Pray! I can imagine the sneer which surely settled on my face. The name of the Divinity had been used by me daily. But in what manner! Before I reached my teens I was past master of the art of profanity, and my skill in cursing increased as I grew older. And now she had counselled me to pray, to use in reverence the name which had no meaning to me and slipped glibly from my lips at the slightest provocation. Why, it was ridiculous—but was it so very ridiculous?
The two arch enemies began a fierce battle within me. Without any trouble can I remember my walk to Chatham Square that night. Sometimes I halted, leaned up against a lamp post and said: "By Heavens, I think there's a great deal of truth in what she said!" Buoyed up by this assurance I would start afresh, would walk half a block and then again halt to listen to the other voice, which whispered: "Fool, don't listen to women's talk. You are somebody. You are known and feared, and wouldn't be that if you were a goody-goody."
Many men are only feared, while they believe themselves to be respected. That is how it was with me, and that is why my "other" voice did not say "respected," but "feared."
The battle was waged within me until I was almost at Chatham Square. And then a strange thing came to pass. Mike Callahan's place was on the western side of the square. I had come down on that side, but, when on the corner of the square, I deliberately crossed over to the eastern sidewalk, and, from there, surveyed my camping ground.
I stood and looked at the flashily illuminated front of Mike Callahan's dive and wavered between the old-rooted and the new-come influences. It would have been laughable had it not been so pitiful.
Just think, a man, supposedly intelligent and mature, considering himself the martyr of martyrs if he had to forego the "pleasures" of Callahan's dive for one precious night.
The new-come influence was a potent one, yet it was so strange, so inexplicable to me that I could have refused to heed it and would have let my old inclinations persuade me, had I not thought of my good old Bill. The importance of my recent adventure had driven my partner temporarily from my mind. But now I thought of him, remembered that he had been subjected to a long fast by my carelessness and hurried to the attic to make up for my negligence. I found him as expectant and philosophical as ever, and watched him with languid interest while he was munching the scraps I had saved for him. Then it occurred to me that Bill had been deprived of his customary walk with me and had not had a breath of fresh air all day. It also rankled in my mind what she had said about the parks and the Brooklyn Bridge, and, lo and behold, Bill and I found ourselves in the street, bound for City Hall Park, like two eminently respectable citizens intent on getting a little air.
I consoled myself for this evident display of weakness by emphatically resolving to return to Callahan's as soon as Bill should have had his fill of fresh air.
We were comparative strangers to City Hall Park. Every foot of the park and the sidewalks about it had been traveled by my bare feet many years ago, but never had I looked on the leafed oasis in the light of a recreation ground.
We felt a trifle out of place, and, most likely on that account chose the most secluded and unobserved spot for our experimental siesta. The rear stoop of the City Hall, facing the County Court House, was in deep shadow, and there we seated ourselves to test how it felt to be there just to rest.