apping stuff. Thee and I are a
couple of bums and we know it, but you can forgive us, can't you? We
ought to be ashamed of ourselves, all of us, and that's the truth. We've
been quarreling, too, haven't spoken for a week. Ain't that so, sport?
But it's all right now, eh?"

There were tears in my eyes, too. One couldn't resist him. He had the
power of achieving the tenderest results in the simplest ways. We then
had supper, and breakfast the next morning, all staying and helping,
even to the washing and drying of the dishes, and thereafter for I don't
know how long we were all on the most affectionate terms, and he
eventually died in this sister's home, ministered to with absolutely
restless devotion by her for weeks before the end finally came.

But, as I have said, I always prefer to think of him at this, the very
apex or tower window of his life. For most of this period he was gay and
carefree. The music company of which he was a third owner was at the
very top of its success. Its songs, as well as his, were everywhere. He
had in turn at this time a suite at the Gilsey House, the Marlborough,
the Normandie--always on Broadway, you see. The limelight district was
his home. He rose in the morning to the clang of the cars and the honk
of the automobiles outside; he retired at night as a gang of repair men
under flaring torches might be repairing a track, or the milk trucks
were rumbling to and from the ferries. He was in his way a public
restaurant and hotel favorite, a shining light in the theater managers'
offices, hotel bars and lobbies and wherever those flies of the
Tenderloin, those passing lords and celebrities of the sporting,
theatrical, newspaper and other worlds, are wont to gather. One of his
intimates, as I now recall, was "Bat" Masterson, the Western and now
retired (to Broadway!) bad man; Muldoon, the famous wrestler; Tod Sloan,
the jockey; "Battling" Nelson; James J. Corbett; Kid McCoy; Terry
McGovern--prize-fighters all. Such Tammany district leaders as James
Murphy, "The" McManus, Chrystie and Timothy Sullivan, Richard Carroll,
and even Richard Croker, the then reigning Tammany boss, were all on his
visiting list. He went to their meetings, rallies and district doings
generally to sing and play, and they came to his "office" occasionally.
Various high and mighties of the Roman Church, "fathers" with fine
parishes and good wine cellars, and judges of various municipal courts,
were also of his peculiar w