For the first time in his life he was sorry for him.
"Where are you going now, Tom?" he asked, knowing full well what the
spiritless answer would be.
"To that hell-hole of a place you call home," said Braddock. Dick
slipped his hand through the other's arm; they turned oft into one of
the cross streets, wending their way through the sodden community, one
with his head erect, the other with his chin on his breast, his hands
in his coat pockets.
Half an hour later a cab stopped at a corner not far from a Pell
Street intersection. Two men got down and picked their way through the
vile street, searching out the house numbers as they progressed. They
passed the all-night dives and brothels, whence came the sounds of
unrestrained and unrefined revelry, and came at last to a spot beneath
a huge wooden boot that hung suspended above the door of the most
unholy structure in the narrow street. A man in his shirt sleeves sat
back in the shadow of the tumbledown stoop, smoking a pipe. At his
left a narrow, black passage led down between two squalid buildings,
one of which was dark, the other lighted so that the vicious revelers
within might see and be seen.
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