One winter afternoon a number of years ago a boy stood leaning against
the iron newel post of the old house, smoking a cigarette. He was
perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age, but he might have been either
older or younger. The city gives even to children a sophisticated look
that baffles the casual psychologist.

The children playing on the steps behind the boy were stocky, swarthy
Italians. But he was tall and loosely built, with dark red hair and
hard blue eyes. He was thin and raw boned. Even his smartly cut
clothes could not hide his extreme awkwardness of body, his big loose
joints, his flat chest and protruding shoulder blades. His face, too,
could not have been an Italian product. The cheek bones were high, the
cheeks slightly hollowed, the nose and lips were rough hewn. The suave
lines of the three little Latins behind him were entirely alien to this
boy's face.

It was warm and thawing so that the dead horse across the street, with
the hugely swollen body, threw off an offensive odor.

"Smells like the good ol' summer time," said the boy, nodding his head
toward the horse and addressing the rag picker who was pulling a burlap
sack into the basement.

"Like ta getta da skin. No good now though," replied Luigi. "You
gotta da rent money, Nucky?"

"Got nuttin'," Nucky's voice was bitter. "That brown Liz you let in
last night beats the devil shakin' dice."

"We owe three mont' now, Nucky," said the Italian.