“ We were both human. Sometimes, perhaps, in the hour when the homing of the sun had come and when the golden wings were folded for the rest of one more night, we, Mamie Rose and I, in field or rural quiet, felt the intoned, unison song of our hearts, which sung to us that we were one, a unit, and not two different personalities, and then we often came very near to throwing aside all previous sagacious resolves and felt ourselves fired by the desire to end to-morrow this two-fold existence. ”

“ Always finding him asleep on my return from the saloon, I was surprised to hear him move about, one morning, as I was inserting the key in the lock. I opened the door, and before me danced the pup in a veritable frenzy of delight at beholding me. This not being a psychological essay, only a plain, true story, I shall not attempt to analyze, but will tell you straight facts in a straight way.
It was a new, a bewildering sensation to me to perceive a living being to be so pleased at my appearance. ”

“ The Star marks the window of the Kildare Tenement. There, not yet mentioning the other detrimental defects of environment, the child grows up, and then, when in the manhood days this foundation, faulty and vicious, breaks and crumbles to pieces and leaves naught but a being condemned by society and law, and seemingly by God, there is an army ready to pelt this creature, cursed by its own existence, with law, justice and punishment, but not with one iota of the spirit which even now, in our matter-of-fact days, echoes the grandest message, "He is thy brother." ”

“ It gradually began to dawn on us that City Hall Park was almost as interesting as the sidewalk in front of Mike Callahan's dive on Chatham Square. A perpetual stream of people crossed our view on their way to and from the Brooklyn Bridge and to and from the Jersey ferries. Very few of them walked leisurely. Most of them seemed in a hurry and all seemed to have a definite purpose. Bill and I were the only two without a purpose. ”

“ Mingles the romance of the forest with the romance of man's heart, making a story that is big and elemental, while not lacking in sweetness and tenderness. It is an epic of the life of the lumberman of the great forest of the Northwest, permeated by out of door freshness, and the glory of the struggle with nature. ”

“ Here you are, sitting with your hands in your lap, and bemoaning a fate which is largely of your own making. Besides—excuse me for being so brutally frank—you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Big and strong, you live in idleness, and now you kick because you are down and out and deprived of your despicable means of livelihood. Owen Kildare, brace up and be a man. You are not friendless. I am here. True, I'm only a dog, a soulless brute, but I'm your Bill, and we're going to stick until we both win out! ”

“ Not so much because of the self-satisfaction, although let me be frank and state that very often when I know and feel I have written a fairly good story, I cannot hide my pride in my work and glory in it, for it proves to me that all was not in vain—but because it shows that even these poor people whom you think so vile, so demoralized, are glad to recognize it with sincerity, when one from among them succeeds in climbing a few steps on the ladder of useful decency and manhood. ”

“ THE WINGS OF THE MORNING
"Here is a story filled with the swing of adventure. There are no dragging intervals in this volume: from the moment of their landing on the island until the rescuing crew find them there, there is not a dull moment for the young people—nor for the reader either."—New York Times.
THE KING OF DIAMONDS
"Verily, Mr. Tracy is a prince of story-tellers. His charm is a little hard to describe, but it is as definite as that of a rainbow. The reader is carried along by the robust imagination of the author."—San Francisco Examiner. ”

“ A writer, who for a considerable time, has been accepted as an authority on conditions in the underworld, is the most profligate in calling beings and things of the sphere he describes by their wrong name. He persists in claiming that thieves are called "guns" by police and fellows. Every man, who has lived all his life on the Bowery, as I have, knows that "gun" means an important personage. A millionaire is a "gun," so is a prominent lawyer, or a politician, or a famous crook; in short, anybody who is foremost in his profession or calling, be he statesmen or thief, is a "gun." ”

“ But before my facial muscles had time to shapen themselves into a brutish laugh the girl wheeled around, looked at McCarthy, at me, at all of us and, quite distinctly could I read there the sentence: "And you are MEN!"
Possibly there was a psychic or physical reason for it, but whatever it was I could almost feel when her look fell on me the bodily sensation of something snapping or becoming released within me. It was as if a spring, holding back a certain force, had been suddenly freed from its catch and had, catapult-like, sent a new power into action. ”

“ Being the most steady member of Chicory and rarely absent from the hall, it was quite natural that I took part in most of the "goes" in the cellar. I felt myself in my element. Neither the Marquis of Queensberry or the London prize ring rules were rigidly enforced, and my viciousness had full scope, our guests—men and women of the "better" class—liking nothing so well as a "knockout finish."
Mainly through my savageness the last vestige of regulated fighting disappeared from our "set-tos," and our performances fell to the level of "go-as-you-please" scrimmages. ”

“ It is said corporations have no souls, why then should a large estate, surely a corporation, have one? And there must be a soul to understand, to feel the woe, the pleading that comes to it in halting, sob-broken speech. How, then, is one whose feeling is long ago calloused by the repetition of these tales of misery, to be stirred to more than a sneer by another variation of the old, old wail: "Have pity on us this once, we are so poor, so ill, so miserable." ”

“ Where is the harvest of the many millions sown on the East Side? The time, the day, the hour is ripe for a Messiah to the slums who will have much piety, more manhood and, most of all, common sense. Bring less talk and more muscle; less hymns and more work, and there will be an echo to your labor in every lane and alley. ”

