PART IV

_With a Detailed Account of a Dangerous Footpad._

Mac had invited three or four of us to luncheon--Boggs, Lonnegan, Marny, and myself. These feasts were "Dutch" in the strictest sense, the sum total paid being divided, share and share alike, between the host of the day and his guests. That was the custom among the students in Munich and Paris, even at Florian's in Venice, and the custom was still observed. It did away with unpleasant comparisons--Lonnegan's inherited bank-account, for instance, and Woods's income from his rich aunt, who refused him nothing, in contrast to my own and Boggs's annual earnings. The only liberty given to the host of the day was the choice of restaurants. At Maroni's we could get a hot sandwich and a glass of beer for fifteen cents; at Brown's, in Twenty-eighth Street, a chop, a baked potato, and a mug of bass for half of a trade dollar. When some one of the less opulent had sold a picture, and had become temporarily rich over and above the amount due for the month's rent, Lonnegan, or Woods, or Pitkin (Pitkin had a father who could cut off coupons) selected Delmonico's. These occasions were rare, and ever afterward became historic.

This day, it being Mac's turn, he selected Oscar Pusch's, on Fourth Avenue--a modest little beer-house near the corner of Twenty-fourth Street, its only distinguishing mark being a swinging, double shutter door and the advertisement of a brewery in the window. Inside was a long bar drenched with the foam of countless mugs of Hofbrau, facing a line of tables centred by cheap castors and dishes of cold slaw, and flanked at one end by a back room. This last apartment was for the elect. One table was always reserved for the exalted; of this group MacWhirter was High Priest.

Here often at night Mac held forth to an admiring crowd of young painters who believed in his brush and who loved the man who wielded it. When I look back now down the vista of twenty years and see how fine and strong and superb that brush was, how true, how wonderful in color, how much better than any other painter of his time--Barbizon, London, or Dusseldorf--and think of how many lies the resident picture dealer told his patrons to discredit Mac's genius, I always experience a peculiar hotness under my collar-button. It cools off, it is true, whenever I see one of his masterpieces hung to-day on the walls of the redeemed. My anger then turns to a genial warmth, suffusing my cheeks and permeating my being, especially when I learn the sum paid for the smallest product of his brush.

"One of MacWhirter's, sir; one of his choicest; painted in his best period," says this same fraud to-day (the period, remember, when he would say, "What can one expect of the Hudson Rivery School, sir?"), and then the dealer demands a price which, had it been paid in Mac's earlier days, would have resulted in his breaking all students' rules and setting up Johannesburg of '41 instead of the simple steins of the Hofbrau with which Lonnegan, Boggs, and the rest of us were being regaled.

The hospitable and ever alert Oscar did not welcome us this time, but a new waiter, who sprang at Mac as if he had been his lost brother--a joyous sort of waiter, clean-shaven as a priest, ruddy-cheeked, blue-eyed, with short, tan-colored hair sticking straight up on his head, looking as if at some time in his life he had been frightened half out of his wits and had never been able to keep his hair down since.

The appearance of this overjoyed individual produced a peculiar effect on Mac.

"Oh, Mr. Pusch found a place for you at last, did he, Carl?" he burst out. "Glad you're here," and Mac stepped forward and shook the waiter's hand with more than his usual warmth.

Boggs looked at me and winked. What would Mac be doing next?

"Some member of the royal family, Mac?" asked Boggs, when the waiter had left the room to execute Mac's orders.

"No," said Mac, unfolding his napkin, "just plain man."

"I know," said Boggs, "ran off with a soprano at the Imperial Opera House; disinherited by his father; fought a duel with his Colonel on account of her; dismissed from his club; sought refuge in flight to God's free country, where for years he worked in a small cafe on Fourth Avenue. Was known for years as 'Carl' where----"

Mac raised his eyes at Boggs.

"Lively imagination you've got, Boggs. If I were you I----"

"On the death of his father, the late Baron Schweizerkase," continued Boggs in the nasal tone of an exhibitor of wax works, completely ignoring Mac's interruption, "the exile, who was none other than Prince Pumperknickel, returned to his estates, where his beautiful and accomplished wife, though not of royal blood, now dispenses the hospitality of his noble house with all the honors which----"

"Will you shut up, Boggs," cried Lonnegan. "Your tongue goes like an eight-day clock." Then he turned to Mac. "Seems to me I've seen that waiter before--last summer, if I remember. Where was it? Florian's or the Pantheon?"

