f okdvanwosene Se Shouter Allen’s memory is to be trusted, 
““Count’’? Mykos struck The Bowery ona 
wild Christmas Eve, somewhere in the early 
nineties. A gale from the sea was driving 
rain and snow before it, and, in the wake of 
a long, screaming blast, ‘‘Count’’?’ Mykos 
came, with the skirts of his long cape clutched 
closely about him, to stop at The Alligator and 
take a drink. 
its smoky atmosphere, he barely noticed the 
creatures sprawled about the stove. He strode to the bar opposite, 
where the bulb-nosed Boss himself was dispensing, and, leaning 
far over, so that the snow from his cape and shoulders fell all 
about the floor, he stretched out a long, lean arm and pointed 
with an exceptionally long, bony fore-finger to a red-labelled 
bottle standing just across and said, hoarsely, 
‘‘Three fingers! ’’ 
The Alligator Lodging House, 326 The Bowery, was ecom- 
passionate with its patrons—it had had misfortunes of its own. 
Its upper stories resounded with the clank of the tailor’s shears 
and the thwack of the cobbler’s hammer, but, downstairs, its old 
chandeliers, bedimmed by a myriad fly-specks, with their crystal 
reflectors tinkling in the wind; its mahogany bar and the wall- 
piece behind it, where Bacchus sat crowned and Venus sported, 
were mementoes of days when the gay and the reckless of all the 
world came to play for the gold of its poker tables, or went 
raving mad with joy or despair, at the luck of its clattering 
wheel. When The Bowery reformed, The Alligator declined and 
became a harborage for human derelicts. It was one of those 
happy surprises which Nature sometimes grants to mariners des- 
perate in the moment of foundering. Jt asked little—ten cents 
for a meal, ten cents for a bunk on the wall. It gave all they 
desired—food, warm shelter and no questions; and many a dere- 
lict came drifting in there. Day usually saw its moorings 
deserted, but night always brought a fleet of wrecks to line its 
bar, or lounge, puffing and dozing, around its big, white-washed 
stove; and, when the fleet was assembled and the lights were 
lit, an enormous lamp, hung from the ceiling, glared down through 
clouds of smoke upon a company of faces roughened and scarred 
by every wind and rock that makes Life’s sailing hazardous. 
And Mykos bore marks of them all. 
He made a shocking picture as he stood before the bar—tall, 
lean, stooped, his face extremely haggard. His cheeks were 
shriveled white,—a furrowed background for a purple nose, swol- 
Jen and vein-netted. He wore a plug hat, pulled far down, and, 
sunken away under its narrow rim, dark, glassy eyes gazed sadly. 
An old, military cape, which fell to his knees, he had thrown 
back at his elbows, revealing, beneath, a black Prince Albert, 
shiny from brushing. In its lowest button-hole, he had hung 
his cane. 
The ‘‘Count’s’’ thirst was prodigious—he kept the Boss busy 
some time. Finally he faced about, leaned his elbows against 
the bar, and with an amused half-smile, gazed at a score of miser- 
able men who sat lounged, or lay sprawled asleep in every 
possible position. 
At a small table between him and the stove, two men sat 
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Stamping into 
aicing—a consumptive with an abnormally large head and snow- 
white hair was explaining a point in throwing to a stubby fellow 
commonly known as ‘‘No. 91,’’? who, sitting opposite, - 
straddled his chair and leaned his elbows on the _ table, 
his face contorted into a fiendish grimace. Between the dicers 
and the stove a fat, chubby man, with head completely bald, sat 
asleep in a chair, bent over a basket of pocket-mirrors. An old, 
battered, shovel-hat lying beside his chair suggested something 
clerical about him. Through the smoky haze, other figures were 
dimly visible, farther distant. 
THE SPLENDID PRODIGAL 
A SKETCH OF THE Bowery AS IT IS Topay 
by 
JAMES SWEINHART 
(Copyrighted 1912 by James Sweinhart) 
Mykos mused for some time with a whimsically-cynical stare; 
then, suddenly starting, he seized his cane and dealt the bar a 
thwack that startled the loungers. They shifted in their Str 
half-awake, scowling confusedly at one another. 
