initial commit of ebook 2545HEADmain

11 files changed, 25401 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/2545-0.txt b/2545-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c652496
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2545-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6109 @@
+Project Gutenberg's When God Laughs and Other Stories, by Jack London
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: When God Laughs and Other Stories
+
+Author: Jack London
+
+Posting Date: December 14, 2008 [EBook #2545]
+Release Date: March, 2001
+Last Updated: March 3, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GOD LAUGHS AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Les Bowler
+
+
+
+
+
+WHEN GOD LAUGHS, AND OTHER STORIES
+
+By Jack London
+
+
+1911 Mills and Boon edition
+
+
+Contents:
+
+     When God Laughs
+     The Apostate
+     A Wicked Woman
+     Just Meat
+     Created He Them
+     The Chinago
+     Make Westing
+     Semper Idem
+     A Nose For The King
+     The “Francis Spaight”
+      A Curious Fragment
+     A Piece Of Steak
+
+
+
+
+WHEN GOD LAUGHS (with compliments to Harry Cowell)
+
+     “The gods, the gods are stronger; time
+      Falls down before them, all men's knees
+      Bow, all men's prayers and sorrows climb
+      Like incense toward them; yea, for these
+          Are gods, Felise.”
+
+Carquinez had relaxed finally. He stole a glance at the rattling
+windows, looked upward at the beamed roof, and listened for a moment
+to the savage roar of the south-easter as it caught the bungalow in
+its bellowing jaws. Then he held his glass between him and the fire and
+laughed for joy through the golden wine.
+
+“It is beautiful,” he said. “It is sweetly sweet. It is a woman's wine,
+and it was made for gray-robed saints to drink.”
+
+“We grow it on our own warm hills,” I said, with pardonable California
+pride. “You rode up yesterday through the vines from which it was made.”
+
+It was worth while to get Carquinez to loosen up. Nor was he ever really
+himself until he felt the mellow warmth of the vine singing in his
+blood. He was an artist, it is true, always an artist; but somehow,
+sober, the high pitch and lilt went out of his thought-processes and he
+was prone to be as deadly dull as a British Sunday--not dull as other
+men are dull, but dull when measured by the sprightly wight that Monte
+Carquinez was when he was really himself.
+
+From all this it must not be inferred that Carquinez, who is my dear
+friend and dearer comrade, was a sot. Far from it. He rarely erred. As
+I have said, he was an artist. He knew when he had enough, and enough,
+with him, was equilibrium--the equilibrium that is yours and mine when
+we are sober.
+
+His was a wise and instinctive temperateness that savoured of the Greek.
+Yet he was far from Greek. “I am Aztec, I am Inca, I am Spaniard,” I
+have heard him say. And in truth he looked it, a compound of strange
+and ancient races, what with his swarthy skin and the asymmetry and
+primitiveness of his features. His eyes, under massively arched brows,
+were wide apart and black with the blackness that is barbaric, while
+before them was perpetually falling down a great black mop of hair
+through which he gazed like a roguish satyr from a thicket. He
+invariably wore a soft flannel shirt under his velvet-corduroy jacket,
+and his necktie was red. This latter stood for the red flag (he had once
+lived with the socialists of Paris), and it symbolized the blood and
+brotherhood of man. Also, he had never been known to wear anything on
+his head save a leather-banded sombrero. It was even rumoured that
+he had been born with this particular piece of headgear. And in my
+experience it was provocative of nothing short of sheer delight to see
+that Mexican sombrero hailing a cab in Piccadilly or storm-tossed in the
+crush for the New York Elevated.
+
+As I have said, Carquinez was made quick by wine--“as the clay was made
+quick when God breathed the breath of life into it,” was his way of
+saying it. I confess that he was blasphemously intimate with God; and I
+must add that there was no blasphemy in him. He was at all times honest,
+and, because he was compounded of paradoxes, greatly misunderstood by
+those who did not know him. He could be as elementally raw at times as a
+screaming savage; and at other times as delicate as a maid, as subtle as
+a Spaniard. And--well, was he not Aztec? Inca? Spaniard?
+
+And now I must ask pardon for the space I have given him. (He is my
+friend, and I love him.) The house was shaking to the storm, as he drew
+closer to the fire and laughed at it through his wine. He looked at me,
+and by the added lustre of his eye, and by the alertness of it, I knew
+that at last he was pitched in his proper key.
+
+“And so you think you've won out against the gods?” he demanded.
+
+“Why the gods?”
+
+“Whose will but theirs has put satiety upon man?” he cried.
+
+“And whence the will in me to escape satiety?” I asked triumphantly.
+
+“Again the gods,” he laughed. “It is their game we play. They deal and
+shuffle all the cards... and take the stakes. Think not that you have
+escaped by fleeing from the mad cities. You with your vine-clad hills,
+your sunsets and your sunrises, your homely fare and simple round of
+living!
+
+“I've watched you ever since I came. You have not won. You have
+surrendered. You have made terms with the enemy. You have made
+confession that you are tired. You have flown the white flag of fatigue.
+You have nailed up a notice to the effect that life is ebbing down in
+you. You have run away from life. You have played a trick, shabby trick.
+You have balked at the game. You refuse to play. You have thrown your
+cards under the table and run away to hide, here amongst your hills.”
+
+He tossed his straight hair back from his flashing eyes, and scarcely
+interrupted to roll a long, brown, Mexican cigarette.
+
+“But the gods know. It is an old trick. All the generations of man have
+tried it... and lost. The gods know how to deal with such as you. To
+pursue is to possess, and to possess is to be sated. And so you, in your
+wisdom, have refused any longer to pursue. You have elected surcease.
+Very well. You will become sated with surcease. You say you have escaped
+satiety! You have merely bartered it for senility. And senility is
+another name for satiety. It is satiety's masquerade. Bah!”
+
+“But look at me!” I cried.
+
+Carquinez was ever a demon for haling ones soul out and making rags and
+tatters of it.
+
+He looked me witheringly up and down.
+
+“You see no signs,” I challenged.
+
+“Decay is insidious,” he retorted. “You are rotten ripe.”
+
+I laughed and forgave him for his very deviltry. But he refused to be
+forgiven.
+
+“Do I not know?” he asked. “The gods always win. I have watched men play
+for years what seemed a winning game. In the end they lost.”
+
+“Don't you ever make mistakes?” I asked.
+
+He blew many meditative rings of smoke before replying.
+
+“Yes, I was nearly fooled, once. Let me tell you. There was Marvin
+Fiske. You remember him? And his Dantesque face and poet's soul, singing
+his chant of the flesh, the very priest of Love? And there was Ethel
+Baird, whom also you must remember.”
+
+“A warm saint,” I said.
+
+“That is she! Holy as Love, and sweeter! Just a woman, made for love;
+and yet--how shall I say?--drenched through with holiness as your own
+air here is with the perfume of flowers. Well, they married. They played
+a hand with the gods--”
+
+“And they won, they gloriously won!” I broke in.
+
+Carquinez looked at me pityingly, and his voice was like a funeral bell.
+
+“They lost. They supremely, colossally lost.”
+
+“But the world believes otherwise,” I ventured coldly.
+
+“The world conjectures. The world sees only the face of things. But I
+know. Has it ever entered your mind to wonder why she took the veil,
+buried herself in that dolorous convent of the living dead?”
+
+“Because she loved him so, and when he died...”
+
+Speech was frozen on my lips by Carquinez's sneer.
+
+“A pat answer,” he said, “machine-made like a piece of cotton-drill. The
+world's judgment! And much the world knows about it. Like you, she fled
+from life. She was beaten. She flung out the white flag of fatigue. And
+no beleaguered city ever flew that flag in such bitterness and tears.
+
+“Now I shall tell you the whole tale, and you must believe me, for I
+know. They had pondered the problem of satiety. They loved Love. They
+knew to the uttermost farthing the value of Love. They loved him so
+well that they were fain to keep him always, warm and a-thrill in their
+hearts. They welcomed his coming; they feared to have him depart.
+
+“Love was desire, they held, a delicious pain. He was ever seeking
+easement, and when he found that for which he sought, he died. Love
+denied was Love alive; Love granted was Love deceased. Do you follow me?
+They saw it was not the way of life to be hungry for what it has. To eat
+and still be hungry--man has never accomplished that feat. The problem
+of satiety. That is it. To have and to keep the sharp famine-edge of
+appetite at the groaning board. This was their problem, for they loved
+Love. Often did they discuss it, with all Love's sweet ardours brimming
+in their eyes; his ruddy blood spraying their cheeks; his voice playing
+in and out with their voices, now hiding as a tremolo in their throats,
+and again shading a tone with that ineffable tenderness which he alone
+can utter.
+
+“How do I know all this? I saw--much. More I learned from her diary.
+This I found in it, from Fiona Macleod: 'For, truly, that wandering
+voice, that twilight-whisper, that breath so dewy-sweet, that
+flame-winged lute-player whom none sees but for a moment, in a
+rainbow-shimmer of joy, or a sudden lightning-flare of passion, this
+exquisite mystery we call Amor, comes, to some rapt visionaries at
+least, not with a song upon the lips that all may hear, or with blithe
+viol of public music, but as one wrought by ecstasy, dumbly eloquent
+with desire.'
+
+“How to keep the flame-winged lute-player with his dumb eloquence of
+desire? To feast him was to lose him. Their love for each other was a
+great love. Their granaries were overflowing with plenitude; yet they
+wanted to keep the sharp famine-edge of their love undulled.
+
+“Nor were they lean little fledglings theorizing on the threshold of
+Love. They were robust and realized souls. They had loved before,
+with others, in the days before they met; and in those days they had
+throttled Love with caresses, and killed him with kisses, and buried him
+in the pit of satiety.
+
+“They were not cold wraiths, this man and woman. They were warm human.
+They had no Saxon soberness in their blood. The colour of it was
+sunset-red. They glowed with it. Temperamentally theirs was the French
+joy in the flesh. They were idealists, but their idealism was Gallic.
+It was not tempered by the chill and sombre fluid that for the English
+serves as blood. There was no stoicism about them. They were Americans,
+descended out of the English, and yet the refraining and self-denying of
+the English spirit-groping were not theirs.
+
+“They were all this that I have said, and they were made for joy, only
+they achieved a concept. A curse on concepts! They played with logic,
+and this was their logic.--But first let me tell you of a talk we had
+one night. It was of Gautier's Madeline de Maupin. You remember the
+maid? She kissed once, and once only, and kisses she would have no
+more. Not that she found kisses were not sweet, but that she feared with
+repetition they would cloy. Satiety again! She tried to play without
+stakes against the gods. Now this is contrary to a rule of the game the
+gods themselves have made. Only the rules are not posted over the table.
+Mortals must play in order to learn the rules.
+
+“Well, to the logic. The man and the woman argued thus: Why kiss once
+only? If to kiss once were wise, was it not wiser to kiss not at all?
+Thus could they keep Love alive. Fasting, he would knock forever at
+their hearts.
+
+“Perhaps it was out of their heredity that they achieved this unholy
+concept. The breed will out and sometimes most fantastically. Thus
+in them did cursed Albion array herself a scheming wanton, a bold,
+cold-calculating, and artful hussy. After all, I do not know. But this
+I know: it was out of their inordinate desire for joy that they forewent
+joy.
+
+“As he said (I read it long afterward in one of his letters to her):
+'To hold you in my arms, close, and yet not close. To yearn for you, and
+never to have you, and so always to have you.' And she: 'For you to be
+always just beyond my reach. To be ever attaining you, and yet never
+attaining you, and for this to last forever, always fresh and new, and
+always with the first flush upon us.
+
+“That is not the way they said it. On my lips their love-philosophy is
+mangled. And who am I to delve into their soul-stuff? I am a frog, on
+the dank edge of a great darkness, gazing goggle-eyed at the mystery and
+wonder of their flaming souls.
+
+“And they were right, as far as they went. Everything is good... as long
+as it is unpossessed. Satiety and possession are Death's horses; they
+run in span.
+
+     “'And time could only tutor us to eke
+       Our rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow.'
+
+“They got that from a sonnet of Alfred Austin's. It was called 'Love's
+Wisdom.' It was the one kiss of Madeline de Maupin. How did it run?
+
+     “'Kiss we and part; no further can we go;
+       And better death than we from high to low
+   Should dwindle, or decline from strong to weak.'
+
+“But they were wiser. They would not kiss and part. They would not
+kiss at all, and thus they planned to stay at Love's topmost peak. They
+married. You were in England at the time. And never was there such a
+marriage. They kept their secret to themselves. I did not know, then.
+Their rapture's warmth did not cool. Their love burned with increasing
+brightness. Never was there anything like it. The time passed, the
+months, the years, and ever the flame-winged lute-player grew more
+resplendent.
+
+“Everybody marvelled. They became the wonderful lovers, and they were
+greatly envied. Sometimes women pitied her because she was childless; it
+is the form the envy of such creatures takes.
+
+“And I did not know their secret. I pondered and I marvelled. As first I
+had expected, subconsciously I imagine, the passing of their love. Then
+I became aware that it was Time that passed and Love that remained. Then
+I became curious. What was their secret? What were the magic fetters
+with which they bound Love to them? How did they hold the graceless elf?
+What elixir of eternal love had they drunk together as had Tristram and
+Iseult of old time? And whose hand had brewed the fairy drink?
+
+“As I say, I was curious, and I watched them. They were love-mad. They
+lived in an unending revel of Love. They made a pomp and ceremonial of
+it. They saturated themselves in the art and poetry of Love. No, they
+were not neurotics. They were sane and healthy, and they were artists.
+But they had accomplished the impossible. They had achieved deathless
+desire.
+
+“And I? I saw much of them and their everlasting miracle of Love. I
+puzzled and wondered, and then one day--”
+
+Carquinez broke off abruptly and asked, “Have you ever read, 'Love's
+Waiting Time'?”
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“Page wrote it--Curtis Hidden Page, I think. Well, it was that bit of
+verse that gave me the clue. One day, in the window-seat near the big
+piano--you remember how she could play? She used to laugh, sometimes,
+and doubt whether it was for them I came, or for the music. She called
+me a 'music-sot' once, a 'sound-debauchee.' What a voice he had! When
+he sang I believed in immortality, my regard for the gods grew almost
+patronizing and I devised ways and means whereby I surely could outwit
+them and their tricks.
+
+“It was a spectacle for God, that man and woman, years married, and
+singing love-songs with a freshness virginal as new-born Love himself,
+with a ripeness and wealth of ardour that young lovers can never know.
+Young lovers were pale and anaemic beside that long-married pair. To
+see them, all fire and flame and tenderness, at a trembling distance,
+lavishing caresses of eye and voice with every action, through every
+silence--their love driving them toward each other, and they withholding
+like fluttering moths, each to the other a candle-flame, and revolving
+each about the other in the mad gyrations of an amazing orbit-flight!
+It seemed, in obedience to some great law of physics, more potent than
+gravitation and more subtle, that they must corporeally melt each
+into each there before my very eyes. Small wonder they were called the
+wonderful lovers.
+
+“I have wandered. Now to the clue. One day in the window-seat I found
+a book of verse. It opened of itself, betraying long habit, to 'Love's
+Waiting Time.' The page was thumbed and limp with overhandling, and
+there I read:--
+
+     “'So sweet it is to stand but just apart,
+       To know each other better, and to keep
+       The soft, delicious sense of two that touch...
+
+       O love, not yet!...  Sweet, let us keep our love
+       Wrapped round with sacred mystery awhile,
+       Waiting the secret of the coming years,
+       That come not yet, not yet... sometime...
+                    not yet...
+
+       Oh, yet a little while our love may grow!
+       When it has blossomed it will haply die.
+       Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep,
+       Bedded in dead denial yet some while...
+       Oh, yet a little while, a little while.'
+
+“I folded the book on my thumb and sat there silent and without moving
+for a long time. I was stunned by the clearness of vision the verse
+had imparted to me. It was illumination. It was like a bolt of God's
+lightning in the Pit. They would keep Love, the fickle sprite, the
+forerunner of young life--young life that is imperative to be born!
+
+“I conned the lines over in my mind--'Not yet, sometime'--'O Love, not
+yet'--'Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep.' And I laughed
+aloud, ha, ha! I saw with white vision their blameless souls. They were
+children. They did not understand. They played with Nature's fire and
+bedded with a naked sword. They laughed at the gods. They would stop
+the cosmic sap. They had invented a system, and brought it to the
+gaming-table of life, and expected to win out. 'Beware!' I cried. 'The
+gods are behind the table. They make new rules for every system that is
+devised. You have no chance to win.'
+
+“But I did not so cry to them. I waited. They would learn that their
+system was worthless and throw it away. They would be content with
+whatever happiness the gods gave them and not strive to wrest more away.
+
+“I watched. I said nothing. The months continued to come and go, and
+still the famine-edge of their love grew the sharper. Never did they
+dull it with a permitted love-clasp. They ground and whetted it on
+self-denial, and sharper and sharper it grew. This went on until even I
+doubted. Did the gods sleep? I wondered. Or were they dead? I laughed
+to myself. The man and the woman had made a miracle. They had outwitted
+God. They had shamed the flesh, and blackened the face of the good Earth
+Mother. They had played with her fire and not been burned. They were
+immune. They were themselves gods, knowing good from evil and tasting
+not. 'Was this the way gods came to be?' I asked myself. 'I am a frog,'
+I said. 'But for my mud-lidded eyes I should have been blinded by the
+brightness of this wonder I have witnessed. I have puffed myself up with
+my wisdom and passed judgment upon gods.'
+
+“Yet even in this, my latest wisdom, I was wrong. They were not gods.
+They were man and woman--soft clay that sighed and thrilled, shot
+through with desire, thumbed with strange weaknesses which the gods have
+not.”
+
+Carquinez broke from his narrative to roll another cigarette and to
+laugh harshly. It was not a pretty laugh; it was like the mockery of a
+devil, and it rose over and rode the roar of the storm that came muffled
+to our ears from the crashing outside world.
+
+“I am a frog,” he said apologetically. “How were they to understand?
+They were artists, not biologists. They knew the clay of the studio, but
+they did not know the clay of which they themselves were made. But this
+I will say--they played high. Never was there such a game before, and I
+doubt me if there will ever be such a game again.
+
+“Never was lovers' ecstasy like theirs. They had not killed Love with
+kisses. They had quickened him with denial. And by denial they drove him
+on till he was all aburst with desire. And the flame-winged lute-player
+fanned them with his warm wings till they were all but swooning. It was
+the very delirium of Love, and it continued undiminished and increasing
+through the weeks and months.
+
+“They longed and yearned, with all the fond pangs and sweet delicious
+agonies, with an intensity never felt by lovers before nor since.
+
+“And then one day the drowsy gods ceased nodding. They aroused and
+looked at the man and woman who had made a mock of them. And the man and
+woman looked into each other's eyes one morning and knew that something
+was gone. It was the flame-winged one. He had fled, silently, in the
+night, from their anchorites' board.
+
+“They looked into each other's eyes and knew that they did not care.
+Desire was dead. Do you understand? Desire was dead. And they had never
+kissed. Not once had they kissed. Love was gone. They would never yearn
+and burn again. For them there was nothing left--no more tremblings and
+flutterings and delicious anguishes, no more throbbing and pulsing, and
+sighing and song. Desire was dead. It had died in the night, on a couch
+cold and unattended; nor had they witnessed its passing. They learned it
+for the first time in each other's eyes.
+
+“The gods may not be kind, but they are often merciful. They had twirled
+the little ivory ball and swept the stakes from the table. All that
+remained was the man and woman gazing into each other's cold eyes.
+And then he died. That was the mercy. Within the week Marvin Fiske was
+dead--you remember the accident. And in her diary, written at this time,
+I long afterward read Mitchell Kennerly's:--
+
+     “'There was not a single hour
+       We might have kissed and did not kiss.'”
+
+“Oh, the irony of it!” I cried out.
+
+And Carquinez, in the firelight a veritable Mephistopheles in velvet
+jacket, fixed me with his black eyes.
+
+“And they won, you said? The world's judgment! I have told you, and I
+know. They won as you are winning, here in your hills.”
+
+“But you,” I demanded hotly; “you with your orgies of sound and sense,
+with your mad cities and madder frolics--bethink you that you win?”
+
+He shook his head slowly. “Because you with your sober bucolic regime,
+lose, is no reason that I should win. We never win. Sometimes we think
+we win. That is a little pleasantry of the gods.”
+
+
+
+
+THE APOSTATE
+
+     “Now I wake me up to work;
+      I pray the Lord I may not shirk.
+      If I should die before the night,
+      I pray the Lord my work's all right.
+                                    Amen.”
+
+“If you don't git up, Johnny, I won't give you a bite to eat!”
+
+The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep,
+fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy's
+hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows
+at the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed
+practised familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the
+shoulder.
+
+“Lemme 'lone!”
+
+It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly
+rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died
+away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as
+of a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.
+
+But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had
+grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She
+got a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy,
+ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle, at the
+foot of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the
+bedding to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers
+was the superior weight, and the boy and bedding gave, the former
+instinctively following the latter in order to shelter against the chill
+of the room that bit into his body.
+
+As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall
+head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He
+righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the
+floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders
+and shook him. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and
+directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was
+awake.
+
+“All right,” he mumbled.
+
+She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.
+
+“You'll be docked,” she warned back to him.
+
+He did not mind the darkness. When he had got into his clothes, he went
+out into the kitchen. His tread was very heavy for so thin and light a
+boy. His legs dragged with their own weight, which seemed unreasonable
+because they were such skinny legs. He drew a broken-bottomed chair to
+the table.
+
+“Johnny,” his mother called sharply.
+
+He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word, went to the
+sink. It was a greasy, filthy sink. A smell came up from the outlet. He
+took no notice of it. That a sink should smell was to him part of the
+natural order, just as it was a part of the natural order that the soap
+should be grimy with dish-water and hard to lather. Nor did he try very
+hard to make it lather. Several splashes of the cold water from the
+running faucet completed the function. He did not wash his teeth. For
+that matter he had never seen a toothbrush, nor did he know that there
+existed beings in the world who were guilty of so great a foolishness as
+tooth washing.
+
+“You might wash yourself wunst a day without bein' told,” his mother
+complained.
+
+She was holding a broken lid on the pot as she poured two cups of
+coffee. He made no remark, for this was a standing quarrel between them,
+and the one thing upon which his mother was hard as adamant. “Wunst” a
+day it was compulsory that he should wash his face. He dried himself on
+a greasy towel, damp and dirty and ragged, that left his face covered
+with shreds of lint.
+
+“I wish we didn't live so far away,” she said, as he sat down. “I try
+to do the best I can. You know that. But a dollar on the rent is such a
+savin', an' we've more room here. You know that.”
+
+He scarcely followed her. He had heard it all before, many times. The
+range of her thought was limited, and she was ever harking back to the
+hardship worked upon them by living so far from the mills.
+
+“A dollar means more grub,” he remarked sententiously. “I'd sooner do
+the walkin' an' git the grub.”
+
+He ate hurriedly, half chewing the bread and washing the unmasticated
+chunks down with coffee. The hot and muddy liquid went by the name of
+coffee. Johnny thought it was coffee--and excellent coffee. That was one
+of the few of life's illusions that remained to him. He had never drunk
+real coffee in his life.
+
+In addition to the bread, there was a small piece of cold pork. His
+mother refilled his cup with coffee. As he was finishing the bread, he
+began to watch if more was forthcoming. She intercepted his questioning
+glance.
+
+“Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny,” was her comment. “You've had your
+share. Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you.”
+
+He did not answer the rebuke. He was not much of a talker. Also, he
+ceased his hungry glancing for more. He was uncomplaining, with a
+patience that was as terrible as the school in which it had been
+learned. He finished his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his
+hand, and started to rise.
+
+“Wait a second,” she said hastily. “I guess the loaf kin stand you
+another slice--a thin un.”
+
+There was legerdemain in her actions. With all the seeming of cutting
+a slice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice back in the bread
+box and conveyed to him one of her own two slices. She believed she had
+deceived him, but he had noted her sleight-of-hand. Nevertheless, he
+took the bread shamelessly. He had a philosophy that his mother, because
+of her chronic sickliness, was not much of an eater anyway.
+
+She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached over and emptied
+her coffee cup into his.
+
+“Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning,” she explained.
+
+A distant whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of them to
+their feet. She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf. The hands
+stood at half-past five. The rest of the factory world was just arousing
+from sleep. She drew a shawl about her shoulders, and on her head put a
+dingy hat, shapeless and ancient.
+
+“We've got to run,” she said, turning the wick of the lamp and blowing
+down the chimney.
+
+They groped their way out and down the stairs. It was clear and cold,
+and Johnny shivered at the first contact with the outside air. The stars
+had not yet begun to pale in the sky, and the city lay in blackness.
+Both Johnny and his mother shuffled their feet as they walked. There was
+no ambition in the leg muscles to swing the feet clear of the ground.
+
+After fifteen silent minutes, his mother turned off to the right.
+
+“Don't be late,” was her final warning from out of the dark that was
+swallowing her up.
+
+He made no response, steadily keeping on his way. In the factory
+quarter, doors were opening everywhere, and he was soon one of a
+multitude that pressed onward through the dark. As he entered the
+factory gate the whistle blew again. He glanced at the east. Across a
+ragged sky-line of housetops a pale light was beginning to creep. This
+much he saw of the day as he turned his back upon it and joined his work
+gang.
+
+He took his place in one of many long rows of machines. Before him,
+above a bin filled with small bobbins, were large bobbins revolving
+rapidly. Upon these he wound the jute-twine of the small bobbins. The
+work was simple. All that was required was celerity. The small bobbins
+were emptied so rapidly, and there were so many large bobbins that did
+the emptying, that there were no idle moments.
+
+He worked mechanically. When a small bobbin ran out, he used his left
+hand for a brake, stopping the large bobbin and at the same time, with
+thumb and forefinger, catching the flying end of twine. Also, at the
+same time, with his right hand, he caught up the loose twine-end of
+a small bobbin. These various acts with both hands were performed
+simultaneously and swiftly. Then there would come a flash of his hands
+as he looped the weaver's knot and released the bobbin. There was
+nothing difficult about weaver's knots. He once boasted he could tie
+them in his sleep. And for that matter, he sometimes did, toiling
+centuries long in a single night at tying an endless succession of
+weaver's knots.
+
+Some of the boys shirked, wasting time and machinery by not replacing
+the small bobbins when they ran out. And there was an overseer to
+prevent this. He caught Johnny's neighbour at the trick, and boxed his
+ears.
+
+“Look at Johnny there--why ain't you like him?” the overseer wrathfully
+demanded.
+
+Johnny's bobbins were running full blast, but he did not thrill at the
+indirect praise. There had been a time... but that was long ago, very
+long ago. His apathetic face was expressionless as he listened to
+himself being held up as a shining example. He was the perfect worker.
+He knew that. He had been told so, often. It was a commonplace, and
+besides it didn't seem to mean anything to him any more. From the
+perfect worker he had evolved into the perfect machine. When his work
+went wrong, it was with him as with the machine, due to faulty material.
+It would have been as possible for a perfect nail-die to cut imperfect
+nails as for him to make a mistake.
+
+And small wonder. There had never been a time when he had not been in
+intimate relationship with machines. Machinery had almost been bred into
+him, and at any rate he had been brought up on it. Twelve years before,
+there had been a small flutter of excitement in the loom room of this
+very mill. Johnny's mother had fainted. They stretched her out on the
+floor in the midst of the shrieking machines. A couple of elderly women
+were called from their looms. The foreman assisted. And in a few minutes
+there was one more soul in the loom room than had entered by the doors.
+It was Johnny, born with the pounding, crashing roar of the looms in his
+ears, drawing with his first breath the warm, moist air that was thick
+with flying lint. He had coughed that first day in order to rid his
+lungs of the lint; and for the same reason he had coughed ever since.
+
+The boy alongside of Johnny whimpered and sniffed. The boy's face was
+convulsed with hatred for the overseer who kept a threatening eye on
+him from a distance; but every bobbin was running full. The boy yelled
+terrible oaths into the whirling bobbins before him; but the sound did
+not carry half a dozen feet, the roaring of the room holding it in and
+containing it like a wall.
+
+Of all this Johnny took no notice. He had a way of accepting things.
+Besides, things grow monotonous by repetition, and this particular
+happening he had witnessed many times. It seemed to him as useless to
+oppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine. Machines were made
+to go in certain ways and to perform certain tasks. It was the same with
+the overseer.
+
+But at eleven o'clock there was excitement in the room. In an apparently
+occult way the excitement instantly permeated everywhere. The one-legged
+boy who worked on the other side of Johnny bobbed swiftly across the
+floor to a bin truck that stood empty. Into this he dived out of
+sight, crutch and all. The superintendent of the mill was coming along,
+accompanied by a young man. He was well dressed and wore a starched
+shirt--a gentleman, in Johnny's classification of men, and also, “the
+Inspector.”
+
+He looked sharply at the boys as he passed along. Sometimes he stopped
+and asked questions. When he did so, he was compelled to shout at the
+top of his lungs, at which moments his face was ludicrously contorted
+with the strain of making himself heard. His quick eye noted the empty
+machine alongside of Johnny's, but he said nothing. Johnny also caught
+his eye, and he stopped abruptly. He caught Johnny by the arm to draw
+him back a step from the machine; but with an exclamation of surprise he
+released the arm.
+
+“Pretty skinny,” the superintendent laughed anxiously.
+
+“Pipe stems,” was the answer. “Look at those legs. The boy's got the
+rickets--incipient, but he's got them. If epilepsy doesn't get him in
+the end, it will be because tuberculosis gets him first.”
+
+Johnny listened, but did not understand. Furthermore he was not
+interested in future ills. There was an immediate and more serious ill
+that threatened him in the form of the inspector.
+
+“Now, my boy, I want you to tell me the truth,” the inspector said, or
+shouted, bending close to the boy's ear to make him hear. “How old are
+you?”
+
+“Fourteen,” Johnny lied, and he lied with the full force of his lungs.
+So loudly did he lie that it started him off in a dry, hacking cough
+that lifted the lint which had been settling in his lungs all morning.
+
+“Looks sixteen at least,” said the superintendent.
+
+“Or sixty,” snapped the inspector.
+
+“He's always looked that way.”
+
+“How long?” asked the inspector, quickly.
+
+“For years. Never gets a bit older.”
+
+“Or younger, I dare say. I suppose he's worked here all those years?”
+
+“Off and on--but that was before the new law was passed,” the
+superintendent hastened to add.
+
+“Machine idle?” the inspector asked, pointing at the unoccupied machine
+beside Johnny's, in which the part-filled bobbins were flying like mad.
+
+“Looks that way.” The superintendent motioned the overseer to him and
+shouted in his ear and pointed at the machine. “Machine's idle,” he
+reported back to the inspector.
+
+They passed on, and Johnny returned to his work, relieved in that the
+ill had been averted. But the one-legged boy was not so fortunate. The
+sharp-eyed inspector haled him out at arms length from the bin truck.
+His lips were quivering, and his face had all the expression of one upon
+whom was fallen profound and irremediable disaster. The overseer looked
+astounded, as though for the first time he had laid eyes on the boy,
+while the superintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure.
+
+“I know him,” the inspector said. “He's twelve years old. I've had him
+discharged from three factories inside the year. This makes the fourth.”
+
+He turned to the one-legged boy. “You promised me, word and honour, that
+you'd go to school.”
+
+The one-legged boy burst into tears. “Please, Mr. Inspector, two babies
+died on us, and we're awful poor.”
+
+“What makes you cough that way?” the inspector demanded, as though
+charging him with crime.
+
+And as in denial of guilt, the one-legged boy replied: “It ain't
+nothin'. I jes' caught a cold last week, Mr. Inspector, that's all.”
+
+In the end the one-legged boy went out of the room with the inspector,
+the latter accompanied by the anxious and protesting superintendent.
+After that monotony settled down again. The long morning and the longer
+afternoon wore away and the whistle blew for quitting time. Darkness had
+already fallen when Johnny passed out through the factory gate. In the
+interval the sun had made a golden ladder of the sky, flooded the world
+with its gracious warmth, and dropped down and disappeared in the west
+behind a ragged sky-line of housetops.
+
+Supper was the family meal of the day--the one meal at which Johnny
+encountered his younger brothers and sisters. It partook of the
+nature of an encounter, to him, for he was very old, while they were
+distressingly young. He had no patience with their excessive and amazing
+juvenility. He did not understand it. His own childhood was too far
+behind him. He was like an old and irritable man, annoyed by the
+turbulence of their young spirits that was to him arrant silliness. He
+glowered silently over his food, finding compensation in the thought
+that they would soon have to go to work. That would take the edge off
+of them and make them sedate and dignified--like him. Thus it was, after
+the fashion of the human, that Johnny made of himself a yardstick with
+which to measure the universe.
+
+During the meal, his mother explained in various ways and with infinite
+repetition that she was trying to do the best she could; so that it was
+with relief, the scant meal ended, that Johnny shoved back his chair
+and arose. He debated for a moment between bed and the front door,
+and finally went out the latter. He did not go far. He sat down on the
+stoop, his knees drawn up and his narrow shoulders drooping forward, his
+elbows on his knees and the palms of his hands supporting his chin.
+
+As he sat there, he did no thinking. He was just resting. So far as his
+mind was concerned, it was asleep. His brothers and sisters came out,
+and with other children played noisily about him. An electric globe at
+the corner lighted their frolics. He was peevish and irritable, that
+they knew; but the spirit of adventure lured them into teasing him. They
+joined hands before him, and, keeping time with their bodies, chanted in
+his face weird and uncomplimentary doggerel. At first he snarled curses
+at them--curses he had learned from the lips of various foremen. Finding
+this futile, and remembering his dignity, he relapsed into dogged
+silence.
+
+His brother Will, next to him in age, having just passed his tenth
+birthday, was the ringleader. Johnny did not possess particularly kindly
+feelings toward him. His life had early been embittered by continual
+giving over and giving way to Will. He had a definite feeling that
+Will was greatly in his debt and was ungrateful about it. In his own
+playtime, far back in the dim past, he had been robbed of a large part
+of that playtime by being compelled to take care of Will. Will was a
+baby then, and then, as now, their mother had spent her days in the
+mills. To Johnny had fallen the part of little father and little mother
+as well.
+
+Will seemed to show the benefit of the giving over and the giving way.
+He was well-built, fairly rugged, as tall as his elder brother and even
+heavier. It was as though the life-blood of the one had been diverted
+into the other's veins. And in spirits it was the same. Johnny was
+jaded, worn out, without resilience, while his younger brother seemed
+bursting and spilling over with exuberance.
+
+The mocking chant rose louder and louder. Will leaned closer as he
+danced, thrusting out his tongue. Johnny's left arm shot out and caught
+the other around the neck. At the same time he rapped his bony fist to
+the other's nose. It was a pathetically bony fist, but that it was
+sharp to hurt was evidenced by the squeal of pain it produced. The other
+children were uttering frightened cries, while Johnny's sister, Jennie,
+had dashed into the house.