"No, I don't think so," said Mac. "Carl hasn't been out of the country for two years to my knowledge. Much obliged, Oscar, for giving him a place." This to the proprietor, who was now beaming across the bar at Mac. "You'll find Carl all right," and he nodded toward the waiter, who was again approaching the table.

"Everything suit you, Carl?"

"Oh, yes, yes, Mr. MacWhirter; I was comin' to see you about it, but I just got back from Philadelphy." The man seemed hardly able to keep his arms from around Mac's neck. I've seen a dog sometimes show that peculiar form of trembling joy when brought suddenly into his master's presence after a long absence, but never a man.

Marny now spoke up.

"Tell us about this waiter, Mac."

"There's nothing to tell; just one of my acquaintances, that's all. Some I bow to, some I shake hands with--Carl is one of the last," and Mac nodded and emptied his glass at a single draught, shutting off all discussion. No one knew better than Mac how to avoid a subject on which he preferred to keep silence.

On the way back to the Old Building Marny and I walked together, Lonnegan, Mac, and Boggs behind.

"Something in that waiter Carl," remarked Marny, "or Mac wouldn't have shaken hands with him. These waiters are a queer lot; they're never in the same city more than a year. I drew my chair up to a table in Moscow two years ago in that swell cafe--forget the name--outside of a park, and sat me down, wondering which one of my ragged languages I could use in getting something to eat, when the waiter behind my chair leaned over and said in perfect English, 'What wine, Mr. Marny?' He'd waited at Brown's, on Twenty-eighth Street, for years. Hello! Who's Mac talking to?--a street beggar! Just like him!"

We were crossing the Square now and nearing the Old Building and No. 3. There was evidently some dispute over the beggar, for Mac was apparently defending the woman, while the others were objecting to her asking for alms.

"They've got a password and a signal-call for Mac," continued Boggs; "he never goes to luncheon but there's half a dozen of 'em strung along his route."

We had now reached our companions.

"Did you give that tramp anything, Mac?" burst out Marny.

"Let not your right hand know what your left hand doeth, my boy," answered Mac, with a wave of his hand as he strode along.

"Did he, Lonnegan?" persisted Boggs.

"Yes, and wanted to know where she lived."

"I can tell you where she lives," exploded Boggs. "She lives in a brownstone front somewhere facing the Park. Drives up Riverside every Sunday in her carriage, and all because fools like you, Mac, support her. Only last week a man I know gave some pennies to a woman who was crying with hunger, with two little babes to feed--'For the love of God, kind sir!' and all that sort of thing--and that night, going home from the club, he found her on a doorstep under a gaslight counting out her earnings--all the cents in one pile, all the dimes in another; then the quarters, halves, and so on. She'd earned more money that day than he had. When she saw him she laughed, and went right on with her counting."

Mac was now entering the Building, we following him upstairs, the discussion still going on. Lonnegan insisted that there were city charities that took care of such tramps; Boggs interrupted that they ought to be turned over to the police. Marny thought that there might be some of them deserving, but the chances were that the greater part of them were too lazy to work.

Our heads were now level with the top of the Chinese screen, and the next instant the whole party were inside No. 3 and warming themselves at MacWhirter's wood fire.

Mac hung up his coat, threw some fresh logs on the andirons, swept up the hearth, and dragged up the chairs for his guests alongside of some of the other habitues--Charley Woods among them--who had already arrived and were awaiting our return.

"Mac's been doing the noble act again," Boggs burst out; "that's why we're late. Shook hands with a red-headed waiter named Carl down at Pusch's, who seemed glad enough to eat him up; then he emptied his pockets to a bag of bones outside with a basket--'God knows I haven't eaten anything, kind sir, for three days. Got three children' (Boggs's drawl was inimitable). You know that kind of hag. He would have invited her to dinner if we hadn't been along. If he wasn't a natural born fool with his money it might do Mac some good to prove to him that----"

"You will get left every time, Mac," interrupted Woods from his chair, "over this foolishness of yours." It was never considered rude to interrupt Boggs--not even by Boggs. "Half of these beggars are dead beats. I've had some experience."

"Never 'left' when you're right, Woods," shouted back Mac, who had crossed the room to his basin and was busy washing his brushes.

"It's never 'right,' Mac, to allow yourself to be buncoed; and that's what happened to me last fall," retorted Woods.

