the eye of a casual observer, Pincus Shapiro was an undersized child of seven, jumping clumsily up and down on the sidewalk in front of his Scammel Street home. Not so to himself, however, for at that moment Pincus was a horse, a proud horse with Mowing mane and tail, a restive beast that plunged and reared even as did the steed of Mr. Madigan, the saloon-keeper, on St. Patrick's Day. So Pincus shook his head and made bubbling noises with his lips like an impatient pony, desisting at intervals to cope with a severe coryza by process of inhalation.
It was during the execution by Pincus of a truly marvelous pirouette that Ambrose McGann paused on his way home to lunch from the parochial school, and made critical survey of the performance. Here was something extraordinary, Ambrose cogitated; an infant, and to all appearances one of the seed of Abraham, playing a solitary game on the sidewalk and finding amusement in dumb motions that made you laugh—yes, that made you guffaw in raucous, inarticulate jeers. It excited a certain resentment in Ambrose.
Ambrose was not imaginative, and couldn't play that he was a horse any more than he could eat a potato and think it an apple. He had attained the age of eight years on Cherry Street, which is equivalent to twelve on Fifth Avenue and sixteen in the rural districts; and he was disillusionized accordingly. All his playing had its utilitarian aspect. For instance,, hide and seek around the vegetable stands of the corner grocery meant eating apples at the conclusion of the game, just as an apparently childish romp in the dry dock near Jackson Street resulted in a visit to the junk-shops of the neighborhood and much candy for a few days.
Hence it offended Ambrose to view the harmless pleasure of Pincus Shapiro; and by way of showing his disapproval, he picked out a nice soft spot on the plump person of that unfortunate centaur and landed on it hard with his right fist.
Pincus, at the moment, was poised on the coping in front of his father's basement store. Losing his balance, he toppled over, striking the pavement of the four-foot depression full on the back of his head.
Ambrose waited for the wail of anguish that he felt sure would follow. Hearing none, he peered cautiously down the areaway. The erstwhile steed lay huddled in a little heap, his face showing white through its accustomed grime, and a thin stream of blood trickling from his nostrils.
A spasm of terror seized Ambrose. He turned and bolted in blind, headlong flight, nor paused until his feet could go no farther. He sank panting upon one of the benches of a small East Side park, where he stayed only long enough to recover his wind, and renewed his journey almost immediately. He had but a single idea—to put as much distance as possible between himself and that little blood-stained body. Ambrose knew something of death, for not long before he had seen his own father brought home a corpse—killed by falling from an unfinished building.
At length the fugitive could run no more. He seated himself on the stoop of a house in a quiet up-town avenue that might have been in a different hemisphere from Scammel Street. Here he remained in a sort of coma for half an hour, incapable of motion or even of thought, gasping for breath, until the wild jumping of his heart had in some degree subsided. Then, with a rush, the recollection of his awful deed came over him; and as he was only a little boy after all, he bent his head over his knees and gave way to his pent-up emotion in a torrent of choking sobs and tears.
Even as Ambrose himself had loitered to observe the antics of Pincus Shapiro, so did a butcher's assistant pause and watch in silence the violent sobbing of Ambrose, who soon became dimly aware of the spectator's presence and lifted his tear-stained face.
"Wot yer rubberin' at?" he said, stifling his sobs as well as he could.
For answer, the butcher boy stared on. Ambrose sprang to his feet, and, without any premonitory dialogue, sailed in to whip the insulting youth, who was at least four years his senior and almost a head taller. It was a short and decisive battle, and Ambrose, his feelings much relieved by his victory, started for the park, which he saw a block distant, while the butcher boy ran wailing down the street, his own gore mingling with that of his master's meat and poultry on his white apron.