+
+He thrust Will from him, kicked him savagely on the shins, then reached
+for him and slammed him face downward in the dirt. Nor did he release
+him till the face had been rubbed into the dirt several times. Then the
+mother arrived, an anaemic whirlwind of solicitude and maternal wrath.
+
+“Why can't he leave me alone?” was Johnny's reply to her upbraiding.
+“Can't he see I'm tired?”
+
+“I'm as big as you,” Will raged in her arms, his face a mass of tears,
+dirt, and blood. “I'm as big as you now, an' I'm goin' to git bigger.
+Then I'll lick you--see if I don't.”
+
+“You ought to be to work, seein' how big you are,” Johnny snarled.
+“That's what's the matter with you. You ought to be to work. An' it's up
+to your ma to put you to work.”
+
+“But he's too young,” she protested. “He's only a little boy.”
+
+“I was younger'n him when I started to work.”
+
+Johnny's mouth was open, further to express the sense of unfairness that
+he felt, but the mouth closed with a snap. He turned gloomily on his
+heel and stalked into the house and to bed. The door of his room
+was open to let in warmth from the kitchen. As he undressed in the
+semi-darkness he could hear his mother talking with a neighbour woman
+who had dropped in. His mother was crying, and her speech was punctuated
+with spiritless sniffles.
+
+“I can't make out what's gittin' into Johnny,” he could hear her say.
+“He didn't used to be this way. He was a patient little angel.
+
+“An' he is a good boy,” she hastened to defend. “He's worked faithful,
+an' he did go to work too young. But it wasn't my fault. I do the best I
+can, I'm sure.”
+
+Prolonged sniffling from the kitchen, and Johnny murmured to himself as
+his eyelids closed down, “You betcher life I've worked faithful.”
+
+The next morning he was torn bodily by his mother from the grip of
+sleep. Then came the meagre breakfast, the tramp through the dark, and
+the pale glimpse of day across the housetops as he turned his back on
+it and went in through the factory gate. It was another day, of all the
+days, and all the days were alike.
+
+And yet there had been variety in his life--at the times he changed from
+one job to another, or was taken sick. When he was six, he was little
+mother and father to Will and the other children still younger. At seven
+he went into the mills--winding bobbins. When he was eight, he got work
+in another mill. His new job was marvellously easy. All he had to do was
+to sit down with a little stick in his hand and guide a stream of cloth
+that flowed past him. This stream of cloth came out of the maw of a
+machine, passed over a hot roller, and went on its way elsewhere. But he
+sat always in one place, beyond the reach of daylight, a gas-jet flaring
+over him, himself part of the mechanism.
+
+He was very happy at that job, in spite of the moist heat, for he was
+still young and in possession of dreams and illusions. And wonderful
+dreams he dreamed as he watched the steaming cloth streaming endlessly
+by. But there was no exercise about the work, no call upon his mind,
+and he dreamed less and less, while his mind grew torpid and drowsy.
+Nevertheless, he earned two dollars a week, and two dollars represented
+the difference between acute starvation and chronic underfeeding.
+
+But when he was nine, he lost his job. Measles was the cause of it.
+After he recovered, he got work in a glass factory. The pay was better,
+and the work demanded skill. It was piecework, and the more skilful
+he was, the bigger wages he earned. Here was incentive. And under this
+incentive he developed into a remarkable worker.
+
+It was simple work, the tying of glass stoppers into small bottles. At
+his waist he carried a bundle of twine. He held the bottles between his
+knees so that he might work with both hands. Thus, in a sitting position
+and bending over his own knees, his narrow shoulders grew humped and his
+chest was contracted for ten hours each day. This was not good for the
+lungs, but he tied three hundred dozen bottles a day.
+
+The superintendent was very proud of him, and brought visitors to look
+at him. In ten hours three hundred dozen bottles passed through his
+hands. This meant that he had attained machine-like perfection. All
+waste movements were eliminated. Every motion of his thin arms, every
+movement of a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate. He
+worked at high tension, and the result was that he grew nervous. At
+night his muscles twitched in his sleep, and in the daytime he could
+not relax and rest. He remained keyed up and his muscles continued
+to twitch. Also he grew sallow and his lint-cough grew worse. Then
+pneumonia laid hold of the feeble lungs within the contracted chest, and
+he lost his job in the glass-works.
+
+Now he had returned to the jute mills where he had first begun with
+winding bobbins. But promotion was waiting for him. He was a good
+worker. He would next go on the starcher, and later he would go into the
+loom room. There was nothing after that except increased efficiency.
+
+The machinery ran faster than when he had first gone to work, and his
+mind ran slower. He no longer dreamed at all, though his earlier years
+had been full of dreaming. Once he had been in love. It was when he
+first began guiding the cloth over the hot roller, and it was with the
+daughter of the superintendent. She was much older than he, a young
+woman, and he had seen her at a distance only a paltry half-dozen times.
+But that made no difference. On the surface of the cloth stream that
+poured past him, he pictured radiant futures wherein he performed
+prodigies of toil, invented miraculous machines, won to the mastership
+of the mills, and in the end took her in his arms and kissed her soberly
+on the brow.
+
+But that was all in the long ago, before he had grown too old and tired
+to love. Also, she had married and gone away, and his mind had gone to
+sleep. Yet it had been a wonderful experience, and he used often to
+look back upon it as other men and women look back upon the time they
+believed in fairies. He had never believed in fairies nor Santa Claus;
+but he had believed implicitly in the smiling future his imagination had
+wrought into the steaming cloth stream.
+
+He had become a man very early in life. At seven, when he drew his first
+wages, began his adolescence. A certain feeling of independence crept
+up in him, and the relationship between him and his mother changed.
+Somehow, as an earner and breadwinner, doing his own work in the world,
+he was more like an equal with her. Manhood, full-blown manhood, had
+come when he was eleven, at which time he had gone to work on the night
+shift for six months. No child works on the night shift and remains a
+child.
+
+There had been several great events in his life. One of these had been
+when his mother bought some California prunes. Two others had been the
+two times when she cooked custard. Those had been events. He remembered
+them kindly. And at that time his mother had told him of a blissful dish
+she would sometime make--“floating island,” she had called it, “better
+than custard.” For years he had looked forward to the day when he would
+sit down to the table with floating island before him, until at last he
+had relegated the idea of it to the limbo of unattainable ideals.
+
+Once he found a silver quarter lying on the sidewalk. That, also, was
+a great event in his life, withal a tragic one. He knew his duty on the
+instant the silver flashed on his eyes, before even he had picked it up.
+At home, as usual, there was not enough to eat, and home he should have
+taken it as he did his wages every Saturday night. Right conduct in this
+case was obvious; but he never had any spending of his money, and he was
+suffering from candy hunger. He was ravenous for the sweets that only on
+red-letter days he had ever tasted in his life.
+
+He did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew it was sin, and
+deliberately he sinned when he went on a fifteen-cent candy debauch.
+Ten cents he saved for a future orgy; but not being accustomed to the
+carrying of money, he lost the ten cents. This occurred at the time when
+he was suffering all the torments of conscience, and it was to him an
+act of divine retribution. He had a frightened sense of the closeness
+of an awful and wrathful God. God had seen, and God had been swift to
+punish, denying him even the full wages of sin.
+
+In memory he always looked back upon that as the one great criminal deed
+of his life, and at the recollection his conscience always awoke and
+gave him another twinge. It was the one skeleton in his closet. Also,
+being so made, and circumstanced, he looked back upon the deed with
+regret. He was dissatisfied with the manner in which he had spent
+the quarter. He could have invested it better, and, out of his later
+knowledge of the quickness of God, he would have beaten God out by
+spending the whole quarter at one fell swoop. In retrospect he spent the
+quarter a thousand times, and each time to better advantage.
+
+There was one other memory of the past, dim and faded, but stamped into
+his soul everlasting by the savage feet of his father. It was more like
+a nightmare than a remembered vision of a concrete thing--more like the
+race-memory of man that makes him fall in his sleep and that goes back
+to his arboreal ancestry.
+
+This particular memory never came to Johnny in broad daylight when
+he was wide awake. It came at night, in bed, at the moment that his
+consciousness was sinking down and losing itself in sleep. It always
+aroused him to frightened wakefulness, and for the moment, in the first
+sickening start, it seemed to him that he lay crosswise on the foot of
+the bed. In the bed were the vague forms of his father and mother. He
+never saw what his father looked like. He had but one impression of his
+father, and that was that he had savage and pitiless feet.
+
+His earlier memories lingered with him, but he had no late memories.
+All days were alike. Yesterday or last year were the same as a thousand
+years--or a minute. Nothing ever happened. There were no events to mark
+the march of time. Time did not march. It stood always still. It was
+only the whirling machines that moved, and they moved nowhere--in spite
+of the fact that they moved faster.
+
+When he was fourteen, he went to work on the starcher. It was a colossal
+event. Something had at last happened that could be remembered beyond
+a night's sleep or a week's pay-day. It marked an era. It was a machine
+Olympiad, a thing to date from. “When I went to work on the starcher,”
+ or, “after,” or “before I went to work on the starcher,” were sentences
+often on his lips.
+
+He celebrated his sixteenth birthday by going into the loom room and
+taking a loom. Here was an incentive again, for it was piece-work. And
+he excelled, because the clay of him had been moulded by the mills
+into the perfect machine. At the end of three months he was running two
+looms, and, later, three and four.
+
+At the end of his second year at the looms he was turning out more yards
+than any other weaver, and more than twice as much as some of the less
+skilful ones. And at home things began to prosper as he approached the
+full stature of his earning power. Not, however, that his increased
+earnings were in excess of need. The children were growing up. They ate
+more. And they were going to school, and school-books cost money. And
+somehow, the faster he worked, the faster climbed the prices of things.
+Even the rent went up, though the house had fallen from bad to worse
+disrepair.
+
+He had grown taller; but with his increased height he seemed leaner
+than ever. Also, he was more nervous. With the nervousness increased his
+peevishness and irritability. The children had learned by many bitter
+lessons to fight shy of him. His mother respected him for his earning
+power, but somehow her respect was tinctured with fear.
+
+There was no joyousness in life for him. The procession of the days he
+never saw. The nights he slept away in twitching unconsciousness.
+The rest of the time he worked, and his consciousness was machine
+consciousness. Outside this his mind was a blank. He had no ideals,
+and but one illusion; namely, that he drank excellent coffee. He was a
+work-beast. He had no mental life whatever; yet deep down in the crypts
+of his mind, unknown to him, were being weighed and sifted every hour of
+his toil, every movement of his hands, every twitch of his muscles, and
+preparations were making for a future course of action that would amaze
+him and all his little world.
+
+It was in the late spring that he came home from work one night aware of
+unusual tiredness. There was a keen expectancy in the air as he sat down
+to the table, but he did not notice. He went through the meal in moody
+silence, mechanically eating what was before him. The children um'd
+and ah'd and made smacking noises with their mouths. But he was deaf to
+them.
+
+“D'ye know what you're eatin'?” his mother demanded at last,
+desperately.
+
+He looked vacantly at the dish before him, and vacantly at her.
+
+“Floatin' island,” she announced triumphantly.
+
+“Oh,” he said.
+
+“Floating island!” the children chorussed loudly.
+
+“Oh,” he said. And after two or three mouthfuls, he added, “I guess I
+ain't hungry to-night.”
+
+He dropped the spoon, shoved back his chair, and arose wearily from the
+table.
+
+“An' I guess I'll go to bed.”
+
+His feet dragged more heavily than usual as he crossed the kitchen
+floor. Undressing was a Titan's task, a monstrous futility, and he wept
+weakly as he crawled into bed, one shoe still on. He was aware of a
+rising, swelling something inside his head that made his brain thick and
+fuzzy. His lean fingers felt as big as his wrist, while in the ends of
+them was a remoteness of sensation vague and fuzzy like his brain.
+The small of his back ached intolerably. All his bones ached. He ached
+everywhere. And in his head began the shrieking, pounding, crashing,
+roaring of a million looms. All space was filled with flying shuttles.
+They darted in and out, intricately, amongst the stars. He worked a
+thousand looms himself, and ever they speeded up, faster and faster, and
+his brain unwound, faster and faster, and became the thread that fed the
+thousand flying shuttles.
+
+He did not go to work next morning. He was too busy weaving colossally
+on the thousand looms that ran inside his head. His mother went to work,
+but first she sent for the doctor. It was a severe attack of la grippe,
+he said. Jennie served as nurse and carried out his instructions.
+
+It was a very severe attack, and it was a week before Johnny dressed and
+tottered feebly across the floor. Another week, the doctor said, and he
+would be fit to return to work. The foreman of the loom room visited him
+on Sunday afternoon, the first day of his convalescence. The best weaver
+in the room, the foreman told his mother. His job would be held for him.
+He could come back to work a week from Monday.
+
+“Why don't you thank 'im, Johnny?” his mother asked anxiously.
+
+“He's ben that sick he ain't himself yet,” she explained apologetically
+to the visitor.
+
+Johnny sat hunched up and gazing steadfastly at the floor. He sat in the
+same position long after the foreman had gone. It was warm outdoors,
+and he sat on the stoop in the afternoon. Sometimes his lips moved. He
+seemed lost in endless calculations.
+
+Next morning, after the day grew warm, he took his seat on the stoop. He
+had pencil and paper this time with which to continue his calculations,
+and he calculated painfully and amazingly.
+
+“What comes after millions?” he asked at noon, when Will came home from
+school. “An' how d'ye work 'em?”
+
+That afternoon finished his task. Each day, but without paper and
+pencil, he returned to the stoop. He was greatly absorbed in the one
+tree that grew across the street. He studied it for hours at a time, and
+was unusually interested when the wind swayed its branches and fluttered
+its leaves. Throughout the week he seemed lost in a great communion
+with himself. On Sunday, sitting on the stoop, he laughed aloud, several
+times, to the perturbation of his mother, who had not heard him laugh
+for years.
+
+Next morning, in the early darkness, she came to his bed to rouse him.
+He had had his fill of sleep all the week, and awoke easily. He made no
+struggle, nor did he attempt to hold on to the bedding when she stripped
+it from him. He lay quietly, and spoke quietly.
+
+“It ain't no use, ma.”
+
+“You'll be late,” she said, under the impression that he was still
+stupid with sleep.
+
+“I'm awake, ma, an' I tell you it ain't no use. You might as well lemme
+alone. I ain't goin' to git up.”
+
+“But you'll lose your job!” she cried.
+
+“I ain't goin' to git up,” he repeated in a strange, passionless voice.
+
+She did not go to work herself that morning. This was sickness
+beyond any sickness she had ever known. Fever and delirium she could
+understand; but this was insanity. She pulled the bedding up over him
+and sent Jennie for the doctor.
+
+When that person arrived, Johnny was sleeping gently, and gently he
+awoke and allowed his pulse to be taken.
+
+“Nothing the matter with him,” the doctor reported. “Badly debilitated,
+that's all. Not much meat on his bones.”
+
+“He's always been that way,” his mother volunteered.
+
+“Now go 'way, ma, an' let me finish my snooze.”
+
+Johnny spoke sweetly and placidly, and sweetly and placidly he rolled
+over on his side and went to sleep.
+
+At ten o'clock he awoke and dressed himself. He walked out into the
+kitchen, where he found his mother with a frightened expression on her
+face.
+
+“I'm goin' away, ma,” he announced, “an' I jes' want to say good-bye.”
+
+She threw her apron over her head and sat down suddenly and wept. He
+waited patiently.
+
+“I might a-known it,” she was sobbing.
+
+“Where?” she finally asked, removing the apron from her head and gazing
+up at him with a stricken face in which there was little curiosity.
+
+“I don't know--anywhere.”
+
+As he spoke, the tree across the street appeared with dazzling
+brightness on his inner vision. It seemed to lurk just under his
+eyelids, and he could see it whenever he wished.
+
+“An' your job?” she quavered.
+
+“I ain't never goin' to work again.”
+
+“My God, Johnny!” she wailed, “don't say that!”
+
+What he had said was blasphemy to her. As a mother who hears her child
+deny God, was Johnny's mother shocked by his words.
+
+“What's got into you, anyway?” she demanded, with a lame attempt at
+imperativeness.
+
+“Figures,” he answered. “Jes' figures. I've ben doin' a lot of figurin'
+this week, an' it's most surprisin'.”
+
+“I don't see what that's got to do with it,” she sniffled.
+
+Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother was aware of a distinct shock at
+the persistent absence of his peevishness and irritability.
+
+“I'll show you,” he said. “I'm plum' tired out. What makes me tired?
+Moves. I've ben movin' ever since I was born. I'm tired of movin', an' I
+ain't goin' to move any more. Remember when I worked in the glass-house?
+I used to do three hundred dozen a day. Now I reckon I made about ten
+different moves to each bottle. That's thirty-six thousan' moves a day.
+Ten days, three hundred an' sixty thousan' moves. One month, one million
+an' eighty thousan' moves. Chuck out the eighty thousan'”--he spoke with
+the complacent beneficence of a philanthropist--“chuck out the eighty
+thousan', that leaves a million moves a month--twelve million moves a
+year.
+
+“At the looms I'm movin' twic'st as much. That makes twenty-five million
+moves a year, an' it seems to me I've ben a movin' that way 'most a
+million years.
+
+“Now this week I ain't moved at all. I ain't made one move in hours an'
+hours. I tell you it was swell, jes' settin' there, hours an' hours,
+an' doin' nothin'. I ain't never ben happy before. I never had any time.
+I've ben movin' all the time. That ain't no way to be happy. An' I ain't
+going to do it any more. I'm jes' goin' to set, an' set, an' rest, an'
+rest, and then rest some more.”
+
+“But what's goin' to come of Will an' the children?” she asked
+despairingly.
+
+“That's it, 'Will an' the children,'” he repeated.
+
+But there was no bitterness in his voice. He had long known his mother's
+ambition for the younger boy, but the thought of it no longer rankled.
+Nothing mattered any more. Not even that.
+
+“I know, ma, what you've ben plannin' for Will--keepin' him in school to
+make a book-keeper out of him. But it ain't no use, I've quit. He's got
+to go to work.”
+
+“An' after I have brung you up the way I have,” she wept, starting to
+cover her head with the apron and changing her mind.
+
+“You never brung me up,” he answered with sad kindliness. “I brung
+myself up, ma, an' I brung up Will. He's bigger'n me, an' heavier, an'
+taller. When I was a kid, I reckon I didn't git enough to eat. When he
+come along an' was a kid, I was workin' an' earnin' grub for him too.
+But that's done with. Will can go to work, same as me, or he can go to
+hell, I don't care which. I'm tired. I'm goin' now. Ain't you goin' to
+say goodbye?”
+
+She made no reply. The apron had gone over her head again, and she was
+crying. He paused a moment in the doorway.
+
+“I'm sure I done the best I knew how,” she was sobbing.
+
+He passed out of the house and down the street. A wan delight came
+into his face at the sight of the lone tree. “Jes' ain't goin' to do
+nothin',” he said to himself, half aloud, in a crooning tone. He glanced
+wistfully up at the sky, but the bright sun dazzled and blinded him.
+
+It was a long walk he took, and he did not walk fast. It took him past
+the jute-mill. The muffled roar of the loom room came to his ears, and
+he smiled. It was a gentle, placid smile. He hated no one, not even the
+pounding, shrieking machines. There was no bitterness in him, nothing
+but an inordinate hunger for rest.
+
+The houses and factories thinned out and the open spaces increased as
+he approached the country. At last the city was behind him, and he was
+walking down a leafy lane beside the railroad track. He did not walk
+like a man. He did not look like a man. He was a travesty of the human.
+It was a twisted and stunted and nameless piece of life that shambled
+like a sickly ape, arms loose-hanging, stoop-shouldered, narrow-chested,
+grotesque and terrible.
+
+He passed by a small railroad station and lay down in the grass under a
+tree. All afternoon he lay there. Sometimes he dozed, with muscles that
+twitched in his sleep. When awake, he lay without movement, watching the
+birds or looking up at the sky through the branches of the tree above
+him. Once or twice he laughed aloud, but without relevance to anything
+he had seen or felt.
+
+After twilight had gone, in the first darkness of the night, a freight
+train rumbled into the station. When the engine was switching cars on to
+the side-track, Johnny crept along the side of the train. He pulled open
+the side-door of an empty box-car and awkwardly and laboriously climbed
+in. He closed the door. The engine whistled. Johnny was lying down, and
+in the darkness he smiled.
+
+
+
+
+A WICKED WOMAN
+
+It was because she had broken with Billy that Loretta had come visiting
+to Santa Clara. Billy could not understand. His sister had reported that
+he had walked the floor and cried all night. Loretta had not slept all
+night either, while she had wept most of the night. Daisy knew this,
+because it was in her arms that the weeping had been done. And Daisy's
+husband, Captain Kitt, knew, too. The tears of Loretta, and the
+comforting by Daisy, had lost him some sleep.
+
+Now Captain Kitt did not like to lose sleep. Neither did he want Loretta
+to marry Billy--nor anybody else. It was Captain Kitt's belief that
+Daisy needed the help of her younger sister in the household. But he
+did not say this aloud. Instead, he always insisted that Loretta was too
+young to think of marriage. So it was Captain Kitt's idea that Loretta
+should be packed off on a visit to Mrs. Hemingway. There wouldn't be any
+Billy there.
+
+Before Loretta had been at Santa Clara a week, she was convinced that
+Captain Kitt's idea was a good one. In the first place, though Billy
+wouldn't believe it, she did not want to marry Billy. And in the second
+place, though Captain Kitt wouldn't believe it, she did not want to
+leave Daisy. By the time Loretta had been at Santa Clara two weeks, she
+was absolutely certain that she did not want to marry Billy. But she was
+not so sure about not wanting to leave Daisy. Not that she loved Daisy
+less, but that she--had doubts.
+
+The day of Loretta's arrival, a nebulous plan began shaping itself in
+Mrs. Hemingway's brain. The second day she remarked to Jack Hemingway,
+her husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young thing that were it not
+for her sweet guilelessness she would be positively stupid. In proof
+of which, Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that made him
+chuckle. By the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable
+form. Then it was that she composed a letter. On the envelope she wrote:
+“Mr. Edward Bashford, Athenian Club, San Francisco.”
+
+“Dear Ned,” the letter began. She had once been violently loved by him
+for three weeks in her pre-marital days. But she had covenanted herself
+to Jack Hemingway, who had prior claims, and her heart as well; and Ned
+Bashford had philosophically not broken his heart over it. He merely
+added the experience to a large fund of similarly collected data out of
+which he manufactured philosophy. Artistically and temperamentally he
+was a Greek--a tired Greek. He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in
+token that he, too, had passed through the long sickness that follows
+upon the ardent search for truth; that he too had emerged, too
+experienced, too shrewd, too profound, ever again to be afflicted by the
+madness of youths in their love of truth. “'To worship appearance,'” he
+often quoted; “'to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole
+Olympus of appearance!'” This particular excerpt he always concluded
+with, “'Those Greeks were superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY!'”
+
+He was a fairly young Greek, jaded and worn. Women were faithless and
+unveracious, he held--at such times that he had relapses and descended
+to pessimism from his wonted high philosophical calm. He did not believe
+in the truth of women; but, faithful to his German master, he did
+not strip from them the airy gauzes that veiled their untruth. He was
+content to accept them as appearances and to make the best of it. He was
+superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY.
+
+“Jack says to be sure to say to you, 'good swimming,'” Mrs. Hemingway
+wrote in her letter; “and also 'to bring your fishing duds along.'” Mrs.
+Hemingway wrote other things in the letter. She told him that at last
+she was prepared to exhibit to him an absolutely true, unsullied, and
+innocent woman. “A more guileless, immaculate bud of womanhood never
+blushed on the planet,” was one of the several ways in which she phrased
+the inducement. And to her husband she said triumphantly, “If I don't
+marry Ned off this time--” leaving unstated the terrible alternative
+that she lacked either vocabulary to express or imagination to conceive.
+
+Contrary to all her forebodings, Loretta found that she was not unhappy
+at Santa Clara. Truly, Billy wrote to her every day, but his letters
+were less distressing than his presence. Also, the ordeal of being away
+from Daisy was not so severe as she had expected. For the first time in
+her life she was not lost in eclipse in the blaze of Daisy's brilliant
+and mature personality. Under such favourable circumstances Loretta
+came rapidly to the front, while Mrs. Hemingway modestly and shamelessly
+retreated into the background.
+
+Loretta began to discover that she was not a pale orb shining by
+reflection. Quite unconsciously she became a small centre of things.
+When she was at the piano, there was some one to turn the pages for
+her and to express preferences for certain songs. When she dropped her
+handkerchief, there was some one to pick it up. And there was some one
+to accompany her in ramblings and flower gatherings. Also, she learned
+to cast flies in still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to
+entangle silk lines and gut-leaders with the shrubbery.
+
+Jack Hemingway did not care to teach beginners, and fished much by
+himself, or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford ample time in which
+to consider Loretta as an appearance. As such, she was all that his
+philosophy demanded. Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and
+out of his profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the
+duplicity his philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths. She
+had the grace of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of
+fine china, in all of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the
+Life Force palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw--in whom he
+believed.
+
+Loretta burgeoned. She swiftly developed personality. She discovered
+a will of her own and wishes of her own that were not everlastingly
+entwined with the will and the wishes of Daisy. She was petted by Jack
+Hemingway, spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned
+Bashford. They encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while
+she developed the pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty
+and delicate women. Her environment acted as a soporific upon her
+ancient desire always to live with Daisy. This desire no longer prodded
+her as in the days of her companionship with Billy. The more she saw of
+Billy, the more certain she had been that she could not live away
+from Daisy. The more she saw of Ned Bashford, the more she forgot her
+pressing need of Daisy.
+
+Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting. He confused superficiality
+with profundity, and entangled appearance with reality until he
+accounted them one. Loretta was different from other women. There was no
+masquerade about her. She was real. He said as much to Mrs. Hemingway,
+and more, who agreed with him and at the same time caught her husband's
+eyelid drooping down for the moment in an unmistakable wink.
+
+It was at this time that Loretta received a letter from Billy that was
+somewhat different from his others. In the main, like all his letters,
+it was pathological. It was a long recital of symptoms and sufferings,
+his nervousness, his sleeplessness, and the state of his heart. Then
+followed reproaches, such as he had never made before. They were sharp
+enough to make her weep, and true enough to put tragedy into her face.
+This tragedy she carried down to the breakfast table. It made Jack and
+Mrs. Hemingway speculative, and it worried Ned. They glanced to him for
+explanation, but he shook his head.
+
+“I'll find out to-night,” Mrs. Hemingway said to her husband.
+
+But Ned caught Loretta in the afternoon in the big living-room. She
+tried to turn away. He caught her hands, and she faced him with wet
+lashes and trembling lips. He looked at her, silently and kindly. The
+lashes grew wetter.
+
+“There, there, don't cry, little one,” he said soothingly.
+
+He put his arm protectingly around her shoulder. And to his shoulder,
+like a tired child, she turned her face. He thrilled in ways unusual for
+a Greek who has recovered from the long sickness.
+
+“Oh, Ned,” she sobbed on his shoulder, “if you only knew how wicked I
+am!”
+
+He smiled indulgently, and breathed in a great breath freighted with the
+fragrance of her hair. He thought of his world-experience of women, and
+drew another long breath. There seemed to emanate from her the perfect
+sweetness of a child--“the aura of a white soul,” was the way he phrased
+it to himself.
+
+Then he noticed that her sobs were increasing.
+
+“What's the matter, little one?” he asked pettingly and almost
+paternally. “Has Jack been bullying you? Or has your dearly beloved
+sister failed to write?”
+
+She did not answer, and he felt that he really must kiss her hair, that
+he could not be responsible if the situation continued much longer.
+
+“Tell me,” he said gently, “and we'll see what I can do.”
+
+“I can't. You will despise me.--Oh, Ned, I am so ashamed!”
+
+He laughed incredulously, and lightly touched her hair with his lips--so
+lightly that she did not know.
+
+“Dear little one, let us forget all about it, whatever it is. I want to
+tell you how I love--”
+
+She uttered a sharp cry that was all delight, and then moaned--
+
+“Too late!”
+
+“Too late?” he echoed in surprise.
+
+“Oh, why did I? Why did I?” she was moaning.
+
+He was aware of a swift chill at his heart.
+
+“What?” he asked.
+
+“Oh, I... he... Billy.
+
+“I am such a wicked woman, Ned. I know you will never speak to me
+again.”
+
+“This--er--this Billy,” he began haltingly. “He is your brother?”
+
+“No... he... I didn't know. I was so young. I could not help it. Oh, I
+shall go mad! I shall go mad!”
+
+It was then that Loretta felt his shoulder and the encircling arm become
+limp. He drew away from her gently, and gently he deposited her in a
+big chair, where she buried her face and sobbed afresh. He twisted his
+moustache fiercely, then drew up another chair and sat down.
+
+“I--I do not understand,” he said.
+
+“I am so unhappy,” she wailed.
+
+“Why unhappy?”
+
+“Because... he... he wants me to marry him.”
+
+His face cleared on the instant, and he placed a hand soothingly on
+hers.
+
+“That should not make any girl unhappy,” he remarked sagely. “Because
+you don't love him is no reason--of course, you don't love him?”
+
+Loretta shook her head and shoulders in a vigorous negative.
+
+“What?”
+
+Bashford wanted to make sure.
+
+“No,” she asserted explosively. “I don't love Billy! I don't want to
+love Billy!”
+
+“Because you don't love him,” Bashford resumed with confidence, “is no
+reason that you should be unhappy just because he has proposed to you.”
+
+She sobbed again, and from the midst of her sobs she cried--
+
+“That's the trouble. I wish I did love him. Oh, I wish I were dead!”
+
+“Now, my dear child, you are worrying yourself over trifles.” His other
+hand crossed over after its mate and rested on hers. “Women do it every
+day. Because you have changed your mind or did not know your mind,
+because you have--to use an unnecessarily harsh word--jilted a man--”
+
+“Jilted!” She had raised her head and was looking at him with
+tear-dimmed eyes. “Oh, Ned, if that were all!”
+
+“All?” he asked in a hollow voice, while his hands slowly retreated from
+hers. He was about to speak further, then remained silent.
+
+“But I don't want to marry him,” Loretta broke forth protestingly.
+
+“Then I shouldn't,” he counselled.
+
+“But I ought to marry him.”
+
+“OUGHT to marry him?”
+
+She nodded.
+
+“That is a strong word.”
+
+“I know it is,” she acquiesced, while she strove to control her
+trembling lips. Then she spoke more calmly. “I am a wicked woman, a
+terribly wicked woman. No one knows how wicked I am--except Billy.”
+
+There was a pause. Ned Bashford's face was grave, and he looked queerly
+at Loretta.
+
+“He--Billy knows?” he asked finally.
+
+A reluctant nod and flaming cheeks was the reply.
+
+He debated with himself for a while, seeming, like a diver, to be
+preparing himself for the plunge.
+
+“Tell me about it.” He spoke very firmly. “You must tell me all of it.”
+
+“And will you--ever--forgive me?” she asked in a faint, small voice.
+
+He hesitated, drew a long breath, and made the plunge.
+
+“Yes,” he said desperately. “I'll forgive you. Go ahead.”
+
+“There was no one to tell me,” she began. “We were with each other so
+much. I did not know anything of the world--then.”
+
+She paused to meditate. Bashford was biting his lip impatiently.
+
+“If I had only known--”
+
+She paused again.
+
+“Yes, go on,” he urged.
+
+“We were together almost every evening.”
+
+“Billy?” he demanded, with a savageness that startled her.
+
+“Yes, of course, Billy. We were with each other so much... If I had only
+known... There was no one to tell me... I was so young--”
+
+Her lips parted as though to speak further, and she regarded him
+anxiously.
+
+“The scoundrel!”
+
+With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his feet, no longer a tired
+Greek, but a violently angry young man.
+
+“Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a good man,” Loretta defended, with a
+firmness that surprised Bashford.
+
+“I suppose you'll be telling me next that it was all your fault,” he
+said sarcastically.
+
+She nodded.
+
+“What?” he shouted.
+
+“It was all my fault,” she said steadily. “I should never have let him.
+I was to blame.”
+
+Bashford ceased from his pacing up and down, and when he spoke, his
+voice was resigned.
+
+“All right,” he said. “I don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you
+have been very honest. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must
+get married.”
+
+“To Billy?” she asked, in a dim, far-away voice.
+
+“Yes, to Billy. I'll see to it. Where does he live? I'll make him.”
+
+“But I don't want to marry Billy!” she cried out in alarm. “Oh, Ned, you
+won't do that?”
+
+“I shall,” he answered sternly. “You must. And Billy must. Do you
+understand?”
+
+Loretta buried her face in the cushioned chair back, and broke into a
+passionate storm of sobs.
+
+All that Bashford could make out at first, as he listened, was: “But I
+don't want to leave Daisy! I don't want to leave Daisy!”
+
+He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped curiously to listen.
+
+“How was I to know?--Boo--hoo,” Loretta was crying. “He didn't tell me.
+Nobody else ever kissed me. I never dreamed a kiss could be so
+terrible... until, boo-hoo... until he wrote to me. I only got the
+letter this morning.”
+
+His face brightened. It seemed as though light was dawning on him.
+
+“Is that what you're crying about?”
+
+“N--no.”
+
+His heart sank.
+
+“Then what are you crying about?” he asked in a hopeless voice.
+
+“Because you said I had to marry Billy. And I don't want to marry Billy.
+I don't want to leave Daisy. I don't know what I want. I wish I were
+dead.”
+
+He nerved himself for another effort.
+
+“Now look here, Loretta, be sensible. What is this about kisses. You
+haven't told me everything?”
+
+“I--I don't want to tell you everything.”
+
+She looked at him beseechingly in the silence that fell.
+
+“Must I?” she quavered finally.
+
+“You must,” he said imperatively. “You must tell me everything.”
+
+“Well, then... must I?”
+
+“You must.”
+
+“He... I... we...” she began flounderingly. Then blurted out, “I let
+him, and he kissed me.”
+
+“Go on,” Bashford commanded desperately.
+
+“That's all,” she answered.
+
+“All?” There was a vast incredulity in his voice.
+
+“All?” In her voice was an interrogation no less vast.
+
+“I mean--er--nothing worse?” He was overwhelmingly aware of his own
+awkwardness.
+
+“Worse?” She was frankly puzzled. “As though there could be! Billy
+said--”
+
+“When did he say it?” Bashford demanded abruptly.
+
+“In his letter I got this morning. Billy said that my... our... our
+kisses were terrible if we didn't get married.”
+
+Bashford's head was swimming.
+
+“What else did Billy say?” he asked.
