Basil changed the topic and asked after the prize-fighter's wife.
"About the same," he answered. "A doc told her she had consumption, and she'd ought to go to the country. But she won't go and leave me for fear I'd get drunk too much."
"Why don't you go with her, then?" enquired Alice.
"Me in the country? What in hell would I do in the country?" he replied contemptuously. "There ain't no better air than there is right here on the Bowery—it's as good as Fifth Av-noo air any day, mind that, Sis."
Alice looked at Basil and giggled. Basil smiled wearily. He had been very silent all the evening, and when he was not talking his face looked gloomy. Teresa, too, seemed oppressed. She felt as though she were at the bottom of some vast slough, where unpleasant creatures of all sorts swarmed, living their pathetic lives. The perfect content of the prize-fighter with his particular spot in the slough was illuminating, yet it did not lighten the impression of the whole. The man interested her. She studied his face, but did not try to talk to him. The gulf between their worlds was too wide, and she knew that she was as intolerant of his as he of hers.
He began presently to talk about politics to the two men, and gave a racy outline of the Bow-
