On his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved uneasily.

When
wild geese honk high of nights, and when women without
sealskin coats grow kind to their husbands, and when Soapy
moves uneasily on his bench in the park, you may know that
winter is near at hand.

A dead leaf fell in Soapy's lap. That was Jack Frost's card.
Jack is kind to the regular denizens of Madison Square, and
gives fair warning of his annual call. At the corners of four
streets he hands his pasteboard to the North Wind, footman of
the mansion of All Outdoors, so that the inhabitants thereof
may make ready.

Soapy's mind became cognisant of the fact that the time had
come for him to resolve himself into a singular Committee of
Ways and Means to provide against the coming rigour. And
therefore he moved uneasily on his bench.

The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of the highest.

In them there were no considerations of Mediterranean
cruises, of soporific Southern skies drifting in the Vesuvian
Bay. Three months on the Island was what his soul craved.
Three months of assured board and bed and congenial
company, safe from Boreas and bluecoats, seemed to Soapy
the essence of things desirable.

For years the hospitable Blackwell's had been his winter

quarters. Just as his more fortunate fellow New Yorkers had
bought their tickets to Palm Beach and the Riviera each
winter, so Soapy had made his humble arrangements for his
annual hegira to the Island. And now the time was come. On
the previous night three Sabbath newspapers, distributed
beneath his coat, about his ankles and over his lap, had failed
to repulse the cold as he slept on his bench near the spurting
fountain in the ancient square. So the Island loomed big and
timely in Soapy's mind. He scorned the provisions made in the
name of charity for the city's dependents. In Soapy's opinion
the Law was more benign than Philanthropy. There was an
endless round of institutions, municipal and eleemosynary, on
which he might set out and receive lodging and food accordant
with the simple life. But to one of Soapy's proud spirit the gifts
of charity are encumbered. If not in coin you must pay in
humiliation of spirit for every benefit received at the hands of
philanthropy. As Caesar had his Brutus, every bed of charity
must have its toll of a bath, every loaf of bread its
compensation of a private and personal inquisition. Wherefore
it is better to be a guest of the law, which though conducted
by rules, does not meddle unduly with a gentleman's private
affairs.

Soapy, having decided to go to the Island, at once set about

accomplishing his desire. There were many easy ways of doing
this. The pleasantest was to dine luxuriously at some
expensive restaurant; and then, after declaring insolvency, be
handed over quietly and without uproar to a policeman. An
accommodating magistrate would do the rest.

Soapy left his bench and strolled out of the square and across
the level sea of asphalt, where Broadway and Fifth Avenue
flow together. Up Broadway he turned, and halted at a
glittering cafe, where are gathered together nightly the
choicest products of the grape, the silkworm and the
protoplasm.

Soapy had confidence in himself from the lowest button of his

vest upward. He was shaven, and his coat was decent and his
neat black, ready-tied four-in-hand had been presented to him
by a lady missionary on Thanksgiving Day. If he could reach a
table in the restaurant unsuspected success would be his. The
portion of him that would show above the table would raise no
doubt in the waiter's mind. A roasted mallard duck, thought
Soapy, would be about the thing--with a bottle of Chablis, and
then Camembert, a demi-tasse and a cigar. One dollar for the
cigar would be enough. The total would not be so high as to
call forth any supreme manifestation of revenge from the cafe
management; and yet the meat would leave him filled and
happy for the journey to his winter refuge.

But as Soapy set foot inside the restaurant door the head
waiter's eye fell upon his frayed trousers and decadent shoes.
Strong and ready hands turned him about and conveyed him in
silence and haste to the sidewalk and averted the ignoble fate
of the menaced mallard.

Soapy turned off Broadway. It seemed that his route to the

coveted island was not to be an epicurean one. Some other
way of entering limbo must be thought of.
At a corner of Sixth Avenue electric lights and cunningly
displayed wares behind plate-glass made a shop window
conspicuous. Soapy took a cobblestone and dashed it through
the glass. People came running around the corner, a policeman
in the lead. Soapy stood still, with his hands in his pockets,
and smiled at the sight of brass buttons.

"Where's the man that done that?" inquired the officer

excitedly.

"Don't you figure out that I might have had something to do

with it?" said Soapy, not without sarcasm, but friendly, as one
greets good fortune.

The policeman's mind refused to accept Soapy even as a clue.

Men who smash windows do not remain to parley with the
law's minions. They take to their heels. The policeman saw a
man half way down the block running to catch a car. With
drawn club he joined in the pursuit. Soapy, with disgust in his
heart, loafed along, twice unsuccessful.

On the opposite side of the street was a restaurant of no great

pretensions. It catered to large appetites and modest purses.
Its crockery and atmosphere were thick; its soup and napery
thin. Into this place Soapy took his accusive shoes and telltale
trousers without challenge. At a table he sat and consumed
beefsteak, flapjacks, doughnuts and pie. And then to the
waiter be betrayed the fact that the minutest coin and himself
were strangers.
"Now, get busy and call a cop," said Soapy. "And don't keep a
gentleman waiting."

"No cop for youse," said the waiter, with a voice like butter
cakes and an eye like the cherry in a Manhattan cocktail.
"Hey, Con!"

Neatly upon his left ear on the callous pavement two waiters
pitched Soapy. He arose, joint by joint, as a carpenter's rule
opens, and beat the dust from his clothes. Arrest seemed but a
rosy dream. The Island seemed very far away. A policeman
who stood before a drug store two doors away laughed and
walked down the street.

Five blocks Soapy travelled before his courage permitted him

to woo capture again. This time the opportunity presented
what he fatuously termed to himself a "cinch." A young woman
of a modest and pleasing guise was standing before a show
window gazing with sprightly interest at its display of shaving
mugs and inkstands, and two yards from the window a large
policeman of severe demeanour leaned against a water plug.

