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Book, page 21 / 224 Sunday, after Jerry's elbow knocked it off by mistake? I've been scared about Dirk ever since; and now he won't go to Poke's! It's a bad sign. I say, Dirk, maybe there's going to be a prayer-meeting down your way, and you wouldn't mind letting us come?" They expected him to laugh, but his face grew blacker than before, and at last he said, in very significant tones:-- "You better hold up there, Scrawly, if you don't want to try the depth of that gutter." "Leave him be," said Nimble Dick, quickly; "he's going into one of his tantrums. When he begins like that, there's no end to the fighting that's in him; and I don't want a row now,--it's too early in the day; besides, I know something that's better fun. You fellows come along with me, and let him go." As this was said in a sort of undertone as Dirk strode on ahead; and when, at another corner, he dashed down it, leaving them all, there was no call after him. He was free to go where he would, and for reasons that he himself could not have explained he chose that it should be home,--that is, the place which he called home. It might not meet your ideas of what a spot so named should be. The road to it led through one of the meanest portions of the city. Each foot of the way the houses seemed to grow more squalid looking, and the streets filthier. The particular alley down which he dived at last was narrower and blacker than any yet passed, and the cellar door which he pushed open let him into the meanest-looking house in the row,--a long, low, dark room. In one corner there was the remnant of a stove, braced up by bricks and stones, but no fire was burning therein, though the day was cold. Furniture there was none, unless the usual rickety table and two broken chairs could be called by that name. A door was ajar that led into an inner cellar, and a glimpse of piles of offensive looking rags, that were called "bed-clothes" by the family, might have given you an idea of what their home life was, as hardly any other phase of it can. The rags were not all in the further cellar, however; a gay patch-work quilt, or at least one that had once been gay, but from which bits of black cotton now oozed in every direction, seemed to have curled itself in a heap against the one window. However, it moved soon after Dirk opened the door, and showed itself to be more than a quilt. Inside was a young
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