Chapter VIII: The Wages of the Snitch (2)

Low Hee Tong was a member of the Four Brothers--a descendant of the earliest Chinaman at that well, back in the world's morning. When he found that Tchin Len had married little Bow Kum and stolen her away to New York, his opium turned bitter and he lost his peace of mind. Low Hee Tong wrote a Chinese letter, giving the story of his injuries, and sent it via the white devils' mails to Low Hee Jit, chief of the Four Brothers.

Low Hee Jit laid the case before Lee Tcin Kum, chief of the On Leon Tong. The wise men of the On Leon Tong appointed a hearing. Low Hee Jit came with the wise men of the Four Brothers to the company rooms of the On Leon Tong. Tchin Len and little Bow Kum were there. The question was, should the On Leon Tong command Tchin Len to pay Low Hee Tong $3,000--the price of little Bow Kum?

Lee Tcin Kum and the wise men of the On Leon Tong, after long debate, said that Tchin Len should pay Low Hee Tong nothing. And they argued after this wise. The white devils' law had taken hold of little Bow Kum, and destroyed Low Hee Tong's title. She was no longer his property. She might marry whom she would, and the bridegroom owe Low Hee Tong nothing.

This was in the On Leon Tong's Company rooms in Mott Street.

Low Hee Jit and the wise men of the Four Brothers opposed this. Particularly they declined the white devils' laws as of controlling pith and moment. Why should a Chinaman heed the white devils' laws? The white devils were the barbarous inferiors of the Chinese. The latter as a race had long ago arrived. For untold ages they had been dwelling upon the highest peaks of all possible human advancement. The white devils, centuries behind, were still blundering about among the foothills far below. It was an insult, between Chinaman and Chinaman, for Lee Tcin Kum and the wise men of the On Leon Tong to quote the white devils' laws, or assume to yield them respect.

With this the council broke up.

War was declared by the Four Brothers against the On Leon Tong, and the dead-walls of Chinatown were plastered with the declaration. Since the white devils could not read Chinese, they knew nothing of all this. But the On Leon Tong knew, and the Four Brothers knew, and both sides began bringing in their hatchet-men.

When a Chinaman is bent on killing, he hires an assassin. This is not cowardice, but convenience. The assassin never lives in the town where the killing is to occur. He is always imported. This is to make detection difficult. The Four Brothers and the On Leon Tong brought in their hatchet-men from Chicago, from Boston, from Pittsburg, from Philadelphia.

Some impression of the extent of this conscription might be gathered from the following: When last New Year the On Leon Tong gave a public dinner at the Port Arthur, thirty hatchet-men were on the roof and eighty in the street. This was to head off any attempt the Four Brothers might make to blow that banquet up. I received the above from an esteemed friend of mine, who was a guest at the dinner, but left when told what profuse arrangements had been made to insure his skin.

Tchin Len and little Bow Kum kept up the fires of their love at Seventeen Mott. They took their daily chop suey and sharkfin, not to mention their bird's-nest soup, across the way at Twenty-two with their friends, Sam Lee and Yong Dok.

It was a showery, August afternoon. Tchin Len had been all day at his store, and little Bow Kum was sitting alone in their room. Dismal as was the day outside, the room showed pleasant and bright. There were needlework screens, hangings of brocade and silk, vases of porcelain, statuettes in jade. The room was rich--a scene of color and Chinese luxury.

Little Bow Kum was the room's best ornament--with her jade bracelets, brocade jacket, silken trousers, golden girdle, and sandaled feet as small as the feet of a child of six. It would be twenty minutes before the Chinese dinner hour, when she was to join Tchin Len across the street, and she drew out pen and ink and paper that she might practice the white devils' way of writing; and all with the thought of some day sending a letter of love and gratitude to the mission matron with the Highland name.

So engrossed was little Bow Kum that she observed nothing of the soft opening of the door, or the dark savage face which peered through. The murderer crept upon her as noiselessly as a shadow. There was a hawk-'like swoop. About the slender throat closed a grip of steel. The fingers were long, slim, strong. She could not cry out. The dull glimmer of a Chinese knife--it was later picked up in the hall, a-drip with blood--flashed before her frightened eyes. She made a convulsive clutch, and the blade was drawn horribly through her baby fingers.

Over across, not one hundred feet away, sat Tchin Len and his two friends in the eating room of Twenty-two. It was a special day, and they would have chicken and rice. This made them impatient for the advent of little Bow Kum. She was already ten minutes behind the hour. His friends rallied Tchin Len about little Bow Kum, and evolved a Chinese joke to the effect that he was a slave to her beauty and had made a foot-rest of his heart for her little feet. Twenty minutes went by, and his friends had grown too hungry to jest.

Tchin Len went over to Seventeen, to bring little Bow Kum. As he pushed open the door, he saw the little silken brocaded form, like a child asleep, lying on the floor. Tchin Len did not understand; he thought little Bow Kum was playing with him.

Poor little Bow Kum.

The lean fingers had torn the slender throat. Her baby hand was cut half in two, where the knife had been snatched away. The long blade had been driven many times through and through the little body. A final slash, hari-kari fashion and all across, had been the awful climax.

His friends found Tchin Len, seated on the floor, with little Bow Kum in his arms. Grief was neither in his eyes nor in his mouth, for his mind, like his heart, had been made empty.

Tchin Len waits for the vengeance of little Bow Kum to fall upon her murderers. Some say that Tchin Len was a fool for not paying Low Hee Tong the $3,000. Some call him dishonest. All agree that the cross-fire of killings, which has raged and still rages because of it, can do little Bow Kum no good.

