on. "Don't kill me! Listen to
me--I ain't no thief--I'm desperate. When you didn't give me nothin'
and I got on to the watch--I got crazy. I'm glad I didn't git it. I been
a-walkin' the streets for two weeks lookin' for work. Last night I slep'
in a coal-bunker down by the docks, under the bridge, and I was goin'
there agin when you come along. I never tried to rob nobody before.
Don't run me in--let me go this time. Look into my face; you can see
for yourself I'm hungry! I'll never do it agin. Try me, won't you?" His
tears were choking him, the elbow of his ragged sleeve pressed to his
eyes.

Felix had listened without moving, trying to make up his mind, noting
the drawn, haggard face, the staring eyes and dry, fevered lips--all
evidences of either hunger or vice, he was uncertain which.

Then gradually, as the man's sobs continued, there stole over him
that strange sense of kinship in pain which comes to us at times when
confronted with another's agony. The differences between them--the rags
of the one and the well-brushed garments of the other, the fact that one
skulked with his misery in dark alleys while the other bore his on
the open highways--counted as nothing. He and this outcast were bound
together by the common need of those who find the struggle overwhelming.
Until that moment his own sufferings had absorbed him. Now the throb of
the world's pain came to him and sympathies long dormant began to stir.

"Straighten up and let me see your face," he said at last, intent on
the tramp's abject misery. "Out here where the full light can fall on
it--that's right! Now tell me about yourself. How long have you been
like this?"

The man dragged himself to his feet.

"Ever since I lost my job." The question had calmed him. There was a
note of hope in it.

"What work did you do?"

"I'm a plumber's helper."

"Work stopped?"

"No, a strike--I wouldn't quit, and they fired me."

"What happened then?"

"She went away."

"Who went away?"

"My wife."

"When?"

"About a month back."

"Did you beat her?"

"No, there was another man."

"Younger than you?"

"Yes."

"How old was she?"

"Eighteen."

"A girl, then."

"Yes, if you put it that way. She was all I had."

"Have you seen her since?"

"No, and I don't want to."

These questions and answers had followed in rapid succession, Felix
searching for the truth and the man trying to give it as best he could.

With the last answer the man drew