Boggs leaned forward in his chair and fixed his eyes on Woods. The buncoing of Charles Wood, Esquire--a man who prided himself on knowing everything--was a story so delicious that not a word of it must be lost. The other men were of the same opinion, for they drew their chairs closer to the blaze, particularly those who had just come out of the keen wind in crossing the Square.

"You don't know, of course, for I have never told you," Woods continued, when every one was settled comfortably; "but when I was real pious--and I was once--I used to oblige my dear old aunt and go down to the Bowery and read to the tramps that were hived in a room rented by the church to which she belonged. I would give them short stories--touch of pathos, broad farce, or dramatic incident, whatever I thought would suit them best--from 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Boots at Holly Tree Inn,' and Hans Breitmann's yarns. I got along pretty well with the Irish, Dutch, and English dialects, but a new story just out at that time, 'That Lass o' Lowrie's,' in the Lancashire dialect, upset me completely. I didn't know how to read it properly, and I couldn't find anyone who could teach me. I tried it there one night, and after making a first-class fizzle of it I suddenly thought that in an audience representing almost every nationality on the globe there might be someone from Lancashire, and so I stepped again to the edge of the platform, told them why I made the inquiry, and invited anyone from that part of England to stand up so that I could see and talk to him. Nobody moved, and I went away determined never to read the story again.

"The next day I was pegging away at my easel--it was when I had my studio over Duncan's grocery store on Fourteenth Street and Union Square, next to Quartley's and Sheldon's rooms--you remember it--when there came a rap at the door, and there stood a young fellow about twenty-five years of age, dressed in a shabby suit of once good clothes. Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man, who had evidently seen better days. I believe that you can always tell when a man has been a gentleman; there is something about the cut of his jib that indicates his blood, no matter how low he may have fallen; something in the quality of his skin, the lines about his nose and the way it is fastened to his face; the way the hair grows on his temples, and its fineness; the rise of the forehead; and the ears--especially the ears--small, well-modelled ears are as true an indication of gentle blood as small, well-turned hands and feet. I have painted too many portraits not to have found this out. This fellow had all these marks.

"He had, moreover, a way of looking you right in the eye without flinching, following yours about like a searchlight without letting go of his hold. His voice, too, was the voice of a man of some refinement--a reed-like voice, like a clarionette, well-modulated, even musical at times, and with an intonation and accent which showed me at once that he was an Englishman.

"'I heard what you said last night about the Lancashire dialect,' he began, 'but I didn't like to stand up to speak to you. I was afraid you might not be satisfied with what I could do for you. But I am in such straits to-day that I couldn't help coming, and so I asked the Superintendent for your address. I don't want any money, but I must have some food; if you will help me you will do a kind act. I am out of money, and I may never get any more from home, so that what you do for me I may not be able to repay. I haven't really had much to eat for nearly a week and my strength is giving out. I could hardly get up your stairs.'

"All this, remember, without giving me a chance to ask him a single question and without stopping to take breath--just as a book agent rattles on--he standing all the time on my door-sill, his hat in his hand, not as a beggar would carry it, but as some well-bred friend who had dropped in for an afternoon call. Good deal in the way a man holds his hat, let me tell you, when you are sizing a stranger up. That's another one of my beliefs.

"I had brought him inside now and he was standing under my skylight, his face and figure making an even better impression on me than when he was in the dark of the doorway.

"'And you speak the Lancashire dialect, of course?' I asked, my eyes now taking in the military curl of his mustache, his broad shoulders and the way his really fine head was set upon them.

"'No,' he answered; 'to tell you the truth, I do not--not to be of any service to you. I know some words, of course, but not many. I ought to be able to speak it perfectly, for my father's place is in the next county; but I have been a good deal away from home. I didn't come for that; I came because you seemed to me last night to be the sort of a man I could talk to; I meet very few of them; I don't like to stop people in the street, and my clothes now are not fit to enter anyone's office, and it would do no good if I did, for I know no one here.'

"'Where have you lived?' I asked.

"'Oh, all over; Australia part of the time, three years in Canada----'

"'You don't look over twenty-five.'

"He dropped his eyes now and looked down at the floor.

"'I wish I was,' he answered slowly; 'I might have done differently. You are wrong, I am thirty-one--will be my next birthday. I was home last summer to see my father, but I only stayed an hour with him. He wouldn't talk to me, so I left and came here.'

"'Why not?'

"'Well, I'd rather not go into that; it's a family matter.'

"'Pretty rough, turning you out, wasn't it?' I was getting interested in him now.

