So, knowing Blanche Devine as we did, there was something resembling a riot in one of our most respectable neighbourhoods when it was learned that she had given up her interest in the house near the freight depot and was going to settle down in the white cottage on the corner and be good.  All the husbands in the block, urged on by righteously indignant wives, dropped in on Alderman Mooney after supper to see if the thing could not be stopped.  The fourth of the protesting husbands to arrive was the Very Young Husband, who lived next door to the corner cottage that Blanche Devine had bought.  The Very Young Husband had a Very Young Wife, and they were the joint owners of Snooky.  Snooky was three-going-on-four, and looked something like an angel—­only healthier and with grimier hands.  The whole neighbourhood borrowed her and tried to spoil her; but Snooky would not spoil.

Alderman Mooney was down in the cellar fooling with the furnace.  He was in his furnace overalls—­a short black pipe in his mouth.  Three protesting husbands had just left.  As the Very Young Husband, following Mrs. Mooney’s directions, cautiously descended the cellar stairs, Alderman Mooney looked up from his tinkering.  He peered through a haze of pipe-smoke.

“Hello!” he called, and waved the haze away with his open palm.  “Come on down!  Been tinkering with this blamed furnace since supper.  She don’t draw like she ought.  ’Long toward spring a furnace always gets balky.  How many tons you used this winter?”

“Oh—­ten,” said the Very Young Husband shortly.  Alderman Mooney considered it thoughtfully.  The Young Husband leaned up against the side of the cistern, his hands in his pockets.  “Say, Mooney, is that right about Blanche Devine’s having bought the house on the corner?”

“You’re the fourth man that’s been in to ask me that this evening.  I’m expecting the rest of the block before bedtime.  She’s bought it all right.”

The Young Husband flushed and kicked at a piece of coal with the toe of his boot.

“Well, it’s a darned shame!” he began hotly.  “Jen was ready to cry at supper.  This’ll be a fine neighbourhood for Snooky to grow up in!  What’s a woman like that want to come into a respectable street for anyway?  I own my home and pay my taxes—­”

Alderman Mooney looked up.

“So does she,” he interrupted.  “She’s going to improve the place—­paint it, and put in a cellar and a furnace, and build a porch, and lay a cement walk all round.”

The Young Husband took his hands out of his pockets in order to emphasize his remarks with gestures.

“What’s that got to do with it?  I don’t care if she puts in diamonds for windows and sets out Italian gardens and a terrace with peacocks on it.  You’re the alderman of this ward, aren’t you?  Well, it was up to you to keep her out of this block!  You could have fixed it with an injunction or something.  I’m going to get up a petition—­that’s what I’m going—­”