[figure description] Page 267.[end figure description]

IT was an hour after the rencontre which took place
between the rival engine companies before comparative
quiet returned to the dingy quarter wherein the
affray had broken out; and during the interval, crowds
of young men caroused in the vile porter-houses of the
vicinity. The false alarm of fire and subsequent street
conflict, were soon after succeeded by a truce between
the belligerents, pending which much bad liquor was
drank, and the captured engine restored to its proper
custodians. Then, manning the ropes, with loud shouting
and many discordant noises, the riotous companies
diverged to their respective head-quarters, leaving the
locality of the strife to subside into gloomy wretchedness.
Then, one by one, the street loiterers slunk away, some to
cellars, others to the garrets of neighboring tenant-houses,
others again to places of rendezvous, where were met
together low gamblers, thieves, and receivers of stolen
goods. A few shabby wretches lingered in the corner
beer-shop, after the fire-boys had departed, busy in discussing
the merits of respective companies as well as the

[figure description] Page 268.[end figure description]

quality of a muddy-looking beverage which the keeper of
the place chose to designate as ale.

This beer-shop, a type of its class, was located at the
corner of a block of shambling houses. It stood a few
feet back from the broken pavement, and formed the
basement of a plastered building, with a long, shelving
roof, and projecting eaves, rotten with age. A sort of
piazza, or stoop, separated the door from the sidewalk,
and under two windows, looking upon the street, stood,
at certain seasons, a high-backed bench—the loungingplace,
in fine weather, of ill-looking men and coarse
boys, and the depository, in winter, of ash-boxes, shattered
glass-ware, and whatever other lumber might be cast at
random from the upper windows. The door of entrance
to the beer-shop's interior was glazed, and curtained with
some material once red, but now of mottled dinginess,
through which the inside light struggled in yellow streaks.
On a wet night, amid cold fog and muddy gutters, this
miserable beer-shop's exterior seemed unpromising enough;
nevertheless, there was no hour, during day or evening, in
which some visitor did not enter, or some one customer or
more disburse his copper coins for strange decoctions of
intoxicating fluids. Indeed, at intervals, if a passer-by
might judge from sounds of revelry, the beer-shop entertained
a class of roystering guests; and should such
passer-by pause, and haply enter through the glazed door,
he would, it is not to be doubted, encounter a mingling
of mirth, ferocity, and wretchedness, that might or might
not be to his taste.

At the present hour, after the last rattle and clamor of

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engines and firemen had died away outside, the beer-shop,
as before remarked, still detained, in Circean attraction, a
portion of the crowd which had lately filled it. The wants
of these customers were comprised, of course, in the area
of a wooden counter, denominated the “bar,” behind
which were displayed on shelves a row of black bottles,
sundry bundles of cheap cigars, and a few green looking
glasses—the whole presided over by a consumptive Irishman,
with sandy whiskers and unsteady legs, who coughed
a great deal, and constantly stooped behind the counter,
to imbibe repeated swallows of some nondescript liquor,
that he averred to be the “rale stuff for a cowld.” His
guests at the time were of doubtful social standing, if
physiognomy, as well as apparel, be any index of position.
In a corner of the apartment, with limbs extending loosely
under the low funnel of a cylinder stove, and his head
resting uneasily against the counter-front, sat on a wooden
bench such a figure as Hogarth might have been glad to
sketch; a newly-imported immigrant from Ireland, whose
knotted fingers clasped the handle of a tin vessel which
he had drained of its contents, while a short blackened
tobacco pipe, fallen from his mouth, had scattered its
ashes freely over the ragged corduroys that covered his
nether limbs. A green jacket, threadbare and blotched,
but exhibiting a trace of former jauntiness in two or three
brass jockey buttons that still hung to it, and a lowcrowned
hat, once beaver, that was poised crazily on the
edge of the coat-collar, constituted the residue of national
costume possessed by this off-shoot of an island where,
unhappily, the whisky still is more cherished than the

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school-house, and, as a consequence, the poor-house is
more crowded than the church. Near by, and stretched
at full length upon a settee, reclined a youth with face
turned upward, and a noxious cigar in his mouth, from
which, likewise, he directed a succession of smoke-puffs,
toward the stupefied owner of the corduroys and broken
pipe; sipping at intervais, the while, from a glass of
smoking liquor held in one hand. A claret-hued coat,
much defaced, was buttoned half-way up over a red cotton-velvet
vest, under which might be detected an extremely
dirty shirt, and the latter was surmounted at the
neck by a tattered black kerchief, tied in a hangman's
knot.

