comfort my books could give me. That I was exaggerating like a schoolboy never occurred to me. I suffered the tortures of the damned, of the already condemned, at any rate. That I was innocent of wrong-doing was, for some reason, no consolation: I had got myself into an awful mess and should have to pay the price.
The wildest ideas filled my brain; I would call and enlist the influence of McCloy, of various officials, of headquarters detectives, of D. L. Moody the Revivalist, who was then preaching in New York and who had been a guest in my father's house, of the Exchange Place banker, even of von Schmidt, though fear of blackmail stopped me here. But reflection told me how useless such a proceeding would be. The Republicans, besides, were in power at the time, and Tammany had no "pull." I even thought of Roosevelt, whom, as President of the Police Board, I had often interviewed. The fire marshal would rejoice in the case, of course, for, as with the Boyde story, the newspapers would print it at great length. There lay much kudos for him in it. I had no sleep that night, as I had no friend or counsellor either. I thought of spending it in Bronx Park with the trees, but it occurred to me that, if I were being watched, the act might be interpreted as an attempt to escape--for what would a New York fire marshal make of my love of nature?
The following day, as the dreaded examination grew closer, was a day of acute misery--until the late afternoon, when I met by chance the man who saved me. I shall always believe, at least, that "saved" is the right word to use.
A coincidence, as singular as the coincidence of catching Boyde, was involved. Fate, anyhow, brought me across the path of Mullins, the one man who could help, just at the time and place, too, where that help could be most effectively given. The word coincidence, therefore, seems justified.
Mullins, the Irishman, was an editorial writer on the Evening Sun when I was a reporter there; he disliked
the paper as heartily as I did, and his ambition was to
