"
O'Ryan was a huge brute of a man, his great hard face bearing
the scars of battles against pistol, knife, bludgeon and fist.
He was a sour and savage brute, hated and feared by everyone
for his tyrannies over the helpless poor and the helpless
outcast class. He had primitive masculine notions as to
feminine virtue, intact despite the latter day general
disposition to concede toleration and even a certain
respectability to prostitutes. But by some chance which she
and the other girls did not understand he treated Susan with
the utmost consideration, made the gangs appreciate that if
they annoyed her or tried to drag her into the net of tribute
in which they had enmeshed most of the girls worth while, he
would regard it as a personal defiance to himself.
Susan waited in the back room of the saloon nearest O'Ryan's
lodgings and sent a boy to ask him to come. The boy came back
with the astonishing message that she was to come to O'Ryan's
flat. Susan was so doubtful that she paused to ask the
janitress about it.
"It's all right," said the janitress. "Since his wife died
three years ago him and his baby lives alone. There's his old
mother but she's gone out. He's always at home when he ain't
on duty. He takes care of the baby himself, though it howls
all the time something awful."
Susan ascended, found the big policeman in his shirt sleeves,
trying to soothe the most hideous monstrosity she had ever
seen--a misshapen, hairy animal looking like a monkey, like a
rat, like half a dozen repulsive animals, and not at all like
a human being.
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