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The week after I landed–it was in November, a day when the crows flew in long wavy lines and the heavy white and gray clouds pressed close upon the blue vista of the hills–I turned and crossed through the wood, my feet sinking into the soft carpet of its dead leaves. Soon I caught a glimpse of the chimneys of Shady Side thrust above the evergreens; a curl of smoke was floating upward, filling the air with a filmy haze. At this sign of life within, my heart gave a bound.

Muffles was still there!

When I swung back the gate and mounted the porch a feeling of uncertainty came over me. The knocker was gone, and so was the sign. The old-fashioned window-casings had been replaced by a modern door newly painted and standing partly open. Perhaps Muffles had given up the bar and was living here alone with his children.

I pushed open the door and stepped into the old-fashioned hall. This, too, had undergone changes. The lantern was missing, and some modern furniture stood against the walls. The bar where Bowser had dispensed his beverages and from behind which he had brought his drawings had been replaced by a long mahogany counter with marble top, the sideboard being filled with cut glass and the more expensive appointments of a modern establishment. The tables and chairs were also of mahogany; and a new red carpet covered the floor. The proprietor was leaning against the counter playing with his watch-chain–a short man with a bald head. A few guests were sitting about, reading or smoking.

“What’s become of Mulford,” I asked; “Dick Mulford, who used to be here?”

The man shook his head.

“Why, yes, you must have known him–some of his friends called him Muffles.”

The man continued to shake his head. Then he answered, carelessly:

“I’ve only been here six months–another man had it before me. He put these fixtures in.”

“Maybe you can tell me?”–and I turned to the bar-keeper.

“Guess he means the feller who blew in here first month we come,” the bar-keeper answered, addressing his remark to the proprietor. “He said he’d been runnin’ the place once.”

“Oh, you mean that guy! Yes, I got it now,” answered the proprietor, with some animation, as if suddenly interested. “He come in the week we opened–worst-lookin’ bum you ever see–toes out of his shoes, coat all torn. Said he had no money and asked for something to eat. Billy here was goin’ to fire him out when one of my customers said he knew him. I don’t let no man go hungry if I can help it, and so I sent him downstairs and cook filled him up. After he had all he wanted to eat he asked Billy if he might go upstairs into the front bedroom. I don’t want nobody prowlin’ ’round–not that kind, anyhow–but he begged so I sent Billy up with him. What did he do, Billy? You saw him.” And he turned to his assistant.

“Didn’t do nothin’ but just look in the door, he held on to the jamb and I thought he was goin’ to fall. Then he said he was much obliged, and he walked downstairs again and out the door cryin’ like a baby, and I ain’t seen him since.”

Another year passed. To the picture of the man sitting alone in that silent, desolate room was added the picture of the man leaning against the jamb of the door, the tears streaming down his face. After this I constantly caught myself peering into the faces of the tramps I would meet in the street. Whenever I walked before the benches of Madison Park or loitered along the shady paths of Union Square, I would stop, my eye running over the rows of idle men reading the advertisements in the morning papers or asleep on the seats. Often I would pause for a moment as some tousled vagabond would pass me, hoping that I had found my old-time friend, only to be disappointed. Once I met Bowser on his way to his work, a roll of theatre-bills under his arm. He had gone back to his trade and was working in a shop on Fourteenth Street. His account of what had happened after the death of “the Missus” only confirmed my fears. Muffles had gone on from bad to worse; the place had been sold out by his partners; Muffles had become a drunkard, and, worse than all, the indictment against him had been pressed for trial despite the Captain’s efforts, and he had been sent to the Island for a year for receiving and hiding stolen goods. He had been offered his freedom by the District Attorney if he would give up the names of the two men who had stolen the silverware, but he said he’d rather “serve time than give his pals away,” and they sent him up. Some half-orphan asylum had taken the children. One thing Bowser knew and he would “give it to me straight,” and he didn’t care who heard it, and that was that there was “a good many gospil sharps running church-mills that warn’t half as white as Dick Mulford–not by a d—- sight.”