X.--THE COOKING OF CRAZY BUTCH

This is not so much to chronicle the bumping off of Crazy Butch, as to open a half-gate of justice in the maligned instance of the Darby Kid. There is subdued excitement in and about the Central Office. There is more excitement, crossed with a color of bitterness, in and about the Chatham Club. The Central Office, working out a tip, believes it has cut the trail of Harry the Soldier, who, with Dopey Benny, is wanted for the killing of Crazy Butch. The thought which so acrimoniously agitates the Chatham Club is “Who rapped?” with the finger of jealous suspicion pointing sourly at the Darby Kid.

That you be not misled in an important particular, it is well perhaps to explain that the Darby Kid is a girl--a radiant girl--and in her line as a booster, a girl of gold. She deeply loved Crazy Butch, having first loved Harry the Soldier. If she owned a fault, it was that in matters of the heart she resembled the heroine of the flat boatman's muse.

There was a womern in our town

In our town did dwell.

She loved her husband dear-i-lee

An' another man twict as well.

But that is not saying she would act as stool-pigeon. To charge that the Darby Kid turned copper, and wised up the Central Office dicks concerning the whereabouts of Harry the Soldier, is a serious thing. The imputation is a grave one. Even the meanest ought not to be disgraced as a snitch in the eyes of all Gangland, lightly and upon insufficient evidence. There were others besides the Darby Kid who knew how to locate Harry the Soldier. Might not one of these have given a right steer to the bulls? Not that the Darby Kid can be pictured as altogether blameless. She indubitably did a foolish thing. Having received that letter, she should never have talked about it. Such communications cannot be kept too secret. Some wretched talebearer must have been lounging about the Chatham Club. Why not? The Chatham Club can no more guarantee the character of its patrons than can the Waldorf-Astoria.

The evening was a recent one. It was also dull. There wasn't an overflow of customers, hardly enough in waiting on them, to take the stiffness out of Nigger Mike's knees.

It was nine of the clock, and those two inseparables, the Irish Wop and old Jimmy, sat in their usual chairs. The Wop spoke complainingly of the poolroom trade, which was even duller than trade at the Chatham Club.

“W'at wit' killin' New York racin',” said the Wop dismally, “an' w'at wit' raidin' a guy's joint every toime some av them pa-a-pers makes a crack, it's got th' poolrooms on th' bum. For meself I'm thinkin' av closin'. Every day I'm open puts me fifty dollars on th' nut. An' Jimmy, I've about med up me moind to put th' shutters up.”

“Mebby you're in wrong with th' organization.”

“Tammany? Th' more you shtand in wit' Tammany, th' ha-a-arder you get slugged.”

Old Jimmy signalled to Nigger Mike for beer. “Over to th' Little Hungary last night,” remarked old Jimmy casually, “them swell politicians has a dinner. I was there.”

The last came off a little proudly.

“They tell me,” said the Wop with a deprecatory shrug, “that Cha-a-arley Murphy was there, too, an' that Se-r-rgeant Cram had to go along to heel an' handle him. I can remimber whin chuck steak an' garlic is about Cha-a-arley's speed. Now, whin he's bushtin' 'em open as Chief av Tammany Hall, it's an indless chain av champagne an' tur'pin an' canvashback, with patty-de-foy-grass as a chaser.”

Old Jimmy shook a severe yet lofty head. “If some guy tells you, Wop, that Charley needs anybody in his corner at a dinner that guy's stringin' you. Charley can see his way through from napkins to toothpicks, as well as old Chauncey Depew. There's a lot of duffers goin' 'round knockin' Charlie. They're sore just because he's gettin' along, see? They'll tell you how if you butt him up ag'inst a dinner table, he'll about give you an imitation of a blind dog in a meat-shop--how he'll try to eat peas with a knife an' let 'em roll down his sleeve an' all that. So far as them hoboes knockin' Charley goes, it's to his credit. You don't want to forget, Wop, they never knock a dead one.”

“In th' ould gas house days,” enquired the Wop, “wasn't Cha-a-arley a conducthor on wan av th' crosstown ca-a-ars?”

“He was! an' a good one too. That's where he got his start. He quit 'em when they introduced bell punches; an' I don't blame him! Them big companies is all alike. Which of 'em'll stand for it to give a workin' man a chance?”

“Did thim la-a-ads lasht night make spaches?”

“Speeches? Nothin' but Trusts is to be th' issue this next pres'dential campaign.”

“Now about thim trushts? I've been wantin' to ashk yez th' long time. I've been hearin' av trushts for tin years, an' Mary save me! if I'd know wan if it was to come an' live next dure.”

“Well, Wop,” returned old Jimmy engigmatically, “a trust is anything you don't like--only so it's a corp'ration. So long as it stands in with you an' you like it, it's all right, see? But once it takes to handin' you th' lemon, it's a trust.”

“Speakin' av th' pris'dency, it looks loike this fat felly Taft's out to get it in th' neck.”

“Surest ever! Th' trusts is sore on him; an' th' people is sore on him. He's a frost at both ends of th' alley.”

“W'at crabbed him?”

“Too small in th' hat-band, too big in th' belt. Them republicans better chuck Taft in th' discard an' take up Teddy. There's a live one! There's th' sturdy plow-boy of politics who'd land 'em winner!”

The Nailer came strolling in and pulled up a chair.

“Roosevelt, Jimmy,” said he, “couldn't make th' run. Don't he start th' argument himself, th' time he's elected, sayin' it's his second term an' he'll never go out for th' White House goods again?”

“Shure he did,” coincided the Wop. “An' r-r-right there he give himsilf th' gate. You're right, Nailer; he's barred.”

“Teddy oughtn't to have got off that bluff about not runnin' ag'in,” observed old Jimmy thoughtfully. “He sees it himself now. Th' next day after he makes his crack, a friend of mine, who's down to th' White House, asks him about it; is it for the bleachers,' says my friend, 'or does it go?'

