As for Dan, he was as familiar an object in the alley as the sparrows in the gutter or the stray cats about the garbage cans. Ever since he could persuade his small legs to go the way he wanted them to, he had pursued his own course, asking nothing of anybody, fighting for his meager rights, and becoming an adept in evading the questions that seemed to constitute the entire conversation of the adult world. All that he asked of life was the chance to make a living, and this the authorities sternly forbade until he should reach that advanced age of fourteen which seemed to recede as he approached. Like most of the boys in the gang, he had been in business since he was six; but it was business that changed its nature frequently and had to be transacted under great difficulty. He had acquired proficiency as a crap-shooter only to find that the profession was not regarded as an honorable one; he had invested heavily in pins and pencils and tried to peddle them out on the avenue, only to find himself sternly taken in hand by a determined lady who talked to him about minors and street trades. Shoe-shining had been tried; so had selling papers, but each of these required capital, and Dan's appetite was of such a demanding character that the acquisition of capital was well nigh impossible. From that first day when the truant officer had driven him into the educational fold, his problems had increased. It was not that he disliked school. On the contrary he was ambitious and made heroic efforts to keep up with the class; but it was up-hill work getting an education without text-books. The city, to be sure, furnished these to boys whose mothers applied for them in person, but Dan's mother never had time to come. The cause of most of his trouble, however, was clothes; seatless trousers, elbowless coats, brimless hats, constituted a series of daily mortifications which were little short of torture. Twice, through no fault of his own, he had stood alone before the bar of justice, with no voice lifted in his behalf save the shrill, small voice of Nance Molloy. Twice he had been acquitted and sent back to the old hopeless environment, and admonished to try again. How hard he had tried and against what odds, surely only the angel detailed to patrol Calvary Alley has kept any record.