“I wish,” replies the negro, sullenly, “I was back.  An honest man as I is, can’t get on in this world.  Necessity makes rascals of better men than me, Mr. Fitzgerald.  Mr. Krone (he’s a white man, though) makes all the politicians for the district, and charges me eight dollars a month for this hole.  Just measure them two things together, Mr. Fitzgerald:  then see if takin’ in sixpenny lodgers pays.”  Mr. Fitzgerald commences counting them.  “You needn’t count,” pursues the negro, uncovering his stew-pan, “there’s only eighteen in to-night.  Have twenty, sometimes!  Don’t get nothin’ for that poor Scotch woman an’ her children.  Can’t get it when they haint got it-you know that, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

The detective inquires if any of them have seen Mr. Toddleworth to-day.  Washington has not seen him, and makes no scruple of saying he thinks very little of him.

“Faith an’ it’s hard times with poor Tom,” speaks up one of the women, in a deep brogue.  “It was only last night-the same I’m tellin’ is true, God knows-Mrs. McCarty took him to the Rookery-the divil a mouthful he’d ate durin’ the day-and says, bein’ a ginerous sort of body, come, take a drop, an’ a bite to ate.  Mister Toddleworth did that same, and thin lay the night on the floor.  To-night-it’s the truth, God knows-Tom Downey took him above.  An’ it’s Tom who woundn’t be the frind of the man who hadn’t a shillin’ in his pocket.”

The detective shrugs his shoulders, and having thanked the woman, withdraws into the passage, to the end of which he cautiously picks his way, and knocks at a distained door that fronts him.  A voice deep and husky bids him enter, which he does, as the lurid glare of his lantern reveals a room some twelve by sixteen feet, the plaster hanging in festoons from the black walls, and so low of ceiling that he scarce can stand upright.  Four bunk-beds, a little bureau, a broken chair or two, and a few cheap pictures, hung here and there on the sombre walls, give it an air of comfort in grateful contrast with the room just left.  “Who lives here?” inquires the detective, turning his light full upon each object that attracts his attention.  “Shure it’s only me-Mrs. Terence Murphy-and my three sisters (the youngest is scarce fourteen), and the two English sisters:  all honest people, God knows,” replies Mrs. Murphy, with a rapid tongue.  “It’s not right of you to live this way,” returns the detective, continuing to survey the prostrate forms of Mrs. Murphy, her three sisters, and the two fair-haired English girls, and the besotted beings they claim as husbands.  Alarm is pictured in every countenance.  A browned face withdraws under a dingy coverlid, an anxious face peers from out a pallet on the floor, a prostrate figure in the corner inquires the object of Mr. Detective Fitzgerald’s visit-and Mrs. Murphy, holding it more becoming of respectable society, leaves the bed in which she had accommodated five others, and gets into one she calls her own.  A