Still, he was but a brute—a poor, dumb brute.
KNIGHTS ERRANT.
CHAPTER VIII.
KNIGHTS ERRANT.
An episode, which occurred about this time, took me into latitudes and scenes never before dreamed of by me.
As near as I can figure it, the event happened in March, 1893. I admit that in view of the seriousness of the incident my indefiniteness seems strange, but it is typical of my class.
Since I have moved in different spheres I have often wondered at this and tried to explain it to myself. No other explanation seems to be at hand except that this disregard of dates, of time and place is a characteristic of the world Bohemian, whether on the Bowery or in the Tenderloin. Recently I had an illustration of this.
In preparing a story, treating of a certain phase of Bowery life for a newspaper, I bethought myself of a man, who had been closely connected with the very occurrence I intended to mention. I sent for him and he came to my house, willing to tell me all he could remember. He recalled it all and graphically described every detail.
At last I asked him to tell me the year and month in which it had happened. That caused an immediate halt in the narrative and many minutes were spent in serious reflection. It was of no avail. We fixed the date of it to be in "about" such and such a year, and such and such a month, but it was impossible to accurately settle the year and month.
And this in view of the fact that the occurrence had been a cold-blooded murder, that my informant had been an eye-witness of it and had spent several months in the House of Detention.