“'Oh, it goes!' says Teddy.

“'Then,' says my friend, 'you'll pardon me, but I don't think it was up to you to say it. It may wind up by puttin' everybody an' everything in Dutch. No sport can know what he'll want to do, or what he ought to do, four years ahead. Bein' pres'dent now, with four years to draw to, you can no more tell whether or no you'll want to repeat than you can tell what you'll want for dinner while you're eatin' lunch. Once I knew a guy who's always ready to swear off whiskey, when he's half full. Used to chase round to th' priest, on his own hunch; to sign th' pledge, every time he gets a bun. Bein' soaked, he feels like he'll never want another drink. After he'd gone without whiskey a couple of days, however, he'd wake up to it that he's been too bigoted. He'd feel that he's taken too narrow a view of th' liquor question, an' commence to see things in their true colors.' That's what my friend told him. And now that Teddy's show-in' signs, I've wondered whether he recalls them warnin' words.”

“W'at'll th' demmycrats do?” asked the Nailer. “Run Willyum Jennin's?”

“They will,” retorted the Wop scornfully, “if they want to get th' hoot. Three toimes has this guy Bryan run--an' always f'r th' end book. D'yez moind, Jimmy, how afther th' Denver Convention lie cha-a-ases down to th' depot to shake ha-a-ands wit' Cha-a-arley Murphy? There's no class to that! Would Washin'ton have done it?--Would Jefferson?”

“How was he hoited be shakin' hands wit' Murphy?”

The Nailer's tones were almost defiant. He had been brought up with a profound impression of the grandeur of Tammany Hall.

“How was he hur-r-rted? D'yez call it th' cun-nin' play f'r him to be at th' depot, hand stretched out, an' yellin' 'Mitt me, Cha-a-arley, mitt me?' Man aloive, d'yez think th' country wants that koind av a ska-a-ate in th' White House?”

The acrid emphasis of the Wop was so overwhelming that it swept the Nailer off his feet.

The Wop resumed:

“Wan thing, that depot racket wasn't th' way to carry New York. Th' way to bring home th' darby in th' Empire Shtate is to go to th' flure wit' Tammany at th' ringin' av th' gong. How was it Cleveland used to win? Was it be makin' a pet av Croker, or sendin' th' organization flowers? An' yez don't have to be told what happened to Cleveland. An' Tammany, moind yez, tryin' to thump his proshpecks on th' nut ivery fut av th' way! If Willyum Jinnin's had been th' wise fowl, he'd have took his hunch fr'm th' career av Cleveland, an' rough-housed Tammany whiniver an' wheriver found. If he'd only knocked Tammany long enough an' ha-a-ard enough, he'd have had an anchor-nurse on th' result.”

“This sounds like treason, Wop,” said old Jimmy in tones of mock reproach. “Croker was boss in th' Cleveland days. You'll hardly say that Charlie ain't a better chief than Croker?”

“Jimmy, there's as much difference bechune ould man Croker an' Cha-a-arley Murphy as bechune a buffalo bull an' a billy-goat. To make Murphy chief was loike settin' a boy to carryin' hod. While yez couldn't say f'r shure whether he'd fall fr'm th' laddher or simply sit down wit' th' hod, it's a cinch he'd niver get th' bricks to th' scaffold. Murphy's too busy countin' th' buttons on his Prince Albert, an' balancin' th' gold eye-glasshes on th' ridge av his nose, to lave him anny toime f'r vict'ry.”

“While youse guys,” observed the Nailer, with a great air of knowing something, “is indulgin' in your spiels about Murphy, don't it ever strike youse that he's out to make Gaynor pres'dent?”

“Gaynor?” repeated old Jimmy, in high offence. “Do you think Charlie's balmy? If it ever gets so that folks of th' Gaynor size is looked on as big enough for th' presidency, I for one shall retire to th' booby house an' devote th' remainder of an ill-spent life to cuttin' paper dolls. An' yet, Nailer, I oughtn't to wonder at youse either for namin' him. There's a Demmycrat Club mutt speaks to me about that very thing at th' Little Hungary dinner.”

“'Gaynor is a college graduate,' says the Demmycrat Clubber. 'Is he?' says I. 'Well then he ought to chase around to that college an' make 'em give him back his money. They swindled him.' 'Look at th' friends he has!' says th' Clubber. 'I've been admirin' 'em,' I says. 'What with one thing an' another, them he's appointed to office has stole everything but th' back fence.' 'But didn't Croker, in his time, hook him up with Tammany Hall?' says th' Clubber; 'that ought to show you!' 'Croker did,' says I; 'it's an old Croker trick. Croker was forever get-tin' th' Gaynors an' th' Shepherds an' th' Astor-Chanlers an' th' Cord Meyers an' all them high-fly-in' guys into Tammany. He does it for th' same reason they puts a geranium in a tenement house window.' 'An' w'at may that be?' asks the Clubber. 'Th' geranium's intended,' says I, 'to engage th' eye of th' Health Inspector, an' distract his attention from th' drain.'”

The Darby Kid, a bright dancing light in her eyes and all a-flutter, rushed in. The Nailer crossed over to a table at which sat Mollie Squint. The Darby Kid joined them.

“W'at do youse think?” cried the Darby Kid. “I'm comin' out of me flat when th' postman slips me a letter from Harry th' Soldier.”

“Where is he?” asked Mollie Squint.

“That's th' funny part. He's in th' Eyetalian Army, an' headed for Africa. That's a fine layout, I don't think! An' he says I'm th' only goil he ever loves, an' asts me to join him! Ain't he got his nerve?”

“W'y? You ain't mad because he croaks Butch?”

“No. But me for Africa!--the ideer!”

