"Yes," said Mark, "I'll call Mrs. Flanagan."
"Who is she?"
"She lives in the same house with us."
"Shall he call her, or will you give him up?" asked the officer. "By the way, I think you're the same woman I saw drunk in the street last week."
Mother Watson took alarm at this remark, and, muttering that it was hard upon a poor widder woman to take her only nephew from her, shuffled off, leaving Mark and Ben in full possession of the field, with the terrible strap thrown in as a trophy of the victory they had won.
"I know her of old," said the policeman. "I guess you'll do as well without her as with her."
Satisfied that there would be no more trouble, he resumed his walk, and Mark felt that now in truth he was free and independent.
As Mother Watson will not reappear in this story, it may be said that only a fortnight later she was arrested for an assault upon her sister, the proprietor of the apple-stand, from whom she had endeavored in vain to extort a loan, and was sentenced to the island for a period of three months, during which she ceased to grace metropolitan society.