That contention of his friends did not restore Spanish in the general estimation. All must confess that at least he had missed Jigger. And Jigger without a rod! It crowded hard upon the unbelievable, and could be accounted for only upon the assumption that Spanish was rattled, which is worse than being scared. Mere fear might mean no more than an excess of prudence. To get rattled, everywhere and under all conditions, is the mean sure mark of weakness.

While discussion, like a pendulum, went swinging to and fro, Spanish – possibly a-smart from what biting things were being said in his disfavor – came to town, and grievously albeit casually shot an unknown. Following which feat he again disappeared. None knew where he had gone. His whereabouts was as much a mystery as the identity of the unknown whom he had shot, or the reason he had shot him. These two latter questions are still borne as puzzles upon the ridge of gang conjecture.

That this time he had hit his man, however, lifted Spanish somewhat from out those lower reputational depths into which missing Jigger had cast him. The unknown, to be sure, did not die; the hospital books showed that. But he had stopped a bullet. Which last proved that Spanish wasn’t always rattled when he pulled a gun. The incident, all things considered, became a trellis upon which the reputation of Spanish, before so prone and hopeless, began a little to climb.

The strenuous life doesn’t always blossom and bear good fruit. Balked in his intended partnership with Jigger, and subsequently missing Jigger – to say nothing of the business of the little Rotin girl, dead and down under the grass roots – Spanish not only failed to Get the Money! but succeeded in driving himself out of town. Many and vain were the gang guesses concerning him. Some said he was in Detroit, giving professional aid to a gifted booster. The latter was of the feminine gender, and, aside from her admitted genius for shoplifting, was acclaimed the quickest hand with a hanger – by which you are to understand that outside pendant purse wherewith women equip themselves as they go forth to shop – of all the gon-molls between the two oceans. Others insisted that Spanish was in Baltimore, and had joined out with a mob of poke-getters. The great, the disastrous thing, however – and to this all Gangland agreed – was that he had so bungled his destinies as to put himself out of New York.

“Detroit! Baltimore!” exclaimed the Dropper. “W’y, it’s woise’n bein’ in stir! A guy might as well be doin’ time as live in them burgs!”

The Dropper, in his iron-fisted way, was sincere in what he said. Later, he himself was given eighteen spaces in Sing Sing, which exile he might have missed had he fled New York in time. But he couldn’t, and didn’t. And so the Central Office got him, the District Attorney prosecuted him, the jury convicted him, and the judge sentenced him to that long captivity. Living in New York is not a preference, but an appetite – like drinking whiskey – and the Dropper had acquired the habit.

What was the Dropper settled for?

Robbery.

It’s too long to tell here, however, besides being another story. Some other day I may give it to you.

Spanish, having abandoned New York, could no longer bear Alma loving company at picnic, rout and racket. What was Alma to do? She lived for routs, reveled in rackets, joyed in picnics. Must these delights be swept away? She couldn’t go alone – it was too expensive. Besides, it would evince a lack of class.

Alma, as proud and as wedded to her social position as any silken member of the Purple and Fine Linen Gang that ever rolled down Fifth Avenue in her brougham, revolved these matters upon her wheel of thought. Also, she came to conclusions. She, an admitted belle, could not consent to social obliteration. Spanish had fled; she worshipped his black eyes, his high courage; she would keep a heart-corner vacant for him in case he came back. Pending his return, however, she would go into society; and, for those reasons of expense and class and form, she would not go alone.

Alma submitted her position to a beribboned jury of her peers. Their judgment ran abreast of her own.

“A goil would be a mutt,” they said, “to stay cocked up at home. An’ yet a goil couldn’t go chasin’ around be her lonesome. Alma” – this was their final word – “you must cop off another steady.”

“But what would Johnny say?” asked Alma; for she couldn’t keep her thoughts off Spanish, of whom she stood a little bit in fear.

“Johnny’s beat it, ain’t he?” returned the advisory jury of friends. “There ain’t no kick comin’ to a guy what’s beat it. He ain’t no longer in th’ picture.”

Alma, thus free to pick and choose by virtue of the absence of Spanish, picked the Dropper. The latter chieftain was flattered. Taking Alma proudly yet tenderly under his mighty arm, he led her to suppers such as she had never eaten, bought her drinks such as she had never tasted, revolved with her at rackets where tickets were a dollar a throw, the orchestra seven pieces, and the floor shone like glass. It was a cut or two above anything that Spanish had given her, and Alma, who thought it going some, failed not to say so.

Alma was proud of the Dropper; the Dropper was proud of her. She told her friends of the money he spent; and the friends warmed the cockles of her little heart by shrilly exclaiming at pleasant intervals:

“Ain’t he th’ swell guy!”

“Betcher boots he’s th’ swell guy,” Alma would rejoin; “an’ he’s got money to boin a wet dog! Th’ only t’ing that worries me,” Alma would conclude, “is Johnny. S’ppose he blows in some day, an’ lays for th’ Dropper?’

“Th’ Dropper could do him wit’ a wallop,” the friends would consolingly return. “He’d swing onct; an’ after that there wouldn’t be no Johnny Spanish.”

