Calvary Alley

								

The din of breaking glass, the simultaneous appearance of a cross-eyed
policeman, and of Mason, the outraged janitor, together with the
horrified realization of what had happened, brought the frenzied
combatants to their senses. Amid a clamor of accusations and denials, the
policeman seized upon two culprits and indicated a third.
"You let me go!" shrieked Mac. "My father'll make it all right! Tell him
who I am, Mason! Make him let me go!"
But Mason was bent upon bringing all the criminals to justice.
"I'm going to have you all up before the juvenile court, rich and poor!"
he declared excitedly. "You been deviling the life out of me long enough!
If the vestry had 'a' listened at me and had you up before now, that
window wouldn't be smashed. I told the bishop something was going to
happen, and he says, 'The next time there's trouble, you find the leaders
and swear out a warrant. Don't wait to ask anybody!'"
By this time every window in the tenement at the blind end of the alley
had been converted into a proscenium box, and suggestions, advice, and
incriminating evidence were being freely volunteered.
"Who started this here racket, anyhow?" asked the policeman, in the bored
tone of one who is rehearsing an oft-repeated scene.
"I did," declared Nance Molloy, with something of the feminine
gratification Helen of Troy must have felt when she "launched a thousand
ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium."
"You Nance!" screamed a woman from a third-story window. "You know you
never done no such a thing! I was settin' here an' seen ever'thing that
happened; it was them there boys."
"So it was you, Dan Lewis, was it?" said the policeman, recognizing one
of his panting victims, the one whose ragged shirt had been torn
completely off, leaving his heaving chest and brown shoulders bare. "An'
it ain't surprised, I am. Who is this other little dude?"
"None of your business!" cried Mac furiously, trying to wrench himself
free. "I tell you my father will pay for the darned old window."
"Aisy there," said the policeman. "Does anybody know him?"
"It's Mr. Clarke's son, up at the bottle works," said Mason.
"You let me go," shrieked the now half-frantic boy. "My father 'll make
you pay for this. You see if he don't!"
"None o' your guff," said the policeman. "I ain't wantin' to keep you now
I got your name. Onny more out o' the boonch, Mr. Mason?"
Mason swept a gleaning eye over the group, and as he did so he spied the
footprint, in the concrete.
"Who did that?" he demanded in a fresh burst of wrath.
Those choir boys who had not fled the scene gave prompt and incriminating
testimony.
"No! she never!" shouted the woman from the third floor, now suspended
half-way out of the window. "Nance Molloy was up here a-washin' dishes
with me. Don't you listen at them pasty-faced cowards a-puttin' it off on
a innercent little girl!"