+
+“He said that when a woman allowed a man to kiss her, she always married
+him--that it was terrible if she didn't. It was the custom, he said;
+and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I don't like it. I know I'm
+terrible,” she added defiantly, “but I can't help it.”
+
+Bashford absent-mindedly brought out a cigarette.
+
+“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked, as he struck a match.
+
+Then he came to himself.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” he cried, flinging away match and cigarette. “I
+don't want to smoke. I didn't mean that at all. What I mean is--”
+
+He bent over Loretta, caught her hands in his, then sat on the arm of
+the chair and softly put one arm around her.
+
+“Loretta, I am a fool. I mean it. And I mean something more. I want you
+to be my wife.”
+
+He waited anxiously in the pause that followed.
+
+“You might answer me,” he urged.
+
+“I will... if--”
+
+“Yes, go on. If what?”
+
+“If I don't have to marry Billy.”
+
+“You can't marry both of us,” he almost shouted.
+
+“And it isn't the custom... what... what Billy said?”
+
+“No, it isn't the custom. Now, Loretta, will you marry me?”
+
+“Don't be angry with me,” she pouted demurely.
+
+He gathered her into his arms and kissed her.
+
+“I wish it were the custom,” she said in a faint voice, from the
+midst of the embrace, “because then I'd have to marry you, Ned dear...
+wouldn't I?”
+
+
+
+
+JUST MEAT
+
+He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down the intersecting
+street, but saw nothing save the oases of light shed by the street lamps
+at the successive crossings. Then he strolled back the way he had come.
+He was a shadow of a man, sliding noiselessly and without undue movement
+through the semi-darkness. Also he was very alert, like a wild animal in
+the jungle, keenly perceptive and receptive. The movement of another in
+the darkness about him would need to have been more shadowy than he to
+have escaped him.
+
+In addition to the running advertisement of the state of affairs carried
+to him by his senses, he had a subtler perception, a FEEL, of the
+atmosphere around him. He knew that the house in front of which he
+paused for a moment, contained children. Yet by no willed effort of
+perception did he have this knowledge. For that matter, he was not even
+aware that he knew, so occult was the impression. Yet, did a moment
+arise in which action, in relation to that house, were imperative, he
+would have acted on the assumption that it contained children. He was
+not aware of all that he knew about the neighbourhood.
+
+In the same way, he knew not how, he knew that no danger threatened in
+the footfalls that came up the cross street. Before he saw the walker,
+he knew him for a belated pedestrian hurrying home. The walker came
+into view at the crossing and disappeared on up the street. The man that
+watched, noted a light that flared up in the window of a house on the
+corner, and as it died down he knew it for an expiring match. This was
+conscious identification of familiar phenomena, and through his mind
+flitted the thought, “Wanted to know what time.” In another house one
+room was lighted. The light burned dimly and steadily, and he had the
+feel that it was a sick-room.
+
+He was especially interested in a house across the street in the middle
+of the block. To this house he paid most attention. No matter what
+way he looked, nor what way he walked, his looks and his steps always
+returned to it. Except for an open window above the porch, there was
+nothing unusual about the house. Nothing came in nor out. Nothing
+happened. There were no lighted windows, nor had lights appeared and
+disappeared in any of the windows. Yet it was the central point of his
+consideration. He rallied to it each time after a divination of the
+state of the neighbourhood.
+
+Despite his feel of things, he was not confident. He was supremely
+conscious of the precariousness of his situation. Though unperturbed by
+the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive
+and ready to be startled as any timorous deer. He was aware of
+the possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the
+darkness--intelligences similar to his own in movement, perception, and
+divination.
+
+Far down the street he caught a glimpse of something that moved. And he
+knew it was no late home-goer, but menace and danger. He whistled twice
+to the house across the street, then faded away shadow-like to the
+corner and around the corner. Here he paused and looked about him
+carefully. Reassured, he peered back around the corner and studied the
+object that moved and that was coming nearer. He had divined aright. It
+was a policeman.
+
+The man went down the cross street to the next corner, from the shelter
+of which he watched the corner he had just left. He saw the policeman
+pass by, going straight on up the street. He paralleled the policeman's
+course, and from the next corner again watched him go by; then he
+returned the way he had come. He whistled once to the house across the
+street, and after a time whistled once again. There was reassurance
+in the whistle, just as there had been warning in the previous double
+whistle.
+
+He saw a dark bulk outline itself on the roof of the porch and slowly
+descend a pillar. Then it came down the steps, passed through the small
+iron gate, and went down the sidewalk, taking on the form of a man. He
+that watched kept on his own side of the street and moved on abreast
+to the corner, where he crossed over and joined the other. He was quite
+small alongside the man he accosted.
+
+“How'd you make out, Matt?” he asked.
+
+The other grunted indistinctly, and walked on in silence a few steps.
+
+“I reckon I landed the goods,” he said.
+
+Jim chuckled in the darkness, and waited for further information. The
+blocks passed by under their feet, and he grew impatient.
+
+“Well, how about them goods?” he asked. “What kind of a haul did you
+make, anyway?”
+
+“I was too busy to figger it out, but it's fat. I can tell you that
+much, Jim, it's fat. I don't dast to think how fat it is. Wait till we
+get to the room.”
+
+Jim looked at him keenly under the street lamp of the next crossing,
+and saw that his face was a trifle grim and that he carried his left arm
+peculiarly.
+
+“What's the matter with your arm?” he demanded.
+
+“The little cuss bit me. Hope I don't get hydrophoby. Folks gets
+hydrophoby from manbite sometimes, don't they?”
+
+“Gave you fight, eh?” Jim asked encouragingly.
+
+The other grunted.
+
+“You're harder'n hell to get information from,” Jim burst out irritably.
+“Tell us about it. You ain't goin' to lose money just a-tellin' a guy.”
+
+“I guess I choked him some,” came the answer. Then, by way of
+explanation, “He woke up on me.”
+
+“You did it neat. I never heard a sound.”
+
+“Jim,” the other said with seriousness, “it's a hangin' matter.
+I fixed 'm. I had to. He woke up on me. You an' me's got to do some
+layin' low for a spell.”
+
+Jim gave a low whistle of comprehension.
+
+“Did you hear me whistle?” he asked suddenly.
+
+“Sure. I was all done. I was just comin' out.”
+
+“It was a bull. But he wasn't on a little bit. Went right by an' kept
+a-paddin' the hoof out a sight. Then I come back an' gave you the
+whistle. What made you take so long after that?”
+
+“I was waitin' to make sure,” Matt explained. “I was mighty glad when
+I heard you whistle again. It's hard work waitin'. I just sat there an'
+thought an' thought... oh, all kinds of things. It's remarkable what
+a fellow'll think about. And then there was a darn cat that kept movin'
+around the house all' botherin' me with its noises.”
+
+“An' it's fat!” Jim exclaimed irrelevantly and with joy.
+
+“I'm sure tellin' you, Jim, it's fat. I'm plum' anxious for another look
+at 'em.”
+
+Unconsciously the two men quickened their pace. Yet they did not relax
+from their caution. Twice they changed their course in order to avoid
+policemen, and they made very sure that they were not observed when they
+dived into the dark hallway of a cheap rooming house down town.
+
+Not until they had gained their own room on the top floor, did they
+scratch a match. While Jim lighted a lamp, Matt locked the door and
+threw the bolts into place. As he turned, he noticed that his partner
+was waiting expectantly. Matt smiled to himself at the other's
+eagerness.
+
+“Them search-lights is all right,” he said, drawing forth a small pocket
+electric lamp and examining it. “But we got to get a new battery. It's
+runnin' pretty weak. I thought once or twice it'd leave me in the dark.
+Funny arrangements in that house. I near got lost. His room was on the
+left, an' that fooled me some.”
+
+“I told you it was on the left,” Jim interrupted.
+
+“You told me it was on the right,” Matt went on. “I guess I know what
+you told me, an' there's the map you drew.”
+
+Fumbling in his vest pocket, he drew out a folded slip of paper. As he
+unfolded it, Jim bent over and looked.
+
+“I did make a mistake,” he confessed.
+
+“You sure did. It got me guessin' some for a while.”
+
+“But it don't matter now,” Jim cried. “Let's see what you got.”
+
+“It does matter,” Matt retorted. “It matters a lot... to me. I've got
+to run all the risk. I put my head in the trap while you stay on the
+street. You got to get on to yourself an' be more careful. All right,
+I'll show you.”
+
+He dipped loosely into his trousers pocket and brought out a handful of
+small diamonds. He spilled them out in a blazing stream on the greasy
+table. Jim let out a great oath.
+
+“That's nothing,” Matt said with triumphant complacence. “I ain't begun
+yet.”
+
+From one pocket after another he continued bringing forth the spoil.
+There were many diamonds wrapped in chamois skin that were larger than
+those in the first handful. From one pocket he brought out a handful of
+very small cut gems.
+
+“Sun dust,” he remarked, as he spilled them on the table in a space by
+themselves.
+
+Jim examined them.
+
+“Just the same, they retail for a couple of dollars each,” he said. “Is
+that all?”
+
+“Ain't it enough?” the other demanded in an aggrieved tone.
+
+“Sure it is,” Jim answered with unqualified approval. “Better'n I
+expected. I wouldn't take a cent less than ten thousan' for the bunch.”
+
+“Ten thousan',” Matt sneered. “They're worth twic't that, an' I don't
+know anything about joolery, either. Look at that big boy!”
+
+He picked it out from the sparkling heap and held it near to the lamp
+with the air of an expert, weighing and judging.
+
+“Worth a thousan' all by its lonely,” was Jim's quicker judgment.
+
+“A thousan' your grandmother,” was Matt's scornful rejoinder. “You
+couldn't buy it for three.”
+
+“Wake me up! I'm dreamin'!” The sparkle of the gems was in Jim's eyes,
+and he began sorting out the larger diamonds and examining them. “We're
+rich men, Matt--we'll be regular swells.”
+
+“It'll take years to get rid of 'em,” was Matt's more practical thought.
+
+“But think how we'll live! Nothin' to do but spend the money an' go on
+gettin' rid of em.”
+
+Matt's eyes were beginning to sparkle, though sombrely, as his
+phlegmatic nature woke up.
+
+“I told you I didn't dast think how fat it was,” he murmured in a low
+voice.
+
+“What a killin'! What a killin'!” was the other's more ecstatic
+utterance.
+
+“I almost forgot,” Matt said, thrusting his hand into his inside coat
+pocket.
+
+A string of large pearls emerged from wrappings of tissue paper and
+chamois skin. Jim scarcely glanced at them.
+
+“They're worth money,” he said, and returned to the diamonds.
+
+A silence fell on the two men. Jim played with the gems, running them
+through his fingers, sorting them into piles, and spreading them out
+flat and wide. He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable,
+high-strung, and anaemic--a typical child of the gutter, with
+unbeautiful twisted features, small-eyed, with face and mouth
+perpetually and feverishly hungry, brutish in a cat-like way, stamped to
+the core with degeneracy.
+
+Matt did not finger the diamonds. He sat with chin on hands and elbows
+on table, blinking heavily at the blazing array. He was in every way a
+contrast to the other. No city had bred him. He was heavy-muscled and
+hairy, gorilla-like in strength and aspect. For him there was no unseen
+world. His eyes were full and wide apart, and there seemed in them
+a certain bold brotherliness. They inspired confidence. But a closer
+inspection would have shown that his eyes were just a trifle too full,
+just a shade too wide apart. He exceeded, spilled over the limits of
+normality, and his features told lies about the man beneath.
+
+“The bunch is worth fifty thousan',” Jim remarked suddenly.
+
+“A hundred thousan',” Matt said.
+
+The silence returned and endured a long time, to be broken again by Jim.
+
+“What in hell was he doin' with 'em all at the house?--that's what
+I want to know. I'd a-thought he'd kept 'em in the safe down at the
+store.”
+
+Matt had just been considering the vision of the throttled man as he had
+last looked upon him in the dim light of the electric lantern; but he
+did not start at the mention of him.
+
+“There's no tellin',” he answered. “He might a-ben gettin' ready to
+chuck his pardner. He might a-pulled out in the mornin' for parts
+unknown, if we hadn't happened along. I guess there's just as many
+thieves among honest men as there is among thieves. You read about such
+things in the papers, Jim. Pardners is always knifin' each other.”
+
+A queer, nervous look came into the other's eyes. Matt did not betray
+that he noted it, though he said--
+
+“What was you thinkin' about, Jim?”
+
+Jim was a trifle awkward for the moment.
+
+“Nothin',” he answered. “Only I was thinkin' just how funny it was--all
+them jools at his house. What made you ask?”
+
+“Nothin'. I was just wonderin', that was all.”
+
+The silence settled down, broken by an occasional low and nervous giggle
+on the part of Jim. He was overcome by the spread of gems. It was not
+that he felt their beauty. He was unaware that they were beautiful in
+themselves. But in them his swift imagination visioned the joys of life
+they would buy, and all the desires and appetites of his diseased mind
+and sickly flesh were tickled by the promise they extended. He builded
+wondrous, orgy-haunted castles out of their brilliant fires, and was
+appalled at what he builded. Then it was that he giggled. It was all
+too impossible to be real. And yet there they blazed on the table before
+him, fanning the flame of the lust of him, and he giggled again.
+
+“I guess we might as well count 'em,” Matt said suddenly, tearing
+himself away from his own visions. “You watch me an' see that
+it's square, because you an' me has got to be on the square, Jim.
+Understand?”
+
+Jim did not like this, and betrayed it in his eyes, while Matt did not
+like what he saw in his partner's eyes.
+
+“Understand?” Matt repeated, almost menacingly.
+
+“Ain't we always ben square?” the other replied, on the defensive
+because of the treachery already whispering in him.
+
+“It don't cost nothin', bein' square in hard times,” Matt retorted.
+“It's bein' square in prosperity that counts. When we ain't got nothin',
+we can't help bein' square. We're prosperous now, an' we've got to be
+business men--honest business men. Understand?”
+
+“That's the talk for me,” Jim approved, but deep down in the meagre soul
+of him,--and in spite of him,--wanton and lawless thoughts were stirring
+like chained beasts.
+
+Matt stepped to the food shelf behind the two-burner kerosene cooking
+stove. He emptied the tea from a paper bag, and from a second bag
+emptied some red peppers. Returning to the table with the bags, he put
+into them the two sizes of small diamonds. Then he counted the large
+gems and wrapped them in their tissue paper and chamois skin.
+
+“Hundred an' forty-seven good-sized ones,” was his inventory; “twenty
+real big ones; two big boys and one whopper; an' a couple of fistfuls of
+teeny ones an' dust.”
+
+He looked at Jim.
+
+“Correct,” was the response.
+
+He wrote the count out on a slip of memorandum paper, and made a copy of
+it, giving one slip to his partner and retaining the other.
+
+“Just for reference,” he said.
+
+Again he had recourse to the food shelf, where he emptied the sugar from
+a large paper bag. Into this he thrust the diamonds, large and small,
+wrapped it up in a bandanna handkerchief, and stowed it away under his
+pillow. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes.
+
+“An' you think they're worth a hundred thousan'?” Jim asked, pausing and
+looking up from the unlacing of his shoe.
+
+“Sure,” was the answer. “I seen a dance-house girl down in Arizona once,
+with some big sparklers on her. They wasn't real. She said if they was
+she wouldn't be dancin'. Said they'd be worth all of fifty thousan', an'
+she didn't have a dozen of 'em all told.”
+
+“Who'd work for a livin'?” Jim triumphantly demanded. “Pick an' shovel
+work!” he sneered. “Work like a dog all my life, an' save all my wages,
+an' I wouldn't have half as much as we got tonight.”
+
+“Dish washin's about your measure, an' you couldn't get more'n twenty a
+month an' board. Your figgers is 'way off, but your point is well taken.
+Let them that likes it, work. I rode range for thirty a month when I was
+young an' foolish. Well, I'm older, an' I ain't ridin' range.”
+
+He got into bed on one side. Jim put out the light and followed him in
+on the other side.
+
+“How's your arm feel?” Jim queried amiably.
+
+Such concern was unusual, and Matt noted it, and replied--
+
+“I guess there's no danger of hydrophoby. What made you ask?”
+
+Jim felt in himself a guilty stir, and under his breath he cursed the
+other's way of asking disagreeable questions; but aloud he answered--
+
+“Nothin', only you seemed scared of it at first. What are you goin' to
+do with your share, Matt?”
+
+“Buy a cattle ranch in Arizona an' set down an' pay other men to ride
+range for me. There's some several I'd like to see askin' a job from me,
+damn them! An' now you shut your face, Jim. It'll be some time before I
+buy that ranch. Just now I'm goin' to sleep.”
+
+But Jim lay long awake, nervous and twitching, rolling about restlessly
+and rolling himself wide awake every time he dozed. The diamonds still
+blazed under his eyelids, and the fire of them hurt. Matt, in spite of
+his heavy nature, slept lightly, like a wild animal alert in its sleep;
+and Jim noticed, every time he moved, that his partner's body moved
+sufficiently to show that it had received the impression and that it was
+trembling on the verge of awakening. For that matter, Jim did not
+know whether or not, frequently, the other was awake. Once, quietly,
+betokening complete consciousness, Matt said to him: “Aw, go to sleep,
+Jim. Don't worry about them jools. They'll keep.” And Jim had thought
+that at that particular moment Matt had been surely asleep.
+
+In the late morning Matt was awake with Jim's first movement, and
+thereafter he awoke and dozed with him until midday, when they got up
+together and began dressing.
+
+“I'm goin' out to get a paper an' some bread,” Matt said. “You boil the
+coffee.”
+
+As Jim listened, unconsciously his gaze left Matt's face and roved
+to the pillow, beneath which was the bundle wrapped in the bandanna
+handkerchief. On the instant Matt's face became like a wild beast's.
+
+“Look here, Jim,” he snarled. “You've got to play square. If you do me
+dirt, I'll fix you. Understand? I'd eat you, Jim. You know that. I'd
+bite right into your throat an' eat you like that much beefsteak.”
+
+His sunburned skin was black with the surge of blood in it, and his
+tobacco-stained teeth were exposed by the snarling lips. Jim shivered
+and involuntarily cowered. There was death in the man he looked at. Only
+the night before that black-faced man had killed another with his hands,
+and it had not hurt his sleep. And in his own heart Jim was aware of
+a sneaking guilt, of a train of thought that merited all that was
+threatened.
+
+Matt passed out, leaving him still shivering. Then a hatred twisted his
+own face, and he softly hurled savage curses at the door. He remembered
+the jewels, and hastened to the bed, feeling under the pillow for the
+bandanna bundle. He crushed it with his fingers to make certain that
+it still contained the diamonds. Assured that Matt had not carried them
+away, he looked toward the kerosene stove with a guilty start. Then he
+hurriedly lighted it, filled the coffee-pot at the sink, and put it over
+the flame.
+
+The coffee was boiling when Matt returned, and while the latter cut the
+bread and put a slice of butter on the table, Jim poured out the coffee.
+It was not until he sat down and had taken a few sips of the coffee,
+that Matt pulled out the morning paper from his pocket.
+
+“We was way off,” he said. “I told you I didn't dast figger out how fat
+it was. Look at that.”
+
+He pointed to the head-lines on the first page.
+
+“SWIFT NEMESIS ON BUJANNOFF'S TRACK,” they read. “MURDERED IN HIS SLEEP
+AFTER ROBBING HIS PARTNER.”
+
+“There you have it!” Matt cried. “He robbed his partner--robbed him like
+a dirty thief.”
+
+“Half a million of jewels missin',” Jim read aloud. He put the paper
+down and stared at Matt.
+
+“That's what I told you,” the latter said. “What in hell do we know
+about jools? Half a million!--an' the best I could figger it was a
+hundred thousan'. Go on an' read the rest of it.”
+
+They read on silently, their heads side by side, the untouched coffee
+growing cold; and ever and anon one or the other burst forth with some
+salient printed fact.
+
+“I'd like to seen Metzner's face when he opened the safe at the store
+this mornin',” Jim gloated.
+
+“He hit the high places right away for Bujannoff's house,” Matt
+explained. “Go on an' read.”
+
+“Was to have sailed last night at ten on the Sajoda for the South
+Seas--steamship delayed by extra freight--”
+
+“That's why we caught 'm in bed,” Matt interrupted. “It was just
+luck--like pickin' a fifty-to-one winner.”
+
+“Sajoda sailed at six this mornin'--”
+
+“He didn't catch her,” Matt said. “I saw his alarm-clock was set at
+five. That'd given 'm plenty of time... only I come along an' put the
+kibosh on his time. Go on.”
+
+“Adolph Metzner in despair--the famous Haythorne pearl
+necklace--magnificently assorted pearls--valued by experts at from fifty
+to seventy thousan' dollars.”
+
+Jim broke off to swear vilely and solemnly, concluding with, “Those damn
+oyster-eggs worth all that money!”
+
+He licked his lips and added, “They was beauties an' no mistake.”
+
+“Big Brazilian gem,” he read on. “Eighty thousan' dollars--many valuable
+gems of the first water--several thousan' small diamonds well worth
+forty thousan'.”
+
+“What you don't know about jools is worth knowin',” Matt smiled
+good-humouredly.
+
+“Theory of the sleuths,” Jim read. “Thieves must have known--cleverly
+kept watch on Bujannoff's actions--must have learned his plan and
+trailed him to his house with the fruits of his robbery--”
+
+“Clever--hell!” Matt broke out. “That's the way reputations is made...
+in the noospapers. How'd we know he was robbin' his pardner?”
+
+“Anyway, we've got the goods,” Jim grinned. “Let's look at 'em again.”
+
+He assured himself that the door was locked and bolted, while Matt
+brought out the bundle in the bandanna and opened it on the table.
+
+“Ain't they beauties, though!” Jim exclaimed at sight of the pearls; and
+for a time he had eyes only for them. “Accordin' to the experts, worth
+from fifty to seventy thousan' dollars.”
+
+“An' women like them things,” Matt commented. “An' they'll do everything
+to get 'em--sell themselves, commit murder, anything.”
+
+“Just like you an' me.”
+
+“Not on your life,” Matt retorted. “I'll commit murder for 'em, but not
+for their own sakes, but for sake of what they'll get me. That's the
+difference. Women want the jools for themselves, an' I want the jools
+for the women an' such things they'll get me.”
+
+“Lucky that men an' women don't want the same things,” Jim remarked.
+
+“That's what makes commerce,” Matt agreed; “people wantin' different
+things.”
+
+In the middle of the afternoon Jim went out to buy food. While he was
+gone, Matt cleared the table of the jewels, wrapping them up as before
+and putting them under the pillow. Then he lighted the kerosene stove
+and started to boil water for coffee. A few minutes later, Jim returned.
+
+“Most surprising,” he remarked. “Streets, an' stores, an' people just
+like they always was. Nothin' changed. An' me walking along through it
+all a millionaire. Nobody looked at me an' guessed it.”
+
+Matt grunted unsympathetically. He had little comprehension of the
+lighter whims and fancies of his partner's imagination.
+
+“Did you get a porterhouse?” he demanded.
+
+“Sure, an' an inch thick. It's a peach. Look at it.”
+
+He unwrapped the steak and held it up for the other's inspection. Then
+he made the coffee and set the table, while Matt fried the steak.
+
+“Don't put on too much of them red peppers,” Jim warned. “I ain't used
+to your Mexican cookin'. You always season too hot.”
+
+Matt grunted a laugh and went on with his cooking. Jim poured out the
+coffee, but first, into the nicked china cup, he emptied a powder he had
+carried in his vest pocket wrapped in a rice-paper. He had turned his
+back for the moment on his partner, but he did not dare to glance around
+at him. Matt placed a newspaper on the table, and on the newspaper
+set the hot frying-pan. He cut the steak in half, and served Jim and
+himself.
+
+“Eat her while she's hot,” he counselled, and with knife and fork set
+the example.
+
+“She's a dandy,” was Jim's judgment, after his first mouthful. “But
+I tell you one thing straight. I'm never goin' to visit you on that
+Arizona ranch, so you needn't ask me.”
+
+“What's the matter now?” Matt asked.
+
+“Hell's the matter,” was the answer. “The Mexican cookin' on your
+ranch'd be too much for me. If I've got hell a-comin' in the next life,
+I'm not goin' to torment my insides in this one. Damned peppers!”
+
+He smiled, expelled his breath forcibly to cool his burning mouth, drank
+some coffee, and went on eating the steak.
+
+“What do you think about the next life anyway, Matt?” he asked a little
+later, while secretly he wondered why the other had not yet touched his
+coffee.
+
+“Ain't no next life,” Matt answered, pausing from the steak to take
+his first sip of coffee. “Nor heaven nor hell, nor nothin'. You get all
+that's comin' right here in this life.”
+
+“An' afterward?” Jim queried out of his morbid curiosity, for he knew
+that he looked upon a man that was soon to die. “An' afterward?” he
+repeated.
+
+“Did you ever see a man two weeks dead?” the other asked.
+
+Jim shook his head.
+
+“Well, I have. He was like this beefsteak you an' me is eatin'. It was
+once steer cavortin' over the landscape. But now it's just meat.
+That's all, just meat. An' that's what you an' me an' all people come
+to--meat.”
+
+Matt gulped down the whole cup of coffee, and refilled the cup.
+
+“Are you scared to die?” he asked.
+
+Jim shook his head. “What's the use? I don't die anyway. I pass on an'
+live again--”
+
+“To go stealin', an' lyin' an' snivellin' through another life, an' go
+on that way forever an' ever an' ever?” Matt sneered.
+
+“Maybe I'll improve,” Jim suggested hopefully. “Maybe stealin' won't be
+necessary in the life to come.”
+
+He ceased abruptly, and stared straight before him, a frightened
+expression on his face.
+
+“What's the matter!” Matt demanded.
+
+“Nothin'. I was just wonderin'”--Jim returned to himself with an
+effort--“about this dyin', that was all.”
+
+But he could not shake off the fright that had startled him. It was
+as if an unseen thing of gloom had passed him by, casting upon him
+the intangible shadow of its presence. He was aware of a feeling of
+foreboding. Something ominous was about to happen. Calamity hovered in
+the air. He gazed fixedly across the table at the other man. He could
+not understand. Was it that he had blundered and poisoned himself? No,
+Matt had the nicked cup, and he had certainly put the poison in the
+nicked cup.
+
+It was all his own imagination, was his next thought. It had played him
+tricks before. Fool! Of course it was. Of course something was about to
+happen, but it was about to happen to Matt. Had not Matt drunk the whole
+cup of coffee?
+
+Jim brightened up and finished his steak, sopping bread in the gravy
+when the meat was gone.
+
+“When I was a kid--” he began, but broke off abruptly.
+
+Again the unseen thing of gloom had fluttered, and his being was vibrant
+with premonition of impending misfortune. He felt a disruptive influence
+at work in the flesh of him, and in all his muscles there was a seeming
+that they were about to begin to twitch. He sat back suddenly, and as
+suddenly leaned forward with his elbows on the table. A tremor ran
+dimly through the muscles of his body. It was like the first rustling
+of leaves before the oncoming of wind. He clenched his teeth. It came
+again, a spasmodic tensing of his muscles. He knew panic at the revolt
+within his being. His muscles no longer recognized his mastery over
+them. Again they spasmodically tensed, despite the will of him, for
+he had willed that they should not tense. This was revolution within
+himself, this was anarchy; and the terror of impotence rushed up in him
+as his flesh gripped and seemed to seize him in a clutch, chills running
+up and down his back and sweat starting on his brow. He glanced about
+the room, and all the details of it smote him with a strange sense of
+familiarity. It was as though he had just returned from a long journey.
+He looked across the table at his partner. Matt was watching him and
+smiling. An expression of horror spread over Jim's face.
+
+“My God, Matt!” he screamed. “You ain't doped me?”
+
+Matt smiled and continued to watch him. In the paroxysm that followed,
+Jim did not become unconscious. His muscles tensed and twitched and
+knotted, hurting him and crushing him in their savage grip. And in the
+midst of it all, it came to him that Matt was acting queerly. He was
+travelling the same road. The smile had gone from his face, and there
+was on it an intent expression, as if he were listening to some inner
+tale of himself and trying to divine the message. Matt got up and walked
+across the room and back again, then sat down.
+
+“You did this, Jim,” he said quietly.
+
+“But I didn't think you'd try to fix ME,” Jim answered reproachfully.
+
+“Oh, I fixed you all right,” Matt said, with teeth close together and
+shivering body. “What did you give me?”
+
+“Strychnine.”
+
+“Same as I gave you,” Matt volunteered. “It's a hell of a mess, ain't
+it?”
+
+“You're lyin', Matt,” Jim pleaded. “You ain't doped me, have you?”
+
+“I sure did, Jim; an' I didn't overdose you, neither. I cooked it in as
+neat as you please in your half the porterhouse.--Hold on! Where're you
+goin'?”
+
+Jim had made a dash for the door, and was throwing back the bolts. Matt
+sprang in between and shoved him away.
+
+“Drug store,” Jim panted. “Drug store.”
+
+“No you don't. You'll stay right here. There ain't goin' to be any
+runnin' out an' makin' a poison play on the street--not with all them
+jools reposin' under the pillow. Savve? Even if you didn't die, you'd
+be in the hands of the police with a whole lot of explanations comin'.
+Emetics is the stuff for poison. I'm just as bad bit as you, an' I'm
+goin' to take a emetic. That's all they'd give you at a drug store,
+anyway.”
+
+He thrust Jim back into the middle of the room and shot the bolts into
+place. As he went across the floor to the food shelf, he passed one hand
+over his brow and flung off the beaded sweat. It spattered audibly on
+the floor. Jim watched agonizedly as Matt got the mustard-can and a cup
+and ran for the sink. He stirred a cupful of mustard and water and drank
+it down. Jim had followed him and was reaching with trembling hands for
+the empty cup. Again Matt shoved him away. As he mixed a second cupful,
+he demanded--
+
+“D'you think one cup'll do for me? You can wait till I'm done.”
+
+Jim started to totter toward the door, but Matt checked him.
+
+“If you monkey with that door, I'll twist your neck. Savve? You can take
+yours when I'm done. An' if it saves you, I'll twist your neck, anyway.
+You ain't got no chance, nohow. I told you many times what you'd get if
+you did me dirt.”
+
+“But you did me dirt, too,” Jim articulated with an effort.
+
+Matt was drinking the second cupful, and did not answer. The sweat had
+got into Jim's eyes, and he could scarcely see his way to the table,
+where he got a cup for himself. But Matt was mixing a third cupful, and,
+as before, thrust him away.
+
+“I told you to wait till I was done,” Matt growled. “Get outa my way.”
+
+And Jim supported his twitching body by holding on to the sink, the
+while he yearned toward the yellowish concoction that stood for life. It
+was by sheer will that he stood and clung to the sink. His flesh strove
+to double him up and bring him to the floor. Matt drank the third
+cupful, and with difficulty managed to get to a chair and sit down. His
+first paroxysm was passing. The spasms that afflicted him were dying
+away. This good effect he ascribed to the mustard and water. He was
+safe, at any rate. He wiped the sweat from his face, and, in the
+interval of calm, found room for curiosity. He looked at his partner.
+
+A spasm had shaken the mustard can out of Jim's hands, and the contents
+were spilled upon the floor. He stooped to scoop some of the mustard
+into the cup, and the succeeding spasm doubled him upon the floor. Matt
+smiled.
+
+“Stay with it,” he encouraged. “It's the stuff all right. It's fixed me
+up.”
+
+Jim heard him and turned toward him a stricken face, twisted with
+suffering and pleading. Spasm now followed spasm till he was in
+convulsions, rolling on the floor and yellowing his face and hair in the
+mustard.
+
+Matt laughed hoarsely at the sight, but the laugh broke midway. A tremor
+had run through his body. A new paroxysm was beginning. He arose and
+staggered across to the sink, where, with probing forefinger, he vainly
+strove to assist the action of the emetic. In the end, he clung to
+the sink as Jim had clung, filled with the horror of going down to the
+floor.
+
+The other's paroxysm had passed, and he sat up, weak and fainting, too
+weak to rise, his forehead dripping, his lips flecked with a foam made
+yellow by the mustard in which he had rolled. He rubbed his eyes with
+his knuckles, and groans that were like whines came from his throat.
+
+“What are you snifflin' about?” Matt demanded out of his agony. “All you
+got to do is die. An' when you die you're dead.”
+
+“I... ain't... snifflin'... it's... the... mustard... stingin'... my...
+eyes,” Jim panted with desperate slowness.
+
+It was his last successful attempt at speech. Thereafter he babbled
+incoherently, pawing the air with shaking arms till a fresh convulsion
+stretched him on the floor.
+
+Matt struggled back to the chair, and, doubled up on it, with his arms
+clasped about his knees, he fought with his disintegrating flesh. He
+came out of the convulsion cool and weak. He looked to see how it went
+with the other, and saw him lying motionless.
+
+He tried to soliloquize, to be facetious, to have his last grim laugh at
+life, but his lips made only incoherent sounds. The thought came to
+him that the emetic had failed, and that nothing remained but the drug
+store. He looked toward the door and drew himself to his feet. There he
+saved himself from falling by clutching the chair. Another paroxysm had
+begun. And in the midst of the paroxysm, with his body and all the parts
+of it flying apart and writhing and twisting back again into knots, he
+clung to the chair and shoved it before him across the floor. The last
+shreds of his will were leaving him when he gained the door. He turned
+the key and shot back one bolt. He fumbled for the second bolt, but
+failed. Then he leaned his weight against the door and slid down gently
+to the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CREATED HE THEM
+
+She met him at the door.
+
+“I did not think you would be so early.”
+
+“It is half past eight.” He looked at his watch. “The train leaves at
+9.12.”
+
+He was very businesslike, until he saw her lips tremble as she abruptly
+turned and led the way.
+
+“It'll be all right, little woman,” he said soothingly. “Doctor
+Bodineau's the man. He'll pull him through, you'll see.”
+
+They entered the living-room. His glance quested apprehensively about,
+then turned to her.
+
+“Where's Al?”
+
+She did not answer, but with a sudden impulse came close to him and
+stood motionless. She was a slender, dark-eyed woman, in whose face
+was stamped the strain and stress of living. But the fine lines and the
+haunted look in the eyes were not the handiwork of mere worry. He knew
+whose handiwork it was as he looked upon it, and she knew when she
+consulted her mirror.
+
+“It's no use, Mary,” he said. He put his hand on her shoulder. “We've
+tried everything. It's a wretched business, I know, but what else can we
+do? You've failed. Doctor Bodineau's all that's left.”
+
+“If I had another chance...” she began falteringly.
+
+“We've threshed that all out,” he answered harshly. “You've got to buck
+up, now. You know what conclusion we arrived at. You know you haven't
+the ghost of a hope in another chance.”
+
+She shook her head. “I know it. But it is terrible, the thought of his
+going away to fight it out alone.”