One other individual was visible, besides the bar-keeper—
a man who appeared to shrink from observation in
a dusky corner, or recess, formed by the outer door frame
extending inward. This man's garments, tattered and
threadbare, were wet, and much stained and dirty, as if
his back had made frequent acquaintanceship with the
gutter; his hat or head-covering was crushed, and seemed
to have been stamped upon, and his shoes were thick with
mud, as though the owner had been traversing through
the clay of a country highway. His face, bent down,
apparently to shun notice, was impressed with a sullen
and desperate cast. He cowered from the gaze of the
bar-keeper, and started nervously at every sound in the
street without. If Mallory the Miser of Kolephat College
could see this man, he would recognize him as the
robber of his darling gold; for it was, in truth, Keeley,
who after wandering away on the outskirts of the city, in

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terror lest his theft should have been discovered, had
returned, on the Sabbath night, to his old haunts in the
city, and was now drowning fear and reflection in draughts
of stupefying poison. He had already drank deeply, as it
seemed by his demeanor; nevertheless, the pale Irishman
at the bar responded, with a commendatory grin, to his
order, given in husky tones, for “more brandy,” proceeding,
at the same time, to prepare a mixture similar in hue
and odor to the steaming potation in which the youth in
crimson waistcoat was indulging. At this moment, the
door was abruptly opened, and two young men—the brace
of champions who had distinguished themselves during
the late fight—entered swaggeringly, and advanced towards
the counter. They still wore their red shirts; but
the bull-necked youth had donned likewise a blue frock
coat, and exchanged his fireman's cap for a black hat,
while his comrade, the undertaker's apprentice, had enveloped
his loose limbs in a black coat capacious enough to
have swathed two youths of the same dimensions, and
crowned his cadaverous visage with a cloth cap of Teutonic
cut and scantiness. The new-comers simultaneously
addressed the occupant of the settee, soliciting him to join
them in “another glass,” which invitation the young gentleman,
swallowing the liquor in his tumbler, signified his
entire readiness to accept.

“Brandy?” suggested the consumptive bar-keeper;
“brandy,” replied the bull-necked fire-boy; and “brandy,”
echoed the undertaker's assistant and the crimson-vested
youth upon the settee. It is a single word, pronounced
hourly in ten thousand places of the great metropolis;

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drawled, at times, from the lips of undecided neophytes,
hurriedly ejaculated by eager sots, lisped by delicate
young gentlemen, as they wave their gloved fingers to the
poison-mixer; imperatively uttered by desperate men,
anxious to seek oblivion from thought in transient brutishness;
it is a little word, easily breathed; but, oh! what
a train of consequences follows its repetition! what blasted
hopes, withered happiness, desolated homes, ruined lives,
and dread, untimely deaths, glide on funereally behind the
wizard word that opens, to cheat the soul, the wretched
phantasma of a drunkard's enjoyments.

“Our boys is got somethin' to brag on, now,” remarked
the undertaker's lad.

“Yes,” responded the crimson-vested youth, rising from
his reclining position. “You'd better b'lieve they's some,
now.”

“We don't get frightened at any plug-muss, you better
lay your dear life we don't,” asseverated the bull-necked
youth, tossing off his hot liquor with the air of a connoisseur,
and glancing superciliously about him, as if desirous
of having his remarks contradicted. The consumptive
bar-keeper, to whose accustomed ears the vernacular of
his customers was quite intelligible, smiled ghastly approval
of the last speaker's opinion, and then, spreading
his hands out upon the counter, remained in silent expectation
of payment for his beverages.

