He was evidently familiar with its narrow, uneven sidewalk, for he swung without hesitation into the gloom and, with hands hooked behind his back, his stick held, as was his custom, close to his armpit, made his way past its shambling hovels and warehouses.  Now and then he would pause, following with his eyes the curve of the great steel highway, carried on the stone shoulders of successive arches, the sweep of its lines marked by a procession of lights, its outstretched, interlocked palms gripped close.  The memory of certain streets in London came to him—­those near its own great bridges, especially the city dump at Black-friars and the begrimed buildings hugging the stone knees of London Bridge, choking up the snakelike alleys and byways leading to the Embankment.

Crossing under the Elevated, he continued along the side of the giant piers and wheeled into a dirt-choked, ill-smelling street, its distant outlet a blaze of electric lights.  It was now the dead hour of the twenty-four—­ the hour before the despatch of the millions of journals, damp from the presses.  He was the only human being in sight.

Suddenly, when within a hundred feet of the end of the street, a figure detached itself from a deserted doorway.  Felix caught his stick from under his armpit as the man held out a hand.

“Say, I want you to give me the price of a meal.”

Felix tightened his hold on the stick.  The words had conveyed a threat.

“This is no place for you to beg.  Step out where people can see you.”

“I’m hungry, mister.”  He had now taken in the width of O’Day’s shoulders and the length of his forearm.  He had also seen the stick.

Felix stepped back one pace and slipped his hand down the blackthorn.  “Move on, I tell you, where I can look you over—­quick!—­I mean it.”

“I ain’t much to look at.”  The threat was out of his voice now.  “I ain’t eaten nothin’ since yisterday, mister, and I got that out of a ash-barrel.  I’m up agin it hard.  Can’t you see I ain’t lyin’?  You ain’t never starved or you’d know.  You ain’t—­” He wavered, his eyes glittering, edged a step nearer, and with a quick lunge made a grab for O’Day’s watch.

Felix sidestepped with the agility of a cat, struck straight out from the shoulder, and, with a twist of his fingers in the tramp’s neck-cloth, slammed him flat against the wall, where he crouched, gasping for breath.  “Oh, that’s it, is it?” he said calmly, loosening his hold.

The man raised both hands in supplication.  “Don’t kill me!  Listen to me—­I ain’t no thief—­I’m desperate.  When you didn’t give me nothin’ and I got on to the watch—­I got crazy.  I’m glad I didn’t git it.  I been a-walkin’ the streets for two weeks lookin’ for work.  Last night I slep’ in a coal-bunker down by the docks, under the bridge, and I was goin’ there agin when you come along.  I never tried to rob nobody before.  Don’t run me in—­let me go this time.  Look into my face; you can see for yourself I’m hungry!  I’ll never do it agin.  Try me, won’t you?” His tears were choking him, the elbow of his ragged sleeve pressed to his eyes.