It took some minutes before I could get a connected explanation from them. After lunch they had gone out to pay the butcher’s bill. Nina, having come from "his district" had won Giuseppe’s heart and he allowed her the pleasure of playing at housewife. It pleased her especially to pay the bills, so she was carrying the money—about thirty dollars. At the corner of Second Avenue and First Street, they had been surrounded by Blackie’s gang. Guiseppe had fought like a true Garibaldian until his head had been laid open with a knife and he had been thrown to the ground by the young toughs. As quickly as they had come, they ran away. When he picked himself up, Nina was nowhere to be seen. He had asked the aid of a policeman, but had been laughed at. Then he had come to the Teepee, not finding either Benson or me, he had bound up his head, and rallying some Garibaldian comrades, had set out on a search. This about three o’clock. A little after four they had found her sobbing desperately behind an ash can in an alley-way. He had had some trouble in persuading her to come back. She was afraid of Blackie’s wrath—but more afraid that Norman would be angry on account of the money. Her story came out brokenly between spells of crying. At the first attack, Blackie and another cadet had hustled her around the corner and up some stairs to a rented room. There they took away the money and beat her at leisure. The three who had manhandled Guiseppe came in shortly and kicked her about some more. There was nothing unusual in this—it is the well-established custom, by which the cadets keep their girls in slavery. I doubt if a day ever passes in this great metropolis of ours when the same scene is not enacted. They would probably have beaten her worse, if the windfall of money had not tempted them out to other pleasures. One after another the five men swore, emphasizing their words with blows, that if she ever threw down Blackie again, they would kill her. Their parting advice to her was that if she had not earned five dollars by ten o’clock next morning, she could expect a fresh beating. Such stories had come to my knowledge before, they are the commonplaces of the police courts. But as Norman had said the first morning, such things must happen to someone near us, before we realize them. I took the handcuffs out of my desk, put fresh cartridges in my revolver. I had never set out after a man before in a like frame of mind....