The Pilot remembered that he had sat close to the death-bed of the young motherless son of this same Jack Worth in the room above the saloon. They had been good friends–the big Pilot and the boy. And Jack Worth had loved the boy in a way that only Higgins knew. “Papa,” said the boy, at this time, death being then very near, “I want you to promise me something.” Jack Worth listened. “I want you to promise me, papa,” the boy went on, “that you’ll never drink another drop in all your life.” Jack Worth promised, and kept his promise; and Jack Worth and the preacher had preserved a queer friendship since that night.
“Jack,” said the Pilot, now, “what you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Frank.”
“Aren’t you going to quit this dirty business.”
“I ran a square game in my house, and you know it,” the gambler replied.
“That’s all right, Jack,” Higgins said; “but look here, old man, isn’t little Johnnie ever going to pull you out of this?”
“Maybe, Frank,” was the reply. “I don’t know.”
The gamblers, the bartenders, the little pickpockets are as surely the Pilot’s parishioners as anybody else, and they like and respect him. Nobody is excluded from his ministry. I recall that Higgins was late one night writing in his little room. There came a knock on the door-a loud, angry demand–a forewarning of trouble, to one who knows about knocks (as the Pilot says). Higgins opened, of course, and discovered a big bartender, new to the town–a bigger man than he, and a man with a fighting reputation. The object of the quarrelsome visit was perfectly plain: the preacher braced himself for combat.