Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

gnificant coffin, his small waxen hand clutching a fl

Jimmie

without laboring. During that time his sneer became chronic. He studied human nature in the gutter, and found it no worse than he th

of "yous." While they got warm at the stove, he told his hearers just where he calculated they stood with the Lord.

n able to see the portions of a dialogue pass t

eader of sounds might have seen the reply go f

at didn't concern them, with all the freedom of English gentlemen. When th

ude where grew fruit. His companion said that if he should ever

nd watch the world go by, dreaming blood-red dreams at the passing

d of life. The world was going o

kness, and all good coats covered faint hearts. He and his order were kings, to a certain extent, over

emums of aristocracy in their button-holes. He considered himself above both o

reatest thing in the world. So, eventually, he felt obliged to work. His fat

ing truck. He invaded the turmoil and tumble of the down-town streets and learned to breathe maledi

r he preserved a demeanor of serenity, crossing his legs and bursting forth into yells when foot passengers took danger

o the quarrel that was raging to and fro among the drivers on their hig

gnant impulses and the rest of the world was composed, for the most part, of despicable creatures who were all trying to take advantage of him and with whom, in defens

et cars. At first his tongue strove with these beings, but he eventually was superior. He became immured like an

en going into a sort of a trance of observation. Multitudes of drivers might howl in his rear, and passengers might load him with opprobrium, h

s. When driving about, he felt that he was held liable by the police for anything that might occur in the streets, and was the common prey of all energetic o

conceive their maniacal desires to cross the streets. Their madness smote him with eternal amazement. He was continu

reamy repose, he swore at the men as fools, for he himself could perceive that Providence had caused it clearly to be written, that he and his

s flame-colored fists and manfully dispute the right of way, he would have probabl

fearfully upon a sidewalk, threatening untold people with annihilation. When an engine would strike a mass of blocked trucks, splitting it into fragments, as a blow annihilates a cake of ice, Jimmie's team could usuall

had been known to overturn street-cars. Those leaping horses, striking sparks from the cobbles in their forward lu

gan to be arrested. Before he reach

ral barroom rows that had become known to the police. Once he had been arrested for assaulting a Chinaman. Two women in different parts of the city, and entirely un

evening, said wonderingly and quite revere