him,” he replied. “The way to help him is to make him feel like somebody. If you once let him get to thinking that he is good for nothing he'll run down hill fast. Jimmie McGinnis, now, will take all the knocks you can give him, and go right on turning his pennies; he will be in the City Council yet.”She nodded, for she saw that he understood. And he turned away to begin the search, walking over to the car-line. As he sat down in the first trailer a small boy ran alongside the rear car and swung himself aboard, hurriedly drawing in a pair of thin legs after him.

Through gloomy Kinzie Street walked Halloran, when he had reached the river district, and after him, half a block or more, came the thin legs. He got to the bridge by the Northwestern Station, crossed over, and looked around for a means of descent to the wharves. After a moment he saw in the shadow of a brick building--a building that was a South Water Street market in front, a factory in the upper half and a tug-office behind--what seemed to be a break in the railing. He crossed to it and found, sure enough, a narrow stairway, covered with mud and slime, leading down toward the oily surface of the river. It was curious--he had crossed the bridge a hundred times, but it had never occurred to him that there was any life below the street, that men came and went down there on the strip of wharf, so narrow that it seemed little more than a fender for the buildings that backed on the river. Picking his way carefully to avoid slipping, he walked down.

Not far away, in the basement of one of these buildings, was a sailors' grog-shop: hardly three rods from the bridge-walk, even in sight from it, yet so quietly tucked away below story on story of brick building, behind half a dozen smoking tugs, in a spot where no sober doorway, no saloon doorway even, had a right to be--so hidden, in fact, that not half a dozen of the tens of thousands of people on the bridge daily had ever observed it. It was a wonder how a drunken man could ever get out through the door without falling into the river--perhaps one did fall now and then. There was music in the saloon now--a squeaking fiddle and loud noises.

Beyond, the river was splashed with red and white and green from lanterns and side-lights; and a dozen masts, their spars and rigging apparently interlaced, were outlined against the western sky. At the moment a big freighter, bound out, was headed for the draw, forging slowly and almost silently down the sluggish stream, passing along like some dim modern Flying Dutchman. Above, on the bridge, cars were rumbling and footsteps were pattering--the feet of the late 

 Prev. P 23/171 next