“Maniac Munday!  Maniac Munday!” suddenly echoes and re-echoes through the pit.  She turns her ear, and with a listless countenance listens attentively, then breaks out into an hysterical laugh.  “Yes! ye loathsome denizens.  Like me, no one seeks you, no one cares for you.  I am poor, poor maniac Munday.  The maniac that one fell error brought to this awful end.”  Again she lowers her voice, flings her hair back over her shoulders, and gives vent to her tears.  Like one burdened with sorrow she commences humming an air, that even in this dark den floats sweetly through the polluted atmosphere.  “Well, I am what I am,” she sighs, having paused in her tune.  “That one fatal step-that plighted faith!  How bitter to look back.”  Her bony fingers wander to her lips, which she commences biting and fretting, as her countenance becomes pale and corpse-like.  Again her reason takes its flight.  She staggers to the drenched counter, holds forth her bottle, lays her last sixpence tauntingly upon the board, and watches with glassy eyes the drawing of the poisonous drug.  Meanwhile Mr. Krone, with an imprecation, declares he has power to elect his candidate to the Senate.  The man behind the counter-the man of savage face, has filled the maniac’s bottle, which he pushes toward her with one hand, as with the other he sweeps her coin into a drawer.  “Oh! save poor maniac Munday-save poor maniac Munday!” the woman cries, like one in despair, clutching the bottle, and reels out of the pit.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

In which is presented another picture of the house of the nine Nations.

Pale and hesitating, Brother Spyke says:  “I have no passion for delving into such places; and having seen enough for one night, am content to leave the search for this vile old man to you.”  The valiant missionary addresses Mr. Fitzgerald, who stands with one foot upon the rickety old steps that lead to the second story of the House of the Nine Nations.

This morning, Brother Spyke was ready to do battle with the whole heathen world, to drag it up into light, to evangelize it.  Now he quails before this heathen world, so terribly dark, at his own door.

“You have, sir,” says the detective, “seen nuthin’ as yet.  The sights are in these ’ere upper dens; but, I may say it, a body wants nerve.  Some of our Aldermen say ye can’t see such sights nowhere else.”

The missionary replies, holding tenaciously to his umbrella, “That may be true; but I fear they will be waiting me at home.”  Again he scans inquiringly into the drenched area of the Points; then bidding the officer good-night, is soon out of sight, on his way into Centre Street.  Reaching the old stoop, the detective touches a spring, and the shattered door opens into a narrow, gloomy passage, along which he gropes his way, over a floor cobbled with filth,