F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 81
told him where I had lived, he shook his head and ordered me away.
Knowing I could fill a place not unknown to me, I applied at a
butcher's in Mott street; but he pointed his knife-which left a
wound in my feelings-and ordered me away. And I was ordered away
wherever I went. The doors of the Chatham theatre looked too fine
for me. My ragged condition rebuked me wherever I went, and for more
than a week I slept under a cart that stood in Mott street. Then Tom
Farley found me, and took me with him to his cellar, in Elizabeth
street, where we had what I thought a good bed of shavings. Tom sold
Heralds, gambled for cents, and shared with me, and we got along.
Then Tom stole a dog, and the dog got us into a deal of trouble,
which ended with getting us both into the Tombs, where Tom was
locked up. I was again adrift, as we used to call it, and thought of
poor Tom a deal. Every one I met seemed higher up in the world than
I was. But I got into Centre Market, carried baskets, and did what I
could to earn a shilling, and slept in Tom's bed, where there was
some nights fifteen and twenty like myself.
"One morning, while waiting a job, my feet and hands benumbed with
the cold, a beautiful lady slipped a shilling into my hand and
passed on. To one penniless and hungry, it seemed a deal of money.
Necessity had almost driven me to the sign of the 'Three Martyrs,'
to see what the man of the eagle face would give me on my cap, for
they said the man at the 'Three Martyrs' lent money on rags such as
I had. I followed the woman, for there was something so good in the
act that I could not resist it. She entered a fine house in Leonard
street.
"You must now go with me into the den of Hag Zogbaum, in 'Scorpion
Cove;' and 'Scorpion Cove' is in Pell street. Necessity next drove
me there. It is early spring, we will suppose; and being in the
Bowery, we find the streets in its vicinity reeking with putrid
matter, hurling pestilence into the dark dwellings of the unknown
poor, and making thankful the coffin-maker, who in turn thanks a