Garson had performed, perhaps, his first action with no thought of self at the back of it. He had risked his life to save that of a stranger. The fact astonished him, while it pleased him hugely. The sensation was at once novel and thrilling. Since it was so agreeable, he meant to prolong the glow of self-satisfaction by continuing to care for this waif of the river. He must make his rescue complete. It did not occur to him to question his fitness for the work. His introspection did not reach to a point of suspecting that he, a habitual criminal, was necessarily of a sort to be most objectionable as the protector of a young girl. Indeed, had anyone suggested the thought to him, he would have met it with a sneer, to the effect that a wretch thus tired of life could hardly object to anyone who constituted himself her savior.

In this manner, Joe Garson, the notorious forger, led the dripping girl eastward through the squalid streets, until at last they came to an adequately lighted avenue, and there a taxicab was found. It carried them farther north, and to the east still, until at last it came to a halt before an apartment house that was rather imposing, set in a street of humbler dwellings. Here, Garson paid the fare, and then helped the girl to alight, and on into the hallway. Mary went with him quite unafraid, though now with a growing curiosity. Strange as it all was, she felt that she could trust this man who had plucked her from death, who had worked over her with so much of tender kindliness. So, she waited patiently; only, watched with intentness as he pressed the button of a flat number. She observed with interest the thick, wavy gray of his hair, which contradicted pleasantly the youthfulness of his clean-shaven, resolute face, and the spare, yet well-muscled form.

The clicking of the door-latch sounded soon, and the two entered, and went slowly up three flights of stairs. On the landing beyond the third flight, the door of a rear flat stood open, and in the doorway appeared the figure of a woman. "Well, Joe, who's the skirt?" this person demanded, as the man and his charge halted before her. Then, abruptly, the round, baby-like face of the woman puckered in amazement. Her voice rose shrill. "My Gawd, if it ain't Mary Turner!" At that, the newcomer's eyes opened swiftly to their widest, and she stared astounded in her turn. "Aggie!" she cried.

CHAPTER VII. WITHIN THE LAW.

In the time that followed, Mary lived in the flat which Aggie Lynch occupied along with her brother, Jim, a pickpocket much esteemed among his fellow craftsmen. The period wrought 

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