In a day our country trip was forgotten, and I felt quite resigned at taking up my career where I had dropped it. There was little hope of things in divedom brightening up for some time to come and I was perfectly willing to resume playing the gentleman of leisure, who makes his fluctuating living at the expense of his fellow men.
But the days in the old life were numbered. Only a short space of time more, and I was to be taken from the cesspool by one whom God must have sent solely for this end. Why this was and why I was chosen, neither you or I can answer, but it is enough for me to know that, even were every miracle of old found to be a fraud or sacrilege, the existence of one great, mighty, living God would be proven to me beyond the slimmest shadow of doubt by the miracle he performed on me by His sweetest prophet.
Lord my master, here I thank Thee, not only for having permitted me to live the life of purity and cleanliness, but also for having had me come from out and through the life of the most miserable and sinful. Mysterious are Your ways and Your purposes are not for us to know, but I have suffered, learned and prayed, and I know You will not let it be without avail. And if naught else I can do, give that for her sake, I shall always live in the way she wanted me to live and that was in Your way, God.
THE FRONTIER OF THE NEWER LIFE.
CHAPTER XII.
THE FRONTIER OF THE NEWER LIFE.
Returned to New York from my Philadelphia trip, I immediately fell back into my old ways, which meant for the time being I established myself again as an ornament in and in front of Mike Callahan's dive in Chatham Square. Things in our line of business were growing quieter every day and no one seemed to know when this drought in the former land of plenty would cease.
Our temporary occupation during this lull was to "lay for" easy things and suckers. But even they seemed to grow fewer and, at last, we were reduced to a state of desperation. Then, when hunger and an unquenchable thirst were less and less satisfied, some of the gang overcame their inborn cowardice and turned "crooked." One, two and three would go on secret expeditions and return either with money or easily disposable goods, or would not return at all, at least, not for a long time. The gang could well afford to stand these occasional vacancies in the membership, as more than fifty constituted it and more and more were constantly joining it.
I am not making an untruthful statement and do not wish to tax your belief unduly when I tell you that I did not take active part in these "crooked" doings. My list of misdeeds is so full that one more or less would make but small difference therein, and I have no cause to tell you a lie.
Had it been necessary for me to turn "crooked" I would have surely done so, but it was not necessary.