“About Dopey Benny?” said the Nailer.

“Harry says Benny got four spaces in Canada. It's a bank trick--tryin' to blow a box in Montreal or somethin'.”

“Then you won't join Harry?” remarked Mollie Squint.

“In Africa? When I do, I'll toin mission worker.”

The next day the Central Office knew all that the Darby Kid knew as to Harry the Soldier. But why say it was she who squealed? The Nailer and Mollie Squint were quite as well informed as herself, having read Harry's letter.

To begin at the foundation and go to the eaves--which is the only right way to build either a house or a story. Crazy Butch had reached his twenty-eighth year, when he died and was laid to rest in accordance with the ceremonial of his ancient church. He was a child of the East Side, and his vices out-topped his virtues upon a principle of sixteen to one.

The parents of Butch may be curtly dismissed as unimportant. They gave him neither care nor guidance, but left him to grow up, a moral straggler, in what tangled fashion he would. Never once did they show him the moral way in which he should go. Not that Butch would have taken it if they had.

To Butch, as to Gangland in general, morality was as so much lost motion. And, just as time-is money among honest folk, so was motion money with Butch and his predatory kind. Old Jimmy correctly laid down the Gangland position, which was Butch's position. Said old Jimmy:

“Morality is all to the excellent for geeks with dough to burn an' time to throw away. It's right into the mitts of W'ite Chokers, who gets paid for bein' good an' hire out to be virchuous for so much a year. But of what use is morality to a guy along the Bowery? You could take a cartload of it to Simpson's, an' you couldn't get a dollar on it.”

Not much was known of the childhood of Butch, albeit his vacuous lack of book knowledge assisted the theory that little or less of it had been passed in school. Nor was that childhood a lengthy one, for fame began early to collect upon Butch's scheming brow. He was about the green and unripe age of thirteen when he went abroad into the highways and byways of the upper city and stole a dog of the breed termed setter. This animal he named Rabbi, and trained as a thief.

Rabbi, for many months, was Butch's meal ticket. The method of their thievish procedure was simple but effective. Butch--Rabbi alertly at his godless heels--would stroll about the streets looking for prey. When some woman drifted by, equipped of a handbag of promise, Butch pointed out the same to the rascal notice of Rabbi. After which the discreet Butch withdrew, the rest of it--as he said--being up to Rabbi.

Rabbi followed the woman, his abandoned eye on the hand-bag. Watching his chance, Rabbi rushed the woman and dexterously whisked the handbag from out her horrified fingers. Before the woman realized her loss, Rabbi had raced around a nearest corner and was lost to all pursuit. Fifteen minutes later he would find Butch at Willett and Stanton Streets, and turn over the touch.

Rabbi hated a policeman like a Christian. The sight of one would send him into growling, snarling, hiding. None the less, like all great characters, Rabbi became known; and, in the end, through some fraud which was addressed to his softer side and wherein a canine Delilah performed, he Avas betrayed into the clutches of the law.

This mischance marked the close, as a hanger-snatcher, of the invaluable Rabbi's career. Not that the plain-clothes people who caught him affixed a period to his doggish days. Even a plains-clothes man isn't entirely hard. Rabbi's captors merely found him a home in the Catskills, where he spent his days in honor and his nights in sucking unsuspected eggs.

When Rabbi was retired to private life, Butch, in his bread-hunting, resolved to seek new paths. Among the cruder crimes is house-breaking and to it the amateur law-breaker most naturally turns. Butch became a house-worker with special reference to flats.

In the beginning, Butch worked in the day time, or as they say in Gangland, “went out on _skush._” Hating the sun, however, as all true criminals, must, he shifted to night jobs, and took his dingy place in the ranks of viciousness as a _schlamwerker_. As such he turned off houses, flats and stores, taking what Fate sent him. Occasionally he varied the dull monotony of simple burglary by truck-hopping.

Man cannot live by burglary alone, and Butch was not without his gregarious side. Seeking comradeship, he united himself with the Eastman gang. As a gangster he soon distinguished himself. He fought like a berserk; and it was a sort of war-frenzy, which overtook him in battle, that gave him his honorable prefix.

Monk Eastman thought well of Butch. Not even Ike the Blood stood nearer than did Butch to the heart of that grim gang captain. Eastman's weakness was pigeons. When he himself went finally to Sing Sing, he asked the court to permit him another week in the Tombs, so that he might find a father for his five hundred feathered pets.

In the days when Butch came to strengthen as well as ornament his forces, Eastman kept a bird store in Broome Street, under the New Irving Hall. Eastman also rented bicycles. Those who thirsted to stand well with him were sedulous to ride a wheel. They rented these uneasy engines of Eastman, with the view of drawing to themselves that leader's favor. Butch, himself, was early astride a bicycle. One time and another he paid into Eastman's hands the proceeds of many a _shush_ or _schlam_ job; and all for the calf-developing privilege of pedalling about the streets.

Butch conceived an idea which peculiarly endeared him to Eastman. In Forsyth Street was a hall, and Butch--renting the same--organized an association which, in honorable advertisement of his chief's trade of pigeons and bicycles, he called the Squab-Wheelmen. Eastman himself stood godfather to this club, and at what times he reposed himself from his bike and pigeon labors, played pool in its rooms.

There occurred that which might have shaken one less firmly established than Butch. As it was, it but solidified him and did him good. The world will remember the great gang battle, fought at Worth and Center Streets, between the Eastmans and the Five Points. The merry-making was put an end to by those spoil sports, the police, who, as much without noble sympathies as chivalric instincts, drove the contending warriors from the field at the point of their night sticks.