“Who treats?” asked he of the red waistcoat, resuming
his cigar, and puffing rapidly.

“Me!” answered the undertaker's apprentice, assuming
a dignified air, as he exhibited a silk purse, and drew from

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it a half-dozen bank-bills, the sight of which caused a
manifestation of surprise by his companions.

“In funds, Jim!” exclaimed the bull-necked youth; to
which James replied, dogmatically, “Nothin' shorter;”
whereupon the pale Irishman consulted a greasy “Counterfeit
Detector,” which he took from beneath the counter,
and, having satisfied himself that the note tendered was a
good one, rummaged out the necessary silver change from
his till, and handed it to his customer. The three young
men then called for cigars, and after consulting in regard
to their future nocturnal explorations, took one another's
arms, and sallied upon the street, leaving the wretched
immigrant in corduroys stupidly intoxicated on his bench,
while the bar-keeper, mindful of his interests, was preparing
to respond to another demand from Keeley, for “more
brandy.”

It is an hourly subject for description—the common
nightly routine of a corner beer-house; but it is because
it is so hourly and common that I have chosen to describe
it. It is because, in every street of this great city, in
almost every block of its more squalid quarters, are one,
two, and perchance many more, of these pitfalls and
quicksands of society, wherein thoughtless youth, and
desperate manhood, and repining age, sink incessantly,
and are lost, body and soul. Lying in wait for the
unwary, they lure continual victims; born of the ignorance
and appetite of the poor, they generate poverty in
their turn, and with it shame, misery, disease, and death.
Therefore, trite as may be the subject, and common the
scene, there lies beneath my mention of a corner grocery

[figure description] Page 274.[end figure description]

much that may well be reflected upon by the moralist,
much that may rightly alarm the conscience of a Christian
man.

“More brandy,” muttered the wretched Keeley, as he
had growled thrice, at least, before; and the sickly barkeeper,
shuffling from the counter, with ghastly visage and
spectral figure, presented again the steaming poison that
was to steep the drunkard's brain in deeper imbecility.
Meantime, the Irishman in corduroys had roused himself
in part from his drowsiness, and was staring about him
with a stupid look. The bar-keeper advanced towards
him, and remarked, gruffly, “It's time ye was off, my good
man.”

“An' where'll I be off, honey?” asked the man. “Sorra
the rap I've got—more-be-token that I spint my last pinny
with ye's, honey.”

“Ye'll not lie here, anyhow,” returned the bar-keeper.
“So put your best foot before ye.”

The half-stupefied immigrant, thus adjured, staggered
to his feet, and began to move towards the door; but he
paused before reaching the threshold.

“Ned Connery,” he said, looking askance at the owner
of the beer-shop, “ye'll be afther turnin' me out, bekase
I've no money, though many's the bit an' sup your father
got of my father, in the ould counthry. But, niver mind,
Ned! it's the likes o' ye that has the heart to turn the
back upon a poor man.”

“Off with ye, an' no more palaver, now,” rejoined the
bar-keeper; and, opening the door quickly, he thrust his
tottering countryman out into the porch. The old man

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struggled a moment, half resistingly, but the door was
slammed rudely against him, crushing his fingers as they
clung with drunken tenacity to the jambs. He uttered a
cry of pain, and staggered into the deserted street.

The rain was falling in small close drops, chill as sleet,
and over the broken pavement and gutters pools of
muddy water were beginning to collect. The street was
pitchy dark, save only a spot nearly half a square distant,
where stood a corner lamp-post, the dim light from which
scarcely penetrated a dozen yards through the surrounding
murk. Towards this dull beacon, however, the drunken
immigrant reeled, with uncertain steps, until he had nearly
crossed the street, when his progress was suddenly checked
by some prostrate object, over which he stumbled, and
fell headlong at the pavement edge.

“Blissed Mary! what's that?” ejaculated the old man,
as he rolled heavily over, and, discovering himself to be
unhurt, scrambled slowly up, until seated upon the curbstone.
Then fortifying himself by a rapid crossing of his
hands over head and breast, he ventured to creep back
a few paces, stretching out his hand in the darkness, till
he encountered what appeared to be a human body lying
in the hollow of the gutter.

