As the cobblestones rattled under the doctor's equipage rolling
leisurely up Prytania Street, Tony's wife sat in her chair and
laughed,--laughed with a hearty joyousness that lifted the film
from the dull eyes and disclosed a sparkle beneath.

The drear days went by, and Tony lay like a veritable Samson
shorn of his strength, for his voice was sunken to a hoarse,
sibilant whisper, and his black eyes gazed fiercely from the
shock of hair and beard about a white face. Life went on pretty
much as before in the shop; the children paused to ask how Mr.
Tony was, and even hushed the jingles on their bell hoops as they
passed the door. Red-headed Jimmie, Mrs. Murphy's nephew, did
the hard jobs, such as splitting wood and lifting coal from the
bin; and in the intervals between tending the fallen giant and
waiting on the customers, Tony's wife sat in her accustomed
chair, knitting fiercely, with an inscrutable smile about her
purple compressed mouth.

Then John came, introducing himself, serpent-wise, into the Eden
of her bosom.

John was Tony's brother, huge and bluff too, but fair and blond,
with the beauty of Northern Italy. With the same lack of race
pride which Tony had displayed in selecting his German spouse,
John had taken unto himself Betty, a daughter of Erin,
aggressive, powerful, and cross-eyed. He turned up now, having
heard of this illness, and assumed an air of remarkable authority
at once.