+
+“He won't be alone. There's Doctor Bodineau. And besides, it's a
+beautiful place.”
+
+She remained silent.
+
+“It is the only thing,” he said.
+
+“It is the only thing,” she repeated mechanically.
+
+He looked at his watch. “Where's Al?”
+
+“I'll send him.”
+
+When the door had closed behind her, he walked over to the window and
+looked out, drumming absently with his knuckles on the pane.
+
+“Hello.”
+
+He turned and responded to the greeting of the man who had just entered.
+There was a perceptible drag to the man's feet as he walked across
+toward the window and paused irresolutely halfway.
+
+“I've changed my mind, George,” he announced hurriedly and nervously.
+“I'm not going.”
+
+He plucked at his sleeve, shuffled with his feet, dropped his eyes, and
+with a strong effort raised them again to confront the other.
+
+George regarded him silently, his nostrils distending and his lean
+fingers unconsciously crooking like an eagle's talons about to clutch.
+
+In line and feature, there was much of resemblance between the two men;
+and yet, in the strongest resemblances there was a radical difference.
+Theirs were the same black eyes, but those of the man at the window were
+sharp and straight looking, while those of the man in the middle of the
+room were cloudy and furtive. He could not face the other's gaze, and
+continually and vainly struggled with himself to do so. The high cheek
+bones with the hollows beneath were the same, yet the texture of the
+hollows seemed different. The thin-lipped mouths were from the same
+mould, but George's lips were firm and muscular, while Al's were soft
+and loose--the lips of an ascetic turned voluptuary. There was also a
+sag at the corners. His flesh hinted of grossness, especially so in the
+eagle-like aquiline nose that must once have been like the other's, but
+that had lost the austerity the other's still retained.
+
+Al fought for steadiness in the middle of the floor. The silence
+bothered him. He had a feeling that he was about to begin swaying back
+and forth. He moistened his lips with his tongue.
+
+“I'm going to stay,” he said desperately.
+
+He dropped his eyes and plucked again at his sleeve.
+
+“And you are only twenty-six years old,” George said at last. “You poor,
+feeble old man.”
+
+“Don't be so sure of that,” Al retorted, with a flash of belligerence.
+
+“Do you remember when we swam that mile and a half across the channel?”
+
+“Well, and what of it?” A sullen expression was creeping across Al's
+face.
+
+“And do you remember when we boxed in the barn after school?”
+
+“I could take all you gave me.”
+
+“All I gave you!” George's voice rose momentarily to a higher pitch.
+“You licked me four afternoons out of five. You were twice as strong as
+I--three times as strong. And now I'd be afraid to land on you with a
+sofa cushion; you'd crumple up like a last year's leaf. You'd die, you
+poor, miserable old man.”
+
+“You needn't abuse me just because I've changed my mind,” the other
+protested, the hint of a whine in his voice.
+
+His wife entered, and he looked appealingly to her; but the man at the
+window strode suddenly up to him and burst out--
+
+“You don't know your own mind for two successive minutes! You haven't
+any mind, you spineless, crawling worm!”
+
+“You can't make me angry.” Al smiled with cunning, and glanced
+triumphantly at his wife. “You can't make me angry,” he repeated, as
+though the idea were thoroughly gratifying to him. “I know your game.
+It's my stomach, I tell you. I can't help it. Before God, I can't! Isn't
+it my stomach, Mary?”
+
+She glanced at George and spoke composedly, though she hid a trembling
+hand in a fold of her skirt.
+
+“Isn't it time?” she asked softly.
+
+Her husband turned upon her savagely. “I'm not going to go!” he cried.
+“That's just what I've been telling... him. And I tell you again, all of
+you, I'm not going. You can't bully me.”
+
+“Why, Al, dear, you said--” she began.
+
+“Never mind what I said!” he broke out. “I've said something else right
+now, and you've heard it, and that settles it.”
+
+He walked across the room and threw himself with emphasis into a Morris
+chair. But the other man was swiftly upon him. The talon-like fingers
+gripped his shoulders, jerked him to his feet, and held him there.
+
+“You've reached the limit, Al, and I want you to understand it. I've
+tried to treat you like... like my brother, but hereafter I shall treat
+you like the thing that you are. Do you understand?”
+
+The anger in his voice was cold. The blaze in his eyes was cold. It was
+vastly more effective than any outburst, and Al cringed under it and
+under the clutching hand that was bruising his shoulder muscles.
+
+“It is only because of me that you have this house, that you have the
+food you eat. Your position? Any other man would have been shown the
+door a year ago--two years ago. I have held you in it. Your salary has
+been charity. It has been paid out of my pocket. Mary... her dresses...
+that gown she has on is made over; she wears the discarded dresses of
+her sisters, of my wife. Charity--do you understand? Your children--they
+are wearing the discarded clothes of my children, of the children of my
+neighbours who think the clothes went to some orphan asylum. And it is
+an orphan asylum... or it soon will be.”
+
+He emphasized each point with an unconscious tightening of his grip
+on the shoulder. Al was squirming with the pain of it. The sweat was
+starting out on his forehead.
+
+“Now listen well to me,” his brother went on. “In three minutes you will
+tell me that you are going with me. If you don't, Mary and the children
+will be taken away from you--to-day. You needn't ever come to the
+office. This house will be closed to you. And in six months I shall
+have the pleasure of burying you. You have three minutes to make up your
+mind.”
+
+Al made a strangling movement, and reached up with weak fingers to the
+clutching hand.
+
+“My heart... let me go... you'll be the death of me,” he gasped.
+
+The hand thrust him down forcibly into the Morris chair and released
+him.
+
+The clock on the mantle ticked loudly. George glanced at it, and
+at Mary. She was leaning against the table, unable to conceal her
+trembling. He became unpleasantly aware of the feeling of his brother's
+fingers on his hand. Quite unconsciously he wiped the back of the hand
+upon his coat. The clock ticked on in the silence. It seemed to George
+that the room reverberated with his voice. He could hear himself still
+speaking.
+
+“I'll go,” came from the Morris chair.
+
+It was a weak and shaken voice, and it was a weak and shaken man that
+pulled himself out of the Morris chair. He started toward the door.
+
+“Where are you going?” George demanded.
+
+“Suit case,” came the response. “Mary'll send the trunk later. I'll be
+back in a minute.”
+
+The door closed after him. A moment later, struck with sudden suspicion,
+George was opening the door. He glanced in. His brother stood at a
+sideboard, in one hand a decanter, in the other hand, bottom up and to
+his lips, a whisky glass.
+
+Across the glass Al saw that he was observed. It threw him into a panic.
+Hastily he tried to refill the glass and get it to his lips; but glass
+and decanter were sent smashing to the floor. He snarled. It was like
+the sound of a wild beast. But the grip on his shoulder subdued and
+frightened him. He was being propelled toward the door.
+
+“The suit case,” he gasped. “It's there in that room. Let me get it.”
+
+“Where's the key?” his brother asked, when he had brought it.
+
+“It isn't locked.”
+
+The next moment the suit case was spread open, and George's hand was
+searching the contents. From one side it brought out a bottle of whisky,
+from the other side a flask. He snapped the case to.
+
+“Come on,” he said. “If we miss one car, we miss that train.”
+
+He went out into the hallway, leaving Al with his wife. It was like a
+funeral, George thought, as he waited.
+
+His brother's overcoat caught on the knob of the front door and delayed
+its closing long enough for Mary's first sob to come to their ears.
+George's lips were very thin and compressed as he went down the steps.
+In one hand he carried the suit case. With the other hand he held his
+brother's arm.
+
+As they neared the corner, he heard the electric car a block away,
+and urged his brother on. Al was breathing hard. His feet dragged and
+shuffled, and he held back.
+
+“A hell of a brother YOU are,” he panted.
+
+For reply, he received a vicious jerk on his arm. It reminded him of his
+childhood when he was hurried along by some angry grown-up. And like a
+child, he had to be helped up the car step. He sank down on an outside
+seat, panting, sweating, overcome by the exertion. He followed George's
+eyes as the latter looked him up and down.
+
+“A hell of a brother YOU are,” was George's comment when he had finished
+the inspection.
+
+Moisture welled into Al's eyes.
+
+“It's my stomach,” he said with self-pity.
+
+“I don't wonder,” was the retort. “Burnt out like the crater of a
+volcano. Fervent heat isn't a circumstance.”
+
+Thereafter they did not speak. When they arrived at the transfer point,
+George came to himself with a start. He smiled. With fixed gaze that
+did not see the houses that streamed across his field of vision, he had
+himself been sunk deep in self-pity. He helped his brother from the car,
+and looked up the intersecting street. The car they were to take was not
+in sight.
+
+Al's eyes chanced upon the corner grocery and saloon across the way.
+At once he became restless. His hands passed beyond his control, and he
+yearned hungrily across the street to the door that swung open even as
+he looked and let in a happy pilgrim. And in that instant he saw the
+white-jacketed bartender against an array of glittering glass. Quite
+unconsciously he started to cross the street.
+
+“Hold on.” George's hand was on his arm.
+
+“I want some whisky,” he answered.
+
+“You've already had some.”
+
+“That was hours ago. Go on, George, let me have some. It's the last
+day. Don't shut off on me until we get there--God knows it will be soon
+enough.”
+
+George glanced desperately up the street. The car was in sight.
+
+“There isn't time for a drink,” he said.
+
+“I don't want a drink. I want a bottle.” Al's voice became wheedling.
+“Go on, George. It's the last, the very last.”
+
+“No.” The denial was as final as George's thin lips could make it.
+
+Al glanced at the approaching car. He sat down suddenly on the
+curbstone.
+
+“What's the matter?” his brother asked, with momentary alarm.
+
+“Nothing. I want some whisky. It's my stomach.”
+
+“Come on now, get up.”
+
+George reached for him, but was anticipated, for his brother sprawled
+flat on the pavement, oblivious to the dirt and to the curious glances
+of the passers-by. The car was clanging its gong at the crossing, a
+block away.
+
+“You'll miss it,” Al grinned from the pavement. “And it will be your
+fault.”
+
+George's fists clenched tightly.
+
+“For two cents I'd give you a thrashing.”
+
+“And miss the car,” was the triumphant comment from the pavement.
+
+George looked at the car. It was halfway down the block. He looked at
+his watch. He debated a second longer.
+
+“All right,” he said. “I'll get it. But you get on that car. If you miss
+it, I'll break the bottle over your head.”
+
+He dashed across the street and into the saloon. The car came in and
+stopped. There were no passengers to get off. Al dragged himself up the
+steps and sat down. He smiled as the conductor rang the bell and the car
+started. The swinging door of the saloon burst open. Clutching in
+his hand the suit case and a pint bottle of whisky, George started in
+pursuit. The conductor, his hand on the bell cord, waited to see if it
+would be necessary to stop. It was not. George swung lightly aboard, sat
+down beside his brother, and passed him the bottle.
+
+“You might have got a quart,” Al said reproachfully.
+
+He extracted the cork with a pocket corkscrew, and elevated the bottle.
+
+“I'm sick... my stomach,” he explained in apologetic tones to the
+passenger who sat next to him.
+
+In the train they sat in the smoking-car. George felt that it was
+imperative. Also, having successfully caught the train, his heart
+softened. He felt more kindly toward his brother, and accused himself of
+unnecessary harshness. He strove to atone by talking about their mother,
+and sisters, and the little affairs and interests of the family. But Al
+was morose, and devoted himself to the bottle. As the time passed, his
+mouth hung looser and looser, while the rings under his eyes seemed to
+puff out and all his facial muscles to relax.
+
+“It's my stomach,” he said, once, when he finished the bottle and
+dropped it under the seat; but the swift hardening of his brother's face
+did not encourage further explanations.
+
+The conveyance that met them at the station had all the dignity and
+luxuriousness of a private carriage. George's eyes were keen for the ear
+marks of the institution to which they were going, but his apprehensions
+were allayed from moment to moment. As they entered the wide gateway
+and rolled on through the spacious grounds, he felt sure that the
+institutional side of the place would not jar upon his brother. It was
+more like a summer hotel, or, better yet, a country club. And as they
+swept on through the spring sunshine, the songs of birds in his ears,
+and in his nostrils the breath of flowers, George sighed for a week
+of rest in such a place, and before his eyes loomed the arid vista of
+summer in town and at the office. There was not room in his income for
+his brother and himself.
+
+“Let us take a walk in the grounds,” he suggested, after they had met
+Doctor Bodineau and inspected the quarters assigned to Al. “The carriage
+leaves for the station in half an hour, and we'll just have time.”
+
+“It's beautiful,” he remarked a moment later. Under his feet was
+the velvet grass, the trees arched overhead, and he stood in mottled
+sunshine. “I wish I could stay for a month.”
+
+“I'll trade places with you,” Al said quickly.
+
+George laughed it off, but he felt a sinking of the heart.
+
+“Look at that oak!” he cried. “And that woodpecker! Isn't he a beauty!”
+
+“I don't like it here,” he heard his brother mutter.
+
+George's lips tightened in preparation for the struggle, but he said--
+
+“I'm going to send Mary and the children off to the mountains. She needs
+it, and so do they. And when you're in shape, I'll send you right on to
+join them. Then you can take your summer vacation before you come back
+to the office.”
+
+“I'm not going to stay in this damned hole, for all you talk about it,”
+ Al announced abruptly.
+
+“Yes you are, and you're going to get your health and strength back
+again, so that the look of you will put the colour in Mary's cheeks
+where it used to be.”
+
+“I'm going back with you.” Al's voice was firm. “I'm going to take the
+same train back. It's about time for that carriage, I guess.”
+
+“I haven't told you all my plans,” George tried to go on, but Al cut him
+off.
+
+“You might as well quit that. I don't want any of your soapy talking.
+You treat me like a child. I'm not a child. My mind's made up, and I'll
+show you how long it can stay made up. You needn't talk to me. I don't
+care a rap for what you're going to say.”
+
+A baleful light was in his eyes, and to his brother he seemed for all
+the world like a cornered rat, desperate and ready to fight. As George
+looked at him he remembered back to their childhood, and it came to him
+that at last was aroused in Al the same old stubborn strain that had
+enabled him, as a child, to stand against all force and persuasion.
+
+George abandoned hope. He had lost. This creature was not human. The
+last fine instinct of the human had fled. It was a brute, sluggish
+and stolid, impossible to move--just the raw stuff of life, combative,
+rebellious, and indomitable. And as he contemplated his brother he felt
+in himself the rising up of a similar brute. He became suddenly aware
+that his fingers were tensing and crooking like a thug's, and he knew
+the desire to kill. And his reason, turned traitor at last, counselled
+that he should kill, that it was the only thing left for him to do.
+
+He was aroused by a servant calling to him through the trees that the
+carriage was waiting. He answered. Then, looking straight before him, he
+discovered his brother. He had forgotten it was his brother. It had been
+only a thing the moment before. He began to talk, and as he talked the
+way became clear to him. His reason had not turned traitor. The brute in
+him had merely orientated his reason.
+
+“You are no earthly good, Al,” he said. “You know that. You've made
+Mary's life a hell. You are a curse to your children. And you have not
+made life exactly a paradise for the rest of us.”
+
+“There's no use your talking,” Al interjected. “I'm not going to stay
+here.”
+
+“That's what I'm coming to,” George continued. “You don't have to stay
+here.” (Al's face brightened, and he involuntarily made a movement, as
+though about to start toward the carriage.) “On the other hand, it is
+not necessary that you should return with me. There is another way.”
+
+George's hand went to his hip pocket and appeared with a revolver. It
+lay along his palm, the butt toward Al, and toward Al he extended it. At
+the same time, with his head, he indicated the near-by thicket.
+
+“You can't bluff me,” Al snarled.
+
+“It is not a bluff, Al. Look at me. I mean it. And if you don't do it
+for yourself, I shall have to do it for you.”
+
+They faced each other, the proffered revolver still extended. Al debated
+for a moment, then his eyes blazed. With a quick movement he seized the
+revolver.
+
+“My God! I'll do it,” he said. “I'll show you what I've got in me.”
+
+George felt suddenly sick. He turned away. He did not see his brother
+enter the thicket, but he heard the passage of his body through the
+leaves and branches.
+
+“Good-bye, Al,” he called.
+
+“Good-bye,” came from the thicket.
+
+George felt the sweat upon his forehead. He began mopping his face with
+his handkerchief. He heard, as from a remote distance, the voice of
+the servant again calling to him that the carriage was waiting. The
+woodpecker dropped down through the mottled sunshine and lighted on the
+trunk of a tree a dozen feet away. George felt that it was all a dream,
+and yet through it all he felt supreme justification. It was the right
+thing to do. It was the only thing.
+
+His whole body gave a spasmodic start, as though the revolver had been
+fired. It was the voice of Al, close at his back.
+
+“Here's your gun,” Al said. “I'll stay.”
+
+The servant appeared among the trees, approaching rapidly and calling
+anxiously. George put the weapon in his pocket and caught both his
+brother's hands in his own.
+
+“God bless you, old man,” he murmured; “and”--with a final squeeze of
+the hands--“good luck!”
+
+“I'm coming,” he called to the servant, and turned and ran through the
+trees toward the carriage.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHINAGO
+
+   “The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs.”
+                                   --Tahitian proverb.
+
+Ah Cho did not understand French. He sat in the crowded court room, very
+weary and bored, listening to the unceasing, explosive French that now
+one official and now another uttered. It was just so much gabble to Ah
+Cho, and he marvelled at the stupidity of the Frenchmen who took so long
+to find out the murderer of Chung Ga, and who did not find him at all.
+The five hundred coolies on the plantation knew that Ah San had done the
+killing, and here was Ah San not even arrested. It was true that all
+the coolies had agreed secretly not to testify against one another; but
+then, it was so simple, the Frenchmen should have been able to discover
+that Ah San was the man. They were very stupid, these Frenchmen.
+
+Ah Cho had done nothing of which to be afraid. He had had no hand in
+the killing. It was true he had been present at it, and Schemmer, the
+overseer on the plantation, had rushed into the barracks immediately
+afterward and caught him there, along with four or five others; but what
+of that? Chung Ga had been stabbed only twice. It stood to reason that
+five or six men could not inflict two stab wounds. At the most, if a man
+had struck but once, only two men could have done it.
+
+So it was that Ah Cho reasoned, when he, along with his four companions,
+had lied and blocked and obfuscated in their statements to the court
+concerning what had taken place. They had heard the sounds of the
+killing, and, like Schemmer, they had run to the spot. They had got
+there before Schemmer--that was all. True, Schemmer had testified that,
+attracted by the sound of quarrelling as he chanced to pass by, he had
+stood for at least five minutes outside; that then, when he entered, he
+found the prisoners already inside; and that they had not entered just
+before, because he had been standing by the one door to the barracks.
+But what of that? Ah Cho and his four fellow-prisoners had testified
+that Schemmer was mistaken. In the end they would be let go. They were
+all confident of that. Five men could not have their heads cut off for
+two stab wounds. Besides, no foreign devil had seen the killing. But
+these Frenchmen were so stupid. In China, as Ah Cho well knew, the
+magistrate would order all of them to the torture and learn the truth.
+The truth was very easy to learn under torture. But these Frenchmen did
+not torture--bigger fools they! Therefore they would never find out who
+killed Chung Ga.
+
+But Ah Cho did not understand everything. The English Company that owned
+the plantation had imported into Tahiti, at great expense, the five
+hundred coolies. The stockholders were clamouring for dividends, and
+the Company had not yet paid any; wherefore the Company did not want its
+costly contract labourers to start the practice of killing one another.
+Also, there were the French, eager and willing to impose upon the
+Chinagos the virtues and excellences of French law. There was nothing
+like setting an example once in a while; and, besides, of what use was
+New Caledonia except to send men to live out their days in misery and
+pain in payment of the penalty for being frail and human?
+
+Ah Cho did not understand all this. He sat in the court room and waited
+for the baffled judgment that would set him and his comrades free to go
+back to the plantation and work out the terms of their contracts. This
+judgment would soon be rendered. Proceedings were drawing to a close. He
+could see that. There was no more testifying, no more gabble of tongues.
+The French devils were tired, too, and evidently waiting for the
+judgment. And as he waited he remembered back in his life to the time
+when he had signed the contract and set sail in the ship for Tahiti.
+Times had been hard in his sea-coast village, and when he indentured
+himself to labour for five years in the South Seas at fifty cents
+Mexican a day, he had thought himself fortunate. There were men in his
+village who toiled a whole year for ten dollars Mexican, and there were
+women who made nets all the year round for five dollars, while in the
+houses of shopkeepers there were maidservants who received four dollars
+for a year of service. And here he was to receive fifty cents a day; for
+one day, only one day, he was to receive that princely sum! What if the
+work were hard? At the end of the five years he would return home--that
+was in the contract--and he would never have to work again. He would
+be a rich man for life, with a house of his own, a wife, and children
+growing up to venerate him. Yes, and back of the house he would have a
+small garden, a place of meditation and repose, with goldfish in a tiny
+lakelet, and wind bells tinkling in the several trees, and there would
+be a high wall all around so that his meditation and repose should be
+undisturbed.
+
+Well, he had worked out three of those five years. He was already a
+wealthy man (in his own country) through his earnings, and only two
+years more intervened between the cotton plantation on Tahiti and the
+meditation and repose that awaited him. But just now he was losing money
+because of the unfortunate accident of being present at the killing of
+Chung Ga. He had lain three weeks in prison, and for each day of those
+three weeks he had lost fifty cents. But now judgment would soon be
+given, and he would go back to work.
+
+Ah Cho was twenty-two years old. He was happy and good-natured, and it
+was easy for him to smile. While his body was slim in the Asiatic way,
+his face was rotund. It was round, like the moon, and it irradiated a
+gentle complacence and a sweet kindliness of spirit that was unusual
+among his countrymen. Nor did his looks belie him. He never caused
+trouble, never took part in wrangling. He did not gamble. His soul was
+not harsh enough for the soul that must belong to a gambler. He was
+content with little things and simple pleasures. The hush and quiet in
+the cool of the day after the blazing toil in the cotton field was
+to him an infinite satisfaction. He could sit for hours gazing at a
+solitary flower and philosophizing about the mysteries and riddles
+of being. A blue heron on a tiny crescent of sandy beach, a silvery
+splatter of flying fish, or a sunset of pearl and rose across the
+lagoon, could entrance him to all forgetfulness of the procession of
+wearisome days and of the heavy lash of Schemmer.
+
+Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute. But he earned
+his salary. He got the last particle of strength out of the five hundred
+slaves; for slaves they were until their term of years was up. Schemmer
+worked hard to extract the strength from those five hundred sweating
+bodies and to transmute it into bales of fluffy cotton ready for export.
+His dominant, iron-clad, primeval brutishness was what enabled him to
+effect the transmutation. Also, he was assisted by a thick leather belt,
+three inches wide and a yard in length, with which he always rode and
+which, on occasion, could come down on the naked back of a stooping
+coolie with a report like a pistol-shot. These reports were frequent
+when Schemmer rode down the furrowed field.
+
+Once, at the beginning of the first year of contract labour, he had
+killed a coolie with a single blow of his fist. He had not exactly
+crushed the man's head like an egg-shell, but the blow had been
+sufficient to addle what was inside, and, after being sick for a week,
+the man had died. But the Chinese had not complained to the French
+devils that ruled over Tahiti. It was their own look out. Schemmer was
+their problem. They must avoid his wrath as they avoided the venom
+of the centipedes that lurked in the grass or crept into the sleeping
+quarters on rainy nights. The Chinagos--such they were called by
+the indolent, brown-skinned island folk--saw to it that they did not
+displease Schemmer too greatly. This was equivalent to rendering up to
+him a full measure of efficient toil. That blow of Schemmer's fist had
+been worth thousands of dollars to the Company, and no trouble ever came
+of it to Schemmer.
+
+The French, with no instinct for colonization, futile in their childish
+playgame of developing the resources of the island, were only too glad
+to see the English Company succeed. What matter of Schemmer and his
+redoubtable fist? The Chinago that died? Well, he was only a Chinago.
+Besides, he died of sunstroke, as the doctor's certificate attested.
+True, in all the history of Tahiti no one had ever died of sunstroke.
+But it was that, precisely that, which made the death of this Chinago
+unique. The doctor said as much in his report. He was very candid.
+Dividends must be paid, or else one more failure would be added to the
+long history of failure in Tahiti.
+
+There was no understanding these white devils. Ah Cho pondered their
+inscrutableness as he sat in the court room waiting the judgment. There
+was no telling what went on at the back of their minds. He had seen a
+few of the white devils. They were all alike--the officers and sailors
+on the ship, the French officials, the several white men on the
+plantation, including Schemmer. Their minds all moved in mysterious ways
+there was no getting at. They grew angry without apparent cause, and
+their anger was always dangerous. They were like wild beasts at such
+times. They worried about little things, and on occasion could out-toil
+even a Chinago. They were not temperate as Chinagos were temperate; they
+were gluttons, eating prodigiously and drinking more prodigiously. A
+Chinago never knew when an act would please them or arouse a storm of
+wrath. A Chinago could never tell. What pleased one time, the very next
+time might provoke an outburst of anger. There was a curtain behind the
+eyes of the white devils that screened the backs of their minds from the
+Chinago's gaze. And then, on top of it all, was that terrible efficiency
+of the white devils, that ability to do things, to make things go, to
+work results, to bend to their wills all creeping, crawling things,
+and the powers of the very elements themselves. Yes, the white men were
+strange and wonderful, and they were devils. Look at Schemmer.
+
+Ah Cho wondered why the judgment was so long in forming. Not a man on
+trial had laid hand on Chung Ga. Ah San alone had killed him. Ah San
+had done it, bending Chung Ga's head back with one hand by a grip of his
+queue, and with the other hand, from behind, reaching over and driving
+the knife into his body. Twice had he driven it in. There in the court
+room, with closed eyes, Ah Cho saw the killing acted over again--the
+squabble, the vile words bandied back and forth, the filth and insult
+flung upon venerable ancestors, the curses laid upon unbegotten
+generations, the leap of Ah San, the grip on the queue of Chung Ga, the
+knife that sank twice into his flesh, the bursting open of the door, the
+irruption of Schemmer, the dash for the door, the escape of Ah San, the
+flying belt of Schemmer that drove the rest into the corner, and the
+firing of the revolver as a signal that brought help to Schemmer. Ah
+Cho shivered as he lived it over. One blow of the belt had bruised his
+cheek, taking off some of the skin. Schemmer had pointed to the bruises
+when, on the witness-stand, he had identified Ah Cho. It was only just
+now that the marks had become no longer visible. That had been a blow.
+Half an inch nearer the centre and it would have taken out his eye. Then
+Ah Cho forgot the whole happening in a vision he caught of the garden
+of meditation and repose that would be his when he returned to his own
+land.
+
+He sat with impassive face, while the magistrate rendered the judgment.
+Likewise were the faces of his four companions impassive. And they
+remained impassive when the interpreter explained that the five of them
+had been found guilty of the murder of Chung Ga, and that Ah Chow
+should have his head cut off, Ah Cho serve twenty years in prison in New
+Caledonia, Wong Li twelve years, and Ah Tong ten years. There was no use
+in getting excited about it. Even Ah Chow remained expressionless as
+a mummy, though it was his head that was to be cut off. The magistrate
+added a few words, and the interpreter explained that Ah Chow's face
+having been most severely bruised by Schemmer's strap had made his
+identification so positive that, since one man must die, he might as
+well be that man. Also, the fact that Ah Cho's face likewise had been
+severely bruised, conclusively proving his presence at the murder and
+his undoubted participation, had merited him the twenty years of penal
+servitude. And down to the ten years of Ah Tong, the proportioned reason
+for each sentence was explained. Let the Chinagos take the lesson to
+heart, the Court said finally, for they must learn that the law would be
+fulfilled in Tahiti though the heavens fell.
+
+The five Chinagos were taken back to jail. They were not shocked
+nor grieved. The sentences being unexpected was quite what they were
+accustomed to in their dealings with the white devils. From them a
+Chinago rarely expected more than the unexpected. The heavy punishment
+for a crime they had not committed was no stranger than the countless
+strange things that white devils did. In the weeks that followed, Ah Cho
+often contemplated Ah Chow with mild curiosity. His head was to be cut
+off by the guillotine that was being erected on the plantation. For him
+there would be no declining years, no gardens of tranquillity. Ah Cho
+philosophized and speculated about life and death. As for himself, he
+was not perturbed. Twenty years were merely twenty years. By that much
+was his garden removed from him--that was all. He was young, and the
+patience of Asia was in his bones. He could wait those twenty years, and
+by that time the heats of his blood would be assuaged and he would be
+better fitted for that garden of calm delight. He thought of a name for
+it; he would call it The Garden of the Morning Calm. He was made happy
+all day by the thought, and he was inspired to devise a moral maxim on
+the virtue of patience, which maxim proved a great comfort, especially
+to Wong Li and Ah Tong. Ah Chow, however, did not care for the maxim.
+His head was to be separated from his body in so short a time that he
+had no need for patience to wait for that event. He smoked well, ate
+well, slept well, and did not worry about the slow passage of time.
+
+Cruchot was a gendarme. He had seen twenty years of service in the
+colonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those
+twenty years had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind. He was as
+slow-witted and stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France. He
+knew discipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant
+of gendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish
+obedience which he rendered. In point of fact, the sergeant bulked
+bigger in his mind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces
+had their say. God was usually very remote, while the sergeant was
+ordinarily very close at hand.
+
+Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the
+jailer commanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person
+of Ah Chow. Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner
+the night before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war.
+His hand was shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were
+aching so dreadfully that he did not read over the order. It was only a
+Chinago's life he was signing away, anyway. So he did not notice that he
+had omitted the final letter in Ah Chow's name. The order read “Ah Cho,”
+ and, when Cruchot presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the
+person of Ah Cho. Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a
+wagon, behind two mules, and drove away.
+
+Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme
+and beamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules
+headed south toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to
+be brought back. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work
+well. Schemmer would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day.
+There had been a stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot
+sweated, and Ah Cho sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with
+the least concern. He had toiled three years under that sun on the
+plantation. He beamed and beamed with such genial good nature that even
+Cruchot's heavy mind was stirred to wonderment.
+
+“You are very funny,” he said at last.
+
+Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot
+spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all
+foreign devils, Ah Cho understood.
+
+“You laugh too much,” Cruchot chided. “One's heart should be full of
+tears on a day like this.”
+
+“I am glad to get out of the jail.”
+
+“Is that all?” The gendarme shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Is it not enough?” was the retort.
+
+“Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?”
+
+Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said--
+
+“Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for
+Schemmer. Are you not taking me to Atimaono?”
+
+Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively. “Well, well,” he said
+finally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, “so you don't know?”
+
+“Know what?” Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm. “Won't Schemmer
+let me work for him any more?”
+
+“Not after to-day.” Cruchot laughed heartily. It was a good joke. “You
+see, you won't be able to work after to-day. A man with his head off
+can't work, eh?” He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled.
+
+Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile. Then he
+spoke: “Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?”
+
+Cruchot grinned as he nodded.
+
+“It is a mistake,” said Ah Cho, gravely. “I am not the Chinago that
+is to have his head cut off. I am Ah Cho. The honourable judge has
+determined that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia.”
+
+The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to
+cheat the guillotine. The mules trotted through a coconut grove and for
+half a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again.
+
+“I tell you I am not Ah Chow. The honourable judge did not say that my
+head was to go off.”
+
+“Don't be afraid,” said Cruchot, with the philanthropic intention of
+making it easier for his prisoner. “It is not difficult to die that
+way.” He snapped his fingers. “It is quick--like that. It is not like
+hanging on the end of a rope and kicking and making faces for five
+minutes. It is like killing a chicken with a hatchet. You cut its head
+off, that is all. And it is the same with a man. Pouf!--it is over. It
+doesn't hurt. You don't even think it hurts. You don't think. Your head
+is gone, so you cannot think. It is very good. That is the way I want to
+die--quick, ah, quick. You are lucky to die that way. You might get the
+leprosy and fall to pieces slowly, a finger at a time, and now and again
+a thumb, also the toes. I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It
+took him two days to die. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away.
+But you? Ah! so easy! Chck!--the knife cuts your neck like that. It is
+finished. The knife may even tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that
+way ever came back to say.”
+
+He considered this last an excruciating joke, and permitted himself
+to be convulsed with laughter for half a minute. Part of his mirth was
+assumed, but he considered it his humane duty to cheer up the Chinago.
+
+“But I tell you I am Ah Cho,” the other persisted. “I don't want my head
+cut off.”
+
+Cruchot scowled. The Chinago was carrying the foolishness too far.
+
+“I am not Ah Chow--” Ah Cho began.
+
+“That will do,” the gendarme interrupted. He puffed up his cheeks and
+strove to appear fierce.
+
+“I tell you I am not--” Ah Cho began again.
+
+“Shut up!” bawled Cruchot.
+
+After that they rode along in silence. It was twenty miles from Papeete
+to Atimaono, and over half the distance was covered by the time the
+Chinago again ventured into speech.
+
+“I saw you in the court room, when the honourable judge sought after our
+guilt,” he began. “Very good. And do you remember that Ah Chow, whose
+head is to be cut off--do you remember that he--Ah Chow--was a tall man?
+Look at me.”
+
+He stood up suddenly, and Cruchot saw that he was a short man. And just
+as suddenly Cruchot caught a glimpse of a memory picture of Ah Chow, and
+in that picture Ah Chow was tall. To the gendarme all Chinagos looked
+alike. One face was like another. But between tallness and shortness he
+could differentiate, and he knew that he had the wrong man beside him on
+the seat. He pulled up the mules abruptly, so that the pole shot ahead
+of them, elevating their collars.
+
+“You see, it was a mistake,” said Ah Cho, smiling pleasantly.
+
+But Cruchot was thinking. Already he regretted that he had stopped the
+wagon. He was unaware of the error of the Chief Justice, and he had
+no way of working it out; but he did know that he had been given this
+Chinago to take to Atimaono and that it was his duty to take him to
+Atimaono. What if he was the wrong man and they cut his head off? It
+was only a Chinago when all was said, and what was a Chinago, anyway?
+Besides, it might not be a mistake. He did not know what went on in the
+minds of his superiors. They knew their business best. Who was he to
+do their thinking for them? Once, in the long ago, he had attempted to
+think for them, and the sergeant had said: “Cruchot, you are a fool! The
+quicker you know that, the better you will get on. You are not to think;
+you are to obey and leave thinking to your betters.” He smarted under
+the recollection. Also, if he turned back to Papeete, he would delay the
+execution at Atimaono, and if he were wrong in turning back, he would
+get a reprimand from the sergeant who was waiting for the prisoner. And,
+furthermore, he would get a reprimand at Papeete as well.
+
+He touched the mules with the whip and drove on. He looked at his watch.
