coarse work in his bailiwick--why it was unthinkable.

A hero and rescuer of lesser experience than Billy Byrne
would have rushed melodramatically into the midst of the
fray, and in all probability have had his face pushed completely
through the back of his head, for the guys from
Twelfth Street were not of the rah-rah-boy type of hoodlum
--they were bad men, with an upper case B. So Billy crept
stealthily along in the shadows until he was quite close to
them, and behind them. On the way he had gathered up a
cute little granite paving block, than which there is nothing
in the world harder, not even a Twelfth Street skull. He was
quite close now to one of the men--he who was wielding
the officer's club to such excellent disadvantage to the officer
--and then he raised the paving block only to lower it
silently and suddenly upon the back of that unsuspecting head
--"and then there were two."

Before the man's companions realized what had happened
Billy had possessed himself of the fallen club and struck one
of them a blinding, staggering blow across the eyes. Then
number three pulled his gun and fired point-blank at Billy.
The bullet tore through the mucker's left shoulder. It would
have sent a more highly organized and nervously inclined
man to the pavement; but Billy was neither highly organized
nor nervously inclined, so that about the only immediate
effect it had upon him was to make him mad--before he
had been but peeved--peeved at the rank crust that had
permitted these cheap-skates from south of Twelfth Street
to work his territory.