"I'll call the police," cried Grabb.
"What a pattern! what a beauty!" continued the man in the brown bang-up; "why rotten eggs 'ud be wasted on such a carcass as that!"
"Police! Police!" screamed Grabb,—"Gentlemen, I'd like to know if there is any law in this land?"
While this altercation was in progress the poor girl—thoroughly ashamed to find herself the center of a public broil—covered her face with her hands and wept as if her heart would break.
"Take my arm," said a voice at her side; "there will be a fight. Quick, my dear Miss, you must get out of this as quick as possible."
The speaker was a short and slender man, wrapped in a Spanish mantle, and his hat was drawn low over his forehead.
The girl seized his arm, and while the crowd formed a circle around Grabb and the brown bang-up, they contrived to pass unobserved from the store. Presently the poor girl was hurrying along Canal street, her hand still clasping the arm of the stranger in the cloak.
"Bad business! Bad business!" he said in a quick, abrupt tone. "That Grabb's a scoundrel. Here's Broadway, my dear, and I must bid you good-night. Good-night,—good-night."
And he left the poor girl at the corner of Broadway and Canal street. He was lost in the crowd ere she was aware of his departure. She was left alone, on the street corner, in the midst of that torrent of life; and it was not until some moments had elapsed that she could fully comprehend her desolate condition.
"It was the last five dollars I had in the world! What can I do! In the name of God, what can I do!"