Brief as was the fray, numerous were the brave deeds done. On one side or the other, the Dropper, the Nailer, Big Abrams, Ike the Blood, Slimmy, Johnny Rice, Jackeen Dalton, Biff Ellison and the Grabber distinguished themselves. As for Butch, he was deep within the warlike thick of things, and no one than he came more to the popular front.

Sequential to that jousting, a thought came to Butch. The Squab-Wheelmen were in nightly expectation of an attack from the Five Pointers. By way of testing their valor, and settle definitely, in event of trouble, who would stick and who would duck, Butch one midnight, came rushing up the stairway, which led to the club rooms, blazing with two pistols at once. Butch had prevailed upon five or six others, of humor as jocose as his own, to assist, and the explosive racket the party made in the narrow stairway was all that heart could have wished. It was comparable only to a Mott Street Chinese New Year's, as celebrated in front of the Port Arthur.

There were sixty members in the rooms of the Squab-Wheelmen when Butch led up his feigned attack, and it is discouraging to relate that most if not all of them fled. Little Kishky, sitting in a window, was so overcome that he fell out backwards, and broke his neck. Some of those who fled, by way of covering their confusion, were inclined to make a deal of the death of Little Kishky and would have had it set to the discredit of Butch. Gangland opinion, however, was against them. If Little Kishky hadn't been a quitter, he would never have fallen out. Butch was not only exonerated but applauded. He had devised--so declared Gangland--an ideal method of separating the sheep who would fly from the goats who would stay and stand fire.

Then, too, there was the laugh.

Gangland was quick to see the humorous side; and since humanity is prone to decide as it laughs, Gangland overwhelmingly declared in favor of Butch.

It was about this time that Butch found himself in a jam. His _schlam_ work had never been first class. It was the want of finish to it which earned him the name of Butch. The second night after his stampede of the Squab-Wheelmen, his clumsiness in a Brooklyn flat woke up a woman, who woke up the neighborhood. Whereupon, the neighborhood rushed in and sat upon the body of Butch, until the police came to claim him. Subsequently, a Kings County judge saw his way clear to send Butch up the river for four weary years. And did.

Butch was older and soberer when he returned. Also, his world had changed. Eastman had been put away, and Ritchie Fitzpatrick ruled in his place. Butch cultivated discretion, where before he had been hot and headlong, and no longer sought that gang prominence which was formerly as the breath to his nostrils.

Not that Butch altogether turned his back upon his old-time associates. The local Froissarts tell how he, himself, captained a score or so of choice spirits among the Eastmans, against the Humpty Jackson gang, beat them, took them prisoners and plundered them. This brilliant action occurred in that Fourteenth Street graveyard which was the common hang-out of the Humpty Jacksons. Also, Humpty Jackson commanded his partisans in person, and was captured and frisked with the rest. Butch gained much glory and some money; for the Jacksons--however it happened--chanced to be flush.

Butch, returning from Sing-Sing exile, did not return to his _schlam_ work. That trip up-the-river had shaken him. He became a Fagin, and taught boys of tender years to do his stealing for him.

Butch's mob of kids counted as many as twenty, all trained in pocket-picking to a feather-edge. As aiding their childish efforts, it was Butch's habit to mount a bicycle, and proceed slowly down the street, his fleet of kids going well abreast of him on the walks. Acting the part of some half-taught amateur of the wheel, Butch would bump into a man or a woman, preferably a woman. There would be cries and a scuffle. The woman would scold, Butch would expound and explain. Meanwhile the wren-head public packed itself ten deep about the center of excitement.

It was then that Butch's young adherents pushed their shrewd way in. Little hands went flying, to reap a very harvest of pokes. Butch began building up a bank account.

As an excuse for living, and to keep his mob together, Butch opened a pool parlor. This temple of enjoyment was in a basement in Willett Street near Stanton. The tariff was two-and-a-half cents a cue, and what Charley Bateses and Artful Dodgers worked for Butch were wont to refresh themselves at the game.

Butch made money with both hands. He took his share as a Fagin. Then, what fragmentary remnants of their stealings he allowed his young followers, was faithfully blown in by them across his pool tables.

Imagination rules the world. Butch, having imagination, extended himself. Already a Fagin, Butch became a _posser_ and bought stolen goods for himself. Often, too, he acted as a _melina_ and bought for others. Thus Butch had three strings to his business bow. He was getting rich and at the same time keeping out of the fingers of the bulls. This caused him to be much looked up to and envied, throughout the length and breadth of Gangland.

Butch was thus prosperous and prospering when it occurred to him to fall in love. Harry the Soldier was the Mark Antony of the Five Points, his Cleopatra the Darby Kid. There existed divers reasons for adoring the Darby Kid. There was her lustrous eyes, her coral mouth, her rounded cheek, her full figure, her gifts as a shop lifter. As a graceful crown to these attractions, the Darby Kid could pick a pocket with the best wire that ever touched a leather. In no wise had she been named the Darby Kid for nothing. Not even Mollie Squint was her superior at getting the bundle of a boob. They said, and with truth, that those soft, deep, lustrous eyes could look a sucker over, while yet that unconscious sucker was ten feet away, and locate the keck wherein he carried his roll. Is it astonishing then that the heart of Butch went down on its willing knees to the Darby Kid?

Another matter:--Wasn't the Darby Kid the chosen one of Harry the Soldier? Was not Harry a Five Pointer? Had not Butch, elbow to elbow, with his great chief, Eastman, fought the Five Pointers in the battle at Worth and Center? It was a triumph, indeed, to win the heart of the Darby Kid. It was twice a triumph to steal that heart away from Harry the Soldier.

The Darby Kid crossed over from Harry the Soldier to Butch, and brought her love along. Thereafter her smiles were for Butch, her caresses for Butch, her touches for Butch. Harry the Soldier was left desolate.

