F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 74
then Paddy Pie and him quarrelled, and we were turned out of Paddy
Pie's house. So we used to lodge here and there, in the cellars
about the Points, in 'Cut Throat Alley,' or 'Cow Bay,' or
'Murderer's Alley,' or in 'The House of the Nine Nations,' or
wherever we could get a sixpenny rag to lay down upon. Nobody but
English seemed to care for me, and English cared for nobody but me.
And English got thick with Mrs. McCarty and her three daughters--they
kept the Rookery in 'Cow Bay,' which we used to get to up a long
pair of stairs outside, and which God knows I never want to think of
again,--where sometimes fourteen or fifteen of us, men and women,
used to sleep in a little room Mrs. McCarty paid eight dollars a
month for. And Mr. Crown, who always seemed a cross sort of man, and
was agent for all the houses on the Points I thought, used to say
she had it too cheap. And English got to thinking a good deal of
Mrs. McCarty, and Mrs. McCarty's daughters got to thinking a good
deal of him. And Boatswain Bill, who lived at the house of the 'Nine
Nations'-the house they said had a bottomless pit-and English used
to fight a deal about the Miss McCartys, and Bill one night threw
English over the high stoop, down upon the pavement, and broke his
arms. They said it was a wonder it hadn't a broken his neck.
Fighting Mary (Mary didn't go by that name then) came up and took
English's part, and whipped Boatswain Bill, and said she'd whip the
whole house of the 'Nine Nations' if it had spunk enough in it to
come on. But no one dare have a set-to with Mary. Mary used to drink
a deal of gin, and say-'this gin and the devil 'll get us all one of
these days. I wonder if Mr. Crown 'll sell bad gin to his highness
when he gets him?" Well, Bill was sent up for six months, so the
McCartys had peace in the house, and Mrs. McCarty got him little
things, and did for English until his arms got well. Then he got a
little money, (I don't know how he got it,) and Paddy Pie made good
friends with him, and got him from the Rookery, and then all his