a Pell Street intersection. Two men got down and picked their way through the vile street, searching out the house numbers as they progressed. They passed the all-night dives and brothels, whence came the sounds of unrestrained and unrefined revelry, and came at last to a spot beneath a huge wooden boot that hung suspended above the door of the most unholy structure in the narrow street. A man in his shirt sleeves sat back in the shadow of the tumbledown stoop, smoking a pipe. At his left a narrow, black passage led down between two squalid buildings, one of which was dark, the other lighted so that the vicious revelers within might see and be seen.