Show Muggsy and Mary Ann BY W H AL11UKN Copyright tOG ly Joseph It Howies MiiRBsy was dejected Ho had been out of the penltpntlnry for n week Ths exuberance of spirit that hml at tended his liberation mid his subsequent subse-quent return to the city had subsided 114 stumped along the dirty back street In a drizzly autumn rain his hands deep In his empty pockets and his eyes fixed blankly on the pavement pave-ment before him shining In the gllta mcr of the straggling gas lamps lIe had left the Pen with n very presentable suit of clothes and even with a little money that had been held in trust for him since that dismal I dis-mal day two years before when Mc Clusky No 247 on tho Force had olt dyhitn int house that was not his home and a heartless Judge had Bent him over the road for housebreaking and larceny But when he returned to his old haunts and found somo of the gang playing poker In a cozy corner beside the bar in the Wanderers Wan-derers Home all his money had gone to express his joy at tho reunion Soon afterward his good clothes hud given rlaco to a historic outfit In the last stages of dissolution It made no difference to Muggsy Nothing did Only just now he was blue and unwashed and hungry and a weeks growth of black beard bristled bris-tled on his stolid face almost as the bristles of the brushes at The Works And he knew it for IIP had made many brushes And that too made no difference except that as he paused beside a lamp post and stroked his rasping chin he thought Vots do use o Irons anyhow wen yer hungry an cant even borry a chew o tcrbacca Mcbbe I kin git a free lunch in Dilly Donovans The burglnrlous philosopher turned Into a back door sidled up along the bar and reached a grimy hand toward a basket of pretzels with a watchful eye on Billy who was drawing beer His courage grew with the first salty munch and out went the other hand toward a plate of cheese The fingers closed hungrily and half the contents of the plate moved cautiously toward Muggsyn capacious pocket Git out uv It ye bum roared a voice and the cheese dropped NON git out The fullstomached bartender bar-tender advanced angrily while his patrons wiped the foam from their lips and grinned Wy Billy dont yez reconlzo an old fren Im Muggsy faltered the culprit Yes I knows yez nil right an I knows yez owes me seven dollars for drinks that Ill never git an two dollars dol-lars that I lent yez oncet an yez aint spent a nickel acrost this yere bar for more In two years an yez aint got a red in yer Jeans now Git out or Ill call the cop All this and more Billy said and Jluggsy realized that It was all true So he got out saying sadly as hs peered back through the folding doors Im disappointed in yez Billy Yez aint got no heart Id never go back on a fren that way And that also was true A long time Muggsy sat on tho front step of the saloon Ho was not thinking think-ing Persons In such circumstances dont think And it never occurred to him to Jump Into the river Suicide requires a stage of intellectual development devel-opment that Muggsy had not attained At last he summed up tho whole situation sit-uation in one apt phrase Damn the luck he ejaculated It was a happy thought Ho repeated re-peated tho remark with ineffable relish rel-ish Then he felt better and spat vigorously vig-orously and arose and stretched his cramped limbs and sauntered down tho street With good humor comes good fortune for-tune Thus It happened that as Muggsys eye scanned tho pavement in front of his toes he saw something bright Ho picked It up it was a nickel It gave him more pleasure than if 1 ho had pocketed the contents of a safe With a hungry grin ho hurried hur-ried through an alley and brought up at the door of a threecent restaurant res-taurant 1 hero were many people there some perched on stools in front of the lunch counter and others moro aristocratically aris-tocratically boated at bare tables around the room Muggsy modest selected a table in one corner ana beckoned to a waitress hovering on the outskirts of the feeding flock Wots the most I kin git fer n cents he asked He had often solved tho problem before but Just how ho felt In need of a intiuce The little waitress looked down at Muggsy sympathetically She was almost al-most goodlooking beside Muggsy True her hair was carroty her taco freckled her noso turnedup and ruddy And she had little greenlsh yellow eyes set close together under invisible eyebrows and her features were very carelessly jumbled together But she looked goo nnturell and kindly and her voice was soft and lownot harsh and Inflexible hike that of many waitresses wait-resses gifted with features And tho hand that rested on tho table beside Muggsys was small and shapely and smooth Muggsy looked and marveled that a hand should be so pretty Fer a nickel she inquired Well that depends You only got n cents Yep grunted Muggsy plate o beans for You ctth gut a three cants an coffee for threehut thats six Or coffee an rolls fer six cent Say aint you got another Nope answered Jluggsy In some embarrassment