“ Three tough specimens of humanity, indeed, we were!
No stop was made until we reached the railroad station at Newark. Quite a crowd was assembled to wait for either an incoming or outgoing train, but we, without paying the slightest attention to the many mistrustful glances given in our direction, raced for the ice-water tank, prepared to gorge ourselves with the cooling drink.
Casey was the last to have his turn at the chained tin cup. He started off splendidly, but paused after, his first gulp and smacked his lips in a most critical manner. ”

“ Presumably a good part of that intelligence is occupied in defending their rights, which nobody assails. Howling and haranguing do not require much intelligence, and of both the "intelligent" workingman does more than enough and to no purpose. When the time of his usefulness approaches—although it should be the time for him to assert himself—he stops his howling and listens to the strongly flavored persuasion of the wily politician—the weed he permitted to grow and to prosper—and becomes the gently led sheep, to awaken after election and find himself the twin brother of the donkey. ”

“ The most unique resort in this Bohemia of the nether world was at Chicory Hall, where my particular gang had established itself.
It was a basement at the corner of Fourth street and Bowery. Originally a bakeshop, it had been unoccupied for some time, until a coffee merchant rented it to prepare his chicory there. One man constituted the entire working force of the plant, and it so happened that Tom Noseley, the chicory baker, was imbued with sporting proclivities.
Do not let us forget that, at the time, the prize-fighter was a man of consequence to the youths of the East Side. ”

“ The only difference is that, among the boys, the most primitive and direct way is the most frequent one employed to settle disputes. Some men, after great sorrows or disappointments, seek forgetfulness in battle, being entirely indifferent to their ultimate fate, and they always make good fighters. My position was not altogether dissimilar from theirs. What little I had known of comfort and affection was behind me; my mode of life at that time had no particular attraction for me, and my only ambition was to conquer by fight, and, therefore, I made a good fighter. ”

“ Will it surprise you to know that constant companionship with my mentor had awakened in me thoughts very foreign to grammar and arithmetic?
I loved her. I knew it, but I also felt that that love was doomed to be buried unsatisfied. A cat may look at a queen, but that is about all a cat may presume to do.
That is what my reason told me, but in my heart there echoed a stirring hymn of fondest hope. It would not let me rest, and I became a pestering nuisance to my teacher. ”

“ No class loves flowers as much as the poor, and no class has less of them than they. Ah, it is pitiful, I tell you, to wander through the streets inhabited by my people, and to see never a patch of green, a fragrant oasis, in this stretch of barren, joyless materialism. There is no time there for flowers, where even the cabbages in front of the dingy grocery stores look withered and seared, and where there is no other watchword than, "Work, work, or we will be homeless and starving." ”

“ The rest of the night, or rather the beginning of the day, was spent in chairs in Callahan's back-room, which seemed like paradise to us after our "fierce" experience in the country. After a nap, I went to look for my Bill, who greeted me as if I had left him alone as long as I did on our previous separation, and then again settled down to grace Callahan's dive with my presence.
In a day our country trip was forgotten, and I felt quite resigned at taking up my career where I had dropped it. ”

“ I have little use for a man who cloaks his ability with mock modesty. A man's conscience is the best barometer of his ability, and he who will pretend a disbelief in his ability is either untruthful or has an ulterior motif.
In spite of having, as yet, accomplished little, I have confidence in myself and my ability, because my aims are distinctly reasonable. I regret that in my story the first person singular will be so much in evidence, but it cannot be otherwise. ”

“ LIVING BY MY WITS.
True, my fights with Tommy Gibbons and others had brought me some money, but the social obligations were so many and the celebrations so frequent that, after a short time of plenty, I always found myself "dead broke" and compelled to resort to my "wits" for making a living.
All Chatham street—now Park Row—and the Bowery teemed with "sporting houses," which offered opportunities to men of my class. In many of these places boxing was the real or pretended attraction. ”

“ Air is necessary, and Bill and I have devised a scheme to get it as pure as possible under the circumstances.
The roaring bustle of lower Broadway turns into deadly silence with the fall of evening. For miles, excepting a watchman or policeman, you will scarcely see a living being. That is where Bill and I enjoy our pleasant pastime. After the day's work is ended we travel through the quiet streets until we reach our stoop in the yawning dark cañon of the skyscrapers. We do not talk much; there is better intercourse. ”

“ In the knightly art of fencing, skill, artful skill, is necessary and acquired. Not so in boxing; at least not in that branch of boxing which is only practised for money. Men who step into the ring for a "finish fight" are not prompted by the desire of giving a clever exhibition of boxing. Their only desire—if the fight "is on the level"—is to "put out" their man somehow, as quickly as possible, and to collect their end of the purse as promptly as possible. I have seen my quota of fights in my life time, but never one in which claims of "fouls" were not made. ”

“ In all governments by and for the people, the making of the nation lies with the common people; that great mass, which you would call "rabble" were it not for the continental sound of the word and the danger of being quoted. An ever-watchful press keeps its eye on you, and would readily pillorize you as an offender against the most sacred of our possessions and privileges; our sacred freedom; our sacred equality; our sacred franchise, and, by no means lastly, our sacred screaming eagle, screaming ofttimes from veriest agony. ”