Chapter 34
chapter thirty four of children of the tenements by jacob reese this librivox recording is in the public domain he kept his tryst policeman schultz was stamping up and down his beat in hester street trying to keep warm on the night before christmas when a human wreck in rum and rags shuffled across his path and hailed him you all has treated me fair schultz it said say will you do a thing for me what is it denny said the officer he had recognized the wreck as denny the robber a tramp who had haunted his beach ever since he had been on it and for years before he had heard further back than any one knew will you said the wreck wistfully will you run me in and give me about three months to-morrow will you do it that i will said schultz he had often done it before sometimes for three sometimes for six months and sometimes for ten days according to how he and denny and the justice felt about it
in the spell between trips to the island denny was a regular pensioner of the policeman who let him have a quarter or so when he had so little money as to be next to desperate he never did get quite to that point perhaps the policeman's quarter saved him his nickname of the robber was given to him on the same principle that dubbed the neighbourhood he haunted the pig market because pigs are the only ware not for sale there then he never robbed anybody the only thing he ever stole was the time he should have spent in working there was no denying it then he was a loafer he himself had told schultz that it was because his wife and children put him out of their house in madison street five years before perhaps if his wife's story had been heard it would have reversed that statement of facts but nobody ever heard it nobody took the trouble to inquire the o'neill family that was understood to be the name interested no one in jew town one of its members was enough except that mrs o'neill lived in madison street somewhere near lundie's store nothing was known of her
that i will denny repeated the policeman heartily slipping him a dime for luck you come around to-morrow and i will run you in now go along but denny didn't go though he had the price of two balls at the distillery he shifted thoughtfully on his feet and said say schultz if i should die now i am all full of rheumatiz and sore if i should die before would you see to me and tell the wife small fear of your dying denny with the price of two drinks said the policeman poking him facetiously in the ribs with his club don't you worry all the same if you will tell me where the old woman lives i will let her know what's the number but the robber's mood had changed under the touch of the silver dime that burned his palm never mind schultz he said i guess i won't kick so long and moved off the snow drifted wickedly down suffolk street christmas morning pinching noses and ears and cheeks already pinched by hunger and want it set around the corner into the pig market where the hucksters plodded knee-deep in the drifts burying the horseradish man and his machine
and coating the bare plucked breasts of the geese that swung from countless hooks at the corner stand with softer and whiter down than ever grew there it drove the suspender man into the hallway of a suffolk street tenement where he tried to pluck the icicles from his frozen ears and beard with numb and powerless fingers as he stepped out of the way of some one entering with a blast that set like a cold shiver up through the house he stumbled over something and put down his hand to feel what it was it touched a cold face and the house rang with a shriek that silenced the clink of glasses in the distillery against the side door of which the something lay they crowded out glasses in hand to see what it was Only a dead tramp, said someone, and the crowd went back to the warm saloon where the barrels lay in rows on the racks.
The clink of glasses and shouts of laughter came through the peephole in the door into the dark hallway as policeman Schultz bent over the stiff, cold shape. Someone had called him. Denny, he said, tugging at his sleeve. Denny, come. Your time is up. I'm here. then he never stirred the policeman looked up white in the face my god he said he's dead but he kept his date
and so he had then the robber was dead rum and exposure and the rheumatiz had killed him policeman schultz kept his word too and had him taken to the station on the stretcher He was a bad penny, said the saloon keeper, and no one in Jewtown was found to contradict him. End of chapter 34
