{"product_id":"2940013668355","title":"The Return of the Mucker","description":"BILLY BYRNE squared his broad shoulders and filled his deep\u003cbr\u003elungs with the familiar medium which is known as air in\u003cbr\u003eChicago.  He was standing upon the platform of a New York\u003cbr\u003eCentral train that was pulling into the La Salle Street Station,\u003cbr\u003eand though the young man was far from happy something in\u003cbr\u003ethe nature of content pervaded his being, for he was coming\u003cbr\u003ehome.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter something more than a year of world wandering and\u003cbr\u003estrange adventure Billy Byrne was coming back to the great\u003cbr\u003eWest Side and Grand Avenue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow there is not much upon either side or down the center\u003cbr\u003eof long and tortuous Grand Avenue to arouse enthusiasm,\u003cbr\u003enor was Billy particularly enthusiastic about that more or less\u003cbr\u003esqualid thoroughfare.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe thing that exalted Billy was the idea that he was\u003cbr\u003ecoming back to SHOW THEM.  He had left under a cloud and\u003cbr\u003ewith a reputation for genuine toughness and rowdyism that\u003cbr\u003ehas seen few parallels even in the ungentle district of his birth\u003cbr\u003eand upbringing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA girl had changed him.  She was as far removed from\u003cbr\u003eBilly's sphere as the stars themselves; but Billy had loved her\u003cbr\u003eand learned from her, and in trying to become more as he\u003cbr\u003eknew the men of her class were he had sloughed off much of\u003cbr\u003ethe uncouthness that had always been a part of him, and all\u003cbr\u003eof the rowdyism.  Billy Byrne was no longer the mucker.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had given her up because he imagined the gulf between\u003cbr\u003eGrand Avenue and Riverside Drive to be unbridgeable; but he\u003cbr\u003estill clung to the ideals she had awakened in him.  He still\u003cbr\u003esought to be all that she might wish him to be, even though\u003cbr\u003ehe realized that he never should see her again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGrand Avenue would be the easiest place to forget his\u003cbr\u003esorrow--her he could never forget.  And then, his newly\u003cbr\u003eawakened pride urged him back to the haunts of his former\u003cbr\u003elife that he might, as he would put it himself, show them.  He\u003cbr\u003ewanted the gang to see that he, Billy Byrne, wasn't afraid to\u003cbr\u003ebe decent.  He wanted some of the neighbors to realize that he\u003cbr\u003ecould work steadily and earn an honest living, and he looked\u003cbr\u003eforward with delight to the pleasure and satisfaction of rubbing\u003cbr\u003eit in to some of the saloon keepers and bartenders who\u003cbr\u003ehad helped keep him drunk some five days out of seven, for\u003cbr\u003eBilly didn't drink any more.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47163363393776,"sku":"2940013668355","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013668355_p0.jpg?v=1763584111","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013668355","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}