At the end of the following winter the catalogue of the various activities of the gang would read like a chapter from the Hunnish Invasion. There were Saturday night excursions up to the center of the city, which led us through Water street, through the Jewish and the Portuguese sections. As we passed by a grocery store, with tin advertising signs projecting from its doorway, we would line up, and each lad would leap in the air and snap his fist against the sign, producing a loud clatter and leaving it vibrating at great speed. Before the clerks had appeared on the scene we had passed on, and mixed with the Saturday night throng of shoppers. Our next stop was before a Jewish butcher shop, in front of which, on a projecting hook, hung a cow’s heart and liver. Forming another line, the gang would leap again and catch that a resounding slap with the palm. Then one of the fellows poked his head in the shop door, and called, “Say, daddy, we’ll give yer five cents if you’ll let us take three more slaps!” On the next block, we came across a venerable Israelite, long-bearded and somnolent, watching for custom before his one-windowed clothing shop. Jakey leaped forward, gave a vigorous tug on the venerable’s beard, and we broke into a run, with a shrieking, horrified group of Jews in mad pursuit. [Illustration: HE PLUCKED THE VENERABLE BEARD OF A SOMNOLENT HEBREW] Our objective in this series of adventures had been the Union for Good Works, a benevolent institution, with splendid rooms, to which we went for our shower-bath; cost, five cents! After we had taken our baths, and while we were busy with nine-pins, Jakey stood at an opposite end of the room, and plastered the frescoed walls of the Union for Good Works with the pasty contents of a silver package of cream cheese, to which he had helped himself at the stall of a large public market. That same night, when we arrived at the South End and were disbanding, Jakey set on view before our astonished eyes a five-pound pail of lard, a cap, and several plugs of tobacco, which he carried home and presented to his mother, saying that he had been to an auction! Such are only a few of the adventures in which we indulged after a depressing day of it in the mill. One Fourth of July night we roamed over the city, through the aristocratic section, and in a wild, fanatical, mob-spirit, entirely without a thought as to the criminal lengths of our action, leaped over low fences, went through gates and ran on lawns, tramping down flower-beds, crushing down shrubs, and snatching out of their sockets the small American flags with which the houses were decorated.