le of adapting herself to the extreme of economy now forced upon
us. Anna was taken sick; I was compelled to neglect my work, and was
discharged. Discontent, embarrassment, and poverty resulted. I struggled
to live for six months; but my prospects, my hopes of gaining an honest
living, were gone. I had no money to join the society, and the trade
being dull, could get nothing to do. Fate seemed driving us to the last
stage of distress. One by one our few pieces of furniture, our clothing,
and the few bits of jewelry Anna had presented her at the house in
Mercer street, found their way to the sign of the Three Martyrs. The man
of the eagle face would always lend something on them, and that
something relieved us for the time. I many times thought, as I passed
the house of the Foreign Missions in Centre street, where there was such
an air of comfort, that if Mrs. Abijah Slocum, and the good-natured man
who sat in the chair, and the wise little man in the spectacles, would
condescend to look in at our little place, and instead of always talking
about getting Mr. Singleton Spyke off to Antioch, take pity on our
destitution, what a relief it would be. It would have made more hearts
happy than Mr. Spyke, notwithstanding the high end of his mission, could
have softened in ten years at Antioch.

"Necessity, not inclination, forced Anna back into the house in Mercer
street, when I became her friend, her transient protector. Her hand was
as ready to bestow as her heart was warm and generous. She gave me
money, and was kind to me; but the degraded character of my position
caused me to despond, to yield myself a victim to insidious vice, to
become the associate of men whose only occupation was that of gambling
and 'roping-in' unsuspecting persons. I was not long in becoming an
efficient in the arts these men practiced on the unwary. We used to meet
at the 'Subterranean,' in Church street, and there concoct our mode of
operations. And from this centre went forth, daily, men who lived by
gambling, larceny, picking pockets, counterfeiting, and passing
counterfeit money. I kept Anna ignorant of my associations. Nevertheless
I was forced to get money, for I found her affections becoming
perverted. At times her manner towards me was cold, and I sought to
change it with money.

"While thus pursuing a life so precarious and exciting, I used to look
in at the 'Empire,' in Broadway, to see whom I could 'spot,' as we
called it at the 'Subterra