Spanish stood but five feet three, and his place was among the lightweights. Such as the Dropper, who tilted the scales at 180, and whose name of Dropper had been conferred upon him because every time he hit a man he dropped him--such as Ike the Blood, as hard and heavy as the Dropper and whose title of the Blood had not been granted in any spirit of factitiousness--laughed at him. What matter that his heart was high, his courage proof? Physically, he could do nothing with these dangerous ones--as big as dangerous! And so, ferociously ready to even things up, he began packing a rod. While Spanish, proceeding as best he might by his dim standards, was struggling for gang eminence and dollars, Alma, round, dark, vivacious, eyes as deep and soft and black as velvet, was the unchallenged belle of her Williamsburg set. Days she worked as a dressmaker, without getting rich. Nights she went to rackets, which are dances wide open and unfenced. Sundays she took in picnics, or rode up and down on the trolleys--those touring cars of the poor. Spanish met Alma and worshipped her, for so was the world made. Being thus in love, while before he, Spanish, had only needed money, now he had to have it. For love's price to a man is money, just as its price to a woman is tears. Casting about for ways and means, Spanish's money-hunting eye fell upon Jigger. Jigger owned a stuss-house in Forsyth Street, between Hester and Grand. Jigger was prosperous beyond the dreams of avarice. Multitudes, stabbing stuss, thronged his temple of chance. As a quick, sure way to amass riches, Spanish decided to become Jigger's partner. Between them they would divide the harvest of Forsyth Street stuss. The golden beauty of the thought lit up the dark face of Spanish with a smile that was like a splash of vicious sunshine. Alma, in the effulgence of her toilets, should overpower all rivalry! At rout and racket, he, Spanish, would lead the hard walk with her, and she should shine out upon Gangland fashion like a fire in a forest. His soul having wallowed itself weary in these visions, Spanish sought Jigger as a step towards making the visions real. Spanish and his proposition met with obstruction. Jigger couldn't see it, wouldn't have it. Spanish was neither astonished nor dismayed. He had foreseen the Jiggerian reluctance, and was organized to break it down. When Jigger declined his proffered partnership--in which he, Jigger, must furnish the capital while Spanish contributed only his avarice--and asked, “Why should I?” he, Spanish, was ready with an answer.