In the frame of a gruesome doorway she stood for a moment cursing them.  Her hair straggled, giving her crimson features a look of insanity.  Her great fists quivered as she shook them madly in the air.

The urchins made terrific noises until she turned and disappeared.  Then they filed quietly in the way they had come.

The woman floundered about in the lower hall of the tenement house and finally stumbled up the stairs.  On an upper hall a door was opened and a collection of heads peered curiously out, watching her.  With a wrathful snort the woman confronted the door, but it was slammed hastily in her face and the key was turned.

She stood for a few minutes, delivering a frenzied challenge at the panels.

“Come out in deh hall, Mary Murphy, damn yeh, if yehs want a row.  Come ahn, yeh overgrown terrier, come ahn.”

She began to kick the door with her great feet.  She shrilly defied the universe to appear and do battle.  Her cursing trebles brought heads from all doors save the one she threatened.  Her eyes glared in every direction.  The air was full of her tossing fists.

“Come ahn, deh hull damn gang of yehs, come ahn,” she roared at the spectators.  An oath or two, cat-calls, jeers and bits of facetious advice were given in reply.  Missiles clattered about her feet.

“What deh hell’s deh matter wid yeh?” said a voice in the gathered gloom, and Jimmie came forward.  He carried a tin dinner-pail in his hand and under his arm a brown truckman’s apron done in a bundle.  “What deh hell’s wrong?” he demanded.

“Come out, all of yehs, come out,” his mother was howling.  “Come ahn an’ I’ll stamp her damn brains under me feet.”

“Shet yer face, an’ come home, yeh damned old fool,” roared Jimmie at her.  She strided up to him and twirled her fingers in his face.  Her eyes were darting flames of unreasoning rage and her frame trembled with eagerness for a fight.

“T’hell wid yehs!  An’ who deh hell are yehs?  I ain’t givin’ a snap of me fingers fer yehs,” she bawled at him.  She turned her huge back in tremendous disdain and climbed the stairs to the next floor.

Jimmie followed, cursing blackly.  At the top of the flight he seized his mother’s arm and started to drag her toward the door of their room.

“Come home, damn yeh,” he gritted between his teeth.

“Take yer hands off me!  Take yer hands off me,” shrieked his mother.

She raised her arm and whirled her great fist at her son’s face.  Jimmie dodged his head and the blow struck him in the back of the neck.  “Damn yeh,” gritted he again.  He threw out his left hand and writhed his fingers about her middle arm.  The mother and the son began to sway and struggle like gladiators.

“Whoop!” said the Rum Alley tenement house.  The hall filled with interested spectators.

“Hi, ol’ lady, dat was a dandy!”