The White Moll

Name: The White Moll
Author: Frank L. Packard

by Frank L. Packard

Pages: about 313
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 5.7 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 3.2 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

It was like some shadowy pantomime: The dark mouth of an alleyway thrown into murky relief by the rays of a distant street lamp...the swift, forward leap of a skulking figure...a girl's form swaying and struggling in the man's embrace. Then, a pantomime no longer, there came a half threatening, half triumphant oath; and then the girl's voice, quiet, strangely contained, almost imperious:
“Now, give me back that purse, please. Instantly!” The man, already retreating into the alleyway, paused to fling back a jeering laugh.
The girl turned her head so that the rays of the street lamp, faint as they were, fell full upon her, disclosing a sweet, oval face, out of which the dark eyes gazed steadily at the man.
And suddenly the man leaned forward, staring for an instant, and then his hand went awkwardly to touch his cap.
“De White Moll!” he mumbled deferentially. He pulled the peak of his cap down over his eyes in a sort of shame-faced way, as though to avoid recognition, and, stepping nearer, returned the purse.
“'Scuse me, miss,” he said uneasily. “I didn't know it was youse--honest to Gawd, I didn't! 'Scuse me, miss. Good-night!”
For a moment the girl stood there motionless, looking down the alleyway after the retreating figure. From somewhere in the distance came the rumble of an elevated train. It drowned out the pound of the man's speeding footsteps; it died away itself--and now there was no other sound. A pucker, strangely wistful, curiously perturbed, came and furrowed her forehead into little wrinkles, and then she turned and walked slowly on along the deserted street.
The White Moll! She shook her head a little. The attack had not unnerved her. Why should it? It was simply that the man had not recognized her at first in the darkness. The White Moll here at night in one of the loneliest, as well as one of the most vicious and abandoned, quarters of New York, was as safe and inviolate as--as--She shook her head again.

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The White Moll

From the opening

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