Tradition is not a matter of centuries but of ages.  If Katie inherited some of hers from the peat bogs adjacent to Tara’s Halls in that remote period when there were still snakes in Ireland, Miss Althea had vicariously acquired others from the fur-clad barbarians described by Tacitus who spent their leisure time in drinking, gambling or splitting each other’s skulls with stone mallets.  On this subject see Spencer’s “Data of Ethics” and Lecky’s “History of European Morals.”  But all this entirely escaped Miss Althea, who suffered from the erroneous impression that because she was a Beekman and lived in a stone mansion facing Central Park she differed fundamentally not only from the O’Connells but from the Smiths, the Pasquales, the Ivanovitches and the Ginsbergs, all of whom really come of very old families.  Upon this supposed difference she prided herself.

Because she was, in fact, mistaken and because the O’Connells shared with the Beekmans and the Ginsbergs a tradition reaching back to a period when revenge was justice, and custom of kinsfolk the only law, Shane O’Connell had sought out Red McGurk and had sent him unshriven to his God.  The only reason why this everyday Bowery occurrence excited any particular attention was not that Shane was an O’Connell but that McGurk was the son of a political boss of much influence and himself one of the leaders of a notorious cohort of young ruffians who when necessary could be relied upon to stuff a ballot box or otherwise to influence public opinion.  As Red was a mighty man in Gideon, so his taking off was an event of moment, and he was waked with an elegance unsurpassed in the annals of Cherry Hill.

“An’ if ye don’t put the son-of-a----- who kilt me b’y in th’ chair, ye
name’s mud—­see?” the elder McGurk had informed District Attorney
Peckham the next morning.  “I’ve told the cops who done it.  Now you do
the rest—­understand?”

Peckham understood very well.  No one seeing the expression on McGurk’s purple countenance could have failed to do so.

“We’ll get him!  Don’t you worry!” Peckham had assured the desolated father with a manner subtly suggesting both the profoundest sympathy and the prophetic glories of a juridical revenge in which the name of McGurk would be upon every lip and the picture of the deceased, his family, and the home in which they dwelt would be featured on the front page of every journal.  “We’ll get him, all right!”

“See to it that ye do!” commented his visitor meaningly.

Therefore, though no one had seen him commit the crime, word was passed along the line to pick up Shane O’Connell for the murder of Red McGurk.  It mattered not there was no evidence except the report of a muttered threat or two and the lie passed openly the week before.

Everybody knew that Shane had done it, and why; though no one could tell how he knew it.  And because everybody knew, it became a political necessity for Peckham to put him under arrest with a great fanfare of trumpets and a grandiose announcement of the celerity with which the current would be turned through his body.