+He would be half an hour late as it was, and the sergeant was bound to
+be angry. He put the mules into a faster trot. The more Ah Cho persisted
+in explaining the mistake, the more stubborn Cruchot became. The
+knowledge that he had the wrong man did not make his temper better. The
+knowledge that it was through no mistake of his confirmed him in the
+belief that the wrong he was doing was the right. And, rather than incur
+the displeasure of the sergeant, he would willingly have assisted a
+dozen wrong Chinagos to their doom.
+
+As for Ah Cho, after the gendarme had struck him over the head with the
+butt of the whip and commanded him in a loud voice to shut up, there
+remained nothing for him to do but to shut up. The long ride continued
+in silence. Ah Cho pondered the strange ways of the foreign devils.
+There was no explaining them. What they were doing with him was of a
+piece with everything they did. First they found guilty five innocent
+men, and next they cut off the head of the man that even they, in their
+benighted ignorance, had deemed meritorious of no more than twenty
+years' imprisonment. And there was nothing he could do. He could only
+sit idly and take what these lords of life measured out to him. Once, he
+got in a panic, and the sweat upon his body turned cold; but he fought
+his way out of it. He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate by
+remembering and repeating certain passages from the “Yin Chih Wen” (“The
+Tract of the Quiet Way”); but, instead, he kept seeing his dream-garden
+of meditation and repose. This bothered him, until he abandoned himself
+to the dream and sat in his garden listening to the tinkling of the
+windbells in the several trees. And lo! sitting thus, in the dream,
+he was able to remember and repeat the passages from “The Tract of the
+Quiet Way.”
+
+So the time passed nicely until Atimaono was reached and the mules
+trotted up to the foot of the scaffold, in the shade of which stood the
+impatient sergeant. Ah Cho was hurried up the ladder of the scaffold.
+Beneath him on one side he saw assembled all the coolies of the
+plantation. Schemmer had decided that the event would be a good
+object-lesson, and so he called in the coolies from the fields and
+compelled them to be present. As they caught sight of Ah Cho they
+gabbled among themselves in low voices. They saw the mistake; but they
+kept it to themselves. The inexplicable white devils had doubtlessly
+changed their minds. Instead of taking the life of one innocent man,
+they were taking the life of another innocent man. Ah Chow or Ah
+Cho--what did it matter which? They could never understand the white
+dogs any more than could the white dogs understand them. Ah Cho was
+going to have his head cut off, but they, when their two remaining years
+of servitude were up, were going back to China.
+
+Schemmer had made the guillotine himself. He was a handy man, and though
+he had never seen a guillotine, the French officials had explained the
+principle to him. It was on his suggestion that they had ordered the
+execution to take place at Atimaono instead of at Papeete. The scene
+of the crime, Schemmer had argued, was the best possible place for the
+punishment, and, in addition, it would have a salutary influence
+upon the half-thousand Chinagos on the plantation. Schemmer had also
+volunteered to act as executioner, and in that capacity he was now on
+the scaffold, experimenting with the instrument he had made. A banana
+tree, of the size and consistency of a man's neck, lay under the
+guillotine. Ah Cho watched with fascinated eyes. The German, turning a
+small crank, hoisted the blade to the top of the little derrick he had
+rigged. A jerk on a stout piece of cord loosed the blade and it dropped
+with a flash, neatly severing the banana trunk.
+
+“How does it work?” The sergeant, coming out on top the scaffold, had
+asked the question.
+
+“Beautifully,” was Schemmer's exultant answer. “Let me show you.”
+
+Again he turned the crank that hoisted the blade, jerked the cord, and
+sent the blade crashing down on the soft tree. But this time it went no
+more than two-thirds of the way through.
+
+The sergeant scowled. “That will not serve,” he said.
+
+Schemmer wiped the sweat from his forehead. “What it needs is more
+weight,” he announced. Walking up to the edge of the scaffold, he called
+his orders to the blacksmith for a twenty-five-pound piece of iron. As
+he stooped over to attach the iron to the broad top of the blade, Ah Cho
+glanced at the sergeant and saw his opportunity.
+
+“The honourable judge said that Ah Chow was to have his head cut off,”
+ he began.
+
+The sergeant nodded impatiently. He was thinking of the fifteen-mile
+ride before him that afternoon, to the windward side of the island, and
+of Berthe, the pretty half-caste daughter of Lafiere, the pearl-trader,
+who was waiting for him at the end of it.
+
+“Well, I am not Ah Chow. I am Ah Cho. The honourable jailer has made a
+mistake. Ah Chow is a tall man, and you see I am short.”
+
+The sergeant looked at him hastily and saw the mistake. “Schemmer!” he
+called, imperatively. “Come here.”
+
+The German grunted, but remained bent over his task till the chunk
+of iron was lashed to his satisfaction. “Is your Chinago ready?” he
+demanded.
+
+“Look at him,” was the answer. “Is he the Chinago?”
+
+Schemmer was surprised. He swore tersely for a few seconds, and looked
+regretfully across at the thing he had made with his own hands and
+which he was eager to see work. “Look here,” he said finally, “we can't
+postpone this affair. I've lost three hours' work already out of those
+five hundred Chinagos. I can't afford to lose it all over again for the
+right man. Let's put the performance through just the same. It is only a
+Chinago.”
+
+The sergeant remembered the long ride before him, and the pearl-trader's
+daughter, and debated with himself.
+
+“They will blame it on Cruchot--if it is discovered,” the German urged.
+“But there's little chance of its being discovered. Ah Chow won't give
+it away, at any rate.”
+
+“The blame won't lie with Cruchot, anyway,” the sergeant said. “It must
+have been the jailer's mistake.”
+
+“Then let's go on with it. They can't blame us. Who can tell one Chinago
+from another? We can say that we merely carried out instructions with
+the Chinago that was turned over to us. Besides, I really can't take all
+those coolies a second time away from their labour.”
+
+They spoke in French, and Ah Cho, who did not understand a word of it,
+nevertheless knew that they were determining his destiny. He knew,
+also, that the decision rested with the sergeant, and he hung upon that
+official's lips.
+
+“All right,” announced the sergeant. “Go ahead with it. He is only a
+Chinago.”
+
+“I'm going to try it once more, just to make sure.” Schemmer moved the
+banana trunk forward under the knife, which he had hoisted to the top of
+the derrick.
+
+Ah Cho tried to remember maxims from “The Tract of the Quiet Way.” “Live
+in concord,” came to him; but it was not applicable. He was not going to
+live. He was about to die. No, that would not do. “Forgive malice”--yes,
+but there was no malice to forgive. Schemmer and the rest were doing
+this thing without malice. It was to them merely a piece of work that
+had to be done, just as clearing the jungle, ditching the water, and
+planting cotton were pieces of work that had to be done. Schemmer jerked
+the cord, and Ah Cho forgot “The Tract of the Quiet Way.” The knife shot
+down with a thud, making a clean slice of the tree.
+
+“Beautiful!” exclaimed the sergeant, pausing in the act of lighting a
+cigarette. “Beautiful, my friend.”
+
+Schemmer was pleased at the praise.
+
+“Come on, Ah Chow,” he said, in the Tahitian tongue.
+
+“But I am not Ah Chow--” Ah Cho began.
+
+“Shut up!” was the answer. “If you open your mouth again, I'll break
+your head.”
+
+The overseer threatened him with a clenched fist, and he remained
+silent. What was the good of protesting? Those foreign devils always had
+their way. He allowed himself to be lashed to the vertical board that
+was the size of his body. Schemmer drew the buckles tight--so tight that
+the straps cut into his flesh and hurt. But he did not complain. The
+hurt would not last long. He felt the board tilting over in the air
+toward the horizontal, and closed his eyes. And in that moment he caught
+a last glimpse of his garden of meditation and repose. It seemed to him
+that he sat in the garden. A cool wind was blowing, and the bells in
+the several trees were tinkling softly. Also, birds were making sleepy
+noises, and from beyond the high wall came the subdued sound of village
+life.
+
+Then he was aware that the board had come to rest, and from muscular
+pressures and tensions he knew that he was lying on his back. He opened
+his eyes. Straight above him he saw the suspended knife blazing in the
+sunshine. He saw the weight which had been added, and noted that one
+of Schemmer's knots had slipped. Then he heard the sergeant's voice in
+sharp command. Ah Cho closed his eyes hastily. He did not want to see
+that knife descend. But he felt it--for one great fleeting instant. And
+in that instant he remembered Cruchot and what Cruchot had said. But
+Cruchot was wrong. The knife did not tickle. That much he knew before he
+ceased to know.
+
+
+
+
+MAKE WESTING
+
+     Whatever you do, make westing! make westing!
+                    --Sailing directions for Cape Horn.
+
+For seven weeks the Mary Rogers had been between 50 degrees south in the
+Atlantic and 50 degrees south in the Pacific, which meant that for seven
+weeks she had been struggling to round Cape Horn. For seven weeks
+she had been either in dirt, or close to dirt, save once, and then,
+following upon six days of excessive dirt, which she had ridden out
+under the shelter of the redoubtable Terra del Fuego coast, she had
+almost gone ashore during a heavy swell in the dead calm that had
+suddenly fallen. For seven weeks she had wrestled with the Cape Horn
+graybeards, and in return been buffeted and smashed by them. She was a
+wooden ship, and her ceaseless straining had opened her seams, so that
+twice a day the watch took its turn at the pumps.
+
+The Mary Rogers was strained, the crew was strained, and big Dan Cullen,
+master, was likewise strained. Perhaps he was strained most of all, for
+upon him rested the responsibility of that titanic struggle. He slept
+most of the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept. He haunted the
+deck at night, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the sunburn
+of thirty years of sea and hairy as an orang-outang. He, in turn, was
+haunted by one thought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn:
+Whatever you do, make westing! make westing! It was an obsession. He
+thought of nothing else, except, at times, to blaspheme God for sending
+such bitter weather.
+
+Make westing! He hugged the Horn, and a dozen times lay hove to with the
+iron Cape bearing east-by-north, or north-north-east, a score of miles
+away. And each time the eternal west wind smote him back and he made
+easting. He fought gale after gale, south to 64 degrees, inside the
+antarctic drift-ice, and pledged his immortal soul to the Powers of
+Darkness for a bit of westing, for a slant to take him around. And he
+made easting. In despair, he had tried to make the passage through the
+Straits of Le Maire. Halfway through, the wind hauled to the north'ard
+of north-west, the glass dropped to 28.88, and he turned and ran before
+a gale of cyclonic fury, missing, by a hair's-breadth, piling up the
+Mary Rogers on the black-toothed rocks. Twice he had made west to the
+Diego Ramirez Rocks, one of the times saved between two snow-squalls by
+sighting the gravestones of ships a quarter of a mile dead ahead.
+
+Blow! Captain Dan Cullen instanced all his thirty years at sea to prove
+that never had it blown so before. The Mary Rogers was hove to at the
+time he gave the evidence, and, to clinch it, inside half an hour the
+Mary Rogers was hove down to the hatches. Her new maintopsail and brand
+new spencer were blown away like tissue paper; and five sails, furled
+and fast under double gaskets, were blown loose and stripped from the
+yards. And before morning the Mary Rogers was hove down twice again, and
+holes were knocked in her bulwarks to ease her decks from the weight of
+ocean that pressed her down.
+
+On an average of once a week Captain Dan Cullen caught glimpses of the
+sun. Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes
+afterward a new gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail,
+and all was buried in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall. For
+a fortnight, once, Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a
+chronometer sight. Rarely did he know his position within half of a
+degree, except when in sight of land; for sun and stars remained hidden
+behind the sky, and it was so gloomy that even at the best the horizons
+were poor for accurate observations. A gray gloom shrouded the world.
+The clouds were gray; the great driving seas were leaden gray; the
+smoking crests were a gray churning; even the occasional albatrosses
+were gray, while the snow-flurries were not white, but gray, under the
+sombre pall of the heavens.
+
+Life on board the Mary Rogers was gray--gray and gloomy. The faces
+of the sailors were blue-gray; they were afflicted with sea-cuts and
+sea-boils, and suffered exquisitely. They were shadows of men. For seven
+weeks, in the forecastle or on deck, they had not known what it was to
+be dry. They had forgotten what it was to sleep out a watch, and all
+watches it was, “All hands on deck!” They caught snatches of agonized
+sleep, and they slept in their oilskins ready for the everlasting call.
+So weak and worn were they that it took both watches to do the work of
+one. That was why both watches were on deck so much of the time. And no
+shadow of a man could shirk duty. Nothing less than a broken leg could
+enable a man to knock off work; and there were two such, who had been
+mauled and pulped by the seas that broke aboard.
+
+One other man who was the shadow of a man was George Dorety. He was the
+only passenger on board, a friend of the firm, and he had elected to
+make the voyage for his health. But seven weeks of Cape Horn had not
+bettered his health. He gasped and panted in his bunk through the long,
+heaving nights; and when on deck he was so bundled up for warmth that he
+resembled a peripatetic old-clothes shop. At midday, eating at the cabin
+table in a gloom so deep that the swinging sea-lamps burned always, he
+looked as blue-gray as the sickest, saddest man for'ard. Nor did gazing
+across the table at Captain Dan Cullen have any cheering effect upon
+him. Captain Cullen chewed and scowled and kept silent. The scowls
+were for God, and with every chew he reiterated the sole thought of his
+existence, which was make westing. He was a big, hairy brute, and the
+sight of him was not stimulating to the other's appetite. He looked
+upon George Dorety as a Jonah, and told him so, once each meal, savagely
+transferring the scowl from God to the passenger and back again.
+
+Nor did the mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite. Joshua
+Higgins by name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper
+by capacity, he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and
+selfish and cowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen,
+and a bully over the sailors, who knew that behind the mate was Captain
+Cullen, the law-giver and compeller, the driver and the destroyer, the
+incarnation of a dozen bucko mates. In that wild weather at the southern
+end of the earth, Joshua Higgins ceased washing. His grimy face usually
+robbed George Dorety of what little appetite he managed to accumulate.
+Ordinarily this lavatorial dereliction would have caught Captain
+Cullen's eye and vocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with
+making westing, to the exclusion of all other things not contributory
+thereto. Whether the mate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing
+upon westing. Later on, when 50 degrees south in the Pacific had been
+reached, Joshua Higgins would wash his face very abruptly. In the
+meantime, at the cabin table, where gray twilight alternated with
+lamplight while the lamps were being filled, George Dorety sat between
+the two men, one a tiger and the other a hyena, and wondered why God had
+made them. The second mate, Matthew Turner, was a true sailor and a man,
+but George Dorety did not have the solace of his company, for he ate by
+himself, solitary, when they had finished.
+
+On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life
+and headlong movement. On deck he found the Mary Rogers running off
+before a howling south-easter. Nothing was set but the lower topsails
+and the foresail. It was all she could stand, yet she was making
+fourteen knots, as Mr. Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on
+deck. And it was all westing. She was going around the Horn at last...
+if the wind held. Mr. Turner looked happy. The end of the struggle was
+in sight. But Captain Cullen did not look happy. He scowled at Dorety
+in passing. Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased
+with that wind. He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed
+in his secret soul that if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would
+promptly efface it and send a snorter from the west. So he walked softly
+before God, smothering his joy down under scowls and muttered curses,
+and, so, fooling God, for God was the only thing in the universe of
+which Dan Cullen was afraid.
+
+All Saturday and Saturday night the Mary Rogers raced her westing.
+Persistently she logged her fourteen knots, so that by Sunday morning
+she had covered three hundred and fifty miles. If the wind held, she
+would make around. If it failed, and the snorter came from anywhere
+between south-west and north, back the Mary Rogers would be hurled and
+be no better off than she had been seven weeks before. And on Sunday
+morning the wind was failing. The big sea was going down and running
+smooth. Both watches were on deck setting sail after sail as fast as the
+ship could stand it. And now Captain Cullen went around brazenly before
+God, smoking a big cigar, smiling jubilantly, as if the failing wind
+delighted him, while down underneath he was raging against God for
+taking the life out of the blessed wind. Make westing! So he would, if
+God would only leave him alone. Secretly, he pledged himself anew to
+the Powers of Darkness, if they would let him make westing. He pledged
+himself so easily because he did not believe in the Powers of Darkness.
+He really believed only in God, though he did not know it. And in his
+inverted theology God was really the Prince of Darkness. Captain Cullen
+was a devil-worshipper, but he called the devil by another name, that
+was all.
+
+At midday, after calling eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals
+on. The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks. Not alone
+were they nimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining
+down and limbering their stiff bodies. George Dorety stood aft, near
+Captain Cullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the
+grateful warmth as he watched the scene. Swiftly and abruptly the
+incident occurred. There was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of “Man
+overboard!” Somebody threw a life-buoy over the side, and at the same
+instant the second mate's voice came aft, ringing and peremptory--
+
+“Hard down your helm!”
+
+The man at the wheel never moved a spoke. He knew better, for Captain
+Dan Cullen was standing alongside of him. He wanted to move a spoke, to
+move all the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comrade
+drowning in the sea. He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain Dan
+Cullen gave no sign.
+
+“Down! Hard down!” the second mate roared, as he sprang aft.
+
+But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw
+Dan Cullen by the wheel. And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said
+nothing. Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor. He had
+caught the life-buoy and was clinging to it. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
+The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-stricken
+faces. And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing. A long, silent
+minute passed.
+
+“Who was it?” Captain Cullen demanded.
+
+“Mops, sir,” eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.
+
+Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough.
+It was a large wave, but it was no graybeard. A small boat could live
+easily in such a sea, and in such a sea the Mary Rogers could easily
+come to. But she could not come to and make westing at the same time.
+
+For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real
+drama of life and death--a sordid little drama in which the scales
+balanced an unknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude.
+At first he had watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan
+Cullen, hairy and black, vested with power of life and death, smoking a
+cigar.
+
+Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute. Then he removed
+the cigar from his mouth. He glanced aloft at the spars of the Mary
+Rogers, and overside at the sea.
+
+“Sheet home the royals!” he cried.
+
+Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food served
+before them. On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, on
+the other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena. Nobody spoke. On deck the men
+were sheeting home the skysails. George Dorety could hear their cries,
+while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and
+well, clinging to a life-buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean. He
+glanced at Captain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the
+man was eating his food with relish, almost bolting it.
+
+“Captain Cullen,” Dorety said, “you are in command of this ship, and it
+is not proper for me to comment now upon what you do. But I wish to say
+one thing. There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one.”
+
+Captain Cullen did not even scowl. In his voice was regret as he said--
+
+“It was blowing a living gale. It was impossible to save the man.”
+
+“He fell from the royal-yard,” Dorety cried hotly. “You were setting
+the royals at the time. Fifteen minutes afterward you were setting the
+skysails.”
+
+“It was a living gale, wasn't it, Mr. Higgins?” Captain Cullen said,
+turning to the mate.
+
+“If you'd brought her to, it'd have taken the sticks out of her,” was
+the mate's answer. “You did the proper thing, Captain Cullen. The man
+hadn't a ghost of a show.”
+
+George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal's end no one spoke. After
+that, Dorety had his meals served in his state-room. Captain Cullen
+scowled at him no longer, though no speech was exchanged between them,
+while the Mary Rogers sped north toward warmer latitudes. At the end of
+the week, Dan Cullen cornered Dorety on deck.
+
+“What are you going to do when we get to 'Frisco?” he demanded bluntly.
+
+“I am going to swear out a warrant for your arrest,” Dorety answered
+quietly. “I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see
+you hanged for it.”
+
+“You're almighty sure of yourself,” Captain Cullen sneered, turning on
+his heel.
+
+A second week passed, and one morning found George Dorety standing in
+the coach-house companionway at the for'ard end of the long poop,
+taking his first gaze around the deck. The Mary Rogers was reaching
+full-and-by, in a stiff breeze. Every sail was set and drawing,
+including the staysails. Captain Cullen strolled for'ard along the poop.
+He strolled carelessly, glancing at the passenger out of the corner
+of his eye. Dorety was looking the other way, standing with head and
+shoulders outside the companionway, and only the back of his head was to
+be seen. Captain Cullen, with swift eye, embraced the mainstaysail-block
+and the head and estimated the distance. He glanced about him. Nobody
+was looking. Aft, Joshua Higgins, pacing up and down, had just turned
+his back and was going the other way. Captain Cullen bent over suddenly
+and cast the staysail-sheet off from its pin. The heavy block hurtled
+through the air, smashing Dorety's head like an egg-shell and hurtling
+on and back and forth as the staysail whipped and slatted in the wind.
+Joshua Higgins turned around to see what had carried away, and met the
+full blast of the vilest portion of Captain Cullen's profanity.
+
+“I made the sheet fast myself,” whimpered the mate in the first lull,
+“with an extra turn to make sure. I remember it distinctly.”
+
+“Made fast?” the Captain snarled back, for the benefit of the watch as
+it struggled to capture the flying sail before it tore to ribbons. “You
+couldn't make your grandmother fast, you useless hell's scullion. If
+you made that sheet fast with an extra turn, why in hell didn't it stay
+fast? That's what I want to know. Why in hell didn't it stay fast?”
+
+The mate whined inarticulately.
+
+“Oh, shut up!” was the final word of Captain Cullen.
+
+Half an hour later he was as surprised as any when the body of George
+Dorety was found inside the companionway on the floor. In the afternoon,
+alone in his room, he doctored up the log.
+
+“Ordinary seaman, Karl Brun,” he wrote, “lost overboard from
+foreroyal-yard in a gale of wind. Was running at the time, and for the
+safety of the ship did not dare come up to the wind. Nor could a boat
+have lived in the sea that was running.”
+
+On another page, he wrote
+
+“Had often warned Mr. Dorety about the danger he ran because of his
+carelessness on deck. I told him, once, that some day he would get his
+head knocked off by a block. A carelessly fastened mainstaysail sheet
+was the cause of the accident, which was deeply to be regretted because
+Mr. Dorety was a favourite with all of us.”
+
+Captain Dan Cullen read over his literary effort with admiration,
+blotted the page, and closed the log. He lighted a cigar and stared
+before him. He felt the Mary Rogers lift, and heel, and surge along,
+and knew that she was making nine knots. A smile of satisfaction slowly
+dawned on his black and hairy face. Well, anyway, he had made his
+westing and fooled God.
+
+
+
+
+SEMPER IDEM
+
+Doctor Bicknell was in a remarkably gracious mood. Through a minor
+accident, a slight bit of carelessness, that was all, a man who might
+have pulled through had died the preceding night. Though it had been
+only a sailorman, one of the innumerable unwashed, the steward of the
+receiving hospital had been on the anxious seat all the morning. It was
+not that the man had died that gave him discomfort, he knew the Doctor
+too well for that, but his distress lay in the fact that the operation
+had been done so well. One of the most delicate in surgery, it had been
+as successful as it was clever and audacious. All had then depended upon
+the treatment, the nurses, the steward. And the man had died. Nothing
+much, a bit of carelessness, yet enough to bring the professional wrath
+of Doctor Bicknell about his ears and to perturb the working of the
+staff and nurses for twenty-four hours to come.
+
+But, as already stated, the Doctor was in a remarkably gracious mood.
+When informed by the steward, in fear and trembling, of the man's
+unexpected take-off, his lips did not so much as form one syllable of
+censure; nay, they were so pursed that snatches of rag-time floated
+softly from them, to be broken only by a pleasant query after the health
+of the other's eldest-born. The steward, deeming it impossible that he
+could have caught the gist of the case, repeated it.
+
+“Yes, yes,” Doctor Bicknell said impatiently; “I understand. But how
+about Semper Idem? Is he ready to leave?”
+
+“Yes. They're helping him dress now,” the steward answered, passing on
+to the round of his duties, content that peace still reigned within the
+iodine-saturated walls.
+
+It was Semper Idem's recovery which had so fully compensated Doctor
+Bicknell for the loss of the sailorman. Lives were to him as nothing,
+the unpleasant but inevitable incidents of the profession, but cases,
+ah, cases were everything. People who knew him were prone to brand him a
+butcher, but his colleagues were at one in the belief that a bolder
+and yet a more capable man never stood over the table. He was not an
+imaginative man. He did not possess, and hence had no tolerance for,
+emotion. His nature was accurate, precise, scientific. Men were to him
+no more than pawns, without individuality or personal value. But as
+cases it was different. The more broken a man was, the more precarious
+his grip on life, the greater his significance in the eyes of Doctor
+Bicknell. He would as readily forsake a poet laureate suffering from a
+common accident for a nameless, mangled vagrant who defied every law of
+life by refusing to die, as would a child forsake a Punch and Judy for a
+circus.
+
+So it had been in the case of Semper Idem. The mystery of the man had
+not appealed to him, nor had his silence and the veiled romance which
+the yellow reporters had so sensationally and so fruitlessly exploited
+in divers Sunday editions. But Semper Idem's throat had been cut. That
+was the point. That was where his interest had centred. Cut from ear to
+ear, and not one surgeon in a thousand to give a snap of the fingers
+for his chance of recovery. But, thanks to the swift municipal ambulance
+service and to Doctor Bicknell, he had been dragged back into the world
+he had sought to leave. The Doctor's co-workers had shaken their heads
+when the case was brought in. Impossible, they said. Throat, windpipe,
+jugular, all but actually severed, and the loss of blood frightful. As
+it was such a foregone conclusion, Doctor Bicknell had employed methods
+and done things which made them, even in their professional capacities,
+shudder. And lo! the man had recovered.
+
+So, on this morning that Semper Idem was to leave the hospital, hale
+and hearty, Doctor Bicknell's geniality was in nowise disturbed by the
+steward's report, and he proceeded cheerfully to bring order out of the
+chaos of a child's body which had been ground and crunched beneath the
+wheels of an electric car.
+
+As many will remember, the case of Semper Idem aroused a vast deal
+of unseemly yet highly natural curiosity. He had been found in a slum
+lodging, with throat cut as aforementioned, and blood dripping down upon
+the inmates of the room below and disturbing their festivities. He had
+evidently done the deed standing, with head bowed forward that he might
+gaze his last upon a photograph which stood on the table propped against
+a candlestick. It was this attitude which had made it possible for
+Doctor Bicknell to save him. So terrific had been the sweep of the razor
+that had he had his head thrown back, as he should have done to have
+accomplished the act properly, with his neck stretched and the elastic
+vascular walls distended, he would have of a certainty well-nigh
+decapitated himself.
+
+At the hospital, during all the time he travelled the repugnant road
+back to life, not a word had left his lips. Nor could anything be
+learned of him by the sleuths detailed by the chief of police. Nobody
+knew him, nor had ever seen or heard of him before. He was strictly,
+uniquely, of the present. His clothes and surroundings were those of the
+lowest labourer, his hands the hands of a gentleman. But not a shred
+of writing was discovered, nothing, save in one particular, which would
+serve to indicate his past or his position in life.
+
+And that one particular was the photograph. If it were at all a
+likeness, the woman who gazed frankly out upon the onlooker from the
+card-mount must have been a striking creature indeed. It was an amateur
+production, for the detectives were baffled in that no professional
+photographer's signature or studio was appended. Across a corner of the
+mount, in delicate feminine tracery, was written: “Semper idem; semper
+fidelis.” And she looked it. As many recollect, it was a face one could
+never forget. Clever half-tones, remarkably like, were published in all
+the leading papers at the time; but such procedure gave rise to nothing
+but the uncontrollable public curiosity and interminable copy to the
+space-writers.
+
+For want of a better name, the rescued suicide was known to the hospital
+attendants, and to the world, as Semper Idem. And Semper Idem he
+remained. Reporters, detectives, and nurses gave him up in despair.
+Not one word could he be persuaded to utter; yet the flitting conscious
+light of his eyes showed that his ears heard and his brain grasped every
+question put to him.
+
+But this mystery and romance played no part in Doctor Bicknell's
+interest when he paused in the office to have a parting word with his
+patient. He, the Doctor, had performed a prodigy in the matter of this
+man, done what was virtually unprecedented in the annals of surgery. He
+did not care who or what the man was, and it was highly improbable
+that he should ever see him again; but, like the artist gazing upon a
+finished creation, he wished to look for the last time upon the work of
+his hand and brain.
+
+Semper Idem still remained mute. He seemed anxious to be gone. Not a
+word could the Doctor extract from him, and little the Doctor cared.
+He examined the throat of the convalescent carefully, idling over the
+hideous scar with the lingering, half-caressing fondness of a parent.
+It was not a particularly pleasing sight. An angry line circled the
+throat--for all the world as though the man had just escaped the
+hangman's noose--and, disappearing below the ear on either side, had the
+appearance of completing the fiery periphery at the nape of the neck.
+
+Maintaining his dogged silence, yielding to the other's examination in
+much the manner of a leashed lion, Semper Idem betrayed only his desire
+to drop from out of the public eye.
+
+“Well, I'll not keep you,” Doctor Bicknell finally said, laying a hand
+on the man's shoulder and stealing a last glance at his own handiwork.
+“But let me give you a bit of advice. Next time you try it on, hold
+your chin up, so. Don't snuggle it down and butcher yourself like a cow.
+Neatness and despatch, you know. Neatness and despatch.”
+
+Semper Idem's eyes flashed in token that he heard, and a moment later
+the hospital door swung to on his heel.
+
+It was a busy day for Doctor Bicknell, and the afternoon was well along
+when he lighted a cigar preparatory to leaving the table upon which it
+seemed the sufferers almost clamoured to be laid. But the last one, an
+old rag-picker with a broken shoulder-blade, had been disposed of, and
+the first fragrant smoke wreaths had begun to curl about his head, when
+the gong of a hurrying ambulance came through the open window from
+the street, followed by the inevitable entry of the stretcher with its
+ghastly freight.
+
+“Lay it on the table,” the Doctor directed, turning for a moment to
+place his cigar in safety. “What is it?”
+
+“Suicide--throat cut,” responded one of the stretcher bearers. “Down on
+Morgan Alley. Little hope, I think, sir. He's 'most gone.”
+
+“Eh? Well, I'll give him a look, anyway.” He leaned over the man at the
+moment when the quick made its last faint flutter and succumbed.
+
+“It's Semper Idem come back again,” the steward said.
+
+“Ay,” replied Doctor Bicknell, “and gone again. No bungling this time.
+Properly done, upon my life, sir, properly done. Took my advice to the
+letter. I'm not required here. Take it along to the morgue.”
+
+Doctor Bicknell secured his cigar and relighted it. “That,” he said
+between the puffs, looking at the steward, “that evens up for the one
+you lost last night. We're quits now.”
+
+
+
+
+A NOSE FOR THE KING
+
+In the morning calm of Korea, when its peace and tranquillity truly
+merited its ancient name, “Cho-sen,” there lived a politician by name Yi
+Chin Ho. He was a man of parts, and--who shall say?--perhaps in no wise
+worse than politicians the world over. But, unlike his brethren in other
+lands, Yi Chin Ho was in jail. Not that he had inadvertently diverted to
+himself public moneys, but that he had inadvertently diverted too much.
+Excess is to be deplored in all things, even in grafting, and Yi Chin
+Ho's excess had brought him to most deplorable straits.
+
+Ten thousand strings of cash he owed the Government, and he lay
+in prison under sentence of death. There was one advantage to the
+situation--he had plenty of time in which to think. And he thought well.
+Then called he the jailer to him.
+
+“Most worthy man, you see before you one most wretched,” he began. “Yet
+all will be well with me if you will but let me go free for one short
+hour this night. And all will be well with you, for I shall see to
+your advancement through the years, and you shall come at length to the
+directorship of all the prisons of Cho-sen.”
+
+“How now?” demanded the jailer. “What foolishness is this? One short
+hour, and you but waiting for your head to be chopped off! And I, with
+an aged and much-to-be-respected mother, not to say anything of a wife
+and several children of tender years! Out upon you for the scoundrel
+that you are!”
+
+“From the Sacred City to the ends of all the Eight Coasts there is no
+place for me to hide,” Yi Chin Ho made reply. “I am a man of wisdom, but
+of what worth my wisdom here in prison? Were I free, well I know I could
+seek out and obtain the money wherewith to repay the Government. I know
+of a nose that will save me from all my difficulties.”
+
+“A nose!” cried the jailer.
+
+“A nose,” said Yi Chin Ho. “A remarkable nose, if I may say so, a most
+remarkable nose.”
+
+The jailer threw up his hands despairingly. “Ah, what a wag you are,
+what a wag,” he laughed. “To think that that very admirable wit of yours
+must go the way of the chopping-block!”
+
+And so saying, he turned and went away. But in the end, being a man soft
+of head and heart, when the night was well along he permitted Yi Chin Ho
+to go.
+
+Straight he went to the Governor, catching him alone and arousing him
+from his sleep.
+
+“Yi Chin Ho, or I'm no Governor!” cried the Governor. “What do you here
+who should be in prison waiting on the chopping-block?”
+
+“I pray Your Excellency to listen to me,” said Yi Chin Ho, squatting on
+his hams by the bedside and lighting his pipe from the fire-box. “A dead
+man is without value. It is true, I am as a dead man, without value to
+the Government, to Your Excellency, or to myself. But if, so to say,
+Your Excellency were to give me my freedom--”
+
+“Impossible!” cried the Governor. “Beside, you are condemned to death.”
+
+“Your Excellency well knows that if I can repay the ten thousand strings
+of cash, the Government will pardon me,” Yi Chin Ho went on. “So, as I
+say, if Your Excellency were to give me my freedom for a few days, being
+a man of understanding, I should then repay the Government and be in
+position to be of service to Your Excellency. I should be in position to
+be of very great service to Your Excellency.”
+
+“Have you a plan whereby you hope to obtain this money?” asked the
+Governor.
+
+“I have,” said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+“Then come with it to me to-morrow night; I would now sleep,” said the
+Governor, taking up his snore where it had been interrupted.
+
+On the following night, having again obtained leave of absence from the
+jailer, Yi Chin Ho presented himself at the Governor's bedside.
+
+“Is it you, Yi Chin Ho?” asked the Governor. “And have you the plan?”
+
+“It is I, Your Excellency,” answered Yi Chin Ho, “and the plan is here.”
+
+“Speak,” commanded the Governor.
+
+“The plan is here,” repeated Yi Chin Ho, “here in my hand.”
+
+The Governor sat up and opened his eyes. Yi Chin Ho proffered in his
+hand a sheet of paper. The Governor held it to the light.
+
+“Nothing but a nose,” said he.
+
+“A bit pinched, so, and so, Your Excellency,” said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+“Yes, a bit pinched here and there, as you say,” said the Governor.
+
+“Withal it is an exceeding corpulent nose, thus, and so, all in one
+place, at the end,” proceeded Yi Chin Ho. “Your Excellency would seek
+far and wide and many a day for that nose and find it not!”
+
+“An unusual nose,” admitted the Governor.
+
+“There is a wart upon it,” said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+“A most unusual nose,” said the Governor. “Never have I seen the like.
+But what do you with this nose, Yi Chin Ho?”
