happen, and he says, 'The next time there's trouble, you find the leaders
and swear out a warrant. Don't wait to ask anybody!'"

By this time every window in the tenement at the blind end of the alley
had been converted into a proscenium box, and suggestions, advice, and
incriminating evidence were being freely volunteered.

"Who started this here racket, anyhow?" asked the policeman, in the bored
tone of one who is rehearsing an oft-repeated scene.

"I did," declared Nance Molloy, with something of the feminine
gratification Helen of Troy must have felt when she "launched a thousand
ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium."

"You Nance!" screamed a woman from a third-story window. "You know you
never done no such a thing! I was settin' here an' seen ever'thing that
happened; it was them there boys."

"So it was you, Dan Lewis, was it?" said the policeman, recognizing one
of his panting victims, the one whose ragged shirt had been torn
completely off, leaving his heaving chest and brown shoulders bare. "An'
it ain't surprised, I am. Who is this other little dude?"

"None of your business!" cried Mac furiously, trying to wrench himself
free. "I tell you my father will pay for the darned old window."

"Aisy there," said the policeman. "Does anybody know him?"

"It's Mr. Clarke's son, up at the bottle works," said Mason.