I got a number of men work, but very few had made good. Hundreds of
men had been clothed, fed and lodged, but they had passed out of my
reach. I knew not where they had gone. Scarcely one per cent. ever let
me know even by a postal card what had become of them, or how they
fared, and yet my work was called successful.

Sunday afternoons, with a baby organ on my shoulder and a small group
of converts and helpers following closely behind, I went down the
Bowery and held meetings in about half a dozen houses. I did most of
the speaking, but urged the converts to tell their own stories at each
service. I have said that I was never interfered with or molested in
the work, and the following incident can hardly be called an
exception. A broken-down prize fighter, slightly under the influence
of liquor, tried to prevent us from holding a meeting one afternoon. I
reasoned with him.

"You don't seem to know who I am," he said. I confessed my ignorance.

"Well," he said, "I'm Connelly, the prize fighter!"

"Then you're what your profession calls a 'bruiser'."

"Sure!" he replied.

"Probably you are not aware, Mr. Connelly, that the Bible has
something to say about bruisers."

He explained that, being a Roman Catholic, his Bible was different
from mine, and he did not think there were any bruisers in his Bible.