"Where do you live?"

"Up there at Snawdor's. That there was Mis' Snawdor a-yellin' at me."

"Is she yer mother?"

"Nope. She's me step."

"And yer father?"

"He's me step too. I'm a two-step," she added with an impudent toss of
the head to show her contempt for the servant of the law, a blue-coated,
brass-buttoned interloper who swooped down on you from around corners,
and reported you at all times and seasons.

By this time Mrs. Snawdor had gotten herself down the two flights of
stairs, and was emerging from the door of the tenement, taking down her
curl papers as she came. She was a plump, perspiring person who might
have boasted good looks had it not been for two eye-teeth that completely
dominated her facial landscape.

"You surely ain't fixin' to report her?" she asked ingratiatingly
of Mason. "A little 'leven-year-ole orphin that never done no harm
to nobody?"

"It's no use arguing," interrupted Mason firmly. "I'm going to file out a
warrant against them three children if it's the last act of my mortal
life. There ain't a boy in the alley that gives me any more trouble than
that there little girl, a-throwin' mud over the fence and climbing round