"'No, I can't say that it was. I hadn't been square with him--not the year before.'

"'Well, you were ready to do the decent thing then, I hope?'

"'Yes, but my Governor is a peculiar sort of man that don't forget easily. But he's my father all the same, and so I'd rather keep away than have him hate me. No--please don't ask me anything about it. I don't think he was quite fair, but I'm not going to say so.'

"I had him in a chair now and had laid down my palette and brushes. When a man is thrown out into the world by his father and then refuses to abuse him, or let anybody else do so, there's something inside of him that you can build on.

"I handed him a greenback. 'Go down,' I said, 'on Sixth Avenue and get something to eat and anything else you need for your comfort, and then come back to me.'

"He folded the bill up carefully, put it in his waistcoat pocket, thanked me in a simple, straightforward way, just as any of you would have done had I loaned you an equal amount to tide you over some temporary emergency, and with the bow of a thoroughbred closed my door behind him and went downstairs.

"While he was gone I began unconsciously to let my imagination loose on him. I immediately invested him with all the attributes I had failed to discover in him while he stood hat in hand under my skylight. Some young blood, no doubt, of good family, I said to myself; ran through his allowance, shipped off to Australia, returns and is forgiven. Then more debts, more escapades. Father a choleric old Britisher, who gets purple in the face when he is angry--'Out you go, you dog; never more shall you be son of mine!" You remember George Holland as an irate father of the old school?--same kind of an old sardine. No question, though, but that his son was in hard lines and on the verge of suicide or, what was worse, crime.

"What, then, was my duty under the circumstances? What would my own Governor think of a man who had found me in a similar strait in London, penniless, half-clothed, and hungry, and who had turned me out again into the cold?

"Before I had decided what to do he was back again in my studio looking like a different man. Not only had he been fed, but he was clean-shaven and clean-collared.

"'I took you at your word,' he said. 'I had a bath and bought me a clean collar. Here is the change,' and he handed me back some silver. 'I don't want to promise anything I can't do, and I don't say I'll pay it back, for I may not be able to, but I'll try my best to do so. Good-by, and thank you again.'

"'Hold on,' I said. 'Sit down, and let me talk to you.' Now right here, gentlemen, I want to tell you"--Woods swept his eye around the circle as he spoke, then rose to his feet as if to give greater emphasis to what he was about to say, his round bullet-head, eye-glasses, and immaculate shirt collar glistening in the overhead light--"I want to tell you right here that the buying of that clean collar and the return of the change settled the matter for me. I'm a student of human nature, as most of you know, and I have certain fixed rules to guide me which never fail. My duty was clear; I would play the Good Samaritan for all I was worth. I wouldn't cross over and ask him how the cripple was getting on; I'd walk down both sides of the street, call an ambulance, lift him in to a down-covered cot run on C springs, and trundle him off to flowery beds of ease or whatever else I could scrape up that was comforting. Now listen--and, Mac, I want you to take all this in, for I am telling this yarn for your special benefit.

"That same afternoon I took him up to my rooms--I was living with my aunt then up on Murray Hill--opened up my wardrobe, pulled out a shirt, underwear, socks, shoes, cut-away coat, waistcoat, and trousers; gave him a scarf, and then to add a touch to his whole get-up I picked a scarf-pin from my cushion and stuck it in myself. Next I handed him a cigar, opened up a bottle of Scotch, and after dinner--my aunt was dining out, and we had the table to ourselves--sat up with him till near midnight, he and I talking together like any other two men who had met for the first time and who had, to their delight, found something in common.

"Nor would any of you have known the difference had you happened to drop in upon us. No reference, of course, was made to his condition or to the way in which we had met. He was clean, well-dressed, well-mannered, perfectly at ease, and entirely at home. You could see that by the way in which he shadowed his wine-glass as a sign to the waiter not to refill it; passed the end of his cigar toward me that I might snip it with the cutter attached to my watch-chain, having none of his own, of course--a fact he made no comment upon; did everything, in fact, down to the smallest detail (and I watched and studied him pretty closely) that any one of you would have done under similar circumstances; all of which proved his birth and breeding, and all of which, you will admit, no man not born to it can acquire and not be detected by one who knows.

"My idea was--and this is another one of my theories--that you can restore a man's energies only when you restore his self-respect, and I intended to prove my theory on this Englishman. What I was after was first to bring him back to his old self--he taking his place where he belonged, shutting out the hideous nightmare that was pursuing him--and then get him a situation where he could be self-sustaining. This done, I proposed to write to his father and patch it up somehow between them, and the next time I went abroad we would go together and kill the fatted calf, haul in the Yule log, summon the tenants, build triumphal arches, and all that sort of thing.

