A shadow in the
courtyard, close against the wall of the tenement, moved forward a foot,
a yard--a loose board in the fence bordering the lane swung silently
aside--and in a moment more, striding nonchalantly up the block, Jimmie
Dale turned into the Bowery.
He had some distance to go, almost back as far as the liquor store at
the lower end of the Bowery, for the Rat lived, if he, Jimmie Dale, was
not mistaken, just one block this side, in a small one-story frame
building on the corner of a cross street; and--it seemed incongruous,
queerly out of place somehow--the Rat lived with his mother. Home ties,
or home relationships, hardly seemed in harmony with the Rat! Still, in
this case, it was perhaps very debatable ground as to which was the
more pernicious, the old woman or the son! Ostensibly, she kept a
little variety store; but her business, if report were true, was the
edifying occupation of school mistress--the children graduating under
her tuition being ranked by common consent as the most accomplished
pickpockets in gangland!
Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders, as he swung at last from the Bowery
into a narrow, poorly lighted street. Well, at least, if the Rat's
criminal career ended to-night, the Rat's punishment need excite no
sympathy for the old woman, as far as he, Jimmie Dale, was concerned--it
was a pity only that she had not been behind the bars herself long ago!
Yes, this was the place--the small frame building diagonally across from
the corner on which he had halted.
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