"Oh, gosh!" said the man, "I've got quarrels 'nough of my own without getting my head broke for fellers I don't know." Dennis was almost speechless from indignation. Conscious of strength, his strong impulse for a moment was to spring at the throat of the barkeeper and vent his rage on him. There is a latent tiger in every man. But a hand seemed to hold him back, and a sober second thought came over him. What! Dennis Fleet, the son of Ethel Fleet, brawling, fighting in a bar-room, a gambling-den, and going out to seek a situation that required confidence and fair-appearing, all blackened, bruised, and bleeding! As the truth flashed upon him in strong revulsion of feeling he fairly turned pale and sick. "There's the money," said he, hoarsely, "and God forgive you." In a moment he had taken his trunk and was gone. The barkeeper stared after him, and then looked at the money with a troubled and perplexed face. "Wal," said he, "I'm used enough to havin' folk ask God to damn me, but I'm blessed if I ever had one ask Him to forgive me, before. I be hanged," said he, after a moment, as the thought grew upon him--"I be hanged if I wouldn't give him back the money if he hadn't gone so quick." With heart full of shame and bitterness, Dennis hastened down the street. At the corner he met a policeman, and told him his story. All the satisfaction he got was, "You ought not to go to such a place. But you're lucky if they only took five dollars from you; they don't let off many as easy as that." "Can I have no redress?" "Now look here; it's a pretty ticklish thing to interfere with them fellers. It'll cost you plaguy sight more'n that, and blood, too, like enough. If you'll take my advice, you won't stir up that hornet's nest." CHAPTER VI "STARVE THEN!" Dennis now followed the natural impulse to go to some distant part of the city, entirely away from the region that had become so hateful to him.