up from the chair where I'd been sitting and walked out, not caring what
I did, but bound to get some money. Now, ---- was a good fellow in his
way; they all are if you have the price; but saloon-keepers are not
running their places for the benefit of others, and when a man's money's
gone they don't want him around. I had spent all I had, about twenty
dollars, and now I was turned out, and it served me right.

Now there's something in rum that fascinates, something we can't
understand. I wanted whiskey, and was ready to do anything to get it.
The appetite in me was fierce. No one knows the terrible pangs, the
great longing, but one who has been up against it. And nothing can
satisfy the awful craving but whiskey.


THE TURNING-POINT

Many's the time I've stood on the Bowery and cursed God and the day I
was born, and wished that I was dead. But here I was! Nobody cared for
me, and why should they, for I did not care for myself. I did not even
think God cared much or He would have done something. I imagined the
Devil thought he had me for keeps, and so he did not exert himself very
much either. I was out of the saloon, on the street, and little as I
imagined such a thing would ever happen, I never entered ----'s saloon
again. All unknown to me the turning-point in my life had come.

Sizing up the situation, I knew I must have a drink, but how was I to
get it? Up to this time I'd done everything on the calendar except
murder, and I don't know how I missed that. I've seen men killed, have
been in a few shoot-ups myself, and bear some scars, but I know at this
writing that God and a mother's prayers saved me from this awful crime.