Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1895-02-28

In the harbOr Of steady employment,
which assured him at least a place to
sleep and three square" meals a day,
and that was luxury at that time to
Pietro.
However conscientious one might be
In giving each person his due, 1t would
be quite impossible to say that the
man who befriended him was actuated
in so doing by unselfish motives. He
thought he saw In the good-looking con
flding boy an apprentice whose will
could be nodded by his own until he
developed into just such a tool as he
required in his schemlng and he grasp
Cd the opportunity Of becoming mod
eler Of moral Statdary. He was a skill
fIll artesan. Under his instructions,
the theoretical part Of which was al
ways aptly illustrated by the CORE
spending practice, Pietro mastered the
underlying principles Of this new
branch Of education with a readiness
that gave his employer unbounded sat
isfaction and which would have made
a moralist quail before the evidences
Of latent sin which might have lain
dormant In that boys nature, had not
lust such circumstances combined to
draw It out. -"
Bih Billings business was decidedly
shady. There were several branches
Of 1t, each when looked at alone APP
pearing to be a little worse than the
others. He managed q hotel, which
presented as reputable front as any
other rooming house Of its class In that
part Of the town, but there were scores
Of people who had put up for time
at the Billings hostelry who could tell
tales of impositiOns and barefaced rob-
berries perpetrated that ought to land
any man behind prison bars. There
was a saloon connected with the estab-
lishment. The proprietor paid the city
the required license and threw people
out when they got too drunk to buy
any more, just as other well regulated
places did, but behind that cloak of
ultra-respectability there were more
crooked deals Matched and consum-
mated than any other rendezvous In
town could lay claim to. People gam
bled there, too. Not the barrel-hOuse
contingent, but the upper crust Of the
gaming fraternity. 1t was an excep-
tionally safe place, for Bif Billings
had lately commenced to nourish po-
litical aspirations and, though more
than one person who had been au-
thorized to protect the public and up
hold morality knew the details Of out
rageous deeds performed there that
would put more than one universally
denounced dive to shame, his hand
and-glove relations with the powers
that be exempted him from the incon-
veniences Of police surveillance and
his patrons came and went without
fear Of molestation.
In the rear of the building between
the hotel above and the gaming-house
below was a den about six feet high,
reached by means of an outside stair
way leading up from the alley, and
that was let out to as many Italians
as could pack themselves away in the
loathsome quarters. Billings never in
uuired how many human bodies took
refuge in the hot-bed Of filth and in
| iuuity. There was a foreman Of the
gang, who regularly paid the stipulated
amount Of the rent when due, and that
was all their landlord cared for.
The manipulating Of these concerns
was the work into which Antonio
Pietro was initiated, and so readily
did he assimilate with surrounding con-
ditions that within a month Billings
declared that he couldn't run his bust
ness without him, and laughingly
called him his "side partner" a sobri-
uuet by which he soon became known
to the habitues of Billings place, and
which always chung to him.
There was one infamous vocation
which his master pursued with relig-
ious regularity in which Pietro de-
clined to lend helping hand, and that
was wife-beating. But by dint Of con-
slant practice Billings had reduced
that trade to a fine art, and after
Pietro's first Mortified refusal to put
in a blow or two, whenever needed,
he did not ask for his services in that
line again.
Billings wife was not a particularly
| good woman. It would have been con-
trary to all the laws of nature to ex-
pect her to walk through the fiery fur
mace Of sin for fifteen years with Bill
ings and his confreres and come out
holding fast to much goodness. But
| for all her shortcomings there was a
fascination in her presence that drew
Pietro to her in a strange, irresistible
fashion. 1t was not so much any dis
tinct individuality Of her own which
called forth his homage as the fact
that she was q woman, representa-
tive Of the same sen Of which his
mother stood forth as a splendid type.
Pietro had not been very well tutOred
In some things. and those qualities
which had combined to make his moth
er the perfection Of womanhood he
unconsciously ascribed to her kind in
general.
Billings wife OWNED his deluslon
and humored him in 1t.
~ guess your mother hasn't been
dead lOrgP she hazarded one day in
her rough italian, which she had pick
ed up from one source or another. 1t
was the first direct question she had
asked him concerning his past life,
and that was called forth by the ten
der half-reverential way. In which he
involuntarlly laid his hand on her right
cheek over the cash which Billings
had made that morning.
"A year." he said, filling up in way
he had of doing at times when the
thought of the trial was brought d.
rectly before him. He sat down oppo-
site her at the table, and while he
drank his black coffee he turned auto
biographer.