It was Soapy's design to assume the role of the despicable and

execrated "masher." The refined and elegant appearance of
his victim and the contiguity of the conscientious cop
encouraged him to believe that he would soon feel the
pleasant official clutch upon his arm that would insure his
winter quarters on the right little, tight little isle.
Soapy straightened the lady missionary's readymade tie,
dragged his shrinking cuffs into the open, set his hat at a
killing cant and sidled toward the young woman. He made eyes
at her, was taken with sudden coughs and "hems," smiled,
smirked and went brazenly through the impudent and
contemptible litany of the "masher." With half an eye Soapy
saw that the policeman was watching him fixedly. The young
woman moved away a few steps, and again bestowed her
absorbed attention upon the shaving mugs. Soapy followed,
boldly stepping to her side, raised his hat and said:

"Ah there, Bedelia! Don't you want to come and play in my

yard?"

The policeman was still looking. The persecuted young woman

had but to beckon a finger and Soapy would be practically en
route for his insular haven. Already he imagined he could feel
the cozy warmth of the station-house. The young woman faced
him and, stretching out a hand, caught Soapy's coat sleeve.

"Sure, Mike," she said joyfully, "if you'll blow me to a pail of

suds. I'd have spoke to you sooner, but the cop was watching."

With the young woman playing the clinging ivy to his oak
Soapy walked past the policeman overcome with gloom. He
seemed doomed to liberty.

At the next corner he shook off his companion and ran. He

halted in the district where by night are found the lightest
streets, hearts, vows and librettos.
Women in furs and men in greatcoats moved gaily in the wintry
air. A sudden fear seized Soapy that some dreadful
enchantment had rendered him immune to arrest. The thought
brought a little of panic upon it, and when he came upon
another policeman lounging grandly in front of a transplendent
theatre he caught at the immediate straw of "disorderly
conduct."

On the sidewalk Soapy began to yell drunken gibberish at the

top of his harsh voice. He danced, howled, raved and
otherwise disturbed the welkin.

The policeman twirled his club, turned his back to Soapy and
remarked to a citizen.

"'Tis one of them Yale lads celebratin' the goose egg they give
to the Hartford College. Noisy; but no harm. We've instructions
to lave them be."

Disconsolate, Soapy ceased his unavailing racket. Would never

a policeman lay hands on him? In his fancy the Island seemed
an unattainable Arcadia. He buttoned his thin coat against the
chilling wind.

In a cigar store he saw a well-dressed man lighting a cigar at a

swinging light. His silk umbrella he had set by the door on
entering. Soapy stepped inside, secured the umbrella and
sauntered off with it slowly. The man at the cigar light
followed hastily.

"My umbrella," he said, sternly.

"Oh, is it?" sneered Soapy, adding insult to petit larceny. "Well,
why don't you call a policeman? I took it. Your umbrella! Why
don't you call a cop? There stands one on the corner."

The umbrella owner slowed his steps. Soapy did likewise, with
a presentiment that luck would again run against him. The
policeman looked at the two curiously.

"Of course," said the umbrella man--"that is--well, you know

how these mistakes occur--I--if it's your umbrella I hope you'll
excuse me--I picked it up this morning in a restaurant--If you
recognise it as yours, why--I hope you'll--"

"Of course it's mine," said Soapy, viciously.

The ex-umbrella man retreated. The policeman hurried to

assist a tall blonde in an opera cloak across the street in front
of a street car that was approaching two blocks away.

Soapy walked eastward through a street damaged by

improvements. He hurled the umbrella wrathfully into an
excavation. He muttered against the men who wear helmets
and carry clubs. Because he wanted to fall into their clutches,
they seemed to regard him as a king who could do no wrong.

At length Soapy reached one of the avenues to the east where

the glitter and turmoil was but faint. He set his face down this
toward Madison Square, for the homing instinct survives even
when the home is a park bench.
But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill.
Here was an old church, quaint and rambling and gabled.
Through one violet-stained window a soft light glowed, where,
no doubt, the organist loitered over the keys, making sure of
his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem. For there drifted
out to Soapy's ears sweet music that caught and held him
transfixed against the convolutions of the iron fence.

The moon was above, lustrous and serene; vehicles and

pedestrians were few; sparrows twittered sleepily in the
eaves--for a little while the scene might have been a country
churchyard. And the anthem that the organist played
cemented Soapy to the iron fence, for he had known it well in
the days when his life contained such things as mothers and
roses and ambitions and friends and immaculate thoughts and
collars.

The conjunction of Soapy's receptive state of mind and the

influences about the old church wrought a sudden and
wonderful change in his soul. He viewed with swift horror the
pit into which he had tumbled, the degraded days, unworthy
desires, dead hopes, wrecked faculties and base motives that
made up his existence.

And also in a moment his heart responded thrillingly to this

novel mood. An instantaneous and strong impulse moved him
to battle with his desperate fate. He would pull himself out of
the mire; he would make a man of himself again; he would
conquer the evil that had taken possession of him. There was
time; he was comparatively young yet; he would resurrect his
old eager ambitions and pursue them without faltering. Those
solemn but sweet organ notes had set up a revolution in him.
To-morrow he would go into the roaring downtown district and
find work. A fur importer had once offered him a place as
driver. He would find him to-morrow and ask for the position.
He would be somebody in the world. He would--

Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked quickly around

into the broad face of a policeman.

"What are you doin' here?" asked the officer.

"Nothin'," said Soapy.

"Then come along," said the policeman.

"Three months on the Island," said the Magistrate in the Police

Court the next morning