"The following morning promptly at ten o'clock he rapped at my studio door. Pitkin saw him and thought he had come to buy out the studio, he was so well dressed--you remember him, Pit?"

Pitkin shook his head and smiled.

"Then commenced the hunt for work, and I tell you it was hard sledding; but I stuck at it, and at the end of the week old Porterfield gave him a position as entry clerk in his foreign department. During all that week he was spending his time between my studio and my aunt's, I looking after his expenditures--not much, only a few dollars a day. Every evening we dined at home, and every evening we roamed the world: mountain climbing, pig sticking, pheasant shooting in Devonshire; who won the Derby, and why; English politics, English art, the tariff--every topic under the sun that I knew anything about and a lot I didn't, he leading or following in the talk, his eyes fixed on mine, his rich, musical voice filling the room, his handsome, well-bred body comfortably seated in my aunt's easiest chair.

"And now comes the most interesting part of this story. The afternoon before he was to present himself at Porterfield's, about five o'clock--an hour before I reached home--he rang my aunt's front-door bell; told the servant that I had been called suddenly out of town for the night and had sent him post haste in a cab for my portmanteau and overcoat. Then he tripped upstairs to my apartment, waited beside the servant until she had stowed away in my best Gladstone my dress-suit, shirt with its links and pearl studs, collars--everything, even to my patent-leather shoes; and then, while she was out of the room in search of my overcoat, emptied into his pockets all my scarf-pins, my silver brandy-flask, and a lot of knick-knacks on my bureau, took the coat on his arm, preceded her leisurely downstairs, she carrying the bag, stepped into the cab, _and I haven't seen him since_!"

* * * * *

"There, Mac, that yarn is told for your especial benefit. What do you think of it?"

"I think you're all white, Woods, and I'm glad to know you," cried Mac as he grasped the painter's hand and shook it warmly.

"Yes, but what do you think of that cur of an Englishman?"

"I think he'll live to see the day he'll regret the mean trick he played you," answered Mac; "but that doesn't prove your contention that all beggars are frauds."

"Did you try to catch him?" interrupted Boggs.

"No, I was too hurt. I didn't mind the money or the clothes. What I minded was the way in which I had squandered my personality. The only thing I did do was to tell Captain Alec Williams of our precinct about him.

"'Smooth-talking fellow?' Williams asked; 'had a scrap with his father? Light-blue eyes and a little turned-up mustache? Yes, I know him--slickest con' man in the business. We've got his mug in our collection; show it to you some day, if you come;' and _he did_."

"And the great reader of human nature didn't go to London and build arches and kill the fatted calf, after all," remarked Lonnegan, with a wink at Boggs.

"No," retorted Boggs; "he could have suicided himself at home with less trouble."

"Laugh on, you can't hurt me! I'm immune," said Woods. "I learned my lesson that time, and I've graduated. I'm not practising any theories, old or new; I'm doing missionary work instead, pointing out and running down dead beats wherever I see them. No more men's night meetings for me, no more widows with twins--no nothing. When I've got anything to give I hand it to my aunt. It isn't a pleasant yarn--it's one on me every time. I only told it to Mac so he could save his money."

"I'm saving it, Woods--save it every day; got a lot of small banks all over the place that pay me compound interest. Now I'll tell _you_ a yarn, and I want you fellows to listen and keep still till I get through. If there's any doubts, Boggs, of your releasing your grasp on your talking machine, I'll take your remarks now. All right, enough said. Now hand me that tobacco, Lonnegan, and one of you fellows move back so I can get up closer, where you can all hear. This story, remember, Woods, is for you."

When Mac talks we listen. The story, whatever it may be, always comes straight from his heart.

