Dangerous Ground Part 35

In every city where splendor abounds and wealth rolls in carriages, can be found, also, squalor and wretchedness. If the rich have their avenues, and the good and virtuous their sanctuaries, so have the poor their by-ways and alleys, and the vicious their haunts. In a great city there is room for all, and a place for everything.

Papa and Mamma Francoise had left their abiding-place in the slums for a refuge even more secure.

Van Vernet had followed the two women to a narrow street, long since left behind by the march of progress; a street where the huts and tumble-down frame buildings had once been reputable dwellings and stores, scattered promiscuously along on either side of a thoroughfare that had once been clean, and inhabited by modest industry. But that was many years ago: it had long been given over to dirt and disorder without, and to rags, poverty, rats and filth within. Here dwelt many foreigners, and the sound of numerous tongues speaking in many languages, might always be heard.

On this street, in the upper rooms of a rickety two-story house, Papa and Mamma Francoise had set up their household G.o.ds after their flight from the scene of Josef Siebel's murder; the lower floor being inhabited by a family of Italians, who possessed an unlimited number of children and a limited knowledge of English.

It is evening, the evening of the day that has witnessed Van Vernet's most recent discovery, and Papa and Mamma are at home.

The room is even more squalid than that recently occupied by them, for, besides a three-legged table, two rickety chairs, a horribly-dilapidated stove and two dirty, ragged pallets at opposite sides of the room, furniture there is none.

Perched upon one of the two rickety chairs, his thin legs extended underneath the table and his elbows resting upon it, sits Papa Francoise, lost in the contemplation of a broken gla.s.s containing a small quant.i.ty of the worst whiskey; and near him, Mamma squats upon the floor before the rusty stove, in which a brisk fire is burning, stirring vigorously at a strong-smelling decoction which is simmering over the coals.

"Come, old woman," growls Papa, with a self-a.s.sertion probably borrowed from the broken gla.s.s under his eye, "get that stuff brewed before the gal comes in. And then try and answer my question: what's to be done with her?"

Mamma Francoise stirs the liquid more vigorously, and takes a careful sip from the iron spoon.

"Ah," she murmurs, "that's the stuff. It's a pity to spoil it."

She rises slowly, and drawing a bottle from her pocket, pours into the basin a few drops of brown liquid, stirs it again, and then removing the decoction from the fire, pours it into a battered cup, which she sets upon the floor at a distance from the stove.

If one may judge from Mamma's abstinence, the liquor _has_ been spoiled, for she does not taste it again.

Having thus completed her task, she turns toward one of the pallets, and seating herself thereon lifts her eyes toward Papa.

"What's to be done with the girl?" she repeats. "That's the question I've asked _you_ often enough, and I never got an answer yet."

Papa withdraws his gaze from her face, and fixes it once more upon the broken tumbler.

"She ain't no good to us," resumes Mamma, "and we can't have her tied to us always."

"Nor we can't turn her adrift," says Papa, significantly.

"No; we can't turn her adrift," replies Mamma. "We can't afford to keep her, and we can't afford to let her go."

"Consequently--" says Papa.

And then they look at one another in silence.

"We may have to get out of this place at a minute's warning," resumes Mamma, after a time, "and how can we expect to dodge the cops with that gal tied to us? You and I can alter our looks, but we can't alter hers."

"No," says Papa, shaking his head, "we can't alter hers--not now."

"And if we could, we can't alter her actions."

"No; we can't alter her actions," agrees Papa, with a cunning leer, "except to make 'em worse."

And he casts a suggestive glance toward the tin cup on the floor.

"It won't do," said Mamma, noting the direction of his glance; "it won't do to increase the drams. If she got worse, we couldn't manage her at all. It won't do to give her any more."

"And it won't do to give her any less. Old woman, we've just got back to the place we started from."

Mamma Francoise rests her chin in her ample palm and ponders.

"I think I can see a way," she begins. Then, at the sound of an uncertain footstep on the rickety stairs, she stops to listen. "That's her," she says, a frown darkening her face. "She's got to be kept off the street."

She goes to the door, opens it with an angry movement, and peers out into the dark hall.

"Nance, you torment!"

But the head that appears above the stair-railing is not the head of a female, and it is a masculine voice that says, in an undertone:

"Sh-h! Old woman, let me in, and don't make a fuss."

The woman starts back and is about to close the door, when something in the appearance of the man arrests her attention.

As he halts at the top of the stairway, the light from the door reveals to her a shock of close-curling, carroty-red hair.

In another moment he stands with a hand on either door-post.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "How are ye, old uns? Governor, how are ye?"--page 194.]

"How are ye' old uns?" he says, with a grin. "Governor, how are ye?" And then, with a leer, and a lurch which betrays the fact that he is half intoxicated, he adds, in a voice indicative of stupid astonishment: "Why, I'm blowed, the blessed old fakers don't know their own young un!"

"Franzy!" Mamma Francoise starts forward, a look of mingled doubt and anxiety upon her face. "Franzy! No, it can't be Franzy!"

"Why can't it be? Ain't ten years in limbo enough? Or ain't I growed as handsome as ye expected to see me?" Then coming into the room, and peering closely into the faces of the two: "I'm blessed if I don't resemble the rest of the family, anyhow."

The two Francoises drew close together, and scrutinized the new-comer keenly, doubtfully, with suspicion.

Ten years ago, their son, Franzy, then a beardless boy of seventeen, and a worthy child of his parents, had reluctantly turned his back upon the outer world and a.s.sumed a prison garb, to serve out a twenty years'

sentence for the crime of manslaughter.

Ten years had elapsed and this man, just such a man as their boy must have become, stands before them and claims them for his parents.

There is little trace of the old Franz, save the carroty hair, the color of the eyes, the devil-may-care manner, and the reckless speech. And after a prolonged gaze, Papa says, still hesitatingly:

"Franzy! is it really Franzy?"

The new claimant to parental affection flings out his hand with a fierce gesture, and a horrible oath breaks from his lips.

"Is it _really_ Franzy?" he cries, derisively. "Who else do ye think would be likely to claim _yer_ kinship? I've put in ten years in the stripes, an' I'm about as proud of ye as I was of my ball and chain.

I've taken the trouble ter hunt ye up, with the police hot on my trail; maybe ye don't want ter own the son as might a-been a decent man but for yer teachin'. Well, I ain't partikeler; I'll take myself out of yer quarters."

He turns about with a firm, resentful movement, and Mamma Francoise springs forward with a look of conviction on her hard face.

"Anybody'd know ye after _that_ blow out," she says with a grin. "Ye're the same old sixpence, Franzy; let's have a look at ye."