Power did not change his attire that evening. He dined quietly in the restaurant, and strolled out into Broadway afterward. The loneliness of a great city, at first so repellent, was grateful to him now. The crowded streets were more democratic than the palatial saloons of the hotel, the air more breathable. But the flood of light in the Great White Way--though blazing then with a subdued magnificence as compared with its bewildering luster nowadays--was garish and harsh, and he turned into the sheltering gloom of a quiet side-street. He was passing a row of red-stone houses--bay-windowed, austere abodes, with porches surmounting steep flights of broad steps--when he saw an old, old man seated at the foot of one of these outer stairways. In summer, at that hour, every step would be occupied by people gasping for fresh, cool air; but in the depth of winter it was courting disease and death for anyone, especially the aged, to seek such repose. The unusual spectacle stirred Power out of his mournful self-communing. "Are you ill?" he said, halting in front of the patriarch. "No, sorr," came the cheerful answer, and a worn, deeply lined face was raised to his with a smile that banished the ravages of time as sunlight gilds a ruin. A street-lamp was near, and its rays fell on features which had once been strong and massive, but were now mellowed into the rare beauty of hale and kindly age. Silvery hair, still plentiful, and dark, keen eyes from which gleamed the intelligence and sympathy every clean-souled man may hope to gain if his years stretch beyond the span allotted by the prophet, made up a personality which would have appealed to an artist in search of a model. "But you are taking a great risk by sitting on cold stone," persisted Power. "Sure, sorr, av it's the will o' God that I should die that way, it's as good as anny other," said the ancient. "All doores ladin' to the next worruld are pretty much the same to me. I don't care which wan I take so long as it lades me safe into Purgathory." Never before had Power heard so modest a claim on the benevolence of the Almighty. "Are you tired of life, then?" he asked. "Sorra a bit am I! Why should I be? Wouldn't it be flyin' in the face o' Providence to say that I was tired of the sivinty-eight grand years I've spint in raisonable happiness an' the best o' health." "I like your philosophy. It has the right ring. But it can hardly be the will of God that you should shorten the remainder of those years by resting on a doorstep in this weather." "Young man," said the other suddenly, "how old are ye?" "Thirty-five." "Thorty-foive is it? An' ye stand there an' talk as though ye'd just come down like Moses from the top o' Mount Sinai, an' had the worrd o' the Lord nately written in yer pocketbook. Sure, thim days is past entirely. God doesn't talk to His sarvints anny longer in that way." "Tell me, then, how does He talk?"