An' that link ye got in yer hand is hers and nobody else's.

John and I had been to evening service at St.Barnabas's, an' we hung on behind till everybody had gone so as to have a word with Father Cruse, after he had taken off his vestments.

We bid him good night, come out of the 29th Street door, and kept on toward Lexington Avenue.

We hadn't gone but a little way from the church, when John, who was walking ahead, come up agin Tom McGinniss.

He was stooping over a woman huddled up on them big front steps before you get to the corner.
"'What are you doin', Tom ?' says John.
"'It's a drunk,' he says, 'an I'll run her in an' she'll sleep it off and be all the better in the mornin'.' "'Let me take a look at her, Tom,' says I; an' I got close to her breath and there was no more liquor inside her than there is in me this minute.
"'You'll do nothin' of the kind, Tom McGinniss,' says I.'This poor thing is beat out with cold and hunger.