Upon a corner, some blocks from the Knitting Swede's house, I came upon
a fellow who was spitting blood into the gutter. He was the
sorriest-looking wretch I had ever seen, the gaunt ruin of a man. He
drew his filthy rags about him, and shivered, and prefaced his whine
for alms with a fit of coughing that seemed to make his bones rattle.

I can't say that my heart went out to the man. It didn't. He was too
unwholesome looking, and his face was mean and sly. His voice was as
remarkable as anything about him; instead of speaking words, he whined
them, through his nose it sounded like, and though his tone seemed
pitched low, his whine cut through the East street uproar like a sharp
knife through butter.

Well, he was a pitiful wreck. On the rocks for good, already breaking
up and going to pieces. Without thinking much about it, I emptied my
pockets of their change. He pounced upon that handful of silver with
the avidity of a miser, and slobbered nasal thanks at me. I was the
kindest-hearted lad he had met in many a day, he said.

We would have gone our different ways promptly but for a flurry of
wind. I suspect that, with the money in his hand, he was as eager to
see the last of me as I was to see the last of him. But I felt ashamed
of my distaste of him; it seemed heartless. And when the cold wind
came swooping across from the docks, setting him shivering and
coughing, I thought of the spare pea-coat I had in my bag. It was
serviceable and warm, and I had a new one to wear.

So I carried him back to the Swede's house with me. I did not take him
into the barroom, though he brazenly hinted he would like to stop in