After something more than a year of world wandering and
strange adventure Billy Byrne was coming back to the great
West Side and Grand Avenue.
Now there is not much upon either side or down the center
of long and tortuous Grand Avenue to arouse enthusiasm,
nor was Billy particularly enthusiastic about that more or less
squalid thoroughfare.
The thing that exalted Billy was the idea that he was
coming back to SHOW THEM. He had left under a cloud and
with a reputation for genuine toughness and rowdyism that
has seen few parallels even in the ungentle district of his birth
and upbringing.
A girl had changed him. She was as far removed from
Billy's sphere as the stars themselves; but Billy had loved her
and learned from her, and in trying to become more as he
knew the men of her class were he had sloughed off much of
the uncouthness that had always been a part of him, and all
of the rowdyism. Billy Byrne was no longer the mucker.
He had given her up because he imagined the gulf between
Grand Avenue and Riverside Drive to be unbridgeable; but he
still clung to the ideals she had awakened in him. He still
sought to be all that she might wish him to be, even though
he realized that he never should see her again.
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