Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/24

 air—too hot to do more than turn on the stones and swear. Still, the last hoarse yelps of a combat of women came intermittently from Half Jago Street, in the further confines.

In a little while something large and dark was pushed forth from the door-opening near Jago Row, which Billy Leary's spouse had entered. The thing rolled over and lay tumbled on the pavement, for a time unnoticed. It might have been yet another would-be sleeper, but for its stillness. Just such a thing it seemed, belike, to two that lifted their heads and peered from a few yards off, till they rose on hands and knees and crept to where it lay—Jago rats, both. A man it was; with a thick smear across his face, and about his head the source of the dark trickle that sought the gutter deviously over the broken flags. The drab stuff of his pockets peeped out here and there in a crumpled bunch, and his waistcoat gaped where the