Toying with Fate, or, Nick Carter's Narrow Shave

Excerpt: "“Move on, old man, and go home!” It was the stern voice of one of New York’s finest policemen that uttered these words. “Home! I wonder where it is?” muttered the old man to whom the policeman had spoken, and a shudder ran through his frame, as he slowly moved down the street. As he reached the corner near old St. John’s Church, on Varick Street, he paused, rubbed his eyes and gazed dreamily around him. For some time before the policeman had addressed him he had been standing inside the church, looking through the railings into the churchyard. His form was bent by decrepitude and sorrow, and his hair was as white as the flaky snow that clung to the steeple of the old church, the bells of which had just sounded the knell of the dying year. The old man only halted on the corner for a minute, and then, crossing Beach Street, he shuffled along until he reached the center of the block, where he came to a standstill in front of an old-fashioned house, which was unoccupied. Then, as if a faintness had come over him, he grasped the rusty iron railing to prevent himself falling to the ground, and he closed his eyes, as though[6] the sight of the snow-covered houses was too much for him."