The young theologian took him a seat close by the side of the dreaming inebriate; and as he woke convulsively, and turned towards him his distorted face, viewing with wild stare each object that met his sight, the young man met his recognition with a smile and a warm grasp of the hand. "I am sorry you find me here again--yes, I am." "Better men, perhaps, have been here--" "I am ashamed of it, though; it isn't as it should be, you see," interrupts Tom. "Never mind--(the young man checks himself)--I was going to say there is a chance for you yet; and there is a chance; and you must struggle; and I will help you to struggle; and your friends--" Tom interrupts by saying, "I've no friends." "I will help you to struggle, and to overcome the destroyer. Never think you are friendless, for then you are a certain victim in the hands of the ruthless enemy--" "Well, well," pauses Tom, casting a half-suspicious look at the young man, "I forgot. There's you, and him they call old Spunyarn, are friends, after all. You'll excuse me, but I didn't think of that;" and a feeling of satisfaction seemed to have come over him. "How grateful to have friends when a body's in a place of this kind," he mutters incoherently, as the tears gush from his distended eyes, and childlike he grasps the hand of the young man. "Be comforted with the knowledge that you have friends, Tom. One all-important thing is wanted, and you are a man again." "As to that!" interrupts Tom, doubtingly, and laying his begrimed hand on his burning forehead, while he alternately frets and frisks his fingers through his matted hair. "Have no doubts, Tom--doubts are dangerous." "Well, say what it is, and I'll try what I can do. But you won't think I'm so bad as I seem, and'll forgive me? I know what you think of me, and that's what mortifies me; you think I'm an overdone specimen of our chivalry--you do!" "You must banish from your mind these despairing thoughts," replies the young man, laying his right hand approvingly on Tom's head. "First, Tom," he pursues, "be to yourself a friend; second, forget the error of your mother, and forgive her sending you here; and third, cut the house of Madame Flamingo, in which our chivalry are sure to get a shattering. To be honest in temptation, Tom, is one of the noblest attributes of our nature; and to be capable of forming and maintaining a resolution to shake off the thraldom of vice, and to place oneself in the serener atmosphere of good society, is equally worthy of the highest commendation." Tom received this in silence, and seemed hesitating between what he conceived an imperative demand and the natural inclination of his passions. "Give me your hand, and with it your honor--I know you yet retain the latent spark--and promise me you will lock up the cup--" "You'll give a body a furlough, by the way of blowing off the fuddle he has on hand?" "I do not withhold from you any discretionary indulgence that may bring relief--"