Sitting on a chair, holding his head in his hands, the man began to sob and cry as only a man whose heart is aching can, and then, as if he could stand it no longer, he rushed madly from the place while she laughed.
“I can make them all quit if they will stay long enough.”
Almost a year later that same man, but dressed and washed and respectable, came downtown one night, and went through all the places upon whose floors he had fallen and slept many a night, looking for the girl who had sung that song.
He found her at three o’clock in the morning on the Bowery.
She was sitting at a table in McGurk’s with two men with whom she had been drinking cheap whiskey for hours.
“I beg your pardon,” said the man, “but are you the young woman who sang a song in a place on James street about a year ago—Annie Laurie it was?”
“I may have, old pal, I’ve sung a lot of songs in my day.”
“Well, you will probably be glad to know that that song was the turning point in my life, and I am now a reformed man. I feel that I owe it to you, and I want to give you some little memento that you can keep.”
As he spoke he pulled a package out of his pocket and handed it to her. With unsteady fingers she unwrapped it and when she had opened the case she saw a gold watch upon which was engraved:
To the singer who saved my life.