[Illustration: Dowling, Tinker and Colporter.
A Veteran who Served in India under Havelock and Colin Campbell]

At this time he was living on a dollar a week, but every morning he
had his little tea-party around the old stove, his word of greeting,
and his final word of benediction to the men he had selected to share
in his bounty as they slunk out of the bunk-house to begin the day.

Later, he had a large-type New Testament out of which he read a verse
or two every morning at the meal. Very soon the three hundred lodgers
began to look upon him with a kind of awe. This was not because he had
undergone a radical change, for he had always been quiet, gentle and
civil; but because he had found his voice, and that voice was bringing
to them something they could not get elsewhere--sympathy, cheer and
courage.

In the tenement region, particularly in the little back alleys around
Mulberry Street, he mended pots, kettles, pans and umbrellas--not
always for money, but as often for the privilege of reading to these
people messages of comfort out of his large-type New Testament.

Going down Mulberry Street one morning in the depth of winter, I
happened to glance up one of those narrow alleys in "the Bend," and I
noticed my friend standing at a window, his face close to a broken
pane of glass and his large New Testament held in front of him a few
inches from his face. His tinker's budget was by his feet. The door
was closed. In a few minutes he closed the book, put it into his kit,
and as he moved away from the window, I saw a large bundle of rags
pushed into the hole.