The Round Back Rangers – it was, I think, the Round Backs – gave an outdoor racket somewhere near Maspeth. The Dropper took Alma. Both were in high, exultant feather. They danced, they drank, they rode the wooden horses. No more gallant couple graced the grounds.

Cheese sandwiches, pig’s knuckles and beer brought them delicately to the banquet board. They were among their friends. The talk was always interesting, sometimes educational.

Ike the Blood complained that certain annoying purists were preaching a crusade against the Raines Law Hotels. Slimmy, celebrated not only for his slimness, but his erudition, declared that crusades had been the common curse of every age.

“W’at do youse know about it?” sourly propounded the Humble Dutchman, who envied Slimmy his book-fed wisdom.

“W’at do I know about it?” came heatedly from Slimmy. “Do youse think I ain’t got no education? Th’ last time I’m in stir, that time I goes up for four years, I reads all th’ books in th’ prison library. Ask th’ warden if I don’t. As to them crusades, it’s as I tells you. There’s always been crusades; it’s th’ way humanity’s gaited. Every sport, even if he don’t go ‘round blowin’ about it, has got it tucked somewhere away in his make-up that he, himself, is th’ real thing. Every dub who’s different from him he figgers is worse’n him. In two moves he’s out crusadin’. In th’ old days it’s religion; th’ Paynims was th’ fall guys. Now it’s rum, or racin’, or Raines Hotels, or some such stall. Once let a community get the crusade bug, an’ something’s got to go. There’s a village over in Joisey, an,’ there bein’ no grog shops an’ no vice mills to get busy wit’, they ups an’ bounces an old geezer out of th’ only church in town for pitchin’ horse-shoes.”

Slimmy called for more beer, with a virtuously superior air.

“But about them Paynims, Slimmy?” urged Alma.

“It’s hundreds of years ago,” Slimmy resumed. “Th’ Paynims hung out in Palestine. Bein’ they’re Paynims, the Christians is naturally sore on ‘em; an’ so, when they feels like huntin’ trouble, th’ crusade spirit’d flare up. Richard over in England would pass th’ woid to Philip in France, an’ th’ other lads wit’ crowns.

“‘How about it?’ he’d say. ‘Cast your regal peepers toward Palestine. D’you make them Paynims? Ain’t they th’ tough lot? They won’t eat pork; they toe in when they walk; they don’t drink nothin’ worse’n coffee; they’ve got brown skins. Also,’ says he, ‘we can lick ‘em for money, marbles or chalk. W’at d’youse say, me royal brothers? Let’s get our gangs, an’ hand them Paynims a swift soak in behalf of the troo faith.’

“Philip an’ the other crowned lads at this would agree wit’ Richard. ‘Them Paynims is certainly th’ worst ever!’ they’d say; an’ one woid’d borry another, until the crusade is on. Some afternoon you’d hear the newsies in th’ streets yellin’, ‘Wux-try!’ an’ there it’d be in big black type, ‘Richard, Philip an’ their gallant bands of Strong-Arms have landed in Palestine.’”

“An’ then w’at, Slimmy?” cooed Alma, who hung on every word.

“As far as I can see, th’ Christians always had it on th’ Paynims, always had ‘em shaded, when it comes to a scrap. Th’ Christian lads had th’ punch; an’ th’ Paynims must have been wise to it; for no sooner would Richard, Philip an’ their roly-boly boys hit th’ dock, than th’ Paynims would take it on th’ run for th’ hills. Their mullahs would try to rally ‘em, be tellin’ ‘em that whoever got downed fightin’ Christians, the prophet would punch his ticket through for paradise direct, an’ no stop-overs.

“‘That’s all right about the prophet!’ they’d say, givin’ th’ mullahs th’ laugh. An’ then they’d beat it for th’ next ridge.”

“Them Paynims must have been a bunch of dead ones,” commented the Dropper.

“Not bein’ able to get on a match,” continued Slimmy, without heeding the Dropper, “th’ Paynims declinin’ their game, th’ Christian hosts would rough house th’ country generally, an’ in a way of speakin’ stand th’ Holy Land on its head. Do what they would, however, they couldn’t coax th’ Paynims into th’ ring wit’ ‘em; an’ so after a while they decides that Palestine’s th’ bummest place they’d ever struck. Mebby, too, they’d begin havin’ woid from home that their wives was gettin’ a little gay, or their kids was goin’ round marryin’ th’ kids of their enemies, an’ that one way an’ another their domestic affairs was on th’ fritz. At this, Richard’d go loafin’ over to Philip’s tent, an’ say:

“‘Philly, me boy, I don’t know how this crusade strikes youse, but if I’m any judge of these great moral movements, it’s on th’ blink. An’ so,’ he’d go on, ‘Philly, it’s me for Merrie England be th’ night boat.’

“Wit’ that, they’d break for home; an’, when they got there, they’d mebby hand out a taste of th’ strap to mamma an’ th’ babies, just to teach ‘em not to go runnin’ out of form th’ next time father’s far away.”

