Holmes, however, but his son.'

"'Will you let me take you by the hand, governor?' he whispered, hoarsely.
'Not for the kindness you've shown me here, but for the service your old man
did me. I am Nervy Jim the Snatcher.'

"'Service?' said I, with a laugh. 'You consider it a service to be landed in
Reading gaol?'

"'They was the only happy years I ever had, sir,' he answered, impetuously.
'The keepers was good to me. I was well fed; kept workin' hard at an honest
job, pickin' oakum; the gaol was warm, and I never went to bed by night or
got up o' mornin's worried over the question o' how I was goin' to get the
swag to pay my rent. Compared to this'--with a wave of his hand at the
raging of the elements along Broadway--'Reading gaol was heaven, sir; and
since I was discharged I've been a helpless, hopeless wanderer, sleepin' in
doorways, chilled to the bone, half-starved, with not a friendly eye in
sight, and nothin' to do all day long and all night long but move on when
the Bobbies tell me to, and think about the happiness I'd left behind me
when I left Reading. Was you ever homesick, governor?'

"I confessed to an occasional feeling of nostalgia for old Picadilly and the
Thames.

"'Then you know, says he, 'how I feels now in a strange land, dreamin' of my
comfortable little cell at Reading; the good meals, the pleasant keepers,
and a steady job with nothin' to worry about for ten short years. I want to
go back, governor--I want to go back!'

"Well," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I was pretty nearly floored, but
when the door of the saloon blew open and a blast of sharp air and a furry
of snow came in, I couldn't blame the poor beggar--certainly any place in
the world, even a jail, was more comfortable than Broadway at that moment. I
explained to him, however, that as far as Reading gaol was concerned, I was
powerless to help him.

"'But there's just as good prisons here, ain't there, governor?' he pleaded.

"'Oh yes,' said I, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. 'Sing Sing is
a first-class, up-to-date penitentiary, with all modern improvements, and a
pretty select clientele.'

"'Couldn't you put me in there, governor?' he asked, wistfully. 'I'll do
anything you ask, short o' murder, governor, if you only will.'

"'Why don't you get yourself arrested as a vagrant?' I asked. 'That'll give
you three months on Blackwell's Island and will tide you over the winter.'

"'Tain't permanent, governor,' he obj