young girl who had fainted, and two men who were sup~
porting her; and there were a dozen others crowding
toward the front-door.

Suddenly, however, there came a series of resounding
blows upon it, causing the crowd to give back. At the
same instant a stout woman, with painted cheeks and dia~
monds in her ears, came running down the stairs, panting
breathlessly: "To the rear! Quick!"

She led the way to a back staircase, Jurgis following;
in the kitchen she pressed a spring, and a cupboard gave
way and opened, disclosing a dark passageway. "Go in!"
she cried to the crowd, which now amounted to twenty or
thirty, and they began to pass through. Scarcely had the
last one disappeared, however, before there were cries from
in front, and then the panic-stricken throng poured out
again, exclaiming: "They're there too! We're trapped!"

"Upstairs!" cried the woman, and there was another
rush of the mob, women and men cursing and screaming
and fighting to be first. One flight, two, three -- and then
there was a ladder to the roof, with a crowd packed at the
foot of it, and one man at the top, straining and struggling
to lift the trap-door. It was not to be stirred, however,
and when the woman shouted up to unhook it, he answered:
"It's already unhooked. There's somebody sitting on it!"

And a moment later came a voice from downstairs:
"You might as well quit, you people. We mean business,
this time."

So the crowd subsided; and a few moments later several
policemen came up, staring here and there, and leering at
their victims. Of the latter the men were for the most
part frightened and sheepish-looking. The women took it
as a joke, as if they were used to it -- though if they had
been pale, one could not have told, for the paint on their
cheeks. One black-eyed young girl perched herself upon
the top of the balustrade, and began to kick with her slip~
pered foot at the helmets of the policemen, until one of
them caught her by the ankle and pulled her down. On
the floor below four or five other girls sat upon trunks in
the hall, making fun of the procession which filed by them.

[[344]]

p343 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p344w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p345

v?