+
+“I seek it whereby to repay the money to the Government,” said Yi Chin
+Ho. “I seek it to be of service to Your Excellency, and I seek it to
+save my own worthless head. Further, I seek Your Excellency's seal upon
+this picture of the nose.”
+
+And the Governor laughed and affixed the seal of State, and Yi Chin Ho
+departed. For a month and a day he travelled the King's Road which leads
+to the shore of the Eastern Sea; and there, one night, at the gate of
+the largest mansion of a wealthy city he knocked loudly for admittance.
+
+“None other than the master of the house will I see,” said he fiercely
+to the frightened servants. “I travel upon the King's business.”
+
+Straightway was he led to an inner room, where the master of the house
+was roused from his sleep and brought blinking before him.
+
+“You are Pak Chung Chang, head man of this city,” said Yi Chin Ho in
+tones that were all-accusing. “I am upon the King's business.”
+
+Pak Chung Chang trembled. Well he knew the King's business was ever a
+terrible business. His knees smote together, and he near fell to the
+floor.
+
+“The hour is late,” he quavered. “Were it not well to--”
+
+“The King's business never waits!” thundered Yi Chin Ho. “Come apart
+with me, and swiftly. I have an affair of moment to discuss with you.
+
+“It is the King's affair,” he added with even greater fierceness; so
+that Pak Chung Chang's silver pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers
+and clattered on the floor.
+
+“Know then,” said Yi Chin Ho, when they had gone apart, “that the King
+is troubled with an affliction, a very terrible affliction. In that he
+failed to cure, the Court physician has had nothing else than his head
+chopped off. From all the Eight Provinces have the physicians come to
+wait upon the King. Wise consultation have they held, and they have
+decided that for a remedy for the King's affliction nothing else is
+required than a nose, a certain kind of nose, a very peculiar certain
+kind of nose.
+
+“Then by none other was I summoned than His Excellency the Prime
+Minister himself. He put a paper into my hand. Upon this paper was
+the very peculiar kind of nose drawn by the physicians of the Eight
+Provinces, with the seal of State upon it.
+
+“'Go,' said His Excellency the Prime Minister. 'Seek out this nose, for
+the King's affliction is sore. And wheresoever you find this nose upon
+the face of a man, strike it off forthright and bring it in all haste to
+the Court, for the King must be cured. Go, and come not back until your
+search is rewarded.'
+
+“And so I departed upon my quest,” said Yi Chin Ho. “I have sought
+out the remotest corners of the kingdom; I have travelled the Eight
+Highways, searched the Eight Provinces, and sailed the seas of the Eight
+Coasts. And here I am.”
+
+With a great flourish he drew a paper from his girdle, unrolled it with
+many snappings and cracklings, and thrust it before the face of Pak
+Chung Chang. Upon the paper was the picture of the nose.
+
+Pak Chung Chang stared upon it with bulging eyes.
+
+“Never have I beheld such a nose,” he began.
+
+“There is a wart upon it,” said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+“Never have I beheld--” Pak Chung Chang began again.
+
+“Bring your father before me,” Yi Chin Ho interrupted sternly.
+
+“My ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor sleeps,” said Pak
+Chung Chang.
+
+“Why dissemble?” demanded Yi Chin Ho. “You know it is your father's
+nose. Bring him before me that I may strike it off and be gone. Hurry,
+lest I make bad report of you.”
+
+“Mercy!” cried Pak Chung Chang, falling on his knees. “It is impossible!
+It is impossible! You cannot strike off my father's nose. He cannot
+go down without his nose to the grave. He will become a laughter and a
+byword, and all my days and nights will be filled with woe. O reflect!
+Report that you have seen no such nose in your travels. You, too, have a
+father.”
+
+Pak Chung Chang clasped Yi Chin Ho's knees and fell to weeping on his
+sandals.
+
+“My heart softens strangely at your tears,” said Yi Chin Ho. “I, too,
+know filial piety and regard. But--” He hesitated, then added, as though
+thinking aloud, “It is as much as my head is worth.”
+
+“How much is your head worth?” asked Pak Chung Chang in a thin, small
+voice.
+
+“A not remarkable head,” said Yi Chin Ho. “An absurdly unremarkable
+head; but, such is my great foolishness, I value it at nothing less than
+one hundred thousand strings of cash.”
+
+“So be it,” said Pak Chung Chang, rising to his feet.
+
+“I shall need horses to carry the treasure,” said Yi Chin Ho, “and men
+to guard it well as I journey through the mountains. There are robbers
+abroad in the land.”
+
+“There are robbers abroad in the land,” said Pak Chung Chang,
+sadly. “But it shall be as you wish, so long as my ancient and
+very-much-to-be-respected ancestor's nose abide in its appointed place.”
+
+“Say nothing to any man of this occurrence,” said Yi Chin Ho, “else will
+other and more loyal servants than I be sent to strike off your father's
+nose.”
+
+And so Yi Chin Ho departed on his way through the mountains, blithe
+of heart and gay of song as he listened to the jingling bells of his
+treasure-laden ponies.
+
+There is little more to tell. Yi Chin Ho prospered through the years. By
+his efforts the jailer attained at length to the directorship of all the
+prisons of Cho-sen; the Governor ultimately betook himself to the Sacred
+City to be Prime Minister to the King, while Yi Chin Ho became the
+King's boon companion and sat at table with him to the end of a round,
+fat life. But Pak Chung Chang fell into a melancholy, and ever after he
+shook his head sadly, with tears in his eyes, whenever he regarded the
+expensive nose of his ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor.
+
+
+
+
+THE “FRANCIS SPAIGHT”
+
+(A TRUE TALE RETOLD)
+
+The Francis Spaight was running before it solely under a mizzentopsail,
+when the thing happened. It was not due to carelessness so much as
+to the lack of discipline of the crew and to the fact that they were
+indifferent seamen at best. The man at the wheel in particular, a
+Limerick man, had had no experience with salt water beyond that of
+rafting timber on the Shannon between the Quebec vessels and the shore.
+He was afraid of the huge seas that rose out of the murk astern and
+bore down upon him, and he was more given to cowering away from their
+threatened impact than he was to meeting their blows with the wheel and
+checking the ship's rush to broach to.
+
+It was three in the morning when his unseamanlike conduct precipitated
+the catastrophe. At sight of a sea far larger than its fellows, he
+crouched down, releasing his hands from the spokes. The Francis Spaight
+sheered as her stern lifted on the sea, receiving the full fling of the
+cap on her quarter. The next instant she was in the trough, her lee-rail
+buried till the ocean was level with her hatch-coamings, sea after sea
+breaking over her weather rail and sweeping what remained exposed of the
+deck with icy deluges.
+
+The men were out of hand, helpless and hopeless, stupid in their
+bewilderment and fear, and resolute only in that they would not obey
+orders. Some wailed, others clung silently in the weather shrouds, and
+still others muttered prayers or shrieked vile imprecations; and neither
+captain nor mate could get them to bear a hand at the pumps or at
+setting patches of sails to bring the vessel up to the wind and sea.
+Inside the hour the ship was over on her beam ends, the lubberly cowards
+climbing up her side and hanging on in the rigging. When she went over,
+the mate was caught and drowned in the after-cabin, as were two sailors
+who had sought refuge in the forecastle.
+
+The mate had been the ablest man on board, and the captain was now
+scarcely less helpless than his men. Beyond cursing them for their
+worthlessness, he did nothing; and it remained for a man named Mahoney,
+a Belfast man, and a boy, O'Brien, of Limerick, to cut away the fore and
+main masts. This they did at great risk on the perpendicular wall of the
+wreck, sending the mizzentopmast overside along in the general crash.
+The Francis Spaight righted, and it was well that she was lumber
+laden, else she would have sunk, for she was already water-logged.
+The mainmast, still fast by the shrouds, beat like a thunderous
+sledge-hammer against the ship's side, every stroke bringing groans from
+the men.
+
+Day dawned on the savage ocean, and in the cold gray light all that
+could be seen of the Francis Spaight emerging from the sea were the
+poop, the shattered mizzenmast, and a ragged line of bulwarks. It was
+midwinter in the North Atlantic, and the wretched men were half-dead
+from cold. But there was no place where they could find rest. Every sea
+breached clean over the wreck, washing away the salt incrustations from
+their bodies and depositing fresh incrustations. The cabin under the
+poop was awash to the knees, but here at least was shelter from the
+chill wind, and here the survivors congregated, standing upright,
+holding on by the cabin furnishings, and leaning against one another for
+support.
+
+In vain Mahoney strove to get the men to take turns in watching aloft
+from the mizzenmast for any chance vessel. The icy gale was too much for
+them, and they preferred the shelter of the cabin. O'Brien, the boy, who
+was only fifteen, took turns with Mahoney on the freezing perch. It was
+the boy, at three in the afternoon, who called down that he had sighted
+a sail. This did bring them from the cabin, and they crowded the poop
+rail and weather mizzen shrouds as they watched the strange ship. But
+its course did not lie near, and when it disappeared below the skyline,
+they returned shivering to the cabin, not one offering to relieve the
+watch at the mast head.
+
+By the end of the second day, Mahoney and O'Brien gave up their attempt,
+and thereafter the vessel drifted in the gale uncared for and without a
+lookout. There were thirteen alive, and for seventy-two hours they stood
+knee-deep in the sloshing water on the cabin floor, half-frozen, without
+food, and with but three bottles of wine shared among them. All food and
+fresh water were below, and there was no getting at such supplies in
+the water-logged condition of the wreck. As the days went by, no food
+whatever passed their lips. Fresh water, in small quantities, they were
+able to obtain by holding a cover of a tureen under the saddle of the
+mizzenmast. But the rain fell infrequently, and they were hard put. When
+it rained, they also soaked their handkerchiefs, squeezing them out into
+their mouths or into their shoes. As the wind and sea went down, they
+were even able to mop the exposed portions of the deck that were free
+from brine and so add to their water supply. But food they had none, and
+no way of getting it, though sea-birds flew repeatedly overhead.
+
+In the calm weather that followed the gale, after having remained on
+their feet for ninety-six hours, they were able to find dry planks in
+the cabin on which to lie. But the long hours of standing in the salt
+water had caused sores to form on their legs. These sores were extremely
+painful. The slightest contact or scrape caused severe anguish, and in
+their weak condition and crowded situation they were continually hurting
+one another in this manner. Not a man could move about without being
+followed by volleys of abuse, curses, and groans. So great was their
+misery that the strong oppressed the weak, shoving them aside from
+the dry planks to shift for themselves in the cold and wet. The boy,
+O'Brien, was specially maltreated. Though there were three other
+boys, it was O'Brien who came in for most of the abuse. There was no
+explaining it, except on the ground that his was a stronger and more
+dominant spirit than those of the other boys, and that he stood up more
+for his rights, resenting the petty injustices that were meted out to
+all the boys by the men. Whenever O'Brien came near the men in search
+of a dry place to sleep, or merely moved about, he was kicked and cuffed
+away. In return, he cursed them for their selfish brutishness, and blows
+and kicks and curses were rained upon him. Miserable as were all of
+them, he was thus made far more miserable; and it was only the flame of
+life, unusually strong in him, that enabled him to endure.
+
+As the days went by and they grew weaker, their peevishness and
+ill-temper increased, which, in turn, increased the ill-treatment and
+sufferings of O'Brien. By the sixteenth day all hands were far gone with
+hunger, and they stood together in small groups, talking in undertones
+and occasionally glancing at O'Brien. It was at high noon that the
+conference came to a head. The captain was the spokesman. All were
+collected on the poop.
+
+“Men,” the captain began, “we have been a long time without food--two
+weeks and two days it is, though it seems more like two years and two
+months. We can't hang out much longer. It is beyond human nature to go
+on hanging out with nothing in our stomachs. There is a serious question
+to consider: whether it is better for all to die, or for one to die. We
+are standing with our feet in our graves. If one of us dies, the rest
+may live until a ship is sighted. What say you?”
+
+Michael Behane, the man who had been at the wheel when the Francis
+Spaight broached to, called out that it was well. The others joined in
+the cry.
+
+“Let it be one of the b'ys!” cried Sullivan, a Tarbert man, glancing at
+the same time significantly at O'Brien.
+
+“It is my opinion,” the captain went on, “that it will be a good deed
+for one of us to die for the rest.”
+
+“A good deed! A good deed!” the men interjected.
+
+“And it is my opinion that 'tis best for one of the boys to die. They
+have no families to support, nor would they be considered so great a
+loss to their friends as those who have wives and children.”
+
+“'Tis right.” “Very right.” “Very fit it should be done,” the men
+muttered one to another.
+
+But the four boys cried out against the injustice of it.
+
+“Our lives is just as dear to us as the rest iv yez,” O'Brien protested.
+“An' our famblies, too. As for wives an' childer, who is there savin'
+meself to care for me old mother that's a widow, as you know well,
+Michael Behane, that comes from Limerick? 'Tis not fair. Let the lots be
+drawn between all of us, men and b'ys.”
+
+Mahoney was the only man who spoke in favour of the boys, declaring that
+it was the fair thing for all to share alike. Sullivan and the captain
+insisted on the drawing of lots being confined to the boys. There
+were high words, in the midst of which Sullivan turned upon O'Brien,
+snarling--
+
+“'Twould be a good deed to put you out of the way. You deserve it.
+'Twould be the right way to serve you, an' serve you we will.”
+
+He started toward O'Brien, with intent to lay hands on him and proceed
+at once with the killing, while several others likewise shuffled toward
+him and reached for him. He stumbled backwards to escape them, at the
+same time crying that he would submit to the drawing of the lots among
+the boys.
+
+The captain prepared four sticks of different lengths and handed them to
+Sullivan.
+
+“You're thinkin' the drawin'll not be fair,” the latter sneered to
+O'Brien. “So it's yerself'll do the drawin'.”
+
+To this O'Brien agreed. A handkerchief was tied over his eyes,
+blindfolding him, and he knelt down on the deck with his back to
+Sullivan.
+
+“Whoever you name for the shortest stick'll die,” the captain said.
+
+Sullivan held up one of the sticks. The rest were concealed in his hand
+so that no one could see whether it was the short stick or not.
+
+“An' whose stick will it be?” Sullivan demanded.
+
+“For little Johnny Sheehan,” O'Brien answered.
+
+Sullivan laid the stick aside. Those who looked could not tell if it
+were the fatal one. Sullivan held up another stick.
+
+“Whose will it be?”
+
+“For George Burns,” was the reply.
+
+The stick was laid with the first one, and a third held up.
+
+“An' whose is this wan?”
+
+“For myself,” said O'Brien.
+
+With a quick movement, Sullivan threw the four sticks together. No one
+had seen.
+
+“'Tis for yourself ye've drawn it,” Sullivan announced.
+
+“A good deed,” several of the men muttered.
+
+O'Brien was very quiet. He arose to his feet, took the bandage off, and
+looked around.
+
+“Where is ut?” he demanded. “The short stick? The wan for me?”
+
+The captain pointed to the four sticks lying on the deck.
+
+“How do you know the stick was mine?” O'Brien questioned. “Did you see
+ut, Johnny Sheehan?”
+
+Johnny Sheehan, who was the youngest of the boys, did not answer.
+
+“Did you see ut?” O'Brien next asked Mahoney.
+
+“No, I didn't see ut.”
+
+The men were muttering and growling.
+
+“'Twas a fair drawin',” Sullivan said. “Ye had yer chanct an' ye lost,
+that's all iv ut.”
+
+“A fair drawin',” the captain added. “Didn't I behold it myself? The
+stick was yours, O'Brien, an' ye may as well get ready. Where's the
+cook? Gorman, come here. Fetch the tureen cover, some of ye. Gorman, do
+your duty like a man.”
+
+“But how'll I do it,” the cook demanded. He was a weak-eyed,
+weak-chinned, indecisive man.
+
+“'Tis a damned murder!” O'Brien cried out.
+
+“I'll have none of ut,” Mahoney announced. “Not a bite shall pass me
+lips.”
+
+“Then 'tis yer share for better men than yerself,” Sullivan sneered. “Go
+on with yer duty, cook.”
+
+“'Tis not me duty, the killin' of b'ys,” Gorman protested irresolutely.
+
+“If yez don't make mate for us, we'll be makin' mate of yerself,” Behane
+threatened. “Somebody must die, an' as well you as another.”
+
+Johnny Sheehan began to cry. O'Brien listened anxiously. His face was
+pale. His lips trembled, and at times his whole body shook.
+
+“I signed on as cook,” Gorman enounced. “An' cook I wud if galley there
+was. But I'll not lay me hand to murder. 'Tis not in the articles. I'm
+the cook--”
+
+“An' cook ye'll be for wan minute more only,” Sullivan said grimly, at
+the same moment gripping the cook's head from behind and bending it back
+till the windpipe and jugular were stretched taut. “Where's yer knife,
+Mike? Pass it along.”
+
+At the touch of the steel, Gorman whimpered.
+
+“I'll do ut, if yez'll hold the b'y.”
+
+The pitiable condition of the cook seemed in some fashion to nerve up
+O'Brien.
+
+“It's all right, Gorman,” he said. “Go on with ut. 'Tis meself knows yer
+not wantin' to do ut. It's all right, sir”--this to the captain, who
+had laid a hand heavily on his arm. “Ye won't have to hold me, sir. I'll
+stand still.”
+
+“Stop yer blitherin', an' go an' get the tureen cover,” Behane commanded
+Johnny Sheehan, at the same time dealing him a heavy cuff alongside the
+head.
+
+The boy, who was scarcely more than a child, fetched the cover. He
+crawled and tottered along the deck, so weak was he from hunger. The
+tears still ran down his cheeks. Behane took the cover from him, at the
+same time administering another cuff.
+
+O'Brien took off his coat and bared his right arm. His under lip still
+trembled, but he held a tight grip on himself. The captain's penknife
+was opened and passed to Gorman.
+
+“Mahoney, tell me mother what happened to me, if ever ye get back,”
+ O'Brien requested.
+
+Mahoney nodded.
+
+“'Tis black murder, black an' damned,” he said. “The b'y's flesh'll do
+none iv yez anny good. Mark me words. Ye'll not profit by it, none iv
+yez.”
+
+“Get ready,” the captain ordered. “You, Sullivan, hold the cover--that's
+it--close up. Spill nothing. It's precious stuff.”
+
+Gorman made an effort. The knife was dull. He was weak. Besides, his
+hand was shaking so violently that he nearly dropped the knife. The
+three boys were crouched apart, in a huddle, crying and sobbing. With
+the exception of Mahoney, the men were gathered about the victim,
+craning their necks to see.
+
+“Be a man, Gorman,” the captain cautioned.
+
+The wretched cook was seized with a spasm of resolution, sawing back
+and forth with the blade on O'Brien's wrist. The veins were severed.
+Sullivan held the tureen cover close underneath. The cut veins gaped
+wide, but no ruddy flood gushed forth. There was no blood at all. The
+veins were dry and empty. No one spoke. The grim and silent figures
+swayed in unison with each heave of the ship. Every eye was turned
+fixedly upon that inconceivable and monstrous thing, the dry veins of a
+creature that was alive.
+
+“'Tis a warnin',” Mahoney cried. “Lave the b'y alone. Mark me words. His
+death'll do none iv yez anny good.”
+
+“Try at the elbow--the left elbow, 'tis nearer the heart,” the captain
+said finally, in a dim and husky voice that was unlike his own.
+
+“Give me the knife,” O'Brien said roughly, taking it out of the cook's
+hand. “I can't be lookin' at ye puttin' me to hurt.”
+
+Quite coolly he cut the vein at the left elbow, but, like the cook, he
+failed to bring blood.
+
+“This is all iv no use,” Sullivan said. “'Tis better to put him out iv
+his misery by bleedin' him at the throat.”
+
+The strain had been too much for the lad.
+
+“Don't be doin' ut,” he cried. “There'll be no blood in me throat. Give
+me a little time. 'Tis cold an' weak I am. Be lettin' me lay down an'
+slape a bit. Then I'll be warm an' the blood'll flow.”
+
+“'Tis no use,” Sullivan objected. “As if ye cud be slapin' at a time
+like this. Ye'll not slape, and ye'll not warm up. Look at ye now.
+You've an ague.”
+
+“I was sick at Limerick wan night,” O'Brien hurried on, “an' the dochtor
+cudn't bleed me. But after slapin' a few hours an' gettin' warm in
+bed the blood came freely. It's God's truth I'm tellin' yez. Don't be
+murderin' me!”
+
+“His veins are open now,” the captain said. “'Tis no use leavin' him in
+his pain. Do it now an' be done with it.”
+
+They started to reach for O'Brien, but he backed away.
+
+“I'll be the death iv yez!” he screamed. “Take yer hands off iv me,
+Sullivan! I'll come back! I'll haunt yez! Wakin' or slapin', I'll haunt
+yez till you die!”
+
+“'Tis disgraceful!” yelled Behane. “If the short stick'd ben mine, I'd
+a-let me mates cut the head off iv me an' died happy.”
+
+Sullivan leaped in and caught the unhappy lad by the hair. The rest of
+the men followed, O'Brien kicked and struggled, snarling and snapping at
+the hands that clutched him from every side. Little Johnny Sheehan broke
+out into wild screaming, but the men took no notice of him. O'Brien was
+bent backward to the deck, the tureen cover under his neck. Gorman was
+shoved forward. Some one had thrust a large sheath-knife into his hand.
+
+“Do yer duty! Do yer duty!” the men cried.
+
+The cook bent over, but he caught the boy's eyes and faltered.
+
+“If ye don't, I'll kill ye with me own hands,” Behane shouted.
+
+From every side a torrent of abuse and threats poured in upon the cook.
+Still he hung back.
+
+“Maybe there'll be more blood in his veins than O'Brien's,” Sullivan
+suggested significantly.
+
+Behane caught Gorman by the hair and twisted his head back, while
+Sullivan attempted to take possession of the sheath-knife. But Gorman
+clung to it desperately.
+
+“Lave go, an' I'll do ut!” he screamed frantically. “Don't be cuttin' me
+throat! I'll do the deed! I'll do the deed!”
+
+“See that you do it, then,” the captain threatened him.
+
+Gorman allowed himself to be shoved forward. He looked at the boy,
+closed his eyes, and muttered a prayer. Then, without opening his eyes,
+he did the deed that had been appointed him. O'Brien emitted a shriek
+that sank swiftly to a gurgling sob. The men held him till his struggles
+ceased, when he was laid upon the deck. They were eager and impatient,
+and with oaths and threats they urged Gorman to hurry with the
+preparation of the meal.
+
+“Lave ut, you bloody butchers,” Mahoney said quietly. “Lave ut, I tell
+yez. Ye'll not be needin' anny iv ut now. 'Tis as I said: ye'll not
+be profitin' by the lad's blood. Empty ut overside, Behane. Empty ut
+overside.”
+
+Behane, still holding the tureen cover in both his hands, glanced to
+windward. He walked to the rail and threw the cover and contents into
+the sea. A full-rigged ship was bearing down upon them a short mile
+away. So occupied had they been with the deed just committed, that
+none had had eyes for a lookout. All hands watched her coming on--the
+brightly coppered forefoot parting the water like a golden knife, the
+headsails flapping lazily and emptily at each downward surge, and the
+towering canvas tiers dipping and curtsying with each stately swing of
+the sea. No man spoke.
+
+As she hove to, a cable length away, the captain of the Francis Spaight
+bestirred himself and ordered a tarpaulin to be thrown over O'Brien's
+corpse. A boat was lowered from the stranger's side and began to pull
+toward them. John Gorman laughed. He laughed softly at first, but he
+accompanied each stroke of the oars with spasmodically increasing glee.
+It was this maniacal laughter that greeted the rescue boat as it hauled
+alongside and the first officer clambered on board.
+
+
+
+
+A CURIOUS FRAGMENT
+
+     [The capitalist, or industrial oligarch, Roger Vanderwater,
+     mentioned in the narrative, has been identified as the ninth
+     in the line of the Vanderwaters that controlled for hundreds
+     of years the cotton factories of the South. This Roger
+     Vanderwater flourished in the last decades of the twenty-
+     sixth century after Christ, which was the fifth century of
+     the terrible industrial oligarchy that was reared upon the
+     ruins of the early Republic.
+
+     From internal evidences we are convinced that the narrative
+     which follows was not reduced to writing till the twenty-
+     ninth century. Not only was it unlawful to write or print
+     such matter during that period, but the working-class was so
+     illiterate that only in rare instances were its members able
+     to read and write. This was the dark reign of the overman,
+     in whose speech the great mass of the people were
+     characterized as the “herd animals.” All literacy was
+     frowned upon and stamped out. From the statute-books of the
+     times may be instanced that black law that made it a capital
+     offence for any man, no matter of what class, to teach even
+     the alphabet to a member of the working-class. Such
+     stringent limitation of education to the ruling class was
+     necessary if that class was to continue to rule.
+
+     One result of the foregoing was the development of the
+     professional story-tellers. These story-tellers were paid by
+     the oligarchy, and the tales they told were legendary,
+     mythical, romantic, and harmless. But the spirit of freedom
+     never quite died out, and agitators, under the guise of
+     story-tellers, preached revolt to the slave class. That the
+     following tale was banned by the oligarchs we have proof
+     from the records of the criminal police court of Ashbury,
+     wherein, on January 27, 2734, one John Tourney, found guilty
+     of telling the tale in a boozing-ken of labourers, was
+     sentenced to five years' penal servitude in the borax mines
+     of the Arizona Desert.--EDITOR'S NOTE.]
+
+
+Listen, my brothers, and I will tell you a tale of an arm. It was the
+arm of Tom Dixon, and Tom Dixon was a weaver of the first class in a
+factory of that hell-hound and master, Roger Vanderwater. This factory
+was called “Hell's Bottom”... by the slaves who toiled in it, and I
+guess they ought to know; and it was situated in Kingsbury, at the other
+end of the town from Vanderwater's summer palace. You do not know where
+Kingsbury is? There are many things, my brothers, that you do not know,
+and it is sad. It is because you do not know that you are slaves. When I
+have told you this tale, I should like to form a class among you for the
+learning of written and printed speech. Our masters read and write and
+possess many books, and it is because of that that they are our masters,
+and live in palaces, and do not work. When the toilers learn to read
+and write--all of them--they will grow strong; then they will use their
+strength to break their bonds, and there will be no more masters and no
+more slaves.
+
+Kingsbury, my brothers, is in the old State of Alabama. For three
+hundred years the Vanderwaters have owned Kingsbury and its slave pens
+and factories, and slave pens and factories in many other places and
+States. You have heard of the Vanderwaters--who has not?--but let me
+tell you things you do not know about them. The first Vanderwater was
+a slave, even as you and I. Have you got that? He was a slave, and that
+was over three hundred years ago. His father was a machinist in the
+slave pen of Alexander Burrell, and his mother was a washerwoman in the
+same slave pen. There is no doubt about this. I am telling you truth. It
+is history. It is printed, every word of it, in the history books of our
+masters, which you cannot read because your masters will not permit you
+to learn to read. You can understand why they will not permit you to
+learn to read, when there are such things in the books. They know, and
+they are very wise. If you did read such things, you might be wanting
+in respect to your masters, which would be a dangerous thing... to your
+masters. But I know, for I can read, and I am telling you what I have
+read with my own eyes in the history books of our masters.
+
+The first Vanderwater's name was not Vanderwater; it was Vange--Bill
+Vange, the son of Yergis Vange, the machinist, and Laura Carnly, the
+washerwoman. Young Bill Vange was strong. He might have remained with
+the slaves and led them to freedom; instead, however, he served the
+masters and was well rewarded. He began his service, when yet a small
+child, as a spy in his home slave pen. He is known to have informed on
+his own father for seditious utterance. This is fact. I have read it
+with my own eyes in the records. He was too good a slave for the slave
+pen. Alexander Burrell took him out, while yet a child, and he was
+taught to read and write. He was taught many things, and he was entered
+in the secret service of the Government. Of course, he no longer wore
+the slave dress, except for disguise at such times when he sought to
+penetrate the secrets and plots of the slaves. It was he, when but
+eighteen years of age, who brought that great hero and comrade, Ralph
+Jacobus, to trial and execution in the electric chair. Of course, you
+have all heard the sacred name of Ralph Jacobus, but it is news to you
+that he was brought to his death by the first Vanderwater, whose
+name was Vange. I know. I have read it in the books. There are many
+interesting things like that in the books.
+
+And after Ralph Jacobus died his shameful death, Bill Vange's name began
+the many changes it was to undergo. He was known as “Sly Vange” far and
+wide. He rose high in the secret service, and he was rewarded in grand
+ways, but still he was not a member of the master class. The men were
+willing that he should become so; it was the women of the master class
+who refused to have Sly Vange one of them. Sly Vange gave good service
+to the masters. He had been a slave himself, and he knew the ways of the
+slaves. There was no fooling him. In those days the slaves were braver
+than now, and they were always trying for their freedom. And Sly Vange
+was everywhere, in all their schemes and plans, bringing their schemes
+and plans to naught and their leaders to the electric chair. It was in
+2255 that his name was next changed for him. It was in that year that
+the Great Mutiny took place. In that region west of the Rocky Mountains,
+seventeen millions of slaves strove bravely to overthrow their masters.
+Who knows, if Sly Vange had not lived, but that they would have
+succeeded? But Sly Vange was very much alive. The masters gave him
+supreme command of the situation. In eight months of fighting, one
+million and three hundred and fifty thousand slaves were killed. Vange,
+Bill Vange, Sly Vange, killed them, and he broke the Great Mutiny. And
+he was greatly rewarded, and so red were his hands with the blood of
+the slaves that thereafter he was called “Bloody Vange.” You see, my
+brothers, what interesting things are to be found in the books when one
+can read them. And, take my word for it, there are many other things,
+even more interesting, in the books. And if you will but study with me,
+in a year's time you can read those books for yourselves--ay, in six
+months some of you will be able to read those books for yourselves.
+
+Bloody Vange lived to a ripe old age, and always, to the last, was he
+received in the councils of the masters; but never was he made a master
+himself. He had first opened his eyes, you see, in a slave pen. But oh,
+he was well rewarded! He had a dozen palaces in which to live. He, who
+was no master, owned thousands of slaves. He had a great pleasure yacht
+upon the sea that was a floating palace, and he owned a whole island in
+the sea where toiled ten thousand slaves on his coffee plantations. But
+in his old age he was lonely, for he lived apart, hated by his brothers,
+the slaves, and looked down upon by those he had served and who refused
+to be his brothers. The masters looked down upon him because he had
+been born a slave. Enormously wealthy he died; but he died horribly,
+tormented by his conscience, regretting all he had done and the red
+stain on his name.
+
+But with his children it was different. They had not been born in the
+slave pen, and by the special ruling of the Chief Oligarch of that time,
+John Morrison, they were elevated to the master class. And it was then
+that the name of Vange disappears from the page of history. It becomes
+Vanderwater, and Jason Vange, the son of Bloody Vange, becomes Jason
+Vanderwater, the founder of the Vanderwater line. But that was
+three hundred years ago, and the Vanderwaters of to-day forget their
+beginnings and imagine that somehow the clay of their bodies is
+different stuff from the clay in your body and mine and in the bodies
+of all slaves. And I ask you, Why should a slave become the master of
+another slave? And why should the son of a slave become the master of
+many slaves? I leave these questions for you to answer for yourselves,
+but do not forget that in the beginning the Vanderwaters were slaves.
+
+And now, my brothers, I come back to the beginning of my tale to tell
+you of Tom Dixon's arm. Roger Vanderwater's factory in Kingsbury was
+rightly named “Hell's Bottom,” but the men who toiled in it were men, as
+you shall see. Women toiled there, too, and children, little children.
+All that toiled there had the regular slave rights under the law, but
+only under the law, for they were deprived of many of their rights by
+the two overseers of Hell's Bottom, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster.
+
+It is a long story, but I shall not tell all of it to you. I shall tell
+only about the arm. It happened that, according to the law, a portion of
+the starvation wage of the slaves was held back each month and put
+into a fund. This fund was for the purpose of helping such unfortunate
+fellow-workmen as happened to be injured by accidents or to be overtaken
+by sickness. As you know with yourselves, these funds are controlled
+by the overseers. It is the law, and so it was that the fund at Hell's
+Bottom was controlled by the two overseers of accursed memory.
+
+Now, Clancy and Munster took this fund for their own use. When accidents
+happened to the workmen, their fellows, as was the custom, made grants
+from the fund; but the overseers refused to pay over the grants. What
+could the slaves do? They had their rights under the law, but they
+had no access to the law. Those that complained to the overseers were
+punished. You know yourselves what form such punishment takes--the fines
+for faulty work that is not faulty; the overcharging of accounts in the
+Company's store; the vile treatment of one's women and children; and the
+allotment to bad machines whereon, work as one will, he starves.
+
+Once, the slaves of Hell's Bottom protested to Vanderwater. It was the
+time of the year when he spent several months in Kingsbury. One of the
+slaves could write; it chanced that his mother could write, and she had
+secretly taught him as her mother had secretly taught her. So this slave
+wrote a round robin, wherein was contained their grievances, and all the
+slaves signed by mark. And, with proper stamps upon the envelope, the
+round robin was mailed to Roger Vanderwater. And Roger Vanderwater did
+nothing, save to turn the round robin over to the two overseers. Clancy
+and Munster were angered. They turned the guards loose at night on the
+slave pen. The guards were armed with pick handles. It is said that next
+day only half of the slaves were able to work in Hell's Bottom. They
+were well beaten. The slave who could write was so badly beaten that he
+lived only three months. But before he died, he wrote once more, to what
+purpose you shall hear.
+
+Four or five weeks afterward, Tom Dixon, a slave, had his arm torn off
+by a belt in Hell's Bottom. His fellow-workmen, as usual, made a grant
+to him from the fund, and Clancy and Munster, as usual, refused to pay
+it over from the fund. The slave who could write, and who even then was
+dying, wrote anew a recital of their grievances. And this document was
+thrust into the hand of the arm that had been torn from Tom Dixon's
+body.
+
+Now it chanced that Roger Vanderwater was lying ill in his palace at the
+other end of Kingsbury--not the dire illness that strikes down you and
+me, brothers; just a bit of biliousness, mayhap, or no more than a bad
+headache because he had eaten too heartily or drunk too deeply. But it
+was enough for him, being tender and soft from careful rearing. Such
+men, packed in cotton wool all their lives, are exceeding tender and
+soft. Believe me, brothers, Roger Vanderwater felt as badly with his
+aching head, or THOUGHT he felt as badly, as Tom Dixon really felt with
+his arm torn out by the roots.
+
+It happened that Roger Vanderwater was fond of scientific farming, and
+that on his farm, three miles outside of Kingsbury, he had managed to
+grow a new kind of strawberry. He was very proud of that new strawberry
+of his, and he would have been out to see and pick the first ripe ones,
+had it not been for his illness. Because of his illness he had ordered
+the old farm slave to bring in personally the first box of the berries.
