F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 76
she was nothing because she was deformed, and a cripple. She was
about four feet high, had a face like a bull-dog, and a swollen
chest, and a hunchback, a deformed leg, and went with a crutch. She
never combed her hair, and what few rags she had on her back hung in
filth. What few shillings she got were sure to find their way either
into Bill's pocket, or send her tipsy into the 'Bottomless Pit' of
the house of the 'Nine Nations.' There was in the Bottomless Pit a
never-ending stream of gin that sent everybody to the Tombs, and
from the Tombs to the grave. But Lizza was good to me, and used to
take care of me, and steal little things for me from old Dan
Sullivan, who begged in Broadway, and let Yellow Bill get his money,
by getting him tipsy. And I got to liking Lizza, for we both seemed
to have no one in the world who cared for us but English. And there
was always some trouble between the Blazers and the people at the
house of the 'Nine Nations.'
"Well, English was hard to do for some time, and through necessity,
which he said a deal about, we were driven out of every place we had
sought shelter in. And English did something they sent him up for a
twelve-month for, and I was left to get on as I could. I was took in
by 'Hard-Fisted Sall,' who always wore a knuckle-duster, and used to
knock everybody down she met, and threatened a dozen times to whip
Mr. Fitzgerald, the detective, and used to rob every one she took in
tow, and said if she could only knock down and rob the whole
pumpkin-headed corporation she should die easy, for then she would
know she had done a good thing for the public, whose money they were
squandering without once thinking how the condition of such wretches
as herself could be bettered.
"English died before he had been up two months. And death reconciled
the little difficulty between him and the McCartys; and old Mrs.
McCarty's liking for him came back, and she went crying to the
Bellevue and begged them, saying she was his mother, to let her take
his body away and bury it. They let her have it, and she brought it