e mornin' d'ye git up?"

"At the godly hour of necessity," I replied.

"Wal, I hev a pal I want ter interjooce to ye at six."

I met the bouncer and his "pal" at the corner of Broome Street and the
Bowery next morning at the appointed hour.

"Dat's Doc!" said Gar, as he laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.

His friend bowed low and in faultless English, said: "I am more than
pleased to meet you."

"I can give you a pointer on Doc," the big fellow continued. "If ye
tuk a peaner to th' top av a mountain an' let her go down the side
sorter ez she pleases, 'e c'u'd pick up the remains an' put thim
together so's ye w'u'dn't know they'd been apart. Yes, sir; that's no
song an' dance, an' 'e c'u'd play any chune iver invented on it."

Doc laughed and made some explanations. They had a wheezy old organ
in Halloran's dive, and Doc kept it in repair and played occasionally
for them. Doc had a Rip Van Winkle look. His hair hung down his back,
and his clothes were threadbare and green with age. His shoes were
tied to his feet with wire, and stockings he had none. Doc had studied
in a Medical College until the eve of his graduation. Then he slipped
a cog and went down, down, down, until he landed at Halloran's dive.
For twelve years he had been selling penny song-sheets on the streets
and in saloons. He was usually in rags, but a score of the wildest
inhabitants of that dive told me that Doc was their "good angel." He
could play the songs of their childhood, he was kind and gentle, and
men couldn't be vulgar in his presence.

I saw in Doc an unusual man, and was able to persuade him to go home
with me. In a week he was a new man, clothed and in his right mind. He
became librarian of a big church library, and our volunteer organist
at all the Sunday meetings.

After two years of uninterrupted service as librarian, during which
time Doc had been of great service in the bunk-house, I lost him. Five
years later, crossing Brooklyn Bridge on a car, I passed Doc who was
walking in the same direction. At the end of the bridge I planted
myself in front of him. "Doc," I said, "you will never get away from
me again." I took him to New Haven, where he has been ever since.

It is needless to say that several years' work in the midst of such
surroundings gives one a hopeless outlook for that kind of work. In
1891 a movement to establish a municipal lodging house was organized,
and I became part of it. A committee composed largely of