he winter passed
away and the summer came, and one day on Fifth Avenue Andy met old man
Sanders, whom he tried to avoid, because the recollections he brought
up were bitter ones; but Sanders buttonholed him and told him he had
been reading about his getting the Bennett medal, and insisted on his
taking a drink with him.

"And, by the way," said Sanders, just as Andy thought he had finally
succeeded in shaking him off, "do you remember Agnes Carroll? It seems
she was married to a drunken, good-for-nothing lout, who beat her.
Well, he took a glass too much one night, and walked off a ferry-boat
into the East River. Drink is a terrible thing, isn't it? They say the
paddle-wheels knocked the--"

"And his wife?" gasped Andy.

"She's with us yet," said Sanders. "We're at the Bijou this week. Come
in and see the piece."

Brady, the stage manager, waved a letter at the acting manager.

"Letter from Carroll," he said. "Sends in her notice. Going to leave
the stage, she says; going to get married again. She was a good girl,"
he added with a sigh, "and she sang well enough, but she couldn't do
the dance steps a little bit."

A LEANDER OF THE EAST RIVER

"Hefty" Burke was one of the best swimmers in the East River. There
was no regular way open for him to prove this, as the gentlemen of the
Harlem boat-clubs, under whose auspices the annual races were given,
called him a professional, and would not swim against him. "They won't
keep company with me on land," Hefty complained, bitterly, "and they
can't keep company with me in the water; so I lose both ways." Young
Burke held these gentlemen of the rowing clubs in great contempt, and
their outriggers and low-necked and picturesque rowing clothes as
well. They were fond of lying out of the current, with the oars pulled
across at their backs for support, smoking and commenting audibly upon
the other oarsmen who passed them by perspiring uncomfortably, and
conscious that they were being criticised. Hefty said that these
amateur oarsmen and swimmers were only pretty boys, and that he could
give them two hundred yards start in a mile of rough or smooth water
and pass them as easily as a tug passes a lighter.

He was quite right in this latter boast; but, as they would call him
a professional and would not swim against him, there was no way for
him to prove it. His idea of a race and their idea of a race differed.
They had a committee to select prizes and open a book for