Not long ago I met a man at a rescue mission where I frequently attend, who, as we say on the Bowery, "eats whiskey" and almost subsists on it. He was homeless, or rather bedless, his home being forfeited long ago, and received his "bed ticket" from the missionary after his confession of salvation. I happened to meet him on the following day; and his breath was strong with the perfume of cloves. He told me he liked to chew them, which is rather an odd hobby.
Far be it from me to slander any one, yet the perfume of cloves can hide a multitude of aromas.
Sublime is the aim of the rescue missions, but how and whether they accomplish this aim is another story, which we might discuss at some future time.
Another habit, which also still clung to me, was my late rising. It was noon before Bill and I appeared on the street on our way to the restaurant. After breakfast we walked over to City Hall Park, looked gravely and wisely at the spot where we had sat the night before, and then we permitted ourselves the luxury of a day dream.
Dreams are funny fellows, always playing pranks. This dream kept me embraced until I found myself in the immediate neighborhood of the school where a certain little professor was engaged in leading the infantile mind through the labyrinth of the A, B, C's.
Soon they began to stumble out with noisy, natural, healthy laughter and hubbub, and the dingy street became one long, squirming stream of babbling children. I could not help looking back on my boyish years and tried to imagine how it would feel to have your slate and books under your arm. There were many youngsters before me and I kept staring at them to draw the picture in my mind's eye of how I would have looked coming from school, my school.
At last she came!
As I saw the little tots, her pupils, cling to her skirts from very love of her, I felt a light, an oriflamme, within my breast, and knew that I would have to fight a harder fight than ever before; that I would have to conquer myself before I would dare to touch the hem of her skirt as those children. And he who fights, fights best when in the sight of an inspiring emblem. So then I took my sailing flag and nailed it to the mast of purity. It has withstood all sorts of weather. Sometimes it droops, again it flies defiantly. But, whatever, it is still safely on the mast and will stay there until I strike my colors for the last dipping to my God above.
I crossed the street and put myself in her way so that she could not help seeing me.
"Oh, Mr. Kildare!"