It has been said that the best way not to meet somebody you are anxious to avoid is to live in the same New York apartment house with them. In the metropolis one seldom knows the name of the persons occupying the next rooms and the family the next house away might just as well be living in Dubuque. It is the city of strangers.
But De Lacey Street is different. De Lacey Street is one of those all too rare New York communities within the great city that are little worlds of their own. In De Lacey Street neighbor knows neighbor by his or her first name. They gossip and quarrel and make friends again and share each other's little sorrows and triumphs. The success attained by the sons of the Widow Feeley is a matter of neighborhood pride and the happy-go-luckiness of a Speedy Swift concerns the whole street, especially with the knowledge that pretty Jane Dillon thinks so much of the boy.
And the struggle of Pop Dillon to keep his horse car and his franchise against overwhelming odds was watched sympathetically by everybody from Walters, the delicatessen man, to Johnny Burke, the cop.
For Pop Dillon, with his kindly smile and his cheerful politeness, was the favorite of the block.
So Jane received many a telephone call as to his
