“I said no one ever looked in at the den in ‘Scorpion Cove,’ but there was a kind little man, with sharp black eyes, and black hair, and an earnest olive-colored face, and an earnester manner about him, who used to look in now and then, talk kindly to us, and tell us he wished he had a home for us all, and was rich enough to give us all enough to eat.  He hated Hag Zogbaum, and Hag Zogbaum hated him; but we all liked him because he was kind to us, and used to shake his head, and say he would do something for us yet.  Hag Zogbaum said he was always meddling with other people’s business.  At other times a man would come along and throw tracts in at the gate of the alley.  We were ignorant of what they were intended for, and used to try to sell them at the Gibraltars.  Nobody wanted them, and nobody could read at the den, so Hag Zogbaum lighted the fire with them, and that was the end of them.

“Well, I sold papers for nearly two years, and learned to read a little by so doing, and got up in the world a little; and being what was called smart, attracted the attention of a printer in Nassau street, who took me into his office, and did well by me.  My mind was bent on getting a trade.  I knew I could do well for myself with a trade to lean upon.  Two years I worked faithfully at the printer’s, was approaching manhood, and with the facilities it afforded me had not failed to improve my mind and get a tolerable good knowledge of the trade.  But the image of Anna, and the singular manner in which she disappeared, made me unhappy.

“On my return from dinner one day I met in Broadway the lady who took Anna away.  The past and its trials flashed across my brain, and I turned and followed her-found that her home was changed to Mercer street, and this accounted for my fruitless watching in Leonard street.

“The love of Anna, that had left its embers smouldering in my bosom, quickened, and seemed to burn with redoubled ardor.  It was my first and only love; the sufferings of our childhood had made it lasting.  My very emotion rose to action as I saw the woman I knew took her away.  My anxiety to know her fate had no bounds.  Dressing myself up as respectably as it was possible with my means, I took advantage of a dark and stormy night in the month of November to call at the house in Mercer street, into which I had traced the lady.  I rung the bell; a sumptuously-dressed woman came to the door, which opened into a gorgeously-decorated hall.  She looked at me with an inquiring eye and disdainful frown, inquired who I was and what I wanted.  I confess I was nervous, for the dazzling splendor of the mansion produced in me a feeling of awe rather than admiration.  I made known my mission as best I could; the woman said no such person had ever resided there.  In that moment of disappointment I felt like casting myself away in despair.  The associations of Scorpion Cove, of the house of the Nine Nations, of the Rookery, of Paddy Pie’s-or any other den in that desert of death that engulphs the Points, seemed holding out a solace for the melancholy that weighed me down.  But when I got back into Broadway my resolution gained strength, and with it I wept over the folly of my thoughts.