+All this was learned from the gossip of a palace scullion, who slept
+each night in the slave pen. The overseer of the plantation should have
+brought in the berries, but he was on his back with a broken leg from
+trying to break a colt. The scullion brought the word in the night, and
+it was known that next day the berries would come in. And the men in the
+slave pen of Hell's Bottom, being men and not cowards, held a council.
+
+The slave who could write, and who was sick and dying from the
+pick-handle beating, said he would carry Tom Dixon's arm; also, he said
+he must die anyway, and that it mattered nothing if he died a little
+sooner. So five slaves stole from the slave pen that night after the
+guards had made their last rounds. One of the slaves was the man who
+could write. They lay in the brush by the roadside until late in the
+morning, when the old farm slave came driving to town with the precious
+fruit for the master. What of the farm slave being old and rheumatic,
+and of the slave who could write being stiff and injured from his
+beating, they moved their bodies about when they walked, very much in
+the same fashion. The slave who could write put on the other's clothes,
+pulled the broad-brimmed hat over his eyes, climbed upon the seat of the
+wagon, and drove on to town. The old farm slave was kept tied all day
+in the bushes until evening, when the others loosed him and went back to
+the slave pen to take their punishment for having broken bounds.
+
+In the meantime, Roger Vanderwater lay waiting for the berries in his
+wonderful bedroom--such wonders and such comforts were there that they
+would have blinded the eyes of you and me who have never seen such
+things. The slave who could write said afterward that it was like
+a glimpse of Paradise! And why not? The labour and the lives of ten
+thousand slaves had gone to the making of that bedchamber, while they
+themselves slept in vile lairs like wild beasts. The slave who could
+write brought in the berries on a silver tray or platter--you see, Roger
+Vanderwater wanted to speak with him in person about the berries.
+
+The slave who could write tottered his dying body across the wonderful
+room and knelt by the couch of Vanderwater, holding out before him the
+tray. Large green leaves covered the top of the tray, and these the
+body-servant alongside whisked away so that Vanderwater could see.
+And Roger Vanderwater, propped upon his elbow, saw. He saw the fresh,
+wonderful fruit lying there like precious jewels, and in the midst of it
+the arm of Tom Dixon as it had been torn from his body, well washed,
+of course, my brothers, and very white against the blood-red fruit. And
+also he saw, clutched in the stiff, dead fingers, the petition of his
+slaves who toiled in Hell's Bottom.
+
+“Take and read,” said the slave who could write. And even as the master
+took the petition, the body-servant, who till then had been motionless
+with surprise, struck with his fist the kneeling slave upon the mouth.
+The slave was dying anyway, and was very weak, and did not mind. He made
+no sound, and, having fallen over on his side, he lay there quietly,
+bleeding from the blow on the mouth. The physician, who had run for the
+palace guards, came back with them, and the slave was dragged upright
+upon his feet. But as they dragged him up, his hand clutched Tom Dixon's
+arm from where it had fallen on the floor.
+
+“He shall be flung alive to the hounds!” the body-servant was crying in
+great wrath. “He shall be flung alive to the hounds!”
+
+But Roger Vanderwater, forgetting his headache, still leaning on his
+elbow, commanded silence, and went on reading the petition. And while
+he read, there was silence, all standing upright, the wrathful
+body-servant, the physician, the palace guards, and in their midst the
+slave, bleeding at the mouth and still holding Tom Dixon's arm. And when
+Roger Vanderwater had done, he turned upon the slave, saying--
+
+“If in this paper there be one lie, you shall be sorry that you were
+ever born.”
+
+And the slave said, “I have been sorry all my life that I was born.”
+
+Roger Vanderwater looked at him closely, and the slave said--
+
+“You have done your worst to me. I am dying now. In a week I shall be
+dead, so it does not matter if you kill me now.”
+
+“What do you with that?” the master asked, pointing to the arm; and the
+slave made answer--
+
+“I take it back to the pen to give it burial. Tom Dixon was my friend.
+We worked beside each other at our looms.”
+
+There is little more to my tale, brothers. The slave and the arm were
+sent back in a cart to the pen. Nor were any of the slaves punished for
+what they had done. Indeed, Roger Vanderwater made investigation and
+punished the two overseers, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster. Their
+freeholds were taken from them. They were branded, each upon the
+forehead, their right hands were cut off, and they were turned loose
+upon the highway to wander and beg until they died. And the fund was
+managed rightfully thereafter for a time--for a time only, my brothers;
+for after Roger Vanderwater came his son, Albert, who was a cruel master
+and half mad.
+
+Brothers, that slave who carried the arm into the presence of the master
+was my father. He was a brave man. And even as his mother secretly
+taught him to read, so did he teach me. Because he died shortly after
+from the pick-handle beating, Roger Vanderwater took me out of the slave
+pen and tried to make various better things out of me. I might
+have become an overseer in Hell's Bottom, but I chose to become a
+story-teller, wandering over the land and getting close to my brothers,
+the slaves, everywhere. And I tell you stories like this, secretly,
+knowing that you will not betray me; for if you did, you know as well as
+I that my tongue will be torn out and that I shall tell stories no more.
+And my message is, brothers, that there is a good time coming, when all
+will be well in the world and there will be neither masters nor slaves.
+But first you must prepare for that good time by learning to read. There
+is power in the printed word. And here am I to teach you to read, and as
+well there are others to see that you get the books when I am gone
+along upon my way--the history books wherein you will learn about your
+masters, and learn to become strong even as they.
+
+[EDITOR'S NOTE.--From “Historical Fragments and Sketches,” first
+published in fifty volumes in 4427, and now, after two hundred years,
+because of its accuracy and value, edited and republished by the
+National Committee on Historical Research.]
+
+
+
+
+A PIECE OF STEAK
+
+With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last
+particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and
+meditative way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the
+feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two
+children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in
+sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched
+nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She
+was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier
+prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had
+borrowed from the neighbour across the hall. The last two ha'pennies had
+gone to buy the bread.
+
+He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his
+weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped
+into the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him
+aware of his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the
+pipe away. His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were
+burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied,
+stolid-looking man, and his appearance did not suffer from being
+overprepossessing. His rough clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of
+his shoes were too weak to carry the heavy re-soling that was itself
+of no recent date. And his cotton shirt, a cheap, two shilling affair,
+showed a frayed collar and ineradicable paint stains.
+
+But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he
+was. It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in
+long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed
+and emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a
+lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it
+was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless and constituted a mouth harsh
+to excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive,
+brutal, heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost
+expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he
+was, the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were
+sleepy, lion-like--the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted
+quickly back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a
+villainous-looking head. A nose twice broken and moulded variously
+by countless blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and
+distorted to twice its size, completed his adornment, while the beard,
+fresh-shaven as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the face a
+blue-black stain.
+
+Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or
+lonely place. And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done
+anything criminal. Outside of brawls, common to his walk in life, he had
+harmed no one. Nor had he ever been known to pick a quarrel. He was a
+professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved
+for his professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going,
+easy-natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too
+open-handed for his own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies.
+Fighting was a business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck
+to maim, struck to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was
+a plain business proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the
+spectacle of men knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of
+the purse. When Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years
+before, he knew that the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after
+having been broken in a Newcastle bout. And he had played for that jaw
+and broken it again in the ninth round, not because he bore the Gouger
+any ill-will, but because that was the surest way to put the Gouger
+out and win the big end of the purse. Nor had the Gouger borne him any
+ill-will for it. It was the game, and both knew the game and played it.
+
+Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely
+silent, staring at his hands. The veins stood out on the backs of the
+hands, large and swollen; and the knuckles, smashed and battered and
+malformed, testified to the use to which they had been put. He had never
+heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but well he knew
+the meaning of those big upstanding veins. His heart had pumped too much
+blood through them at top pressure. They no longer did the work. He
+had stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distension had
+passed his endurance. He tired easily now. No longer could he do a fast
+twenty rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong,
+with fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and
+in turn beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and
+fastest of all in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its
+feet and yelling, himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers
+of blows upon showers of blows and receiving showers of blows in return,
+and all the time the heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through
+the adequate veins. The veins, swollen at the time, had always
+shrunk down again, though each time, imperceptibly at first, not
+quite--remaining just a trifle larger than before. He stared at them and
+at his battered knuckles, and, for the moment, caught a vision of the
+youthful excellence of those hands before the first knuckle had been
+smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise known as the Welsh Terror.
+
+The impression of his hunger came back on him.
+
+“Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!” he muttered aloud,
+clenching his huge fists and spitting out a smothered oath.
+
+“I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's,” his wife said half apologetically.
+
+“An' they wouldn't?” he demanded.
+
+“Not a ha'penny. Burke said--” She faltered.
+
+“G'wan! Wot'd he say?”
+
+“As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score
+was comfortable big as it was.”
+
+Tom King grunted, but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull
+terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks
+without end. Burke would have given him credit for a thousand
+steaks--then. But times had changed. Tom King was getting old; and old
+men, fighting before second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills of
+any size with the tradesmen.
+
+He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and
+the longing had not abated. He had not had a fair training for this
+fight. It was a drought year in Australia, times were hard, and even
+the most irregular work was difficult to find. He had had no sparring
+partner, and his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient.
+He had done a few days' navvy work when he could get it, and he had run
+around the Domain in the early mornings to get his legs in shape. But
+it was hard, training without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies
+that must be fed. Credit with the tradesmen had undergone very slight
+expansion when he was matched with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety
+Club had advanced him three pounds--the loser's end of the purse--and
+beyond that had refused to go. Now and again he had managed to borrow a
+few shillings from old pals, who would have lent more only that it was a
+drought year and they were hard put themselves. No--and there was no
+use in disguising the fact--his training had not been satisfactory.
+He should have had better food and no worries. Besides, when a man is
+forty, it is harder to get into condition than when he is twenty.
+
+“What time is it, Lizzie?” he asked.
+
+His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back.
+
+“Quarter before eight.”
+
+“They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes,” he said. “Only a
+try-out. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley,
+an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come
+on for over an hour.”
+
+At the end of another silent ten minutes, he rose to his feet.
+
+“Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'.”
+
+He reached for his hat and started for the door. He did not offer to
+kiss her--he never did on going out--but on this night she dared to kiss
+him, throwing her arms around him and compelling him to bend down to her
+face. She looked quite small against the massive bulk of the man.
+
+“Good luck, Tom,” she said. “You gotter do 'im.”
+
+“Ay, I gotter do 'im,” he repeated. “That's all there is to it. I jus'
+gotter do 'im.”
+
+He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely
+against him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was
+all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies.
+And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate
+and cubs--not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind, but
+in the old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.
+
+“I gotter do 'im,” he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his
+voice. “If it's a win, it's thirty quid--an' I can pay all that's owin',
+with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught--not even
+a penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's
+comin' from a loser's end. Good-bye, old woman. I'll come straight home
+if it's a win.”
+
+“An' I'll be waitin' up,” she called to him along the hall.
+
+It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he
+remembered how in his palmy days--he had once been the heavyweight
+champion of New South Wales--he would have ridden in a cab to the fight,
+and how, most likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and
+ridden with him. There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack
+Johnson--they rode about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man
+knew, a hard two miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was
+an old un, and the world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for
+nothing now except navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were
+against him even in that. He found himself wishing that he had learned
+a trade. It would have been better in the long run. But no one had
+told him, and he knew, deep down in his heart, that he would not have
+listened if they had. It had been so easy. Big money--sharp, glorious
+fights--periods of rest and loafing in between--a following of eager
+flatterers, the slaps on the back, the shakes of the hand, the toffs
+glad to buy him a drink for the privilege of five minutes' talk--and
+the glory of it, the yelling houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee's
+“King wins!” and his name in the sporting columns next day.
+
+Those had been times! But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way,
+that it was the old uns he had been putting away. He was Youth, rising;
+and they were Age, sinking. No wonder it had been easy--they with their
+swollen veins and battered knuckles and weary in the bones of them from
+the long battles they had already fought. He remembered the time he put
+out old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round,
+and how old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby.
+Perhaps old Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a
+missus an' a couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the
+fight, had had a hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought game
+and taken incredible punishment. He could see now, after he had gone
+through the mill himself, that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger
+stake, that night twenty years ago, than had young Tom King, who had
+fought for glory and easy money. No wonder Stowsher Bill had cried
+afterward in the dressing-room.
+
+Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with. It was the
+iron law of the game. One man might have a hundred hard fights in him,
+another man only twenty; each, according to the make of him and the
+quality of his fibre, had a definite number, and, when he had fought
+them, he was done. Yes, he had had more fights in him than most of
+them, and he had had far more than his share of the hard, gruelling
+fights--the kind that worked the heart and lungs to bursting, that took
+the elastic out of the arteries and made hard knots of muscle out of
+Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out nerve and stamina and made brain
+and bones weary from excess of effort and endurance overwrought. Yes,
+he had done better than all of them. There were none of his old fighting
+partners left. He was the last of the old guard. He had seen them all
+finished, and he had had a hand in finishing some of them.
+
+They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had
+put them away--laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in
+the dressing-room. And now he was an old un, and they tried out the
+youngsters on him. There was that bloke, Sandel. He had come over from
+New Zealand with a record behind him. But nobody in Australia knew
+anything about him, so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel
+made a showing, he would be given better men to fight, with bigger
+purses to win; so it was to be depended upon that he would put up a
+fierce battle. He had everything to win by it--money and glory and
+career; and Tom King was the grizzled old chopping-block that guarded
+the highway to fame and fortune. And he had nothing to win except thirty
+quid, to pay to the landlord and the tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus
+ruminated, there came to his stolid vision the form of Youth, glorious
+Youth, rising exultant and invincible, supple of muscle and silken of
+skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and torn and
+that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth was the Nemesis. It
+destroyed the old uns and recked not that, in so doing, it destroyed
+itself. It enlarged its arteries and smashed its knuckles, and was in
+turn destroyed by Youth. For Youth was ever youthful. It was only Age
+that grew old.
+
+At Castlereagh Street he turned to the left, and three blocks along came
+to the Gayety. A crowd of young larrikins hanging outside the door made
+respectful way for him, and he heard one say to another: “That's 'im!
+That's Tom King!”
+
+Inside, on the way to his dressing-room, he encountered the secretary, a
+keen-eyed, shrewd-faced young man, who shook his hand.
+
+“How are you feelin', Tom?” he asked.
+
+“Fit as a fiddle,” King answered, though he knew that he lied, and
+that if he had a quid, he would give it right there for a good piece of
+steak.
+
+When he emerged from the dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and came
+down the aisle to the squared ring in the centre of the hall, a burst
+of greeting and applause went up from the waiting crowd. He acknowledged
+salutations right and left, though few of the faces did he know. Most
+of them were the faces of kiddies unborn when he was winning his first
+laurels in the squared ring. He leaped lightly to the raised platform
+and ducked through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a
+folding stool. Jack Ball, the referee, came over and shook his hand.
+Ball was a broken-down pugilist who for over ten years had not entered
+the ring as a principal. King was glad that he had him for referee. They
+were both old uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the
+rules, he knew Ball could be depended upon to pass it by.
+
+Aspiring young heavyweights, one after another, were climbing into the
+ring and being presented to the audience by the referee. Also, he issued
+their challenges for them.
+
+“Young Pronto,” Bill announced, “from North Sydney, challenges the
+winner for fifty pounds side bet.”
+
+The audience applauded, and applauded again as Sandel himself sprang
+through the ropes and sat down in his corner. Tom King looked across
+the ring at him curiously, for in a few minutes they would be locked
+together in merciless combat, each trying with all the force of him
+to knock the other into unconsciousness. But little could he see, for
+Sandel, like himself, had trousers and sweater on over his ring costume.
+His face was strongly handsome, crowned with a curly mop of yellow hair,
+while his thick, muscular neck hinted at bodily magnificence.
+
+Young Pronto went to one corner and then the other, shaking hands with
+the principals and dropping down out of the ring. The challenges
+went on. Ever Youth climbed through the ropes--Youth unknown, but
+insatiable--crying out to mankind that with strength and skill it would
+match issues with the winner. A few years before, in his own heyday
+of invincibleness, Tom King would have been amused and bored by these
+preliminaries. But now he sat fascinated, unable to shake the vision
+of Youth from his eyes. Always were these youngsters rising up in the
+boxing game, springing through the ropes and shouting their defiance;
+and always were the old uns going down before them. They climbed to
+success over the bodies of the old uns. And ever they came, more and
+more youngsters--Youth unquenchable and irresistible--and ever they put
+the old uns away, themselves becoming old uns and travelling the same
+downward path, while behind them, ever pressing on them, was Youth
+eternal--the new babies, grown lusty and dragging their elders down,
+with behind them more babies to the end of time--Youth that must have
+its will and that will never die.
+
+King glanced over to the press box and nodded to Morgan, of the
+Sportsman, and Corbett, of the Referee. Then he held out his hands,
+while Sid Sullivan and Charley Bates, his seconds, slipped on his gloves
+and laced them tight, closely watched by one of Sandel's seconds, who
+first examined critically the tapes on King's knuckles. A second of his
+own was in Sandel's corner, performing a like office. Sandel's trousers
+were pulled off, and, as he stood up, his sweater was skinned off over
+his head. And Tom King, looking, saw Youth incarnate, deep-chested,
+heavy-thewed, with muscles that slipped and slid like live things under
+the white satin skin. The whole body was a-crawl with life, and Tom King
+knew that it was a life that had never oozed its freshness out through
+the aching pores during the long fights wherein Youth paid its toll and
+departed not quite so young as when it entered.
+
+The two men advanced to meet each other, and, as the gong sounded and
+the seconds clattered out of the ring with the folding stools, they
+shook hands and instantly took their fighting attitudes. And instantly,
+like a mechanism of steel and springs balanced on a hair trigger, Sandel
+was in and out and in again, landing a left to the eyes, a right to the
+ribs, ducking a counter, dancing lightly away and dancing menacingly
+back again. He was swift and clever. It was a dazzling exhibition. The
+house yelled its approbation. But King was not dazzled. He had fought
+too many fights and too many youngsters. He knew the blows for what they
+were--too quick and too deft to be dangerous. Evidently Sandel was going
+to rush things from the start. It was to be expected. It was the way
+of Youth, expending its splendour and excellence in wild insurgence and
+furious onslaught, overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory
+of strength and desire.
+
+Sandel was in and out, here, there, and everywhere, light-footed and
+eager-hearted, a living wonder of white flesh and stinging muscle that
+wove itself into a dazzling fabric of attack, slipping and leaping like
+a flying shuttle from action to action through a thousand actions, all
+of them centred upon the destruction of Tom King, who stood between him
+and fortune. And Tom King patiently endured. He knew his business, and
+he knew Youth now that Youth was no longer his. There was nothing to do
+till the other lost some of his steam, was his thought, and he grinned
+to himself as he deliberately ducked so as to receive a heavy blow on
+the top of his head. It was a wicked thing to do, yet eminently fair
+according to the rules of the boxing game. A man was supposed to take
+care of his own knuckles, and, if he insisted on hitting an opponent on
+the top of the head, he did so at his own peril. King could have ducked
+lower and let the blow whiz harmlessly past, but he remembered his own
+early fights and how he smashed his first knuckle on the head of the
+Welsh Terror. He was but playing the game. That duck had accounted for
+one of Sandel's knuckles. Not that Sandel would mind it now. He would go
+on, superbly regardless, hitting as hard as ever throughout the fight.
+But later on, when the long ring battles had begun to tell, he would
+regret that knuckle and look back and remember how he smashed it on Tom
+King's head.
+
+The first round was all Sandel's, and he had the house yelling with the
+rapidity of his whirlwind rushes. He overwhelmed King with avalanches of
+punches, and King did nothing. He never struck once, contenting
+himself with covering up, blocking and ducking and clinching to avoid
+punishment. He occasionally feinted, shook his head when the weight of
+a punch landed, and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing or
+wasting an ounce of strength. Sandel must foam the froth of Youth away
+before discreet Age could dare to retaliate. All King's movements were
+slow and methodical, and his heavy-lidded, slow-moving eyes gave him the
+appearance of being half asleep or dazed. Yet they were eyes that saw
+everything, that had been trained to see everything through all his
+twenty years and odd in the ring. They were eyes that did not blink
+or waver before an impending blow, but that coolly saw and measured
+distance.
+
+Seated in his corner for the minute's rest at the end of the round, he
+lay back with outstretched legs, his arms resting on the right angle of
+the ropes, his chest and abdomen heaving frankly and deeply as he gulped
+down the air driven by the towels of his seconds. He listened with
+closed eyes to the voices of the house, “Why don't yeh fight, Tom?” many
+were crying. “Yeh ain't afraid of 'im, are yeh?”
+
+“Muscle-bound,” he heard a man on a front seat comment. “He can't move
+quicker. Two to one on Sandel, in quids.”
+
+The gong struck and the two men advanced from their corners. Sandel came
+forward fully three-quarters of the distance, eager to begin again; but
+King was content to advance the shorter distance. It was in line with
+his policy of economy. He had not been well trained, and he had not had
+enough to eat, and every step counted. Besides, he had already walked
+two miles to the ringside. It was a repetition of the first round, with
+Sandel attacking like a whirlwind and with the audience indignantly
+demanding why King did not fight. Beyond feinting and several slowly
+delivered and ineffectual blows he did nothing save block and stall
+and clinch. Sandel wanted to make the pace fast, while King, out of his
+wisdom, refused to accommodate him. He grinned with a certain wistful
+pathos in his ring-battered countenance, and went on cherishing his
+strength with the jealousy of which only Age is capable. Sandel was
+Youth, and he threw his strength away with the munificent abandon of
+Youth. To King belonged the ring generalship, the wisdom bred of long,
+aching fights. He watched with cool eyes and head, moving slowly
+and waiting for Sandel's froth to foam away. To the majority of the
+onlookers it seemed as though King was hopelessly outclassed, and they
+voiced their opinion in offers of three to one on Sandel. But there were
+wise ones, a few, who knew King of old time, and who covered what they
+considered easy money.
+
+The third round began as usual, one-sided, with Sandel doing all the
+leading, and delivering all the punishment. A half-minute had passed
+when Sandel, over-confident, left an opening. King's eyes and right arm
+flashed in the same instant. It was his first real blow--a hook, with
+the twisted arch of the arm to make it rigid, and with all the weight
+of the half-pivoted body behind it. It was like a sleepy-seeming lion
+suddenly thrusting out a lightning paw. Sandel, caught on the side of
+the jaw, was felled like a bullock. The audience gasped and murmured
+awe-stricken applause. The man was not muscle-bound, after all, and he
+could drive a blow like a trip-hammer.
+
+Sandel was shaken. He rolled over and attempted to rise, but the sharp
+yells from his seconds to take the count restrained him. He knelt on
+one knee, ready to rise, and waited, while the referee stood over him,
+counting the seconds loudly in his ear. At the ninth he rose in fighting
+attitude, and Tom King, facing him, knew regret that the blow had
+not been an inch nearer the point of the jaw. That would have been a
+knock-out, and he could have carried the thirty quid home to the missus
+and the kiddies.
+
+The round continued to the end of its three minutes, Sandel for the
+first time respectful of his opponent and King slow of movement and
+sleepy-eyed as ever. As the round neared its close, King, warned of the
+fact by sight of the seconds crouching outside ready for the spring in
+through the ropes, worked the fight around to his own corner. And when
+the gong struck, he sat down immediately on the waiting stool, while
+Sandel had to walk all the way across the diagonal of the square to his
+own corner. It was a little thing, but it was the sum of little things
+that counted. Sandel was compelled to walk that many more steps, to give
+up that much energy, and to lose a part of the precious minute of rest.
+At the beginning of every round King loafed slowly out from his corner,
+forcing his opponent to advance the greater distance. The end of every
+round found the fight manoeuvred by King into his own corner so that he
+could immediately sit down.
+
+Two more rounds went by, in which King was parsimonious of effort and
+Sandel prodigal. The latter's attempt to force a fast pace made King
+uncomfortable, for a fair percentage of the multitudinous blows showered
+upon him went home. Yet King persisted in his dogged slowness, despite
+the crying of the young hot-heads for him to go in and fight. Again,
+in the sixth round, Sandel was careless, again Tom King's fearful right
+flashed out to the jaw, and again Sandel took the nine seconds count.
+
+By the seventh round Sandel's pink of condition was gone, and he settled
+down to what he knew was to be the hardest fight in his experience. Tom
+King was an old un, but a better old un than he had ever encountered--an
+old un who never lost his head, who was remarkably able at defence,
+whose blows had the impact of a knotted club, and who had a knockout in
+either hand. Nevertheless, Tom King dared not hit often. He never
+forgot his battered knuckles, and knew that every hit must count if the
+knuckles were to last out the fight. As he sat in his corner, glancing
+across at his opponent, the thought came to him that the sum of
+his wisdom and Sandel's youth would constitute a world's champion
+heavyweight. But that was the trouble. Sandel would never become a world
+champion. He lacked the wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was
+to buy it with Youth; and when wisdom was his, Youth would have been
+spent in buying it.
+
+King took every advantage he knew. He never missed an opportunity to
+clinch, and in effecting most of the clinches his shoulder drove stiffly
+into the other's ribs. In the philosophy of the ring a shoulder was as
+good as a punch so far as damage was concerned, and a great deal better
+so far as concerned expenditure of effort. Also, in the clinches
+King rested his weight on his opponent, and was loath to let go. This
+compelled the interference of the referee, who tore them apart, always
+assisted by Sandel, who had not yet learned to rest. He could not
+refrain from using those glorious flying arms and writhing muscles of
+his, and when the other rushed into a clinch, striking shoulder against
+ribs, and with head resting under Sandel's left arm, Sandel almost
+invariably swung his right behind his own back and into the projecting
+face. It was a clever stroke, much admired by the audience, but it was
+not dangerous, and was, therefore, just that much wasted strength. But
+Sandel was tireless and unaware of limitations, and King grinned and
+doggedly endured.
+
+Sandel developed a fierce right to the body, which made it appear that
+King was taking an enormous amount of punishment, and it was only the
+old ringsters who appreciated the deft touch of King's left glove to the
+other's biceps just before the impact of the blow. It was true, the blow
+landed each time; but each time it was robbed of its power by that touch
+on the biceps. In the ninth round, three times inside a minute, King's
+right hooked its twisted arch to the jaw; and three times Sandel's body,
+heavy as it was, was levelled to the mat. Each time he took the nine
+seconds allowed him and rose to his feet, shaken and jarred, but still
+strong. He had lost much of his speed, and he wasted less effort. He was
+fighting grimly; but he continued to draw upon his chief asset, which
+was Youth. King's chief asset was experience. As his vitality had dimmed
+and his vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom
+born of the long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength. Not
+alone had he learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had
+learned how to seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away. Again
+and again, by feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle
+Sandel into leaping back, ducking, or countering. King rested, but he
+never permitted Sandel to rest. It was the strategy of Age.
+
+Early in the tenth round King began stopping the other's rushes with
+straight lefts to the face, and Sandel, grown wary, responded by drawing
+the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook
+to the side of the head. It was too high up to be vitally effective; but
+when first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black
+veil of unconsciousness across his mind. For the instant, or for the
+slighest fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased. In the one moment he
+saw his opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background
+of white, watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent
+and the background of faces. It was as if he had slept for a time and
+just opened his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was
+so microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall.
+The audience saw him totter and his knees give, and then saw him recover
+and tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder.
+
+Several times Sandel repeated the blow, keeping King partially dazed,
+and then the latter worked out his defence, which was also a counter.
+Feinting with his left he took a half-step backward, at the same time
+upper cutting with the whole strength of his right. So accurately was
+it timed that it landed squarely on Sandel's face in the full, downward
+sweep of the duck, and Sandel lifted in the air and curled backward,
+striking the mat on his head and shoulders. Twice King achieved this,
+then turned loose and hammered his opponent to the ropes. He gave Sandel
+no chance to rest or to set himself, but smashed blow in upon blow till
+the house rose to its feet and the air was filled with an unbroken roar
+of applause. But Sandel's strength and endurance were superb, and he
+continued to stay on his feet. A knock-out seemed certain, and a captain
+of police, appalled at the dreadful punishment, arose by the ringside
+to stop the fight. The gong struck for the end of the round and Sandel
+staggered to his corner, protesting to the captain that he was sound
+and strong. To prove it, he threw two back-air-springs, and the police
+captain gave in.
+
+Tom King, leaning back in his corner and breathing hard, was
+disappointed. If the fight had been stopped, the referee, perforce,
+would have rendered him the decision and the purse would have been his.
+Unlike Sandel, he was not fighting for glory or career, but for thirty
+quid. And now Sandel would recuperate in the minute of rest.
+
+Youth will be served--this saying flashed into King's mind, and he
+remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put
+away Stowsher Bill. The toff who had bought him a drink after the fight
+and patted him on the shoulder had used those words. Youth will be
+served! The toff was right. And on that night in the long ago he had
+been Youth. To-night Youth sat in the opposite corner. As for himself,
+he had been fighting for half an hour now, and he was an old man. Had
+he fought like Sandel, he would not have lasted fifteen minutes. But the
+point was that he did not recuperate. Those upstanding arteries and
+that sorely tried heart would not enable him to gather strength in the
+intervals between the rounds. And he had not had sufficient strength in
+him to begin with. His legs were heavy under him and beginning to cramp.
+He should not have walked those two miles to the fight. And there was
+the steak which he had got up longing for that morning. A great and
+terrible hatred rose up in him for the butchers who had refused him
+credit. It was hard for an old man to go into a fight without enough
+to eat. And a piece of steak was such a little thing, a few pennies at
+best; yet it meant thirty quid to him.
+
+With the gong that opened the eleventh round, Sandel rushed, making a
+show of freshness which he did not really possess. King knew it for what
+it was--a bluff as old as the game itself. He clinched to save himself,
+then, going free, allowed Sandel to get set. This was what King desired.
+He feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward
+hook, then made the half-step backward, delivered the upper cut full to
+the face and crumpled Sandel over to the mat. After that he never
+let him rest, receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more,
+smashing Sandel to the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of
+blows into him, tearing away from his clinches or punching him out of
+attempted clinches, and ever when Sandel would have fallen, catching him
+with one uplifting hand and with the other immediately smashing him into
+the ropes where he could not fall.
+
+The house by this time had gone mad, and it was his house, nearly every
+voice yelling: “Go it, Tom!” “Get 'im! Get 'im!” “You've got 'im, Tom!
+You've got 'im!” It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a
+ringside audience paid to see.
+
+And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now
+expended it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him. It
+was his one chance--now or not at all. His strength was waning fast, and
+his hope was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have
+beaten his opponent down for the count. And as he continued to strike
+and force, coolly estimating the weight of his blows and the quality of
+the damage wrought, he realized how hard a man Sandel was to knock out.
+Stamina and endurance were his to an extreme degree, and they were the
+virgin stamina and endurance of Youth. Sandel was certainly a coming
+man. He had it in him. Only out of such rugged fibre were successful
+fighters fashioned.
+
+Sandel was reeling and staggering, but Tom King's legs were cramping
+and his knuckles going back on him. Yet he steeled himself to strike the
+fierce blows, every one of which brought anguish to his tortured hands.
+Though now he was receiving practically no punishment, he was weakening
+as rapidly as the other. His blows went home, but there was no longer
+the weight behind them, and each blow was the result of a severe effort
+of will. His legs were like lead, and they dragged visibly under
+him; while Sandel's backers, cheered by this symptom, began calling
+encouragement to their man.
+
+King was spurred to a burst of effort. He delivered two blows in
+succession--a left, a trifle too high, to the solar plexus, and a right
+cross to the jaw. They were not heavy blows, yet so weak and dazed was
+Sandel that he went down and lay quivering. The referee stood over him,
+shouting the count of the fatal seconds in his ear. If before the tenth
+second was called, he did not rise, the fight was lost. The house stood
+in hushed silence. King rested on trembling legs. A mortal dizziness was
+upon him, and before his eyes the sea of faces sagged and swayed, while
+to his ears, as from a remote distance, came the count of the referee.
+Yet he looked upon the fight as his. It was impossible that a man so
+punished could rise.
+
+Only Youth could rise, and Sandel rose. At the fourth second he rolled
+over on his face and groped blindly for the ropes. By the seventh second
+he had dragged himself to his knee, where he rested, his head rolling
+groggily on his shoulders. As the referee cried “Nine!” Sandel stood
+upright, in proper stalling position, his left arm wrapped about his
+face, his right wrapped about his stomach. Thus were his vital points
+guarded, while he lurched forward toward King in the hope of effecting a
+clinch and gaining more time.
+
+At the instant Sandel arose, King was at him, but the two blows he
+delivered were muffled on the stalled arms. The next moment Sandel was
+in the clinch and holding on desperately while the referee strove to
+drag the two men apart. King helped to force himself free. He knew the
+rapidity with which Youth recovered, and he knew that Sandel was his if
+he could prevent that recovery. One stiff punch would do it. Sandel
+was his, indubitably his. He had out-generalled him, out-fought him,
+out-pointed him. Sandel reeled out of the clinch, balanced on the hair
+line between defeat or survival. One good blow would topple him over
+and down and out. And Tom King, in a flash of bitterness, remembered
+the piece of steak and wished that he had it then behind that necessary
+punch he must deliver. He nerved himself for the blow, but it was
+not heavy enough nor swift enough. Sandel swayed, but did not fall,
+staggering back to the ropes and holding on. King staggered after him,
+and, with a pang like that of dissolution, delivered another blow.
+But his body had deserted him. All that was left of him was a fighting
+intelligence that was dimmed and clouded from exhaustion. The blow that
+was aimed for the jaw struck no higher than the shoulder. He had willed
+the blow higher, but the tired muscles had not been able to obey. And,
+from the impact of the blow, Tom King himself reeled back and nearly
+fell. Once again he strove. This time his punch missed altogether, and,
+from absolute weakness, he fell against Sandel and clinched, holding on
+to him to save himself from sinking to the floor.
+
+King did not attempt to free himself. He had shot his bolt. He was
+gone. And Youth had been served. Even in the clinch he could feel Sandel
+growing stronger against him. When the referee thrust them apart, there,
+before his eyes, he saw Youth recuperate. From instant to instant Sandel
+grew stronger. His punches, weak and futile at first, became stiff and
+accurate. Tom King's bleared eyes saw the gloved fist driving at his
+jaw, and he willed to guard it by interposing his arm. He saw the
+danger, willed the act; but the arm was too heavy. It seemed burdened
+with a hundredweight of lead. It would not lift itself, and he strove to
+lift it with his soul. Then the gloved fist landed home. He experienced
+a sharp snap that was like an electric spark, and, simultaneously, the
+veil of blackness enveloped him.
+
+When he opened his eyes again he was in his corner, and he heard the
+yelling of the audience like the roar of the surf at Bondi Beach. A wet
+sponge was being pressed against the base of his brain, and Sid Sullivan
+was blowing cold water in a refreshing spray over his face and chest.
