That night when the moon discovered Nance Molloy in Calvary Alley, it also peeped through the window at Mac Clarke out at Hillcrest. Bathed, combed, and comforted, he lay in a silk-draped bed while his mother sat beside him fanning him. It would be pleasant to record that the prodigal had confessed his sins and been forgiven. It would even be some comfort to state that his guilty conscience was keeping him awake. Neither of these facts, however, was true. Mac, lying on his back, watching the square patch of moonlight on the floor, was planning darkest deeds of vengeance on a certain dirty, tow-headed, bare-legged little girl, who had twice got the better of him in the conflict of the day. CHAPTER IV JUVENILE COURT The goddess of justice is popularly supposed to bandage her eyes in order to maintain an impartial attitude, but it is quite possible that she does it to keep from seeing the dreary court-rooms which are supposed to be her abiding place. On the hot Friday morning following the fight, the big anteroom to the juvenile court, which was formerly used for the police court, was just as dirty and the air just as stale as in mid-winter, when the windows were down and the furnace going. Scrub women came at dawn, to be sure, and smeared its floors with sour mops, and occasionally a janitor brushed the cobwebs off the ceiling, but the grime was more than surface deep, and every nook and cranny held the foul odor of the unwashed, unkempt current of humanity that for so many years had flowed through it. Ghosts of dead and gone criminals seemed to hover over the place, drawn back through curiosity, to relive their own sorry experiences in the cases of the young offenders waiting before the bar of justice. On the bench at the rear of the room the delegation from Calvary Alley had been waiting for over an hour. Mrs. Snawdor, despite her forebodings, had achieved a costume worthy of the occasion, but Uncle Jed and Dan had made no pretense at a toilet. As for Nance, she had washed her face as far east and west as her ears and as far south as her chin; but the regions beyond were unreclaimed. The shoe-string on her hair had been replaced by a magenta ribbon, but the thick braids had not been disturbed. Now that she had got over her fright, she was rather enjoying the novelty and excitement of the affair. She had broken the law and enjoyed breaking it, and the cop had pinched her. It was a game between her and the cop, and the cop had won. She saw no reason whatever for Uncle Jed and Dan to look so solemn. By and by a woman in spectacles took her into a small room across the hall, and told her to sit on the other side of the table and not to shuffle her feet. Nance explained about the mosquito bites, but the lady did not listen. "What day is this?" asked the spectacled one, preparing to chronicle the answers in a big book. "Friday," said Nance, surprised that she could furnish information to so wise a person. "What day of the month?"