The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York. Lewis Alfred Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ was the procession made up; the officer led Apple Cheek and myself to the station, with Sheeny Joe, still bleeding, and the red-faced man to be his backer, bringing up the rear.

      At the station it was like the whirl and roar of some storm to me. It was my first captivity – my first collision with the police, and my wits were upside down. I recall that a crowd of people followed us, and were made to stand outside the door.

      The reputable old gentleman came also, and tried to interefere in behalf of Apple Cheek and myself. At a sign from the red-faced man, who stood leaning on the captain’s desk with all the confidence of life, that potentate gave his sharp command.

      “Screw out!” cried he, to the reputable old gentleman. “We don’t want any of your talk!” Then to an officer in the station: “Put him out!”

      “I’m a taxpayer!” shouted the reputable old gentleman furiously.

      “You’ll pay a fine,” responded the captain with a laugh, “if you kick up a row ‘round my station. Now screw out, or I’ll put you the wrong side of the grate.”

      The reputable old gentleman was thrust into the street with about as much ceremony as might attend the delivery of a bale of goods at one’s door. He disappeared, declaring he would have justice; at which a smile widened the faces of the sophisticated officers, several of whom were lounging about the room.

      “He’ll have justice!” repeated the captain with a chuckle. “Say! he aought to put that in the Joe Miller Joke-book.” Then to the red-faced man, who still leaned against the desk, the image of autocracy sure of itself: “What is it to be, Mr. Kennedy?”

      “Why,” quoth the red-faced one, “you must lock this boy up. Yes, an’ the girl, too; she had better go in for the night. I’ll take a look into th’ business, an’ let the judge know in the mornin’.”

      “I don’t think, captain,” interposed the officer who brought us from the docks, “there’s any use locking up these people. It was nothin’ but a cheap muss on the pier.”

      “Say! I don’t stand that!” broke in Sheeny Joe. “This party smashed me with a bar of iron. The girl was in the play; an’ I say they’re both to go in.”

      “You ‘say,’” mocked the captain, in high scorn. “An’ who are you? Who is this fellow?” he demanded, looking about him.

      “He’s one of my people,” said the red-faced man, still coolly by the desk.

      “No more out of you!” snarled the captain to the kindly officer, as the latter again tried to speak; “you get back to your beat!”

      “An’ say!” cried the red-faced man, slowly rousing from his position by the desk; “before you go, let me give you a word. You’re a sight too gabby; you had better think more and say less, or you won’t last long enough as a copper to wear out that new uniform. An’ if anybody asks, tell him it was Big Kennedy that told you.”

      They led me to a cell, while poor Apple Cheek, almost fainting, was carried to another. As I was being taken away, Anne came rushing in. Bad news is a creature of wings, and Anne had been told my adventures by a small urchin who ran himself nearly to death in defeating two fellow urchins for the privilege before I had reached the station.

      Anne did not observe me as she came in, for I stood somewhat to the rear, with several turnkeys and officers between. I could see the white face of her, and how the lamps of a great alarm were lighted in her eyes. Her voice was so low with terror I could not hear her words. Evidently she was pleading, girl-fashion, for my liberty. The tones of the captain, however, rose clear and high.

      “That’ll do ye now,” said he in a manner of lordly insolence, looking up from the desk to which he had returned. “If we put a prisoner on the pavement every time a good-looking girl rushed in with a yarn about bein’ his sister, we wouldn’t need no cells at all. This boy stays till the judge takes a look at him in the mornin’. Meanwhile, you had better get back to your window, or all the men will have left the street.”

      At this, a mighty anger flamed up in my heart. I tore away from the officer who had me by the shoulders, and, save that three others as practiced in the sleight of it as football players instantly seized me, I should have gone straight at the captain’s neck like a bulldog.

      “I’ll have his life!” I foamed.

      The next moment I was thrown into a cell. The door slammed; the lock shot home; with that, my heart seemed to turn to water in my bosom and I sank upon the stone floor of my cage.

      CHAPTER III – THE BOSS SEES THE POWER OF TAMMANY

      THAT night under lock and key was a night of laughed and screamed like bedlam. Once I heard the low click of sobs, and thought it might be poor unhappy Apple Cheek. The surmise went wide, for she was held in another part of the prison.

      It was in the first streaks of the morning before I slept. My slumbers did not last long; it seemed as though I had but shut my eyes when a loud rap of iron on iron brought me up, and there stood one armed of a key so large it might have done for the gate of a giant’s castle. It was this man hammering with his weapon on the grate of my cell that roused me.

      “Now then, young gallows-bird,” said the functionary, “be you ready for court?”

      The man, while rough, gave me no hard impression, for he wore a tolerant grin and had eyes of friendly brown. These amiable signs endowed me with courage to ask a question.

      “What will they do with me?” I queried. I was long delirium. Drunken men babbled and cursed and shouted; while a lunatic creature anxious, for I had no experience to be my guide. “What will they do? Will they let me go?”

      “Sure! they’ll let you go.” My hopes gained their feet. “To Blackwell’s.” My hopes lay prone again.

      The turnkey, for such was the man’s station, had but humored me with one of the stock jokes of the place. On seeing my distress, and perhaps remembering that I should be something tender if years were to count, and no frequent tenant of the cells with sensibilities trained to the safe consistency of leather, he made me further reply.

      “No, I’ll tell you the truth, youngster. If you plead guilty, an’ there’s no one there but the cop, it’ll be about ten dollars or twenty days on the Island. But if Sheeny Joe comes ‘round to exhibit his nose, or Big Kennedy shows up to stall ag’inst you, why I should say you might take six months and call yourself in luck.”

      There was nothing to brighten the eye in the story, and my ribs seemed to inclose a heart of wood.

      With a vile dozen to be my companions, frowsy, bleary creatures, some shaking with the dumb ague of drink whose fires had died out, I was driven along a narrow corridor, up a pair of stairs, and into a room of respectable size! Its dimensions, however, would be its only claim to respectability, for the walls and ceiling were smoke-blackened, while the floor might have come the better off for a pailful of soap and water.

      Once within the room I found myself in a railed pen. Against the wall, with a desk before him and raised above the herd by a platform, sat the magistrate. There was a fence which divided the big room, and beyond and leaning on it lolled the public, leering and listening, as hard an array as one might wish to see. One might have sentenced the entire roomful to the workhouse and made few mistakes.

      Inside this fence, and gathered for the most part about the magistrate, were those who had business with the court; officers, СКАЧАТЬ