The Wife's Young Lover

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Green Street comes snaking furtively out of the quagmire of the slums – a cobbled road not much bigger than an alley with derelict buildings, condemned tenements and warehouses lining either side. It ends at the junction with Broad Street which, although also a slum street, is respectable in comparison with Green and has functioning enterprises and businesses – such as pawn shops and saloons.

In front of one of these saloons, the Golden Garter, young Billy Wilson had set up his shoeshine box. He had considered the location carefully, tempted to work outside the pawn shop because the men who came out of that establishment would have money, having pawned their watches – or someone else's watches, more likely – but Billy had figured that the drunks staggering out of the Golden Garter would be more generous.

Billy was poor. He was a good-looking kid, with crisp hair and a wiry body, but his clothing reflected his penury – a ragged T-shirt and jeans that had been stained with shoe polish. But he was not inordinately poor for that section of the city, where everyone was poor. He was a cheerful lad who whistled while he worked and shined a shoe with dexterity and class.

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