Equipped as we are for the conquest of comfort with fresh pipes, full mugs, and the flavor of a best of suppers still extant within our mouths, it may be an impertinence for one to moralize. And yet, as I go forward to this incident, I will premise that, in every least exigency of life, ill begets ill, while good springs from good and follows the doer with a profit. Such has been my belief; such, indeed, has been my unbroken experience; and the misfortunes of Connelly, and my relief of them, small matters in themselves, are in proof of what I say.

At sixty I look back with envy on that decade which followed my issuing forth from Trinity College, when, hopeless, careless, purposeless beyond the moment, I wandered the face of the earth and fed or starved at the hands of chance-born opportunity. I was up or down or rich or poor, and, with an existence which ran from wine to ditch water and back again to wine, was happy. I recall how in those days of checkered fortune, wherein there came a proportion of one hour of shadow to one moment of sun, I was wont to think on riches and their possession. I would say to myself: “And should it so befall that I make my millions, I’ll have none about me but broken folk: I’ll refuse to so much as permit the acquaintance of a rich man.” I’ve been ever deeply controlled by the sentiment therein expressed. Sure it is, I’ve been incapable of the example of the Levite, and could never keep to the other side of the way when distress appealed.

My youth was wild, and staid folk called it “vicious.” I squandered my fortune; melted it, as August melteth ice, while still at Trinity. It was my misfortune to reach my majority before I reached my graduation, and those two college years which ensued after I might legally write myself “man” and the wild days that filled them up, brought me to face the world with no more shillings than might take me to Australia. However, they were gay though graceless times—those college years; and Dublin, from Smock Alley to Sackville Street, may still remember them.

Those ten years after quitting Dublin were years of hit or miss. I did everything but preach or steal. Yes, I even fought three prize-fights; and there were warped, distorted moments when, bloody but victorious, I believed it better to be a fighter than to be a bishop.

But for the main, I drifted to the theaters and lived by the drama. Doubtless I was a wretched actor—albeit I felt myself a Kemble—but the stage was so far good to me it finally brought me—as an underling of much inconsequence—to the fair city of New York. I did but little for the drama, but it did much for me; it led me to America. And now that I’ve come to New York in this story, I’ve come to Connelly.

Mayhap I had been in New York three weeks. It was a chill night in April, and I was going down Broadway and thinking on bed; for, having done nothing all day save run about, I was very tired. It was under the lamps at the corner of Twenty-ninth Street, that I first beheld Connelly. Thin of face as of coat, he stood shivering in the keen air. There was something so beaten in the pose of the sorrowful figure that I was brought to a full stop.

As strange to the land and its courtesies as I was to Connelly, I hesitated for a moment to speak. I was loth to be looked upon as one who, from a motive of curiosity, would insult another in bad luck. But I took courage from my virtue and at last made bold to accost him:

“Why do you stand shivering here?” I said. “Why don’t you go home?”

“It’s a boarding-house,” said Connelly. “I owe the old lady thirty dollars and if I go back she’ll hold me prisoner for it.”

Then he told me his name, and that the trouble with him came from too much rum. Connelly had a Dublin accent and it won on me; moreover, I also had had troubles traceable to rum.

“Come home,” I said; “you can’t stand here all night. Come home; I’ll go with you and have a talk with the old lady myself. Perhaps I’ll find a way to soften her or make her see reason.”

“She’s incapable of seeing reason,” said Connelly; “incapable of seeing anything save money. She understands nothing but gold. She’ll hold me captive a week; then if I don’t pay, she’ll have me arrested. You don’t know the ‘old lady:’ she’s a demon unless she’s paid.”

However, I led Connelly over to Sixth Avenue and restored his optimism with strong drink. Then I bought a quart of whiskey; thus sustained, Connelly summoned courage and together we sought his quarters. In his little room we sat all night, discussing the whiskey and Dublin and Connelly’s hard fate.

With the morning I was presented to the “old lady,”—an honor to make one quake. When I reviewed her acrid features, I knew that Connelly was right. Nothing could move that stony heart but money. I put off, therefore, those gallantries and blandishments I might otherwise have introduced, and came at once to the question.

“How much does Connelly owe?”

“Thirty dollars!”

The words were emphasized with a click of teeth that would have done credit to a rat-trap.

There was a baleful gleam, too, in the jadestone eye. Clearly, Connelly had read the signs aright. He might regard himself as a prisoner until the “old lady” was paid.

That iron landlady went away to her duties and I counted my fortunes. They assembled but twenty-four dollars—a slim force and not one wherewith to storm the citadel of Connelly’s troubles. How should I augment my capital? I knew of but one quick method and that flowed with risks—it was the races.

I turned naturally to the horses, for it was those continuous efforts which I put forth to name winners that had so dissipated my patrimony. About the time I might have selected a victor now and then, my wealth was departed away. It is always thus. Sinister yet satirical paradox! the best judges of racing have ever the least money!

There was no new way open to me, however, in this instance of Connelly. I must pay his debt that day if I would redeem him from this Bastile of a boarding-house, and the races were my single chance. I explained to Connelly; obtained him the consolation of a second quart wherewith to cure the sharper cares of his bondage, and started for the race-course. I knew nothing of American horses and less of American tracks, but I held not back for that. In the transaction of a work of virtue I would trust to lucky stars.

As I approached the race-course gates, my eyes were pleased with the vision of that excellent pugilist, Joe Coburn. I had known this unworthy in Melbourne; he had graced the ringside on those bustling occasions when I pulled shirt over head and held up my hands for the stakes and the honor of old Ireland. Grown too fat for fisticuffs, Coburn struggled with the races for his daily bread. As he was very wise of horses, and likewise very crooked, I bethought me that Coburn’s advice might do me good. If there were a trap set, Coburn should know; and he might aid a former fellow-gladiator to have advantage thereof and show the road to riches.

Are races ever crooked? Man! I whiles wonder at the age’s ignorance! Crooked? Indubitably crooked. There was never rascal like your rascal of sport; there’s that in the word to disintegrate integrity. I make no doubt it was thus in every time and clime and that even the Olympian games themselves were honeycombed with fraud, and the sacred Altis wherein they were celebrated a mere hotbed of robbery. However, to regather with the doubtful though sapient Coburn.

“Who’s to win the first race?” I asked.

“Play Blue Bells!” and Coburn looked at me hard and as one who held mysterious knowledge.

Blue Bells!—I put a cautious five-dollar piece............