“This is it, then,” said the city editor, standing with his back to the door. “The notice reads: 'On March 3d, at the Arlington Hospital for Incurables, Rachel, widow of the late Horace W. Croydon, Sr., in her 59th year. Funeral services at the residence of Charles--'” “Why,” interrupted the editorial writer, in a hushed voice, “that is a death notice.” “His mother,” said the exchange editor. “The Hospital for Incurables--that is where the flowers went.” The editorial writer's glance dropped to the desk, where the money lay for the intended gift. The exchange editor sat perfectly still, gazing straight in front of him. The city editor walked softly to the window and looked out. XV. -- THE BAD BREAK OF TOBIT MCSTENGER “I'm a bad man,” said Tobit McStenger, after three glasses of whiskey. And he was. In making the declaration, he echoed the expression of the community. He looked it. Not only in the sneering mouth above the half-formed chin, and in the lowering eyes of undecided colour beneath the receding brow, but also in every shiftless attitude and movement of his great gaunt body, and even in the torn coat and shapeless felt hat--both once black, but both now a dirty gray--his aspect proclaimed him the preeminent rowdy of his town. When out of jail he was engaged in oyster opening at Couch's saloon, or selling fresh fish, caught in the river, or vagrancy in the streets of Brickville. He lived in a log house containing two rooms, by Muddy Creek, an intermittent stream that flowed--sometimes--through a corner of the town. He was a widower and had a son nine years old, little Tobe, who went to school occasionally, but gave most of his day to carrying a paper flour-sack around the town and begging cold victuals, in obedience to paternal commands, and throwing stones at other boys, who called him “Patches,” a nickname descended from his father. Little Tobe's face was always black, from the dust of the bituminous coal that he was compelled to steal at night from the railroad companies' yard. His attire was in miniature what his father's was in the large, as his character was in embryo what the elder Tobit's was in complete development. With long, entangled hair, a thin, crafty face, and stealthy eyes, he was a true type of malevolent gamin, all the more uncanny for the crudity due to his semirustic environments. Such were Tobit and little Tobe, the most conspicuous of the village “characters” of Brickville, a Pennsylvania town deriving sustenance from its brick-kiln, its railroads, and its contiguous farming interests. It was town talk that Tobit McStenger was a hard father; drunk or sober, he chastised little Tobe upon the slightest occasion.