my helper years ago. Oh! what a change He did make in my life after I
did accept Him, seventeen years ago!

I started in to work at four dollars a week, and, as I said, I intended
to be a great merchant. I meant well, if that was any consolation. My
duties were to go to the postoffice and bring the mail, copy the
letters, and run errands, and I was happy.

I was out one day on an errand, when whom should I meet but my old
friend Mike ----, my chum of the pig incident. He said, "Hello, Dave,
where are you working?" He had a job in a factory in Maiden Lane, at the
same wages I was getting. I hadn't seen much of Mike lately, and to tell
the truth I didn't care so much about meeting him. I am not
superstitious by any means, but I really thought he was my Jonah. We
talked a while, and we promised to meet and go home together. Like a
foolish boy, I met him that night and many a time after.


TOUCH NOT, TASTE NOT

Mike was just learning to play pool, and one evening we had to go in and
play a game. That night I had the first glass of beer I ever took in a
saloon. Mike was getting to be quite a tippler, and he said, "Let's have
a drink." I said I didn't want any, and I didn't. But he said--I really
think the Devil was using Mike to make me drink--"Oh, be a man! One
glass won't hurt you; it will do you good." And he talked to me about
mother's apron-strings, and finally I took my first drink outside of
what I drank when grandfather used to send me for beer.

Do you know, as I stood there before the bar, with that beer in my hand,