"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.