The baby and I met casually in a Williamsburg street, where Alma had brought it to take the air, which was bad. Alma was thin-faced, hollow-eyed, but I could see that she had been pretty. She said she was twenty and the baby less than a year, and I think she told the truth. No one among Alma's friends finds fault with either the baby or herself, although both are without defence by the canons of high morality. There is warmth in the world; and, after all, the case of Alma and the baby is not so much beyond the common, except as to the baby's advent, which was dramatic and after the manner of Cæsar. Folk say the affair reflects illustriously upon the hospital. Also, what surgeons officiated are inclined to plume themselves; for have not Alma and the baby lived? I confess that those boastful scientists are not wanting in excuse for strutting, although they ought, perhaps, in honor, to divide credit with Alma and the baby as being hard to kill. It is not an ugly baby as babies go. Not that I pretend to be a judge. As I paused by its battered perambulator, it held up a rose-leaf hand, as though inviting me to look; and I looked. The little claw possessed but three talons; the first two fingers had been shot away. When I asked how, Alma lowered her head sadly, saying nothing. It would have been foolish to ask the baby. It couldn't talk. Moreover, since the fingers were shot away before it was born, it could possess no clear memory as to details. It is a healthy baby. Alma loves it dearly, and can be depended upon to give it every care. That is, she can be if she lives; and on that head her worn thinness alarms her friends, who wish she were fatter. Some say her thinness is the work of the bullet. Others believe that a sorrow is sapping her heart. III.--HOW PIOGGI WENT TO ELMIRA The Bottler was round, inoffensive, well-dressed, affable. He was also generous, as the East Side employs the term. Any one could touch him for a quarter upon a plea of beef stew, and if plaintively a bed were mentioned, for as much as fifty cents. For the Bottler was a money-maker, and had Suffolk Street position as among its richest capitalists. What bridge whist is to Fifth Avenue so is stuss to the East Side. No one save the dealer wins at stuss, and yet the device possesses an alluring feature. When the victim gets up from the table, the bank under the descriptive of viggresh returns him one-tenth of his losings. No one ever leaves a stuss game broke, and that final ray of sure sunshine forms indubitably the strong attraction. Stuss licks up as with a tongue of fire a round full fifth of all the East Side earns, and to viggresh should be given the black glory thereof.