After that things fell by accident out of the windows of the rear tenement when Kate and George Finnegan were sitting in the doorway. They tried to reduce the chances of a hit as much as might be by squeezing into the space of one, at which the alley jeered. Sometimes one of the tenants would jostle them in the yard and "give lip," in the alley's vernacular, and Kate would retort with dignity: "Excuse yerself. Ye don't know who yer talkin' to." It had to come to it, and it did. Finnegan had been continuing the siege since the warm weather set in. He was a good spieler, Kate gave in to that. But she hadn't taken him for her steady yet, though the alley let on it thought so. Her steady is away at sea. George evidently thought the time ripe for cutting him out. His spooning ran into the small hours of the morning, night after night. It was near 1 A. M. that morning when Thomas Hart came down to the yard, stumbled over the pair in the doorway, and made remarks. As he passed out of sight, George, the swain, said: "If he gives any more lip when he comes back, I'll swing on him." And just then Hart came back. He did "give lip," and George "swung on him." It took him in the eye, and he fell. Then he jumped on him and stove in his slats. Kate ran. After all, George Finnegan was not game. When Hart's wife came down to see who groaned in the yard, and, finding her husband, let out those blood-curdling yells which made Kate Cassidy hide in an ice-wagon half-way down the block, he deserted Kate and ran. Mistress Hart's yells brought Policeman Devery. He didn't ask whence they came, but made straight for the alley. Mistress Hart was there, vowing vengeance upon "Kate Cassidy's feller," who had done up her man. She vowed vengeance in such a loud voice that the alley trembled with joyful excitement, while Kate, down the street, crept farther into the ice-wagon, trembling also, but with fear. Kate is not a fighter. She is too good-looking for that. The policeman found her there and escorted her home, past the Hart door, after he had sent Mister Hart to the hospital, where the doctors fixed his slats (ribs, that is to say). Mistress Hart, outnumbered, fell back and organized an ambush, vowing that she would lay Kate out yet. Discovering that the Floods, next door, had connived at her enemy's descent by way of their fire-escape, she included them in the siege by prompt declaration of war upon the whole floor. The cause of it all, safe in the bakery, suspended the greasing of pie-plates long enough to give her version of the row: