Seventeen-year-old Tommy Ryan lives with Mrs. O‘Meara, a seamstress, and her teenage son Eddie. Tommy’s exact status is unclear; Mrs. O’Meara’s says he is a friend of her son Eddie and “stays here with us and a finer lad never trod the green earth.” Tommy works in a grocery store and more than pulls his weight around the O’Meara home, but his foster brother Eddie is unemployed and hanging around a pool hall with a gang of teenage thieves led by Mike Hearn, the pool hall owner.