“Youse don’t bank much on crusades, Slimmy?” Ike the Blood said.

The Blood had more than a passing interest in the movement, mention of which had started the discussion, being himself a part proprietor in one of those threatened Raines Law Hotels.

“Blood,” observed Slimmy, oracularly, “them moral movements is like a hornet; they stings onct an’ then they dies.”

Alma’s attention was drawn to Mollie Squint – so called because of an optical slant which gave her a vague though piquant look. Mollie Squint was motioning from the outskirts of the little group. Alma pointed to the Dropper. Should she bring him? Mollie Squint shook her head.

Leaving the Dropper, Alma joined Mollie Squint.

“It’s Johnny,” gasped Mollie Squint. “He wants you; he’s over be that bunch of trees.”

Alma hung back; some impression of peril seized her.

“Better go,” whispered Mollie Squint. “He’s onto you an’ the Dropper, an’ if you don’t go he’ll come lookin’ for you. Then him an’ the Dropper’ll go to th’ mat wit’ each other, an’ have it awful. Give Johnny one of your soft talks, an’ mebby youse can smooth him down. Stall him off be tellin’ him you’ll see him to-night at Ding Dong’s.”

Mollie Squint’s advice seemed good, and as the lesser of two evils Alma decided to go. Mollie Squint did not accompany her.

“Tell th’ Dropper I’ll be back in a moment,” said Alma to Mollie Squint, “an’ don’t wise him up about Johnny.”

Alma met Spanish at the far corner of the clump of trees. There was no talk, no time for talk. They were all alone. As she drew near, he pulled a pistol and shot her through and through the body.

Alma’s moaning cry was heard by the Dropper – that, and the sound of the shot. When the Dropper reached her, she was lying senseless in the shadow of the trees – a patch of white and red against the green of the grass. Spanish was nowhere in sight..

Alma was carried to the hospital, and revived. But she would say nothing, give no names – staunch to the spirit of the Gangs. Only she whispered feebly to Mollie Squint, when the Dropper had been sent away by the doctors:

“Johnny must have loved me a lot to shoot me up like he did. A guy has got to love a goil good and plenty before he’ll try to cook her.”

“Did youse tell th’ hospital croakers his name?” asked Mollie Squint.

“Of course not! I never squealed to nobody. Do youse think I’d put poor Johnny in wrong?”

“Then I won’t,” said Mollie Squint.

An attendant told Mollie Squint that she must go; certain surgeons had begun to assemble. Mollie Squint, tears falling, kissed Alma good-by.

“Give Johnny all me love,” whispered Alma. “Tell him I’m no snitch; I’ll stick.”

The Dropper did not have to be told whose bullet had struck down his star, his Alma. That night, Kid Kleiney with him, he went looking for Spanish. The latter, as jealous as Satan, was looking for the Dropper. Of the two, Spanish must have conducted his hunting with the greater circumspection or the greater luck; for about eleven of the clock he crept up behind the Dropper, as the latter and Kid Kleiney were walking in East Broadway, and planted a bullet in his neck. Kid Kleiney ‘bout faced at the crack of the pistol, and was in fortunate time to stop Spanish’s second bullet with one of the big buttons on his coat. Kid Kleiney fell by the side of the wounded Dropper, jarred off his feet by the shock.’ He was able, however, when the police came up, to help place the Dropper in an ambulance.

Spanish?

Vanished – as usual.

The police could get no line on him, did get no line on him, until months later, when, as related – the Dropper having been lagged for robbery, and safely caged – he came back to stick up the joint of Mersher the Strong-Arm, and be arrested by Dribben and Blum.

The baby and I met casually in a Williamsburg street, where Alma had brought it to take the air, which was bad. Alma was thin-faced, hollow-eyed, but I could see that she had been pretty. She said she was twenty and the baby less than a year, and I think she told the truth.

No one among Alma’s friends finds fault with either the baby or herself, although both are without defence by the canons of high morality. There is warmth in the world; and, after all, the case of Alma and the baby is not so much beyond the common, except as to the baby’s advent, which was dramatic and after the manner of Cæsar.

Folk say the affair reflects illustriously upon the hospital. Also, what surgeons officiated are inclined to plume themselves; for have not Alma and the baby lived? I confess that those boastful scientists are not wanting in excuse for strutting, although they ought, perhaps, in honor, to divide credit with Alma and the baby as being hard to kill.

It is not an ugly baby as babies go. Not that I pretend to be a judge. As I paused by its battered perambulator, it held up a rose-leaf hand, as though inviting me to look; and I looked. The little claw possessed but three talons; the first two fingers had been shot away. When I asked how, Alma lowered her head sadly, saying nothing. It would have been foolish to ask the baby. It couldn’t talk. Moreover, since the fingers were shot away before it was born, it could possess no clear memory as to details.

It is a healthy baby. Alma loves it dearly, and can be depended upon to give it every care. That is, she can be if she lives; and on that head her worn thinness alarms her friends, who wish she were fatter. Some say her thinness is the work of the bullet. Others believe that a sorrow is sapping her heart.