Harry the Soldier was a gon of merit and deserved eminence. That he had been an inmate not only of the House of Refuge but the Elmira Reformatory, should show you that he was a past-master at his art. His steady partner was Dopey Benny. With one to relieve the other in the exacting duties of stinger, and a couple of good stalls to put up an effective back, trust them, at fair or circus or theatre break, to make leathers, props and thimbles fly.

It was Gangland decision that for Butch to win the Darby Kid away from Harry the Soldier, even as Paris aforetime took the lovely Helen from her Menelaus, touched not alone the honor of Harry but the honor of the Five Points. Harry must revenge himself. Still more must he revenge the Five Points. It had become a case of Butch's life or his. On no milder terms could Harry sustain himself in Gangland first circles. His name else would be despised anywhere and everywhere that the fair and the brave were wont to come together and unbuckle socially.

Butch, tall and broad and strong, smooth of face, arched of nose, was a born hawk of battle. Harry the Soldier, dark, short, of no muscular power, was not the physical equal of Butch. Butch looked forward with confidence to the upcome.

“An' yet, Butch,” sweetly warned the Darby Kid, her arms about his neck, “you mustn't go to sleep at the switch. Harry'll nail you if youse do. It'll be a gun-fight, an' he's a dream wit' a gatt.”

“Never mind about that gatt thing! Do youse think, dearie, I'd let that Guinea cop a sneak on me?”

It was a cool evening in September. A dozen of Butch's young gons were knocking the balls about his pool tables. Butch himself was behind the bar. Outside in Willett Street a whistle sounded. Butch picked up a pistol off the drip-board, just in time to peg a shot at Harry the Soldier as that ill-used lover came through the front door. Dopey Benny, Jonathan to the other's David, was with Harry. Neither tried to shoot. Through a hail of lead from Butch's pistol, the two ran out the back door. No one killed; no one wounded. Butch had been shooting too high, as the bullet-raked ceiling made plain.

Butch explained his wretched gun play by saying that he was afraid of pinking some valued one among his boy scouts.

“At that,” he added, “it's just as well. Them wops 'll never come back. Now when they see I'm organized they'll stay away. There ain't no sand in them Sicilians.”

Butch was wrong. Harry, with Dopey Benny, was back the next night. This time there was no whistle. Harry had sent forward a force of skirmishers to do up those sentinels, with whom Butch had picketed Willett' Street. Butch's earliest intimation that there was something doing came when a bullet from the gun of Harry broke his back. Dopey Benny stood off the public, while Harry put three more bullets into Butch. The final three were superfluous, however, as was shown at the inquest next day.

The Darby Kid was abroad upon her professional duties as a gon-moll, when Harry hived Butch. Her absence was regretted by her former lover.

“Because,” said he, as he and Dopey Benny fled down Stanton Street, “I'd like to have made the play a double header, and downed the Kid along wit' Butch.”

It was not so written, however. Double headers, whatever the field of human effort, are the exception and not the rule of life.

It was whispered that Harry the Soldier and Dopey Benny remained three days in the Pell Street room of Big Mike Abrams before their get-away. They might have been at the bottom of the lower bay, for all the Central Office knew. Butch was buried, and the Darby Kid wept over his grave. After which she cheered up, and came back smiling. There is no good in grief. Besides, it's egotistical, and trenches upon conceit.

The Central Office declares that, equipped of the right papers, it will bring Harry the Soldier back from Africa. Also, it will go after Dopey Benny in Kanuckland, when his time is out. The chair--says the Central Office--shall yet have both.

Old Jimmy doesn't think there's a chance, while the jaundiced Wop openly scoffs. Neither believes in the police. Meanwhile dark suspicions hover cloudily over the Darby Kid. Did she rap? She says not, and offers to pawn her soul.

“Why should I?” asks the Darby Kid. “Of course I'd sooner it was Butch copped Harry. But it went the other way; an' why should I holler? Would beefin' bring Butch back?”

XI.--BIG MIKE ABRAMS

This was after Nigger Mike had gone into exile in cold and sorrowful Toronto, and while Tony Kelly did the moist honors at Number Twelve Pell. Nigger Mike, you will remember, hurried to his ruin on the combined currents of enthusiasm and many drinks, had registered a score or two of times; for he meditated casting full fifty votes at the coming election, in his own proper person, and said so to his friends.

As Mike registered those numerous times, the snap-shot hirelings of certain annoying reformers were busy popping him with their cameras. His friends informed him of this, and counselled going slow. But Mike was beyond counsel, and knew little or less of cameras--never having had his picture taken save officially, and by the rules of Bertillon. In the face of those who would have saved him, he continued to stagger in and out upon that multifarious registration, inviting destruction. The purists took the pictures to the District Attorney, their hirelings told their tales, and Mike perforce went into that sad Toronto exile. He is back now, however, safe, sober, clothed and in his right mind; but that is another story.

The day had been a sweltering July day for all of Chinatown. Now that night had come, the narrowness of Pell and Doyers and Mott Streets was choked with Chinamen, sitting along the curb, lolling in doorways, or slowly drifting up and down, making the most of the cool of the evening.

Over across from Number Twelve a sudden row broke out. There were smashings and crashings, loopholed, as it were, with shrill Mongolian shrieks. The guests about Tony's tables glanced up with dull, half-interested eyes.

“It's Big Mike Abrams tearin' th' packin' out of th' laundry across th' street,” said Tony.

Tony was at the front door when the war broke forth, and had come aft to explain. Otherwise those about his tables might have gone personally forth, seeking a solution of those yellings and smashings and crashings for themselves, and the flow of profitable beer been thereby interrupted. At Tony's explanation his guests sat back in their chairs, and ordered further beer. Which shows that Tony had a knowledge of his business.