hun Thats too bad Arc you very gry girl did Utile gryAm Say Am I hungry you over live on wtnsisy fer three iltya an then starve for two days on water No not exactly but Ive been him ry Say sho uxclalmed a glanco ol enlightenment Hitting over her faco aint you the feller they call Muggsy T Yep Why Hecnuso if you are you hadnt ought to be hungry I see yoi give live dollars oncet to Sally Cluk whats my friend an belongs to the union when shed been out of a job an her mother was sick she nn needed need-ed some money awful bad An she says sites goln to pay It back when she gate a Better job an I think youre a gentleman een If you aint got good clothes nor no money an 1 wont let you go hungry so 1 wont She turned to the kitchen door and called out Hamneggsover German mince I anoneautit e coffee Her customer turned In alarm Say ho whispered wnt jor glvln us Doyll trow mo out She smiled a sweet smile and answered an-swered with assurance No they wont Its on the house Ill fix It In tho check See And he saw What do they call you Muggsy foi she asked when she brought It thin order Cause Its mo Christian name I spose My names Mary Ann she said Mary Ann Evans And that Is how the bread cast upon law waters came back to Muggsy after many days It was stolen bread and so perhaps was the return And that Is also how he came to gain the friendship friend-ship of Mary Ann Muggsy came often to tho dingy little restaurant after this and usually paid for his mealswhon lilt business was good And every time he saw new beauty In tho kindhearted kind-hearted little waitress Ho oven greW confidential What do you do fer a llvln Mugf s7 she asked him one day Oh dlffrcnt things You see 1 dont work steady but I does tho best I ran an sometimes I even does a days work fer wages like a ornary workln man Why dont you git a steady Job shfi asked He looked perplexed Wy little gill I wat would I do with a steady job anyhow I aint built that way An 1 makes a llvln without a job Mary Ann was puzzled Muggsy wa an enigma to her but she Imew ho hall a generous disposition Do you drink much No not much 1 aint often cot thin price an my credits played ot tIn t-In such wise they were wont to hold sweet discourse though Muggsy wus secretly ashamed of it and would not spank to Mary Ann If any of his male acquaintances were visible The tit tlo redhaired beauty was very communicative com-municative and Muggsy soon Imp t that she was the only daughter of a washlady who lived In a room on the third floor of a tenement three blocks south and that sho had one HUe brother Jimmy who sold papers pa-pers Suddenly there was a lull In the progressive friendship Muggsy wen absent for a month and Mary Anns renlshyellow eyes peered In vain through the swinging screen doors and down the dirty street for his familial shUltie and goodnatured grin She did not know that he had gone to tho workhouse because an officer with a grudge against him had found him removing re-moving brass journals from a boxcar one night When he got out a change had com over him Never before had he thought of concealing his misfortunes misfor-tunes from his friends any more than he had thought of telling tho truth to the police But now he was really ashamed to let Mary Ann know where he had been And he did not exactly want to lie to her Finally he went shamefacedly to tho restaurant It was full at strange faces He hadnt the heart to ask questions A dty or two later ho hunted up the dace where sho had told him she lived Ho found Mary Ann after climbing through a stairway stair-way full of children She was sitting alone In the room that served her for a home and her eyes were red The place was almost bare of furniture and In disorder Muggsy therefore felt at home though Alary Anns tears embarrassed em-barrassed him But her little eyes brightened and she grasped his big coarse hand and told him how awful glad she was to see him and how lonesome she had been since ho hadnt come to the restaurant any more and then sho broke down and cried Dont now dont do that way little lit-tle girl stammered Muggsy Whats gone wrong Mary Ann Then she told him of her mother havin1 died of heart failure or sum pin like that only two weeks before and of the union having struck for shorter hours at the same time and of her being out of work with no prospect pros-pect of a settlement of the strike and of her having nothing to live on but what her little brother Jimmy made selling papers and the heart of Mugg sy Maguire was touched with pity and Jove which Is akin to pity Well little girl ho said and paused In a whirl of uncertainty Then ho went on scared by his own audacity au-dacity Llttlo girl it looks to mo as it theres only one way out of Itthat Is of course pervldln youre wlllln an aint got no objections nor nothln Ilko that because you know Mary Ann Im no good fer nothln fer I been told so lots of times But I think a lot of you Mary Ann an If Its tho same to you an youll take my word fer it that Ill Bit a job an work steady why I say llttlo girl lets gttmar ied |