A weed that grew up between the
cobbles, crouching under the hoofs of horses and the tramp of men, and
who was pulled up and thrown aside and still lived on and flourished in
various ways, and all with that tenacity of purpose and buoyancy of
spirit which distinguishes all weeds and which never by any possibility
marks a better quality of plant, vegetable or animal.
The rise of this gamin from the dust-heap to his present lofty position
was as interesting as it was instructive. Interesting because his career
was a drama--instructive because it showed a grit, pluck, and
self-denial which many of his contemporaries might have envied and
imitated: wharf-rat, newsboy, dish-washer in a sailor's dive,
bar-helper, bar-tender, bar-keeper, bar-owner, ward heeler, ward
politician, clerk of a district committee--go-between, in shady deals,
between those paid to uphold the law and those paid to break it--and
now, at this time of writing, or was a year or so ago, the husband of
"the Missus," as he always calls her, the father of two children, one
three and the other five, and the proprietor of the Shady Side Inn,
above the Harlem River and within a stone's throw of the historic Bronx.
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