“Why, it's been near two days that child's gone without eating,” he said, with keen self-reproach, “and here you've let her suffer to save yourself a trip to the Island. You're a hulking big loafer, you are,” he ran on, muttering, “and after her coming to you and taking notice of you and putting her face to yours like an angel.” He slipped off his shoes and picked his way cautiously down the stairs. As he reached the top of the first flight a newsboy passed, calling the evening papers, and shouted something which Rags could not distinguish. He wished he could get a copy of the paper. It might tell him, he thought, something about himself. The boy was coming nearer, and Rags stopped and leaned forward to listen. “Extry! Extry!” shouted the newsboy, running. “Sun, World, and Mail. Full account of the murder of Pike McGonegal by Ragsey Raegen.” The lights in the street seemed to flash up suddenly and grow dim again, leaving Rags blind and dizzy. “Stop,” he yelled, “stop. Murdered, no, by God, no,” he cried, staggering half-way down the stairs; “stop, stop!” But no one heard Rags, and the sound of his own voice halted him. He sank back weak and sick upon the top step of the stairs and beat his hands together upon his head. “It's a lie, it's a lie,” he whispered, thickly. “I struck him in self-defence, s'help me. I struck him in self-defence. He drove me to it. He pulled his gun on me. I done it in self-defence.” And then the whole appearance of the young tough changed, and the terror and horror that had showed on his face turned to one of low sharpness and evil cunning. His lips drew together tightly and he breathed quickly through his nostrils, while his fingers locked and unlocked around his knees. All that he had learned on the streets and wharves and roof-tops, all that pitiable experience and dangerous knowledge that had made him a leader and a hero among the thieves and bullies of the river-front he called to his assistance now. He faced the fact flatly and with the cool consideration of an uninterested counsellor. He knew that the history of his life was written on Police Court blotters from the day that he was ten years old, and with pitiless detail; that what friends he had he held more by fear than by affection, and that his enemies, who were many, only wanted just such a chance as this to revenge injuries long suffered and bitterly cherished, and that his only safety lay in secret and instant flight. The ferries were watched, of course; he knew that the depots, too, were covered by the men whose only duty was to watch the coming and to halt the departing criminal. But he knew of one old man who was too wise to ask questions and who would row him over the East River to Astoria, and of another on the west side whose boat was always at the disposal of silent white-faced young men who might come at any hour of the night or morning, and whom he would pilot across to the