hand. He takes Tom's grip and they start for the
hotel. I can see them going into a saloon and having a couple of beers,
then going to the hotel, getting a room and supper, and having a good
time at the theatre and elsewhere.

Time goes on. Two hundred doesn't last long. I can see Ed shaking Tom
when the money is running low. I can see Tom counting the little he has
left and going to a furnished room at $1.50 a week. Tom is beginning to
think and worry a bit. He has lost the letter to the merchant his father
gave him, and he doesn't know where to find him. No wonder he is down in
the mouth! He looks for work, but can't get anything to do.

Now, all he has to do is to write home and tell his father the facts,
and he will send back a railroad ticket. But Tom is proud, and he hasn't
reached the point where, like the prodigal, he says, "I will arise and
go to my father." No, he has not as yet reached the end of his rope. I
can see him pawning the watch and chain given him by his parents. This
tides him over for a little while. When that money is gone, his overcoat
goes, and, in fact, everything he has is gone.

He goes down and down, and finally reaches the Bowery, where they all
go in the end. He is down and out, without a cent in his clothes,
walking the streets night after night---"carrying the banner." Sometimes
he slips into a saloon where they have free lunch and picks up a piece
of bread here and a piece of cheese there. Sometimes he is lucky to fill
in on a beef stew, but very seldom.

Now, if that isn't living on husks, I don't know what you call it! His
clothes are getting filthy and he is in despair. How he wishes he had
never left home! He hasn't a friend in the big city, and he doesn't know
which way to turn. He says, "I'll write home." But no, he is too proud.
He wants to go home the same as he left it. And the longer he waits the
worse he will be. No one grows any better, either bodily or morally, by
being on the Bowery. So the quicker they go to some other place the
better.

But the Bowery draws men by its own strange attraction. They get into
the swing of its life, and find the company that misery loves. God
knows there's plenty of it there! I've seen men that you could not drive
from the Bowery. But when a man takes Jesus as his guide he wants to
search for better grounds.

Well, Tom had hit the pace that kills. And one night--about five years
ago--there wandered into the Mission where I was leading