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up when things went to smash. Some fellows from Chicago had come down and there was trouble at the place where Dad worked. Molly never did find out what it was, only a couple of big men came to the house one night about two o’clock and Molly knew they were cops and she went all weak, thinking Dad had done something and they wanted him but he had always told her that the way to deal with cops was to smile at them, act dumb, and give them an Irish name.
    One said, “You Denny Cahill’s daughter?” Molly said yes. He said, “I got some mighty tough news for you, kid. It’s about your dad.” That was when Molly felt her feet slip on glass, like the world had suddenly tilted and it was slippery glass and she was falling off it into the dark and would fall and fall forever because there was no end to the place where she was falling.
    She just stood there and she said, “Tell me.”
    The cop said, “Your dad’s been hurt, girlie. He’s hurt real bad.” He wasn’t like a shamus now; he was more like the sort of man who might have a daughter himself. She went up close to him because she was afraid of falling.
    She said, “Is Dad dead?” and he nodded and put his arm around her and she didn’t remember anything more for a while, only she was in the hospital when she came to and somehow she was all groggy and sleepy and she thought she had been hurt and kept asking for Dad and a cross nurse said she had better keep quiet and then she remembered and Dad was dead and she started to scream and it was like laughing, only it felt horrible and she couldn’t stop and then they came and stuck her arm with a hype gun and she went out again and it was that way for a couple of times and finally she could stop crying and they told her she would have to get out because other people needed the bed.
    Molly’s grandfather, “Judge” Kincaid, said she could live with him and her aunt if she would take a business course and get a job in a year and Molly tried but she couldn’t ever get it into her head somehow, although she could remember past performances of horses swell. The Judge had a funny way of looking at her and several times he seemed about to get friendly and then he would chill up. Molly tried being nice to him and calling him Granddad but he didn’t like that and once, just to see what would happen, she ran up to him when he came in and threw her arms around his neck. He got terribly mad that time and told her aunt to get her out of the house, he wouldn’t stand having her around.
    It was terrible without Dad to tell her things and talk to and Molly wished she had died along with Dad. Finally she got a scholarship to the dancing school and she worked part time there with the young kids and Miss La Verne, who ran the school, let her stay with her. Miss La Verne was very nice at first and so was her boy friend, Charlie, who was a funny-looking man, kind of fat, who used to sit and look at Molly and he reminded her of a frog, the way he used to spread his fingers out on his knees, pointing in, and pop his eyes.
    Then Miss La Verne got cross and said Molly better get a job, but Molly didn’t quite know how to begin and finally Miss La Verne said, “If I get you a job will you stick with it?” Molly promised.
    It was a job with a carny. There was a Hawaiian dance show, what they called a kooch show—two other girls and Molly. The fellow who ran it and did the talking was called Doc Abernathy. Molly didn’t like him a bit and he was always trying to make the girls. Only Jeannette, one of the dancers, and Doc were steady and Jeannette was crazy-mad jealous of the other two. Doc used to devil her by horsing around with them.
    Molly always liked Zeena, who ran the mental act in the Ten-in-One show across the midway. Zeena was awfully nice and she knew more about life and people than anybody Molly had ever met except Dad. Zeena had Molly bunk in with her, when she stayed in hotels, for company, because Zeena’s husband