losing her figure from an overabundance of good living; but with
us she was a town character, like Old Man Givins, the drunkard,
or the weak-minded Binns girl. When she passed the drug- store
corner there would be a sniggering among the vacant-eyed loafers
idling there, and they would leer at each other and jest in
undertones.

So, knowing Blanche Devine as we did, there was something
resembling a riot in one of our most respectable neighborhoods
when it was learned that she had given up her interest in the
house near the freight depot and was going to settle down in the
white cottage on the corner and be good. All the husbands in the
block, urged on by righteously indignant wives, dropped in on
Alderman Mooney after supper to see if the thing could not be
stopped. The fourth of the protesting husbands to arrive was the
Very Young Husband who lived next door to the corner cottage that
Blanche Devine had bought. The Very Young Husband had a Very
Young Wife, and they were the joint owners of Snooky. Snooky was
three-going- on-four, and looked something like an angel--only
healthier and with grimier hands. The whole neighborhood
borrowed her and tried to spoil her; but Snooky would not spoil.

Alderman Mooney was down in the cellar, fooling with the furnace.

He was in his furnace overalls; a short black pipe in his mouth.
Three protesting husbands had just left. As the Very Young
Husband, following Mrs. Mooney's directions, descended the cellar
stairs, Alderman Mooney looked up from his tinkering. He peered
through a haze of pipe smoke.