F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 75
money. I used to think all the money in the Points found its way
either to the house of Paddy Pie, or the Bottomless Pit at the house
of the 'Nine Nations,' and all the clothes to the sign of the 'Three
Martyrs,' which the man with the eagle face kept round the corner.
"English used to say in one of his troubled fits, 'I'd like to be a
respectable man, and get out of this, if there was a chance, and do
something for you, George. There's no chance, you see.' And when we
went into Broadway, which we did now and then, and saw what another
world it was, and how rich everything looked, English used to shake
his head and say, 'they don't know how we live, George.'
"Paddy Pie soon quarrelled with English, and being penniless again
we had to shift for ourselves. English didn't like to go back to
Mrs. McCarty, so we used to sleep at Mrs. Sullivan's cellar in 'Cut
Throat Alley.' And Mrs. Sullivan's cellar was only about twelve feet
by twenty, and high enough to stand up in, and wet enough for
anything, and so overrun with rats and vermin that we couldn't
sleep. There were nine rag-beds in the cellar, which as many as
twenty-three would sometimes sleep on, or, if they were not too
tipsy, try to sleep on. And folks used to come into the cellar at
night, and be found dead in the morning. This made such a fuss in
the neighborhood (there was always a fuss when Old Bones, the
coroner, was about), and frightened so many, that Mrs. Sullivan
couldn't get lodgers for weeks. She used to nail no end of
horse-shoes over the door to keep out the ghosts of them that died
last. But it was a long while before her lodgers got courage enough
to come back. Then we went to the house of the Blazers, in 'Cow
Bay,' and used to lodge there with Yellow Bill. They said Bill was a
thief by profession; but I wasn't old enough to be a judge. Little
Lizza Rock, the nondescript, as people called her, used to live at
the Blazers. Poor Lizza had a hard time of it, and used to sigh and
say she wished she was dead. Nobody thought of her, she said, and