and went into a restaurant to eat, and when I went to pay the
cashier I did not have a cent in my pocket. The boss of the place said
that was an old story. He was not there to feed people for nothing. I
said I had been robbed or lost my money somehow, but he wouldn't believe
me. He wanted his twenty cents, or he would have me arrested. Oh, he was
mad for fair, Mr. Ranney. He got me by my coat-collar and shook me and
said I was a thief, and he finished up by kicking me through the door,
and here I am down on the Bowery homeless."

Another young fellow gone wrong! Could I help him? I urged him to go
back home, but he didn't want to. The night before was pay-night, and he
was always expected to give in his share towards the home expenses, and
now here was his money all gone. What could he do?

I took him around the room and pointed out the hard cases there,
wretched, miserable specimens of men, and asked him if he wanted to be
like them, as he surely would if he went on in the course he was
starting. He said, "Indeed I don't!" "Well, then," I said, "take my
advice and go home. Be a man and face the music. It will mean a scolding
from your father, but take it. Tell them both that you will make up the
money as soon as you get work, and that you are going to be obedient and
good from now on."

At last he said he would go if I would go with him, but I couldn't that
night, for I had a meeting to address. I told him I would give him a
lodging for the night, and we would go up to Washington Heights the next
day. I put him in about as tough a lodging as I could get, for I wanted
him to realize the life he would drift into, told him to meet me at one
o'clock the next day, and said good-night to him.

The next day I met him; we had something to eat, and I asked him how he
had slept. "Oh," he said, "it was something awful! I could not sleep
any, there was such a cursing and drinking and scrapping. Oh, I wish I
was home!"

We went up to Washington Heights, around 165th Street, and found the
place. We got there about six o'clock. I went in and knocked at the
door, which opened very quickly. The mother and father came forward;
they had been crying, I could see that. "Oh, has anything happened to my
boy!" she cried, when I asked if she had a son. "Tell me quick, for
God's sake!" I told them that Eddie was all right, and I called to him.
He came in, and like a manly boy, after kissing his mother, he turned to
his stepfather and said,