‘*Good friends!’’ called ‘‘Count’’ Mykos as he rapped im- 
patiently at a few who still nodded. ‘‘Good friends—this is 
Christmas Eve—we should be gay and jolly. Come, Piffle, old 
scut’’—addressing the Boss—‘‘shoot the schooners! Let every- 
body lap! Here’s health, happiness and God’s own blessing to 
all on Christmas Day!’’ 
A loud scuffling filled the room as the forlorn lot left chair 
and bunk, limped and shuffled through the smoky glare and lined 
the bar. Only one lagged—with his ruddy, bald head bent over 
his mirrors, he continued to snore softly. 
« Stumpy—set vp!’ roared an acquaintance from the bar. 
Stumpy sat up, clutched the arms of the chair and looked 
savagely about him, as his basket of mirrors slid clatteringly to © 
the floor. Rising suddenly, he stood bewildered and hesitating. 
‘‘Dhon’t kheep the chentleman whaiting,’’ called ‘‘No. 91,’’ 
smiling like a demon. ‘‘Chome, Stumpfy,—sop hup!’’ : 
Stumpy stooped, picked up his shovel-hat, and put it on his 
head. Then, adjusting an old pair of eye- glimeses, he scrutinized 
Mykos for an instant. 
‘*Ahem-ahem-hm-hm-hm!’’ he coughed, wheezily. ‘‘A gentle- 
man!—lI should say a distinguished gentleman!’’ And, bowing to 
Mykos, he shuftled over to the only vacant space at the bar. 
As they stood drinking, in through the transom, deep and 
soft from far across the city, came the midnight chimes of hun- ~ 
dreds of Christmas bells. Presently a nearby belfry joined the 
chorus and, distinct. above all others, chimed an old Christmas 
hymn. Stumpy, in the act of drinking, recognized the air at once. 
“‘Ah,—what memories!’’ he exclaimed, sitting down his 
schooner. ‘‘Whar memories! Hy, Bachman,—are you here? it’s 
Christmas again, Bachie,—give us ‘Christmas Day at Bonn.’ ’* 
The consumptive gambler stepped from the line, placed glass 
and bottle on the table and, gazing up where Bacchus sat with 
devilish leer, began a song, in German, of Christmastide and 
student days at Bonn. 
At the first notes Mykos started. For an instant he scrutin- 
ized Bachman, questioningly; then his features softened as if he 
were musing. The song ended, he sauntered to the window 
that looks out on The Bowery and stood watching the 
falling snow. When he faced about, his eyes were very 
red. He drifted over to the bar, now deserted, and, for some 
time talked quietly with the Boss. Finally, after another brandy, 
he went sadly to the long rack behind the stove and hung up 
his cane, cape and plug hat. Then pulling up an old, creaking 
arm-chair, close behind the stove, he sat down, stretched his legs 
ever a pile of wood and, with head sunk on his breast, was soon 
lost in sleep or those melancholy musings which come to a wan- 
derer far from home on Christmas Bve. 
On The Alligator’s register next morning, scrawled in a wild 
hand, appeared this entry: 
fo Count’ Mykos—Dusseldorf, Paris, Isle of Man, Siberia, 
Johannesburg and the lands of Devil-May-Care; ANCHORED, 
by the Grace of God, at The Alligator, for a period of 30 
(thirty) days.’’ 
II 
That was the greatest Christmas the Boss remembers. ‘‘Count’’ 
Mykos early secured run of the house by flashing a roll of bills. 
At his direction a long table was set down the middle of the 
back room and, in another hour, was piled with every Christmas 
delicacy The Bowery could afford, from tenderest roast turkey to 
brandy bonbons. The regular patrons of The Alligator were 
interested in the ‘‘Count’s’’ preparations, surprised at his insist- 
ence that each partake, and astonished beyond all telling when, 