“Wirasthru!” cried the Irishman, “it's a dead corpse,
I'm thinkin';” and appalled at the thought, he shrank
back; but at the moment, a deep groan from the object
arrested his movements.

“It's a murthered Christian, anyhow, for I hear him
spake!” cried the immigrant. “I'll go back at onct to
Ned Connery, the white-livered spalpeen, an”' —

[figure description] Page 276.[end figure description]

But a footstep, at this moment, sounded on the sidewalk
near him, and the Irishman caught sight of a man's figure
just visible in the darkness. In an instant, he gained the
pedestrian's side, and plucked him by the arm.

“'Ud ye be after goin' by, and a feller-crachure murthered
and kilt, Misther?” he demanded, abruptly, addressing
the astonished passer, who responded, nervously—

“What can I do for you?”

“Sorra a bit for me, good man; but if ye'd look in the
gutther, beyant, there's a poor body groanin', like one kilt
intirely. It's here he is, Misther.”

Saying this, the immigrant stooped, and directed the
other's extended hand to the body before them, resting in
a puddle of water, and drenched by the falling rain.

“He is not dead, it is evident,” said the stranger;
“but he is wounded, I fear, and should be removed at
once, that his condition may be seen. My dwelling is but
a few rods distant, and perhaps we shall be able to lift
him thither.”

These words were uttered very quietly, as if the speaker
had been prepared for the recontre, and made dispositions
to meet it; at least, so it appeared to the immigrant,
whose Milesian excitement was in strange contrast to his
new companion's unperturbed demeanor. Nevertheless,
his sturdy, though not youthful arms were put in immediate
requisition in raising the suffering man, who seemed
totally helpless, only groaning at intervals, as if in internal
pain. Supporting him on either side, the two then
managed to draw their burden along the sidewalk, though
the immigrant's legs were not, indeed, of the steadiest,

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the result of recent potations, or, perhaps, of scanty
nourishment otherwise. Arrived beneath the street lamp,
they saw that the wounded man's face was covered with
blood, and that one arm hung loosely, as if broken. The
Irishman, likewise, glanced furtively at the individual
whom he had called to assist him, and saw that he was a
short and rather oldish person, with a mild and thoughtful
face, marked, at this moment, with an expression of
great pity.

“Here is my poor dwelling-place,” said this man, indicating
by a nod of his head the entrance of a narrow
alley opposite the lamp post.

“It's not the richest houses the best people lives in,”
returned the immigrant. “Aisy, now, till I get a good
hoult.”

So saying, he shifted his arm, and assisted to sustain
their load, till a small ten-foot house, or rather shed, was
reached, at the window of which the short man knocked,
his summons being answered immediately by the opening
of a door, and the appearance of a female child on the
threshold, holding a light, which she shaded from the rain
with her small hand. She uttered an exclamation of
alarm at the unexpected sight that met her eyes; but a
word from the person who had knocked appeared to quiet
her at once, and she drew back, admitting the two bearers
into the room. The wounded man was deposited upon an
old sofa, which stood between the windows, and the resident
of the house then said to the child—

“Is your uncle asleep, my child?”

“No, father—he's writing in his room.”

[figure description] Page 278.[end figure description]

“This is a poor man who is hurt, I fear, very badly,
Ally; and your uncle had better see him.”

“Yes, father—I'll call uncle.”

“Stop a bit,” said the man, lowering his tone, and looking
anxiously about him. “Your mother has not”—

“No, father!—haven't you seen her?”

The man groaned deeply, and shook his head.

“But go, Ally,” he said, “call your uncle.”

