"Wait a moment"--he stopped me. "I did not intend to be unkind to you. You have treated me much better than I have deserved." "It is something to have even simple food when one is hungry," I said, severely. "You have also more courage than when you came. In your work you know courage is quite important. You will soon be able to go back to your old life." "No, not that," his voice becoming less hardened. "In these days I have lived with you and observed the happiness you get out of your work--in spite of its sacrefice--and compared it with my own way of living, I can not understand how I could have ignored the good there's in me. But, really, you should not expect us all to be as cheerful as you are. You may see clearly the Truth that we see only through a glass darkly." "So you plan to live like an honest man?" "Absolutely." "Then I have not really lost after all," I said, thoughtfully. "What did you say?" he questioned, not having heard clearly my remark. "I said that if you have determined to live honestly, that is something." That evening I saw him walking up and down the kitchen floor with our Baby in his arms--for that Winter we had a homeless mother and Baby at the Colony. The Baby was kicking and laughing as he carried her with measured stride around the room. "I simply must put her to sleep," he said, confidingly. "Why don't you sing to her," I suggested. "I am hazy on my slumber songs," he said. A little later the Baby was nodding with half closed eyes. "Doesn't she look pretty," said the admiring mother. "She looks like Jeffries at the end of the fifth," was Jim's reply. A few moments later I heard him as he walked, singing music of his own improvising to the words of Wilde's prison poem: "With slouch and swing around the ring, We trod the Fools' Parade! We did not care; we knew we were The Devil's Own Brigade; And shaven head and feet of lead Make a merry masquerade." III The Winter was nearly over when "Slippery Jim" came to me and expressed a wish to return to the World again. If his father would only accept him once more! My observation of a father's attitude towards his prodigal son is that the moment the son desires to live as he ought, not only do closed doors open, but the father stands ready with outstretched arms to receive him. This supposedly harsh father, when he was convinced that his Jim had worked faithfully at the Colony for several months, was anxious that his son return home. Even the boy's old employer expressed sympathy and offered a position to him. When this good news came I did not have to tell the boy anything about its being one's duty to be cheerful. He wanted to dance a clog on the table in the men's reading room.