They do not realise that in reality they do differ from ordinary
citizens; I realise the difference, but can find no reason for
it.

No! it is not drink, although a few of them were dipsomaniacs,
for generally they were sober men.

I will own my ignorance, and say that I do not know what that
little something is that makes a man into a criminal instead of
constituting him into a hero. This I do know: that but for the
possession of a little something, many of my friends, now
homeless save when they are in prison, would be performing life's
duties in settled and comfortable homes, and would be quite as
estimable citizens as ordinary people.

Probably they would prove better citizens than the majority of
people, for while they possess some inherent weakness, they also
possess in a great degree many estimable qualities which are of
little use in their present life.

These friends of mine not only visit my office and invade my
home, but they turn up at all sorts of inconvenient times and
places.--There is my friend the dipsomaniac, the pocket Hercules,
the man of brain and iron constitution.

Year after year he holds on to his own strange course, neither
poverty nor prison, delirium tremens nor physical injuries serve
to alter him. He occupies a front seat at a men's meeting on
Sunday afternoon when the bills announce my name. But he comes