"thank-God-you-have-saved-me-from-starvation" smile, was part of the
evening's enjoyment. He wears the dime now on his watch-chain; he says
it is the only money he ever earned by his music; to which one of his
club-friends added, "Or in your life."

Since that time I have been _persona grata_ to Muffles. Since that time,
too, I have studied him at close range: on snowy days--for I like my
tramps in winter, with the Bronx a ribbon of white, even though it may
be too cold to paint--as well as my outings on Sunday summer mornings
when I sit down with his other friends to watch Muffles shave.

On one of these days I found a thin, cadaverous, long-legged, long-armed
young man behind the bar. He had yellow-white hair that rested on his
head like a window-mop, whitey blue eyes, and a pasty complexion. When
he craned his neck in his anxiety to get my order right, I felt that his
giraffe throat reached down to his waist-line and that all of it would
come out of his collar if I didn't make up my mind at once "what it
should be."

"Who's he, Muffles?" I asked.

"Dat's me new bar-keep. I've chucked me job."

"What's his name?"

"Bowser."

"Where did you get him?"

"Blew in here one night las' month, purty nigh froze--out of a job and