Billy might happen to inconveniently remember all the sums of money he
had "loaned" them time and again. Actual necessity might tend to waken
his memory. For they had modernized the proverb into: "A friend in need
is a friend to steer clear of."

A lesson in mankind and the making had been coming to Garrison, and in
that short walk down Broadway he appreciated it to the uttermost.

"Think I had the mange or the plague," he mused grimly, as a plethoric
ex-alderman passed and absent-mindedly forgot to return his bow--an
alderman who had been tipped by Garrison in his palmy days to a small
fortune. "What if I had thrown the race?" he ran on bitterly. "Many a
jockey has, and has lived to tell it. No, there's more behind it all
than that. I've passed sports who wouldn't turn me down for that. But I
suppose Bender" (the plethoric alderman) "staked a pot on Sis, she being
the favorite and I up. And when he loses he forgets the times I tipped
him to win. Poor old Sis!" he added softly, as the fact of her poisoning
swept over him. "The only thing that cared for me--gone! I'm down on my
luck--hard. And it's not over yet. I feel it in the air. There's another
fall coming to me."

He shivered through sheer nervous exhaustion, though the night was warm
for mid-April. He rummaged in his pocket.

"One dollar in bird-seed," he mused grimly, counting the coins under the
violet glare of a neighboring arc light. "All that's between me and the
morgue. Did I ever think it would come to that? Well, I need a bracer.
Here goes ten for a drink. Can only afford bar whisky."

He was standing on the corner of Twenty-fifth Street, and unconsciously