It gradually began to dawn on us that City Hall Park was almost as interesting as the sidewalk in front of Mike Callahan's dive on Chatham Square. A perpetual stream of people crossed our view on their way to and from the Brooklyn Bridge and to and from the Jersey ferries. Very few of them walked leisurely. Most of them seemed in a hurry and all seemed to have a definite purpose. Bill and I were the only two without a purpose.
Ah, no, it is wrong for me to say that. Let me speak only for myself. Bill had a purpose, and a noble one.
My thoughts ran oddly that night. I looked around and saw the people on the benches. Then, as now, the majority of the seats were occupied by homeless men, by "has-beens."
"Well, I am surely better than those tramps," I assured myself with self-satisfied smirk.
Was I better than those tramps? The newer voice gave me the answer. These tramps, useless now, had once been useful, had once worked and earned, but I, almost thirty years of age, couldn't call one day in my life well spent.
It was a wondrous night to us, this night in the shadow of City Hall Park. It was the first night I had given to thought, and found myself at my true estimate. Saints are not made in a day, and I was still hard and callous, but, after my introspection, a feeling took possession of me which very much resembled shame. Instead of returning the way we had come, via Chatham street—now called Park Row—we wandered home by the way of Centre street. We passed the Tombs, the sinister prison for the city's offenders, and Bill and I looked at it musingly. There were many in the cells who were known by me. Many in them could justly call me their accomplice, because I had willingly spent their money with them, knowing, or, at least, suspecting, how it had been gotten. And how long would it be before a cell in there would be but a way station for me before taking the long journey "up the river"?
The mere suggestion of it was shivery and I remarked to Bill that our attic, no matter how humble, was preferable to a sojourn at Sing-Sing.
Then an inspiration came to me, and, to this very day I am making myself believe it came from old Bill. Most likely I am a fool for doing it, but I want to have my old pal have his full share of credit in my reincarnation. The inspiration was: "Why not try and stay in my attic in preference to going to Sing-Sing?" To this came an augmentation: "If able to keep away from the road that leads to prison, it may not always be necessary to stay in an attic. There are more nicely furnished rooms in the city than your cubby-hole on the top floor, friend Kildare."
How can I now, at this long range, analyze my feelings of that critical night? I would have to perform a psychic wonder, and I am not that kind of a magician. But I did not go back to Callahan's, and have never been there since as a participant in the slimy festivities.
Up in our attic Bill and I gave ourselves up to much mutual scrutiny. Some outward change in me must have been noticeable, for Bill watched me most critically.