She might almost as well have assaulted a tigress.

The woman was larger, stronger, more desperate and more thoroughly given over to evil passions than she.  To thwart her in anything was to rouse her into a fury.  A moment she stood in surprise and bewilderment; in the next, and ere Pinky had time to put herself on guard, she had sprung upon her with a passionate cry that sounded more like that of a wild beast than anything human.  Clutching her by the throat with one hand, and with the other tearing the child from her grasp, she threw the frightened little thing across the room.

“Devil, ha!” screamed the woman; “devil!” and she tightened her grasp on Pinky’s throat, at the same time striking her in the face with her clenched fist.

Like a war-horse that snuffs the battle afar off and rushes to the conflict, so rushed the inhabitants of that foul neighborhood to the spot from whence had come to their ears the familiar and not unwelcome sound of strife.  Even before Pinky had time to shake off her assailant, the door of the hovel was darkened by a screen of eager faces.  And such faces!  How little of God’s image remained in them to tell of their divine origination!—­bloated and scarred, ashen pale and wasted, hollow-eyed and red-eyed, disease looking out from all, yet all lighted up with the keenest interest and expectancy.

Outside, the crowd swelled with a marvelous rapidity.  Every cellar and room and garret, every little alley and hidden rookery, “hawk’s nest” and “wren’s nest,” poured out its unseemly denizens, white and black, old and young, male and female, the child of three years old, keen, alert and self-protective, running to see the “row” side by side with the toothless crone of seventy; or most likely passing her on the way.  Thieves, beggars, pick-pockets, vile women, rag-pickers and the like, with the harpies who prey upon them, all were there to enjoy the show.

Within, a desperate fight was going on between Pinky Swett and the woman from whose hands she had attempted to rescue the child—­a fight in which Pinky was getting the worst of it.  One garment after another was torn from her person, until little more than a single one remained.

“Here’s the police! look out!” was cried at this juncture.

“Who cares for the police?  Let ’em come,” boldly retorted the woman.  “I haven’t done nothing; it’s her that’s come in drunk and got up a row.”

Pushing the crowd aside, a policeman entered the hovel.

“Here she is!” cried the woman, pointing toward Pinky, from whom she had sprung back the moment she heard the word police.  “She came in here drunk and got up a row.  I’m a decent woman, as don’t meddle with nobody.  But she’s awful when she gets drunk.  Just look at her—­been tearing her clothes off!”

At this there was a shout of merriment from the crowd who had witnessed the fight.

“Good for old Sal! she’s one of ’em!  Can’t get ahead of old Sal, drunk or sober!” and like expressions were shouted by one and another.