The girl disappeared through a door which opened
into a back room, and presently her low voice was heard
speaking to some one, who replied querulously, after which
a shuffling was heard, and the door re-opening discovered
the child returning, and leading by the hand a very curious
figure. It was a man who might be forty, fifty, or seventy
years of age, according to an observer's skill in computing
the marks upon a countenance ruddy with color, and yet
made old-looking by masses of silver hair, which hung on
either side of the shining cheeks. Blue eyes, small but
clear and bright, and white teeth, seemed, with his fine
complexion, to give a claim to youth; but, on the other
hand, his shoulders were stooped, his neck bent, and his
limbs tottered, as he advanced, like those of an old man.
He fixed his glance on the immigrant, immediately, and
said, in a childish tone of voice—

“What do you want, my good man?—what has my
brother brought you here for?”

“Sure, an' it's aisy to find that out, Misther, if ye's got
eyes,” returned the Irishman, pointing to the wounded
form on the sofa.

“Oh! there's another—is there?” cried the uncle,

[figure description] Page 279.[end figure description]

seemingly much perplexed. “Oh, yes!—Alice said so!
I'm very forgetful!” He pressed his forehead with his
hand.

“Yes, Walter—'tis a poor fellow we found in the street,
just opposite, and I thought you could tell how he was
hurt, at once.”

“That was right, brother,” said the other, stooping at
once to the sofa, and passing his hand, in a professional
manner over the man, who groaned, but still remained
with eyes closed, and apparently powerless to move or
speak. The girl and her father, with the immigrant,
looked on in silence, till the uncle had concluded his examination,
and pronounced the man's arm to be broken in
several places, while bruises and contusions were discoverable
on his other limbs, head, and body.

“I should say he has been knocked down, and run over
by a carriage, and perhaps kicked by horses,” said the
examiner, with a sagacious look.

“Maybe it was the fire-boys that bate him,” suggested
the Irishman.

“If he is in a condition to be moved to the hospital,
now, Walter, I might call a policeman?” said the other
man; at which remark, Walter shook his head, and
observed—

“The patient had better remain undisturbed. I am
sufficient for his case, and I can, perhaps, to alleviate
humanity, spare one night from more laborious duties,
designed likewise, brother Hubert, to benefit our common
kind.”

These words, spoken with great seriousness and dignity,

[figure description] Page 280.[end figure description]

were heard with much deference by the brother and
niece, while the immigrant looked somewhat perplexed, as
though he could not entirely fathom their meaning. But
Walter's next remark was much more intelligible.

“I shall set this fellow-creature's broken limb,” said he;
“and you, Hubert, may get ready some splints and bandages,
as I shall direct, while Alice will hold the light. As
for this other man, I don't know as he will be wanted at
all—so he may go, if he pleases.”

The Irishman held down his head, much abashed at the
speaker's deliberate dignity. He-glanced from one to the
other of the two brothers, and then at the door.

“Is it go, ye mane?” he asked hesitatingly.

“Certainly, my good man; I shall not require your
assistance. You may, if you please, call at the hospital,
and say the patient is in good hands.”

“And where might that place be?” ventured the immigrant;
“maybe they'd give a fellow-crachure a night's
lodgin' for `humanity,' as ye was talkin' about.”

“Have you nowhere to lodge?” asked the brother who
had been addressed as Hubert.

“Throth, I've no better lodgin' than the bed where this
same poor chap was lyin' when we tuk him up,” answered
the immigrant, as he nodded his head towards the wounded
man, who had now opened his eyes, under the effects of
some powerful stimulant contained in a phial which Alice
had handed to her uncle.

“If that be the case,” said Hubert, in the calm tone
that appeared so remarkable to the Celt, “you had better
remain here. We will strive to accommodate you.”

[figure description] Page 281.[end figure description]

“Accommodate!” echoed the immigrant, “is it that
you'd be doin'? Small accommodation I want, but the
flure, behind the stove; or, if I might be bould, to sit up
and be company for ye's, till the poor chap is made asier.
I'm a poor stranger in a strange land; but I'm not a thafe
nor a beggar-man.”

“Sit down, then, my friend, by the stove,” said the
host; and then proceeded to renew the fire, that had
become low; after which, while his brother busied himself
in bathing his patient's hurts, he procured cloth for
bandages and smoothed out some pine fragments into
splints wherewith to support the fractured limb. The
Irishman watched the movements of his new acquaintances
with great apparent interest, occasionally hazarding
a shrewd observation; and the child Alice stood
patiently by the sofa, holding the lamp as her uncle
directed.