"One cold, snowy night--so cold, I remember, that I had to turn up my coat collar and stuff my handkerchief inside to keep out the driving sleet--I turned into Tenth Street out of Fifth Avenue on my way here. It was after midnight--nearly one o'clock, in fact--and with the exception of the policeman on our beat--and I had met him on the corner of the Avenue--I had not passed a single soul since I had left the club. When I got abreast of the long iron railing I caught sight of the figure of a man standing under the gaslight. He wore a long ulster, almost to his feet, and a slouch hat. At sound of my footsteps he shrank back out of the light and crouched close to the steps of one of those old houses this side of the long wall. His movements did not interest me; waiting for somebody, I concluded, and doesn't want to be seen. Then the thought crossed my mind that it was a bad night to be out in, and that perhaps he might be suffering or drunk, a conclusion I at once abandoned when I remembered how warmly he was clad and how quickly he had sprung into the shadow of the steps when he heard my approach--all this, of course, as I was walking toward him. That I was in any danger of being robbed never crossed my mind. I never go armed, and never think of such things. It's the fellow who sees first who escapes, and up to this time I had watched his every move.

"When I got abreast of the steps he rose on his feet with a quick spring and stood before me.

"'I'm hungry,' he said in a low, grating voice. 'Give me some money; I don't mean to hurt you, but give me some money, quick!'

"I threw up my hands to defend myself and backed to the lamp-post so that I could see where to hit him best, trying all the time to get a view of his face, which he still kept concealed by the brim of his slouch hat.

"'That's not the way to ask for it,' I answered. I would have struck him then only for the tones of his voice, which seemed to carry a note of suffering which left me irresolute.

"He was edging nearer and nearer, with the movement of a prize-fighter trying to get in a telling blow, his long overcoat concealing the movements of his legs as thoroughly as his slouch hat did the features of his face. Two thoughts now flashed through my mind: Should I shout for the policeman, who could not yet be out of hearing, or should I land a blow under his chin and tumble him into the gutter.

"All this time he was muttering to himself: 'I'm crazy, I know, but I'm starving; nobody listens to me. This man's got to listen to me or I'll kill him and take it away from him.'

"I had gathered myself together and was about to let drive when he grabbed me around the waist; we both slipped on the ice and fell to the pavement, he underneath and I on top. I had my knee on his chest now, and was trying to get my fingers into his shirt collar to choke the breath out of him, when the buttons on his ulster gave way. I let go my hold and sprang up. The man was naked to his shoes, except for a pair of ragged cotton drawers!

"'Don't kill me,' he cried, 'don't kill me.' He was sobbing now, hat off, his face in the snow, all the fight out of him.

"I know a hungry man when I see him; been famished myself, wolfish and desperate once--and this man was hungry.

"'Put on your hat, button up your coat,' I said, 'and come with me.'"

"Bully for you, Mac; that's the kind of talk," cried Boggs. "Waltzed him right down to the police station, didn't you?"

"No, I brought him to this very room, sat him down in that very chair where you sit, Boggs," answered Mac, "and before this very fire. He followed me like a homeless dog that you meet in the street, never speaking, keeping a few steps behind; waited until I had unlocked the street door, held it back for me to pass through; mounted the flight of steps behind me--the light is out, as you know, at that hour, and I had to scratch a match to find my way; remained motionless inside this room until I had turned on the gas, when I found him standing by that screen over there, a dazed expression on his face--like a man who had fallen overboard and been picked up by a passing ship.

"He had been discharged from his last place because some drunken young men had lost their money in a bar-room and had accused him of taking it. For some weeks he had slept in a ten-cent lodging-house. Two days before someone had stolen his clothes, all but his overcoat, which was over him. Since that time he had been walking around half-naked.

"'Pull that coat off,' I said, 'and put on these,' and I handed him some underwear and a suit of sketching clothes that hung in my closet. 'And now drink this,' and I poured out a spoonful of whiskey--all he needed on an empty stomach.

"When he was warm and dry--this did not take many minutes--we started downstairs again and over to Sixth Avenue. Jerry's screens and blinds were shut, but his lights were still burning; some fellows were having a game of poker in the back room.

"'Got anything to eat, Jerry?' I asked.

"'Yes, Mr. MacWhirter; a cold ham and some hot chowder, if they ain't turned off the steam. Pretty good chowder, too, this week. What'll it be--for one or two?'

"'For one, Jerry.'

"I left him alone for a while sitting at one of Jerry's tables, his hungry, eager eyes watching every movement of the old man, as a starved cat watches the bowl of milk you are about to place before it.

"When he had devoured everything Jerry had given him, I moved to the bar, poured out half a glass of whiskey from one of Jerry's bottles, waited until he had swallowed it, and then sent him upstairs to sleep in one of Jerry's beds."

"And that was the last you ever saw of him, of course," broke out Woods, with a laugh.

"No; saw him every day for a month, till he got work. Saw him again to-day at Pusch's. He waited on us. It was Carl."