“About them socialists,” resumed Sop Henry, taking up the talk where it had broken off; “Big Tom Foley tells me that they're gettin' something fierce. They cast more'n thirty thousand votes last Fall.”

“Say,” broke in the Nailer, “I can't understand about a socialist. He must be on the level at that; for one evenin', when they're holdin' a meetin' in the Bowery, a fleet of gons goes through a dozen of 'em, an', exceptin' for one who's an editor, and has pulled off a touch somewheres, there ain't street car fare in all their kecks. That shows there's nothin' in it for 'em. Th' editor has four bones on him--hardly enough for a round of drinks an' beef stews. Th' mob blows it in at Flynn's joint, down be th' corner.”

“I'm like you, Nailer,” agreed Sop Henry. “Them socialists have certainly got me goin'. I can't get onto their coives at all.”

“Lishten, then.” This came from the Irish Wop, who was nothing if not political. “Lishten to me. Yez can go to shleep on it, I know all about a socialist. There's ould Casey's son, Barney--ould Casey that med a killin' in ashphalt. Well, since his pah-pah got rich, young Casey's a socialist. On'y his name ain't Barney now, it's Berna-a-ard. There's slathers av thim sons av rich min turnin' socialists. They ain't strong enough to git a fall out av either av th' big pa-a-arties, so they rush off to th' socialists, where be payin' fer th' shpot light, they're allowed to break into th' picture. That's th' way wit' young Barney, ould Ashphalt Casey's son. Wan evenin' he dr-r-ives up to Lyon's wit' his pah-pah's broom, two bob-tailed horses that spint most av their time on their hind legs, an' th' Casey coat av arms on the broom dure, th' same bein' a shtick av dynamite rampant, wit' two shovels reversed on a field av p'tatoes. 'How ar-r-re ye?' he says. 'I want yez to jump in an' come wit' me to th' Crystal Palace. It's a socialist meet-in',' he says. 'Oh, it is?' says I; 'an' phwat's a socialist? Is it a game or a musical inshtrumint?' Wit' that he goes into p'ticulars. 'Well,' thinks I, 'there's th' ride, annyhow; an' I ain't had a carriage ride since Eat-'em-up-Jack packed in--saints rest him! So I goes out to th' broom; an' bechune th' restlessness av thim bob-tailed horses an' me not seein' a carriage fer so long, I nearly br-r-roke me two legs gettin' in. However, I wint. An' I sat on th' stage; an' I lishtened to th' wind-jammin'; an' not to go no further, a socialist is simply an anarchist who don't believe in bombs.”

There arose laughter and loud congratulatory sounds about the door. Next, broadly smiling, utterly complacent, Big Mike Abrams walked in.

“Did youse lobsters hear me handin' it to th' monkeys?” he asked, and his manner was the manner of him who doubts not the endorsement of men. “That chink, Low Foo, snakes two of me shirts. I sends him five, an' he on'y sends back three. So I caves in his block wit' a flatiron. You ought to pipe his joint! I leaves it lookin' like a poolroom that won't prodooce, after the wardman gets through.”

“An' Low Foo?” queried Tony, who had shirts of his own.

“Oh, a couple of monks carries him to his bunk out back. It'll take somethin' more'n a shell of hop to chase away his troubles!” Mike refreshed himself with a glass of beer, which he called suds. “Say,” he continued with much fervor, “I wisht I could get a job punchin' monks at a dollar a monk!”

Mike Abrams, _alias_ Big Mike, was a pillar of Chinatown, and added distinctly to the life of that quarter. He was nearly six feet tall, with shoulders as square as the foretopsail yard of a brig. His nervous arms were long and slingy, his bony hands the size of hams. Neither the Dropper nor yet Big Myerson could swap blows with him, and his hug--if it came to rough-and-tumble--was comparable only to the hug of Mersher the Strong Arm, who had out-hugged a bear for the drinks.

While he lived, Little Maxie greatly appreciated Big Mike. Little Maxie is dead now. He ranked in the eyes of Mulberry Street as the best tool that ever nailed a leather. To be allowed to join out with his mob was conclusive of one's cleverness as a gon. For Maxie would have no bunglers, no learners about him.

And, yet, as he himself said, Big Mike's value

Jay not in any deftness of fingers, but in his stout, unflinching heart, and a knock-down strength of fist like unto the blow of a maul.

“As a stall he's worse'n a dead one,” Maxie had said. “No one ever put up a worse back. But let a sucker raise a roar, or some galoot of a country sheriff start something--that's where Mike comes on. You know last summer, when I'm followin' Ringling's show? Stagger, Beansey an' Mike's wit' me as bunchers. Over at Patterson we had a rumble. I got a rube's ticker, a red one. He made me; an' wit' that youse could hear th' yell he lets out of him in Newark. A dozen of them special bulls which Ringling has on his staff makes a grab at us. Youse should have lamped Mike! Th' way he laid out them circus dicks was like a tune of music. It's done in a flash, an' every last guy of us makes his get-away. Hock your socks, it's Mike for me every time! I'd sooner he filled in wit' a mob of mine than th' best dip that ever pinched a poke.”

Big Mike had been a fixed star in the Gangland firmament for years. He knew he could slug, he knew he could stay; and he made the most of these virtues. When not working with Little Maxie, he took short trips into the country with an occasional select band of yeggs, out to crack a P. O. or a jug. At such times, Mike was the out-side man--ever a post of responsibility. The out-side man watches while the others blow the box. In case things take to looking queer or leary, he is to pass the whistle of warning to his pals. Should an officer show unexpectedly up, he must stand him off at the muzzle of his gatt, and if crowded, shoot and shoot to kill. He is to stand fast by his partners, busy with wedges, fuse and soup inside, and under no circumstances to desert them. Mike was that one of ten thousand, who had the nerve and could be relied upon to do and be these several iron things. Wherefore, he lived not without honor in the land, and never was there a fleet of yeggs or a mob of gons, but received him into its midst with joy and open hearts.

