“Sick!” he roared. “Sick! The h—— you was sick! You was drunk! You’re drunk now! See what you’ve done? You’ve killed your own kid—!” At his words the girl shrieked again, that long agonizing terrible shriek that brought more neighbors. “It was an accident,” whispered the Fuller boy thickly. “It wouldn’t have been an accident if you’d behaved yourself and cut out this coming home drunk.” The woman picked up the girl and got her to the sofa. Over and over she kept moaning: “My baby! My only, only, little baby!” The place filled with neighbors. After a while came Doctor Johnson—who was our coroner—and Mike Hogan, our chief of police. Mike was at a loss whether to arrest the father or not. Sam dispelled his doubts. “When the boy comes to himself and gets the stuff out of his brain, he’ll feel bad enough, Mike,” the fatherly old editor said. “The memory of it will be enough punishment. After all, he didn’t do it intentionally.” “He’s no good, sorr,” stormed Mike, indicating the young father while he grew husky-throated at the pathos of the little mother’s grief. “Yes, he is, Mike. This is really Dick Fuller’s—his father’s—fault. He shouldn’t ever have left the lad ten thousand dollars and no balance-wheel. Let these two children alone. It’s for them to settle between themselves. Jack’s got the Fuller blood in him from away back; and I think this will bring out his manhood. It’s a fearful price for a young father to have to pay, Mike. But maybe, after all, it’s for the best.” The neighbors left the boy and girl to their tragedy. The marriage of old Wilbur Nieson’s daughter Elisabeth to young Jack Fuller had been talked of in our town for a month and a day. Richard Fuller, son of Dashing Captain Jack, had grown to manhood, made considerable money and died, leaving it to his boy, whereupon the lad started straight for the devil. Before he had come into his inheritance, he had been “keeping company” with little Betty Nieson, who worked in the box-factory and lived with her derelict father in the scrubby old Nieson place out Cedar Street on the edge of town. The boy drank considerably and the rumor found its way into our newspaper office that, despite his money, Betty would not marry him until he had conquered the habit.