me a part of his life. There was no monotony in his
great game. He always found new faces interesting to classify, some
unusual combination, some degree of emotional development he had not
seen before. But _the_ face never.

Until one Saturday half holiday in December. This is the way it
happened.

Mr. Neal employed this particular half holiday at Columbus Park. Long
ago he had found this park, adjoining Chatham Square and near Chinatown,
Mulberry Bend and the Bowery, a great gathering place for the lower
types of humanity, and such half holidays as he did not spend at the
library studying Lombroso, Darwin, Piderit, Lavater, and other
physiognomists, he usually employed at Columbus Park. Sometimes he
wandered over to Hester Street, or up Orchard or some other Ghetto
street off Delancey, or sometimes he spent a few hours in Battery Park
or in the tenement district of the lower West Side. On this particular
Saturday he found Columbus Park less populous than it had been on his
last visit a month before, for many of its habitues had sought warmer
climes. The weather was seasonably cold, and Mr. Neal felt really sorry
for some of the old, broken-down men and women he saw.

Toward the end of the short December afternoon, he found an old man,
shaking with the cold, huddled up on one of the benches of the park. The
haggard, unshaven face told the usual story of the derelict, but
something in the face--perhaps the abject fear that glowered in the
eyes--sounded before he knew it the depths of pity in the little clerk's
heart. Mr. Neal tried to talk to him, but there was no ready beggar's
tale to be poured into the ears of benevolence; there was only fear of
the cold, and of misery, and of death. Yielding suddenly to an impulse
so strong that it bore down all thoughts of prudence, Mr. Neal slipped
out of his own overcoat and put it about the man's threadbare shoulders,
and then hurried off toward the Worth Street Station of the subway.

The wintry breeze chilled him as he hastened along, a slight figure in
worn business suit, leaning against the wind, but his heart was warm and
light within him. Down he hurried into the subway station, and dropped
his tithe of tribute into the multiple maw of the Interborough. The
train was thundering in, its colored lights growing momentarily brighter
as they came down the black tunnel. The train was crammed to the doors,
for it was the rush hour and even down here the trains were crowded. Mr.