Mike made a deal of money. Not that it stuck to hum; for he was born with his hands open and spent it as fast as he made it. Also, he drank deeply and freely, and moreover hit the pipe. Nor could he, in the latter particular, be called a pleasure smoker nor a Saturday nighter. Mike had the habit.

At one time Mike ran an opium den at Coney Island, and again on the second floor of Number Twelve Pell. But the police--who had no sure way of gauging the profits of opium--demanded so much for the privilege that Mike was forced to close.

“Them bulls wanted all I made an' more,” complained Mike, recounting his wrongs to Beansey. “I had a 50-pipe joint that time in Pell, an' from the size of the rake-off the captain's wardman asks, you'd have thought that every pipe's a roulette-wheel.”

“Couldn't you do nothin' wit' 'em?” asked Bean-sey, sympathetically.

“Not a t'ing. I shows 'em that number-one hop is $87.50 a can, an' yen-chee or seconds not less'n $32. Nothin' doin'! It's either come across wit' five hundred bones th' foist of every month, or quit.”

Mike sighed over his fair prospects, blighted by the ignorant avarice of the police.

“W'at was youse chargin' a smoke?” inquired Beansey.

“Two bits a shell. Of course, that's for yen-chee. I couldn't give 'em number-one for two bits. After all, w'at I cares most for is me cats--two long-haired Persians.”

“Cats?” repeated Beansey, suspiciously. “W'at be youse handin' me?”

Beansey by the way, knew nothing of opium.

“W'at am I handin' youse?” said Mike. “I'm handin' you th' goods. Cats get th' habit same as people. My cats would plant be some party who's cookin' a pill, an' sniff th' hop an' get as happy as anybody. Take 'em off the pipe, an' it's th' same as if they're Christians. Dogs, too. Let 'em once get th' habit, an' then take 'em away from a pipe joint, an' they has pains in their stummicks, an' twists an' yowls till you think they're goin' mad. When th' cops shut down on me, I has to give me cats to th' monk who's runnin' th' opium dump on th' top floor. Sure t'ing! They'd have croaked if I hadn't. They're on'y half happy, though; for while they gets their hop they misses me. Them toms an' me has had many a good smoke.”

Folks often wondered at the intimacy between Mike and Little Maxie--not that it has anything to do with this story. Little Maxie--his name on the Central Office books was Maxie Fyne, _alias_ Maxie English, _alias_ Little Maxie, _alias_ Sharapatheck--was the opposite of Big Mike. He was small; he was weak; he didn't drink; he didn't hit the pipe. Also, at all times, and in cold blood, he was a professional thief. His wife, whom he called “My Kytie”--for Little Maxie was from Houndsditch, and now and then his accent showed it--was as good a thief as he, but on a different lay. Her specialty was robbing women. She worked alone, as all good gon-molls do, and because of her sure excellencies was known as the Golden Hand.

Little Maxie and his Golden Hand, otherwise his Kytie--her name was Kate--had a clean little house near Washington Square on the south. They owned a piano and a telephone--the latter was purely defensive--and their two children went to school, and sat book to book with the children of honest men and women.

The little quiet home, with its piano and defensive telephone, is gone now. Little Maxie died and his Golden Hand married again; for there's no false sentiment in Gangland. If a husband's dead he's dead, and there's nothing made by mourning. Likewise, what's most wanted in any husband is that he should be a live one.

Little Maxie died in a rather curious way. Some say he was drowned by his pals, Big Mike among them. The story runs that there was a quarrel over splitting up a touch, and the mob charged Little Maxie with holding out. Be that as it may, the certainty is that Little Maxie and his mob, being in Peekskill, got exceeding drunk--all but Little Maxie--and went out in a boat. Being out, Little Maxie went overboard abruptly, and never came up. Neither did anybody go after him. The mob returned to town to weep--crocodile tears, some said--into their beer, as they told and re-told their loss, and in due time Little Maxie's body drifted ashore and was buried. That was the end. Had it been some trust-thief of a millionaire, there would have been an investigation. But Little Maxie was only a pick-pocket.

Big Mike, like all strong characters, had his weakness. His weakness was punching Chinamen; fairly speaking, it grew to be his fad. It wasn't necessary that a Chinaman do anything; it was enough that he came within reach. Mike would knock him cold. In a single saunter through Pell Street, he had been known to leave as many as four senseless Chinamen behind him, fruits of his fist.

“For,” said Mike, in cheerful exposition of the motive which underlay that performance, “I do so like to beat them monks about! I'd sooner slam one of 'em ag'inst th' wall than smoke th' pipe.”

One time and another Mike punched two-thirds of all the pig-tailed heads in Chinatown. Commonly he confined himself to punching, though once or twice he went a step beyond. Lee Dok he nearly brained with a stool. But Lee Dok had been insultingly slow in getting out of Mike's way.

Mike was proud of his name and place as the Terror of Chinatown. Whether he walked in Mott or Pell or Doyers Street, every Chinaman who saw him coming went inside and locked his door.

Those who didn't see him and so go inside and dock their doors--and they were few--he promptly soaked. And if to see a Chinaman run was as incense to Mike's nose, to soak one became nothing less than a sweet morsel under his tongue. The wonder was that Mike didn't get shot or knifed, which miracle went not undiscussed at such centers as Tony's, Barney Flynn's, Jimmy Kelly's and the Chatham Club. But so it was; the pig-tailed population of Chinatown parted before Mike's rush like so much water.

One only had been known to resist--Sassy Sam, who with a dwarf's body possessed a giant's soul.