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“With him went my mother’s watch, which was in the upper vest-pocket, and some fifty dollars in money. I didn’t mind the money, but I did the watch. It was my mother’s, a present from my father when they were first married, and had the initials ‘E.M.S. from J.H.S.’ engraved on the under side of the case. When she died I pasted the dear old lady’s photograph inside the upper lid. I know almost everybody around here, and they all know me; they come in here with broken heads for me to sew up, and stab wounds, and such-like misfortunes, and when they heard what had happened to me they all did what they could.

“The Captain of the precinct came around, and everybody was very sorry, and they hunted the pawnshops, and I offered a reward–in fact, did all the foolish things you do when you have lost something you think a heap of. But no trace of the watch could be found, and so I gave it up and tried to forget it and couldn’t. That’s why I bought that cheap silver one. My only clew to the thief was the glimpse I had of a scar on his cheek and a slight dragging of his foot as he stepped about my room.

“One night last autumn there came a ring at the bell, and I let in a man with a slouch hat pulled over his eyes and the collar of his coat turned up. He was soaking wet, the water oozing from his shoes and slopping the oilcloth in the hall where he stood. I had never seen him before.

“‘Doc,’ he said, ‘I want you.’ They all call me ‘Doc’ around here–especially this kind of a man–and I saw right away where he belonged.

“‘What for?’

“‘My pal’s sick.’

“‘What’s the matter with him?’

“‘Well, he’s sick–took bad. He’ll die if he don’t git help.’

“‘Where is he?’

“‘Down in Washington Street.’

“‘Queer,’ I said to myself, ‘his wanting me to go two miles from here, when there are plenty of doctors nearer by,’ and so I said to him:

“‘You can get a doctor nearer than me. I’m waiting for a woman case and may be sent for any minute. Try the Dispensary on Canal Street; they’ve always a doctor there.’

“‘No–we don’t want no Dispensary sharp. We want you. Pal’s sent me for you–he knows you, but you mightn’t remember him.’

“‘I’ll go.’ These are the people I can never refuse. They are on the hunted side of life and don’t have many friends. I slipped on my rubbers and coat, picked up my umbrella and my bag with my instruments in it; hung a card in the window so the hall-light would strike it, marked ‘Back in an hour’–in case the woman sent for me; locked my door and started after him.

“It was an awful night. The streets were running rivers, the wind rattling the shutters and flattening the umbrellas of everybody who tried to carry one–one of those storms that drives straight at the front of the house, drenching it from chimney to sidewalk. We waited under the gas-lamp, boarded a Sixth Avenue car, and got out at a signal from my companion. During the trip he sat in the far corner of the car, his hat slouched over his eyes, his coat-collar covering his ears. He evidently did not want to be recognized.

“If you know the neighborhood about Washington Street you know it’s the last resort of the hunted. When they want to hide, they burrow under one of these rookeries. That’s where the police look for them, only they’ve got so many holes they can’t stop them all. Captain Packett of the Ninth Precinct told me the other day that he’d rather hunt a rattlesnake in a tiger’s cage than go open-handed into some of the rookeries around Washington Street. I am never afraid in these places; a doctor’s like a Sister of Charity or a hospital nurse–they’re safe anywhere. I don’t believe that other fellow would have stolen my watch if he had known I was a doctor.