At length, the operations were finished, the arm swathed
and set, and the sufferer, under the influence of an anodyne,
soothed into a profound sleep, his head supported
by a pillow that Alice brought from an interior room,
and his breast and shoulders, from which the mud-covered
vesture had been removed, covered with a light quilt.
These dispositions made, Walter, whose surgical skill
seemed to afford him great self-satisfaction, as well as to
impress his brother and niece with renewed reverence,
rubbed his hands together, as he surveyed the sleeping
man, and exclaimed—

“There, brother! I have not forgotten the art of healing,
though so long out of practice. Astley Cooper could

[figure description] Page 282.[end figure description]

not have done it more cleverly, Hubert. Eh! what does
our Celtic friend think?”

“Is it me ye mane?” asked the immigrant. “Faix,
docther, it 'ud be worth while for a chap to break his leg,
jist to be traited so dacently.”

Walter pursed up his lips, and scanned the Irishman
narrowly. “You seem to be tolerably intelligent, my
good fellow,” he remarked, patronizingly. “I suppose you
enjoyed all the advantages a hedge school could afford, at
home—eh, my good man?”

“Throth, an' I tached a hedge-school mesilf,” replied
the Irishman. “Latin, Graak, and the mathematics,
more-be-token. But what good is larnin' in a counthry
like this?”

The Irishman's retort seemed to hit the humor of the
singular individual to whom it was addressed; for Walter
laughed immoderately, and remarked to his brother that
“Celtic wit was proverbial;” whereat the calm-spoken
Hubert smiled, likewise, as in appreciation of the wisdom
contained in the observation.

“So, you have been a hedge schoolmaster, my Celtic
friend,” pursued Walter. “Now, you are just the man I
was seeking for; and I will read to you, at once, a chapter
of my great work upon `Humanity and its Necessities,”—
a chapter, my dear sir, that interests, in a great
degree, your unfortunate Milesian countrymen, who, in
their immigration to this favored land, bring also their
poverty, degradation, ignorance, and general social misery.
It will be very instructive to you, and I shall have your
opinion on some important points.”

p553-290

[figure description] Page 283.[end figure description]

The immigrant looked bewildered, venturing no reply,
whereupon the white-haired but ruddy-visaged Walter
half walked and half tottered to the door through which
he had previously emerged, and opening it, disclosed a
small, but neat apartment, containing a single bed, a
chair and table, the latter piled with manuscript sheets.
The room was lit by a tin lamp, depending over the table
from a sort of frame-work, that might be elevated or depressed
by means of a cord. Pen and ink lay beside a
half-written-over sheet of paper, denoting that Walter,
when summoned by the child, had been engaged in adding
to the mass of closely-written matter that was collected
on and under the table, and upon various shelves around
the walls of the apartment.

Shuffling towards one of the heaps, the singular man
bent his round shoulders so low, that he appeared like a
hunchback, and then wheeling suddenly, held up a heavy
roll of manuscript which he had taken from a lower shelf.

“Here, Mr. Schoolmaster, you see the chapters of my
great work that I intend reading to you to-night. You
may sit down now. Alice, bring a chair for our Milesian
friend, while I proceed to read what will greatly edify, if
heard with proper attention.”

Alice brought a chair for the immigrant, in which that
individual seated himself, without remark, and Hubert,
taking another at the threshold of the small apartment,
drew the little girl to his knee, kissing, as he did so, her
pale cheek, and whispering something in a low tone, of
which only the word “mother” was uttered above the
breath, and that with a deep sigh. Walter then placed

[figure description] Page 284.[end figure description]

himself at the table, and adjusted his tin lamp, so that its
light fell upon the closely-written pages which he spread
out before him. Coughing thrice to clear his throat, he
then began to read aloud, in a very measured distinctness
that failed not to impress his Hibernian hearer with a
fitting sense of the dignity as well as importance of the
subject.

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