ways suspected that I was incited to this particular quest by an aphrodisiac. On or about that day, my physician administered a new drug. He probably hoped it would incite me to seek normal relations, but it acted along the line of my peculiar instincts.
Walking northward on the west side of the street, I encountered a mixed group of Italian and Irish "sports " of foreign parentage between sixteen and twenty-one years of age seated or standing around the portal of a warehouse. I timidly addressed them: "I am looking for a friend named Red Mike. Do any of you know him?"
One of them replied that he had just seen him up the street. Proceeding in that direction, I stopped occasionally to make the same inquiry of other adolescents. After walking several blocks in vain, I returned to the " gang " at the warehouse's portal, and asked: 'Do you mind if I sit down to rest here? Iam tired and lonesome. I have not been in the city long and don't know any one."
"Where did yez come from? "
"Philadelphia. I couldn't get any work there, so I came here."
It was not long before Red Mike happened to stroll by and recognized me even before I did him. An hour now passed, while they smoked and drank, hiding the beer-pail whenever a policeman went by. I had no desire to join in the drinking and smoking, and indeed up to my middle forties, when this autobiography goes to press, have never had any desire to learn to smoke, although having a few times put the lighted cigarette of a paramour in my mouth. I have always considered myself too feminine to
