What was utmost in me to repair in middle years the loss of those schooldays wasted away. I could come by no advance; the currents of habitual ignorance were too strong and I made no head against them. You think I pause a deal over my want of letters? I tell you it is the thing I have most mourned in all my life.
When a fugitive from lessons, I would stay away from my home. This was because I must manage an escape from Anne; should she find me I was lost, and nothing for it save to be dragged again to school. The look of grief in her brown eyes meant ever defeat for me. My only safety was to turn myself out of doors and play the exile.
This vagabondage was pleasant enough, since it served to feed my native vagrancy of temper. And I fared well, too; for I grew into a kind of cateran, and was out of my sleeping lair with the sun to follow the milkman and baker on their rounds. Coming betimes to the doors of customers who still snored between their sheets, these merchants left their wares in areas. That was all my worst need asked; by what time they doubled the nearest corner I had made my swoop and was fed for the whole of a day.
Moreover, I knew a way to pick up coppers. On a nearby corner in the Bowery a great auction of horses was going. Being light and little, and having besides a lively inclination for horses, I was thrown upon the backs of ones put up for sale to show their paces. For each of these mounts I came the better off by five cents, and on lucky days have made as much as the half of a dollar at that trade. As for a bed, if it were summer time, what should be finer than the docks? Or if winter, then the fire-rooms of the tugs, with the engineers and stokers whereof I made it my care to be friendly? I was always ready to throw off a line, or polish a lantern, or, when a tug was at the wharf, run to the nearest tap-room and fetch a pail of beer; for which good deeds the East River went thickly dotted of my allies before ever I touched the age of ten.
These meager etchings give some picture of what was my earlier life, the major share of which I ran wild about the streets. Neither my father nor my mother lived in any command of me, and the parish priest failed as dismally as did they when he sought to confine my conduct to a rule. That hickory-wielding dominie, with his sandbox and alphabet, was a priest; and he gave me such a distaste of the clergy that I rolled away from their touch like quicksilver. Anne's tears and the soft voice of her were what I feared, and so I kept as much as possible beyond their spell.
Coming now to a day when I began first to consider existence as a problem serious, I must tell you how my lone sole claim to eminence abode in the fact that, lung and limb, I was as strong and tireless as any bison or any bear. It was my capital, my one virtue, the mark that set me above my fellows. This story of vast strength sounds the more strange, since I was under rather than above the common height, and never, until when in later life I took on a thickness of fat, scaled heavier than one hundred and forty pounds. Thus it stood, however, that my muscle strength, even as a youth, went so far beyond what might be called legitimate that it became as a proverb in the mouths of people. The gift was a kind of genius; I tell of it particularly because it turned to be the ladder whereby I climbed into the first of my fortunes. Without it, sure, I never would have lifted myself above the gutter levels of my mates, nor fingered a splinter of those millions that now lie banked and waiting to my name and hand.
CHAPTER II—THE BOSS MEETS WITH POLITICS
IT was when I was in my fifteenth year that face to face I first met politics. Or to fit the phrase more nearly with the fact, I should say it was then when politics met me. Nor was that meeting in its incident one soon to slip from memory. It carried for a darkling element the locking of me in a graceless cell, and that is an adventure sure to leave its impress. The more if one be young, since the trail of events is ever deepest where the ground is soft. It is no wonder the business lies in my mind like a black cameo. It was my first captivity, and there will come on one no greater horror than seizes him when for the earliest time he hears bars and bolts grate home behind him.
On that day, had one found and measured me he would not have called me a child of thoughts or books or alcoves. My nature was as unkempt as the streets. Still, in a turbid way and to broadest banks, the currents of my sentiment were running for honesty and truth. Also, while I wasted no space over the question, I took it as I took the skies above me that law was for folk guilty of wrong, while justice even against odds of power would never fail the weak and right. My eyes were to be opened; I was to be shown the lesson of Tammany, and how law would bend and judges bow before the mighty breath of the machine.
It was in the long shadows of an August afternoon when the Southhampton boat was docked—a clipper of the Black Ball line. I stood looking on; my leisure was spent about the river front, for I was as fond of the water as a petrel. The passengers came thronging down the gang-plank; once ashore, many of the poorer steerage sort stood about in misty bewilderment, not knowing the way to turn or where to go.
In that far day a special trade had grown up among the piers; the men to follow it were called hotel runners. These birds of prey met the ships to swoop on newcomers with lie and cheat, and carry them away to hostelries whose mean interests they served. These latter were the poorest in town, besides being often dens of wickedness.
As I moved boy-like in and out among the waiting groups of immigrants, a girl called to me. This girl was English, with yellow hair, and cheeks red as apples. I remember I thought her beautiful, and was the more to notice it since she seemed no older than myself. She was stark alone and a trifle frightened.
“Boy,” said Apple Cheek, “boy, where can I go for to-night? I have money, though not much, so it must not be a dear place.”
Before I could set my tongue to a reply, a runner known as Sheeny Joe had Apple Cheek by the arm and was for leading her away.
“Come with me,” said Sheeny Joe to Apple Cheek; “I will show you to a house, as neat as pins, and quiet as a church; kept it is by a Christian lady as wears out her eyes with searching of the scriptures. You can stay there as long as ever you likes for two shillin' a day.”
This was reeled off by Sheeny Joe with a suave softness like the flow of treacle. He was cunning enough to give the charge in shillings so as to match the British ear and education of poor Apple Cheek.
“Where is this place?” asked Apple Cheek. I could see how she shrunk from Sheeny Joe, with his eyes greedy and black, and small and shiny like the eyes of a rat.
“You wouldn't know the place, young lady,” returned Sheeny Joe; “but it's all right, with prayers and that sort of thing, both night and mornin'. It's in Water Street, the place is. Number blank, Water Street,” repeated Sheeny Joe, giving a resort known as the Dead Rabbit. “Come; which ones is your bundles? I'll help you carry them.”
Now by general word, the Dead Rabbit was not unknown to me. It was neither tavern nor boarding house, but a mill of vice, with blood on its doorstep and worse inside. If ever prayers were said there they must have been parcel of some Black Sanctus; and if ever a Christian went there it was to be robbed and beaten, and then mayhap to have his throat cut for a lesson in silence.
“You don't want to go to that house,” said I, finding my voice and turning to Apple Cheek. “You come to my mother's; my sister will find you a place to stay. The house he's talkin' about”—here I indicated Sheeny Joe—“aint no tavern. It's a boozin' ken for crimps and thieves.”
Without a word, Sheeny Joe aimed a swinging blow at my head: Apple Cheek gave a low scream. While somewhat unprepared for Sheeny Joe's attack, it falling so sharply sudden, I was not to be found asleep; nor would I prove a simple conquest even to a grown man. My sinister strength, almost the strength of a gorilla, would stand my friend.
Quick as a goat on my feet, and as soon to see a storm coming up as any sailor, I leaped backward from the