+His gloves had already been removed, and Sandel, bending over him, was
+shaking his hand. He bore no ill-will toward the man who had put him
+out and he returned the grip with a heartiness that made his battered
+knuckles protest. Then Sandel stepped to the centre of the ring and
+the audience hushed its pandemonium to hear him accept young Pronto's
+challenge and offer to increase the side bet to one hundred pounds. King
+looked on apathetically while his seconds mopped the streaming water
+from him, dried his face, and prepared him to leave the ring. He felt
+hungry. It was not the ordinary, gnawing kind, but a great faintness,
+a palpitation at the pit of the stomach that communicated itself to all
+his body. He remembered back into the fight to the moment when he had
+Sandel swaying and tottering on the hair-line balance of defeat. Ah,
+that piece of steak would have done it! He had lacked just that for
+the decisive blow, and he had lost. It was all because of the piece of
+steak.
+
+His seconds were half-supporting him as they helped him through the
+ropes. He tore free from them, ducked through the ropes unaided, and
+leaped heavily to the floor, following on their heels as they forced a
+passage for him down the crowded centre aisle. Leaving the dressing-room
+for the street, in the entrance to the hall, some young fellow spoke to
+him.
+
+“W'y didn't yuh go in an' get 'im when yuh 'ad 'im?” the young fellow
+asked.
+
+“Aw, go to hell!” said Tom King, and passed down the steps to the
+sidewalk.
+
+The doors of the public-house at the corner were swinging wide, and
+he saw the lights and the smiling barmaids, heard the many voices
+discussing the fight and the prosperous chink of money on the bar.
+Somebody called to him to have a drink. He hesitated perceptibly, then
+refused and went on his way.
+
+He had not a copper in his pocket, and the two-mile walk home seemed
+very long. He was certainly getting old. Crossing the Domain, he sat
+down suddenly on a bench, unnerved by the thought of the missus sitting
+up for him, waiting to learn the outcome of the fight. That was harder
+than any knockout, and it seemed almost impossible to face.
+
+He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him
+that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week
+before he could grip a pick handle or a shovel. The hunger palpitation
+at the pit of the stomach was sickening. His wretchedness overwhelmed
+him, and into his eyes came an unwonted moisture. He covered his face
+with his hands, and, as he cried, he remembered Stowsher Bill and how
+he had served him that night in the long ago. Poor old Stowsher Bill!
+He could understand now why Bill had cried in the dressing-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's When God Laughs and Other Stories, by Jack London
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GOD LAUGHS AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2545-0.txt or 2545-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/4/2545/
+
+Produced by Les Bowler
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/2545-0.zip b/2545-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1a66ac7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2545-0.zip
diff --git a/2545-h.zip b/2545-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..67d5286
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2545-h.zip
diff --git a/2545-h/2545-h.htm b/2545-h/2545-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..54b955a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2545-h/2545-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,7279 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      When God Laughs, and Other Stories, by Jack London
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's When God Laughs and Other Stories, by Jack London
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: When God Laughs and Other Stories
+
+Author: Jack London
+
+Release Date: December 14, 2008 [EBook #2545]
+Last Updated: March 3, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GOD LAUGHS AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Les Bowler, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      WHEN GOD LAUGHS,<br /><br /> AND OTHER STORIES
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Jack London
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1911 Mills and Boon edition
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#linkgod"> WHEN GOD LAUGHS </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE APOSTATE </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> A WICKED WOMAN </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> JUST MEAT </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> CREATED HE THEM </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE CHINAGO </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> MAKE WESTING </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> SEMPER IDEM </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> A NOSE FOR THE KING </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE &ldquo;FRANCIS SPAIGHT&rdquo; </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A CURIOUS FRAGMENT </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> A PIECE OF STEAK </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><a name="linkgod" id="linkgod"></a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      WHEN GOD LAUGHS (with compliments to Harry Cowell)
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;The gods, the gods are stronger; time
+      Falls down before them, all men's knees
+      Bow, all men's prayers and sorrows climb
+      Like incense toward them; yea, for these
+          Are gods, Felise.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Carquinez had relaxed finally. He stole a glance at the rattling windows,
+      looked upward at the beamed roof, and listened for a moment to the savage
+      roar of the south-easter as it caught the bungalow in its bellowing jaws.
+      Then he held his glass between him and the fire and laughed for joy
+      through the golden wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is beautiful,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is sweetly sweet. It is a woman's wine,
+      and it was made for gray-robed saints to drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We grow it on our own warm hills,&rdquo; I said, with pardonable California
+      pride. &ldquo;You rode up yesterday through the vines from which it was made.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was worth while to get Carquinez to loosen up. Nor was he ever really
+      himself until he felt the mellow warmth of the vine singing in his blood.
+      He was an artist, it is true, always an artist; but somehow, sober, the
+      high pitch and lilt went out of his thought-processes and he was prone to
+      be as deadly dull as a British Sunday&mdash;not dull as other men are
+      dull, but dull when measured by the sprightly wight that Monte Carquinez
+      was when he was really himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From all this it must not be inferred that Carquinez, who is my dear
+      friend and dearer comrade, was a sot. Far from it. He rarely erred. As I
+      have said, he was an artist. He knew when he had enough, and enough, with
+      him, was equilibrium&mdash;the equilibrium that is yours and mine when we
+      are sober.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His was a wise and instinctive temperateness that savoured of the Greek.
+      Yet he was far from Greek. &ldquo;I am Aztec, I am Inca, I am Spaniard,&rdquo; I have
+      heard him say. And in truth he looked it, a compound of strange and
+      ancient races, what with his swarthy skin and the asymmetry and
+      primitiveness of his features. His eyes, under massively arched brows,
+      were wide apart and black with the blackness that is barbaric, while
+      before them was perpetually falling down a great black mop of hair through
+      which he gazed like a roguish satyr from a thicket. He invariably wore a
+      soft flannel shirt under his velvet-corduroy jacket, and his necktie was
+      red. This latter stood for the red flag (he had once lived with the
+      socialists of Paris), and it symbolized the blood and brotherhood of man.
+      Also, he had never been known to wear anything on his head save a
+      leather-banded sombrero. It was even rumoured that he had been born with
+      this particular piece of headgear. And in my experience it was provocative
+      of nothing short of sheer delight to see that Mexican sombrero hailing a
+      cab in Piccadilly or storm-tossed in the crush for the New York Elevated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I have said, Carquinez was made quick by wine&mdash;&ldquo;as the clay was
+      made quick when God breathed the breath of life into it,&rdquo; was his way of
+      saying it. I confess that he was blasphemously intimate with God; and I
+      must add that there was no blasphemy in him. He was at all times honest,
+      and, because he was compounded of paradoxes, greatly misunderstood by
+      those who did not know him. He could be as elementally raw at times as a
+      screaming savage; and at other times as delicate as a maid, as subtle as a
+      Spaniard. And&mdash;well, was he not Aztec? Inca? Spaniard?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now I must ask pardon for the space I have given him. (He is my
+      friend, and I love him.) The house was shaking to the storm, as he drew
+      closer to the fire and laughed at it through his wine. He looked at me,
+      and by the added lustre of his eye, and by the alertness of it, I knew
+      that at last he was pitched in his proper key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so you think you've won out against the gods?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the gods?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose will but theirs has put satiety upon man?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And whence the will in me to escape satiety?&rdquo; I asked triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Again the gods,&rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;It is their game we play. They deal and
+      shuffle all the cards... and take the stakes. Think not that you have
+      escaped by fleeing from the mad cities. You with your vine-clad hills,
+      your sunsets and your sunrises, your homely fare and simple round of
+      living!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've watched you ever since I came. You have not won. You have
+      surrendered. You have made terms with the enemy. You have made confession
+      that you are tired. You have flown the white flag of fatigue. You have
+      nailed up a notice to the effect that life is ebbing down in you. You have
+      run away from life. You have played a trick, shabby trick. You have balked
+      at the game. You refuse to play. You have thrown your cards under the
+      table and run away to hide, here amongst your hills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tossed his straight hair back from his flashing eyes, and scarcely
+      interrupted to roll a long, brown, Mexican cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the gods know. It is an old trick. All the generations of man have
+      tried it... and lost. The gods know how to deal with such as you. To
+      pursue is to possess, and to possess is to be sated. And so you, in your
+      wisdom, have refused any longer to pursue. You have elected surcease. Very
+      well. You will become sated with surcease. You say you have escaped
+      satiety! You have merely bartered it for senility. And senility is another
+      name for satiety. It is satiety's masquerade. Bah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But look at me!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carquinez was ever a demon for haling ones soul out and making rags and
+      tatters of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked me witheringly up and down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see no signs,&rdquo; I challenged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Decay is insidious,&rdquo; he retorted. &ldquo;You are rotten ripe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed and forgave him for his very deviltry. But he refused to be
+      forgiven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I not know?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;The gods always win. I have watched men play
+      for years what seemed a winning game. In the end they lost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you ever make mistakes?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He blew many meditative rings of smoke before replying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I was nearly fooled, once. Let me tell you. There was Marvin Fiske.
+      You remember him? And his Dantesque face and poet's soul, singing his
+      chant of the flesh, the very priest of Love? And there was Ethel Baird,
+      whom also you must remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A warm saint,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is she! Holy as Love, and sweeter! Just a woman, made for love; and
+      yet&mdash;how shall I say?&mdash;drenched through with holiness as your
+      own air here is with the perfume of flowers. Well, they married. They
+      played a hand with the gods&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they won, they gloriously won!&rdquo; I broke in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carquinez looked at me pityingly, and his voice was like a funeral bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They lost. They supremely, colossally lost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the world believes otherwise,&rdquo; I ventured coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The world conjectures. The world sees only the face of things. But I
+      know. Has it ever entered your mind to wonder why she took the veil,
+      buried herself in that dolorous convent of the living dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because she loved him so, and when he died...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Speech was frozen on my lips by Carquinez's sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pat answer,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;machine-made like a piece of cotton-drill. The
+      world's judgment! And much the world knows about it. Like you, she fled
+      from life. She was beaten. She flung out the white flag of fatigue. And no
+      beleaguered city ever flew that flag in such bitterness and tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I shall tell you the whole tale, and you must believe me, for I know.
+      They had pondered the problem of satiety. They loved Love. They knew to
+      the uttermost farthing the value of Love. They loved him so well that they
+      were fain to keep him always, warm and a-thrill in their hearts. They
+      welcomed his coming; they feared to have him depart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Love was desire, they held, a delicious pain. He was ever seeking
+      easement, and when he found that for which he sought, he died. Love denied
+      was Love alive; Love granted was Love deceased. Do you follow me? They saw
+      it was not the way of life to be hungry for what it has. To eat and still
+      be hungry&mdash;man has never accomplished that feat. The problem of
+      satiety. That is it. To have and to keep the sharp famine-edge of appetite
+      at the groaning board. This was their problem, for they loved Love. Often
+      did they discuss it, with all Love's sweet ardours brimming in their eyes;
+      his ruddy blood spraying their cheeks; his voice playing in and out with
+      their voices, now hiding as a tremolo in their throats, and again shading
+      a tone with that ineffable tenderness which he alone can utter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know all this? I saw&mdash;much. More I learned from her diary.
+      This I found in it, from Fiona Macleod: 'For, truly, that wandering voice,
+      that twilight-whisper, that breath so dewy-sweet, that flame-winged
+      lute-player whom none sees but for a moment, in a rainbow-shimmer of joy,
+      or a sudden lightning-flare of passion, this exquisite mystery we call
+      Amor, comes, to some rapt visionaries at least, not with a song upon the
+      lips that all may hear, or with blithe viol of public music, but as one
+      wrought by ecstasy, dumbly eloquent with desire.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How to keep the flame-winged lute-player with his dumb eloquence of
+      desire? To feast him was to lose him. Their love for each other was a
+      great love. Their granaries were overflowing with plenitude; yet they
+      wanted to keep the sharp famine-edge of their love undulled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor were they lean little fledglings theorizing on the threshold of Love.
+      They were robust and realized souls. They had loved before, with others,
+      in the days before they met; and in those days they had throttled Love
+      with caresses, and killed him with kisses, and buried him in the pit of
+      satiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were not cold wraiths, this man and woman. They were warm human.
+      They had no Saxon soberness in their blood. The colour of it was
+      sunset-red. They glowed with it. Temperamentally theirs was the French joy
+      in the flesh. They were idealists, but their idealism was Gallic. It was
+      not tempered by the chill and sombre fluid that for the English serves as
+      blood. There was no stoicism about them. They were Americans, descended
+      out of the English, and yet the refraining and self-denying of the English
+      spirit-groping were not theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were all this that I have said, and they were made for joy, only
+      they achieved a concept. A curse on concepts! They played with logic, and
+      this was their logic.&mdash;But first let me tell you of a talk we had one
+      night. It was of Gautier's Madeline de Maupin. You remember the maid? She
+      kissed once, and once only, and kisses she would have no more. Not that
+      she found kisses were not sweet, but that she feared with repetition they
+      would cloy. Satiety again! She tried to play without stakes against the
+      gods. Now this is contrary to a rule of the game the gods themselves have
+      made. Only the rules are not posted over the table. Mortals must play in
+      order to learn the rules.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, to the logic. The man and the woman argued thus: Why kiss once
+      only? If to kiss once were wise, was it not wiser to kiss not at all? Thus
+      could they keep Love alive. Fasting, he would knock forever at their
+      hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it was out of their heredity that they achieved this unholy
+      concept. The breed will out and sometimes most fantastically. Thus in them
+      did cursed Albion array herself a scheming wanton, a bold,
+      cold-calculating, and artful hussy. After all, I do not know. But this I
+      know: it was out of their inordinate desire for joy that they forewent
+      joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As he said (I read it long afterward in one of his letters to her): 'To
+      hold you in my arms, close, and yet not close. To yearn for you, and never
+      to have you, and so always to have you.' And she: 'For you to be always
+      just beyond my reach. To be ever attaining you, and yet never attaining
+      you, and for this to last forever, always fresh and new, and always with
+      the first flush upon us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is not the way they said it. On my lips their love-philosophy is
+      mangled. And who am I to delve into their soul-stuff? I am a frog, on the
+      dank edge of a great darkness, gazing goggle-eyed at the mystery and
+      wonder of their flaming souls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they were right, as far as they went. Everything is good... as long
+      as it is unpossessed. Satiety and possession are Death's horses; they run
+      in span.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;'And time could only tutor us to eke
+       Our rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They got that from a sonnet of Alfred Austin's. It was called 'Love's
+      Wisdom.' It was the one kiss of Madeline de Maupin. How did it run?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;'Kiss we and part; no further can we go;
+       And better death than we from high to low
+   Should dwindle, or decline from strong to weak.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they were wiser. They would not kiss and part. They would not kiss at
+      all, and thus they planned to stay at Love's topmost peak. They married.
+      You were in England at the time. And never was there such a marriage. They
+      kept their secret to themselves. I did not know, then. Their rapture's
+      warmth did not cool. Their love burned with increasing brightness. Never
+      was there anything like it. The time passed, the months, the years, and
+      ever the flame-winged lute-player grew more resplendent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everybody marvelled. They became the wonderful lovers, and they were
+      greatly envied. Sometimes women pitied her because she was childless; it
+      is the form the envy of such creatures takes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I did not know their secret. I pondered and I marvelled. As first I
+      had expected, subconsciously I imagine, the passing of their love. Then I
+      became aware that it was Time that passed and Love that remained. Then I
+      became curious. What was their secret? What were the magic fetters with
+      which they bound Love to them? How did they hold the graceless elf? What
+      elixir of eternal love had they drunk together as had Tristram and Iseult
+      of old time? And whose hand had brewed the fairy drink?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I say, I was curious, and I watched them. They were love-mad. They
+      lived in an unending revel of Love. They made a pomp and ceremonial of it.
+      They saturated themselves in the art and poetry of Love. No, they were not
+      neurotics. They were sane and healthy, and they were artists. But they had
+      accomplished the impossible. They had achieved deathless desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I? I saw much of them and their everlasting miracle of Love. I
+      puzzled and wondered, and then one day&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carquinez broke off abruptly and asked, &ldquo;Have you ever read, 'Love's
+      Waiting Time'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Page wrote it&mdash;Curtis Hidden Page, I think. Well, it was that bit of
+      verse that gave me the clue. One day, in the window-seat near the big
+      piano&mdash;you remember how she could play? She used to laugh, sometimes,
+      and doubt whether it was for them I came, or for the music. She called me
+      a 'music-sot' once, a 'sound-debauchee.' What a voice he had! When he sang
+      I believed in immortality, my regard for the gods grew almost patronizing
+      and I devised ways and means whereby I surely could outwit them and their
+      tricks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a spectacle for God, that man and woman, years married, and
+      singing love-songs with a freshness virginal as new-born Love himself,
+      with a ripeness and wealth of ardour that young lovers can never know.
+      Young lovers were pale and anaemic beside that long-married pair. To see
+      them, all fire and flame and tenderness, at a trembling distance,
+      lavishing caresses of eye and voice with every action, through every
+      silence&mdash;their love driving them toward each other, and they
+      withholding like fluttering moths, each to the other a candle-flame, and
+      revolving each about the other in the mad gyrations of an amazing
+      orbit-flight! It seemed, in obedience to some great law of physics, more
+      potent than gravitation and more subtle, that they must corporeally melt
+      each into each there before my very eyes. Small wonder they were called
+      the wonderful lovers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have wandered. Now to the clue. One day in the window-seat I found a
+      book of verse. It opened of itself, betraying long habit, to 'Love's
+      Waiting Time.' The page was thumbed and limp with overhandling, and there
+      I read:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;'So sweet it is to stand but just apart,
+       To know each other better, and to keep
+       The soft, delicious sense of two that touch...
+
+       O love, not yet!...  Sweet, let us keep our love
+       Wrapped round with sacred mystery awhile,
+       Waiting the secret of the coming years,
+       That come not yet, not yet... sometime...
+                    not yet...
+
+       Oh, yet a little while our love may grow!
+       When it has blossomed it will haply die.
+       Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep,
+       Bedded in dead denial yet some while...
+       Oh, yet a little while, a little while.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I folded the book on my thumb and sat there silent and without moving for
+      a long time. I was stunned by the clearness of vision the verse had
+      imparted to me. It was illumination. It was like a bolt of God's lightning
+      in the Pit. They would keep Love, the fickle sprite, the forerunner of
+      young life&mdash;young life that is imperative to be born!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I conned the lines over in my mind&mdash;'Not yet, sometime'&mdash;'O
+      Love, not yet'&mdash;'Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep.' And I
+      laughed aloud, ha, ha! I saw with white vision their blameless souls. They
+      were children. They did not understand. They played with Nature's fire and
+      bedded with a naked sword. They laughed at the gods. They would stop the
+      cosmic sap. They had invented a system, and brought it to the gaming-table
+      of life, and expected to win out. 'Beware!' I cried. 'The gods are behind
+      the table. They make new rules for every system that is devised. You have
+      no chance to win.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I did not so cry to them. I waited. They would learn that their
+      system was worthless and throw it away. They would be content with
+      whatever happiness the gods gave them and not strive to wrest more away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I watched. I said nothing. The months continued to come and go, and still
+      the famine-edge of their love grew the sharper. Never did they dull it
+      with a permitted love-clasp. They ground and whetted it on self-denial,
+      and sharper and sharper it grew. This went on until even I doubted. Did
+      the gods sleep? I wondered. Or were they dead? I laughed to myself. The
+      man and the woman had made a miracle. They had outwitted God. They had
+      shamed the flesh, and blackened the face of the good Earth Mother. They
+      had played with her fire and not been burned. They were immune. They were
+      themselves gods, knowing good from evil and tasting not. 'Was this the way
+      gods came to be?' I asked myself. 'I am a frog,' I said. 'But for my
+      mud-lidded eyes I should have been blinded by the brightness of this
+      wonder I have witnessed. I have puffed myself up with my wisdom and passed
+      judgment upon gods.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet even in this, my latest wisdom, I was wrong. They were not gods. They
+      were man and woman&mdash;soft clay that sighed and thrilled, shot through
+      with desire, thumbed with strange weaknesses which the gods have not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carquinez broke from his narrative to roll another cigarette and to laugh
+      harshly. It was not a pretty laugh; it was like the mockery of a devil,
+      and it rose over and rode the roar of the storm that came muffled to our
+      ears from the crashing outside world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a frog,&rdquo; he said apologetically. &ldquo;How were they to understand? They
+      were artists, not biologists. They knew the clay of the studio, but they
+      did not know the clay of which they themselves were made. But this I will
+      say&mdash;they played high. Never was there such a game before, and I
+      doubt me if there will ever be such a game again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never was lovers' ecstasy like theirs. They had not killed Love with
+      kisses. They had quickened him with denial. And by denial they drove him
+      on till he was all aburst with desire. And the flame-winged lute-player
+      fanned them with his warm wings till they were all but swooning. It was
+      the very delirium of Love, and it continued undiminished and increasing
+      through the weeks and months.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They longed and yearned, with all the fond pangs and sweet delicious
+      agonies, with an intensity never felt by lovers before nor since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then one day the drowsy gods ceased nodding. They aroused and looked
+      at the man and woman who had made a mock of them. And the man and woman
+      looked into each other's eyes one morning and knew that something was
+      gone. It was the flame-winged one. He had fled, silently, in the night,
+      from their anchorites' board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They looked into each other's eyes and knew that they did not care.
+      Desire was dead. Do you understand? Desire was dead. And they had never
+      kissed. Not once had they kissed. Love was gone. They would never yearn
+      and burn again. For them there was nothing left&mdash;no more tremblings
+      and flutterings and delicious anguishes, no more throbbing and pulsing,
+      and sighing and song. Desire was dead. It had died in the night, on a
+      couch cold and unattended; nor had they witnessed its passing. They
+      learned it for the first time in each other's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gods may not be kind, but they are often merciful. They had twirled
+      the little ivory ball and swept the stakes from the table. All that
+      remained was the man and woman gazing into each other's cold eyes. And
+      then he died. That was the mercy. Within the week Marvin Fiske was dead&mdash;you
+      remember the accident. And in her diary, written at this time, I long
+      afterward read Mitchell Kennerly's:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;'There was not a single hour
+       We might have kissed and did not kiss.'&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the irony of it!&rdquo; I cried out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Carquinez, in the firelight a veritable Mephistopheles in velvet
+      jacket, fixed me with his black eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they won, you said? The world's judgment! I have told you, and I
+      know. They won as you are winning, here in your hills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you,&rdquo; I demanded hotly; &ldquo;you with your orgies of sound and sense,
+      with your mad cities and madder frolics&mdash;bethink you that you win?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head slowly. &ldquo;Because you with your sober bucolic regime,
+      lose, is no reason that I should win. We never win. Sometimes we think we
+      win. That is a little pleasantry of the gods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE APOSTATE
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Now I wake me up to work;
+      I pray the Lord I may not shirk.
+      If I should die before the night,
+      I pray the Lord my work's all right.
+                                    Amen.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don't git up, Johnny, I won't give you a bite to eat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep,
+      fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy's
+      hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at
+      the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed
+      practised familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lemme 'lone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly
+      rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died
+      away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as of
+      a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had
+      grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She got
+      a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy,
+      ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle, at the foot
+      of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding
+      to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the
+      superior weight, and the boy and bedding gave, the former instinctively
+      following the latter in order to shelter against the chill of the room
+      that bit into his body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall
+      head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted
+      himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on
+      his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook
+      him. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness.
+      At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he mumbled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll be docked,&rdquo; she warned back to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not mind the darkness. When he had got into his clothes, he went
+      out into the kitchen. His tread was very heavy for so thin and light a
+      boy. His legs dragged with their own weight, which seemed unreasonable
+      because they were such skinny legs. He drew a broken-bottomed chair to the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Johnny,&rdquo; his mother called sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word, went to the sink.
+      It was a greasy, filthy sink. A smell came up from the outlet. He took no
+      notice of it. That a sink should smell was to him part of the natural
+      order, just as it was a part of the natural order that the soap should be
+      grimy with dish-water and hard to lather. Nor did he try very hard to make
+      it lather. Several splashes of the cold water from the running faucet
+      completed the function. He did not wash his teeth. For that matter he had
+      never seen a toothbrush, nor did he know that there existed beings in the
+      world who were guilty of so great a foolishness as tooth washing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might wash yourself wunst a day without bein' told,&rdquo; his mother
+      complained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was holding a broken lid on the pot as she poured two cups of coffee.
+      He made no remark, for this was a standing quarrel between them, and the
+      one thing upon which his mother was hard as adamant. &ldquo;Wunst&rdquo; a day it was
+      compulsory that he should wash his face. He dried himself on a greasy
+      towel, damp and dirty and ragged, that left his face covered with shreds
+      of lint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish we didn't live so far away,&rdquo; she said, as he sat down. &ldquo;I try to
+      do the best I can. You know that. But a dollar on the rent is such a
+      savin', an' we've more room here. You know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He scarcely followed her. He had heard it all before, many times. The
+      range of her thought was limited, and she was ever harking back to the
+      hardship worked upon them by living so far from the mills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A dollar means more grub,&rdquo; he remarked sententiously. &ldquo;I'd sooner do the
+      walkin' an' git the grub.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ate hurriedly, half chewing the bread and washing the unmasticated
+      chunks down with coffee. The hot and muddy liquid went by the name of
+      coffee. Johnny thought it was coffee&mdash;and excellent coffee. That was
+      one of the few of life's illusions that remained to him. He had never
+      drunk real coffee in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to the bread, there was a small piece of cold pork. His mother
+      refilled his cup with coffee. As he was finishing the bread, he began to
+      watch if more was forthcoming. She intercepted his questioning glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny,&rdquo; was her comment. &ldquo;You've had your share.
+      Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not answer the rebuke. He was not much of a talker. Also, he ceased
+      his hungry glancing for more. He was uncomplaining, with a patience that
+      was as terrible as the school in which it had been learned. He finished
+      his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and started to rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a second,&rdquo; she said hastily. &ldquo;I guess the loaf kin stand you another
+      slice&mdash;a thin un.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was legerdemain in her actions. With all the seeming of cutting a
+      slice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice back in the bread box
+      and conveyed to him one of her own two slices. She believed she had
+      deceived him, but he had noted her sleight-of-hand. Nevertheless, he took
+      the bread shamelessly. He had a philosophy that his mother, because of her
+      chronic sickliness, was not much of an eater anyway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached over and emptied
+      her coffee cup into his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning,&rdquo; she explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A distant whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of them to their
+      feet. She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf. The hands stood at
+      half-past five. The rest of the factory world was just arousing from
+      sleep. She drew a shawl about her shoulders, and on her head put a dingy
+      hat, shapeless and ancient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've got to run,&rdquo; she said, turning the wick of the lamp and blowing
+      down the chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They groped their way out and down the stairs. It was clear and cold, and
+      Johnny shivered at the first contact with the outside air. The stars had
+      not yet begun to pale in the sky, and the city lay in blackness. Both
+      Johnny and his mother shuffled their feet as they walked. There was no
+      ambition in the leg muscles to swing the feet clear of the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After fifteen silent minutes, his mother turned off to the right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be late,&rdquo; was her final warning from out of the dark that was
+      swallowing her up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made no response, steadily keeping on his way. In the factory quarter,
+      doors were opening everywhere, and he was soon one of a multitude that
+      pressed onward through the dark. As he entered the factory gate the
+      whistle blew again. He glanced at the east. Across a ragged sky-line of
+      housetops a pale light was beginning to creep. This much he saw of the day
+      as he turned his back upon it and joined his work gang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his place in one of many long rows of machines. Before him, above
+      a bin filled with small bobbins, were large bobbins revolving rapidly.
+      Upon these he wound the jute-twine of the small bobbins. The work was
+      simple. All that was required was celerity. The small bobbins were emptied
+      so rapidly, and there were so many large bobbins that did the emptying,
+      that there were no idle moments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He worked mechanically. When a small bobbin ran out, he used his left hand
+      for a brake, stopping the large bobbin and at the same time, with thumb
+      and forefinger, catching the flying end of twine. Also, at the same time,
+      with his right hand, he caught up the loose twine-end of a small bobbin.
+      These various acts with both hands were performed simultaneously and
+      swiftly. Then there would come a flash of his hands as he looped the
+      weaver's knot and released the bobbin. There was nothing difficult about
+      weaver's knots. He once boasted he could tie them in his sleep. And for
+      that matter, he sometimes did, toiling centuries long in a single night at
+      tying an endless succession of weaver's knots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the boys shirked, wasting time and machinery by not replacing the
+      small bobbins when they ran out. And there was an overseer to prevent
+      this. He caught Johnny's neighbour at the trick, and boxed his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at Johnny there&mdash;why ain't you like him?&rdquo; the overseer
+      wrathfully demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny's bobbins were running full blast, but he did not thrill at the
+      indirect praise. There had been a time... but that was long ago, very long
+      ago. His apathetic face was expressionless as he listened to himself being
+      held up as a shining example. He was the perfect worker. He knew that. He
+      had been told so, often. It was a commonplace, and besides it didn't seem
+      to mean anything to him any more. From the perfect worker he had evolved
+      into the perfect machine. When his work went wrong, it was with him as
+      with the machine, due to faulty material. It would have been as possible
+      for a perfect nail-die to cut imperfect nails as for him to make a
+      mistake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And small wonder. There had never been a time when he had not been in
+      intimate relationship with machines. Machinery had almost been bred into
+      him, and at any rate he had been brought up on it. Twelve years before,
+      there had been a small flutter of excitement in the loom room of this very
+      mill. Johnny's mother had fainted. They stretched her out on the floor in
+      the midst of the shrieking machines. A couple of elderly women were called
+      from their looms. The foreman assisted. And in a few minutes there was one
+      more soul in the loom room than had entered by the doors. It was Johnny,
+      born with the pounding, crashing roar of the looms in his ears, drawing
+      with his first breath the warm, moist air that was thick with flying lint.
+      He had coughed that first day in order to rid his lungs of the lint; and
+      for the same reason he had coughed ever since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy alongside of Johnny whimpered and sniffed. The boy's face was
+      convulsed with hatred for the overseer who kept a threatening eye on him
+      from a distance; but every bobbin was running full. The boy yelled
+      terrible oaths into the whirling bobbins before him; but the sound did not
+      carry half a dozen feet, the roaring of the room holding it in and
+      containing it like a wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all this Johnny took no notice. He had a way of accepting things.
+      Besides, things grow monotonous by repetition, and this particular
+      happening he had witnessed many times. It seemed to him as useless to
+      oppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine. Machines were made
+      to go in certain ways and to perform certain tasks. It was the same with
+      the overseer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at eleven o'clock there was excitement in the room. In an apparently
+      occult way the excitement instantly permeated everywhere. The one-legged
+      boy who worked on the other side of Johnny bobbed swiftly across the floor
+      to a bin truck that stood empty. Into this he dived out of sight, crutch
+      and all. The superintendent of the mill was coming along, accompanied by a
+      young man. He was well dressed and wore a starched shirt&mdash;a
+      gentleman, in Johnny's classification of men, and also, &ldquo;the Inspector.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked sharply at the boys as he passed along. Sometimes he stopped and
+      asked questions. When he did so, he was compelled to shout at the top of
+      his lungs, at which moments his face was ludicrously contorted with the
+      strain of making himself heard. His quick eye noted the empty machine
+      alongside of Johnny's, but he said nothing. Johnny also caught his eye,
+      and he stopped abruptly. He caught Johnny by the arm to draw him back a
+      step from the machine; but with an exclamation of surprise he released the
+      arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty skinny,&rdquo; the superintendent laughed anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pipe stems,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;Look at those legs. The boy's got the
+      rickets&mdash;incipient, but he's got them. If epilepsy doesn't get him in
+      the end, it will be because tuberculosis gets him first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny listened, but did not understand. Furthermore he was not interested
+      in future ills. There was an immediate and more serious ill that
+      threatened him in the form of the inspector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, my boy, I want you to tell me the truth,&rdquo; the inspector said, or
+      shouted, bending close to the boy's ear to make him hear. &ldquo;How old are
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fourteen,&rdquo; Johnny lied, and he lied with the full force of his lungs. So
+      loudly did he lie that it started him off in a dry, hacking cough that
+      lifted the lint which had been settling in his lungs all morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks sixteen at least,&rdquo; said the superintendent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or sixty,&rdquo; snapped the inspector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's always looked that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long?&rdquo; asked the inspector, quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For years. Never gets a bit older.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or younger, I dare say. I suppose he's worked here all those years?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Off and on&mdash;but that was before the new law was passed,&rdquo; the
+      superintendent hastened to add.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Machine idle?&rdquo; the inspector asked, pointing at the unoccupied machine
+      beside Johnny's, in which the part-filled bobbins were flying like mad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks that way.&rdquo; The superintendent motioned the overseer to him and
+      shouted in his ear and pointed at the machine. &ldquo;Machine's idle,&rdquo; he
+      reported back to the inspector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They passed on, and Johnny returned to his work, relieved in that the ill
+      had been averted. But the one-legged boy was not so fortunate. The
+      sharp-eyed inspector haled him out at arms length from the bin truck. His
+      lips were quivering, and his face had all the expression of one upon whom
+      was fallen profound and irremediable disaster. The overseer looked
+      astounded, as though for the first time he had laid eyes on the boy, while
+      the superintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know him,&rdquo; the inspector said. &ldquo;He's twelve years old. I've had him
+      discharged from three factories inside the year. This makes the fourth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to the one-legged boy. &ldquo;You promised me, word and honour, that
+      you'd go to school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The one-legged boy burst into tears. &ldquo;Please, Mr. Inspector, two babies
+      died on us, and we're awful poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you cough that way?&rdquo; the inspector demanded, as though
+      charging him with crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as in denial of guilt, the one-legged boy replied: &ldquo;It ain't nothin'.
+      I jes' caught a cold last week, Mr. Inspector, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end the one-legged boy went out of the room with the inspector, the
+      latter accompanied by the anxious and protesting superintendent. After
+      that monotony settled down again. The long morning and the longer
+      afternoon wore away and the whistle blew for quitting time. Darkness had
+      already fallen when Johnny passed out through the factory gate. In the
+      interval the sun had made a golden ladder of the sky, flooded the world
+      with its gracious warmth, and dropped down and disappeared in the west
+      behind a ragged sky-line of housetops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Supper was the family meal of the day&mdash;the one meal at which Johnny
+      encountered his younger brothers and sisters. It partook of the nature of
+      an encounter, to him, for he was very old, while they were distressingly
+      young. He had no patience with their excessive and amazing juvenility. He
+      did not understand it. His own childhood was too far behind him. He was
+      like an old and irritable man, annoyed by the turbulence of their young
+      spirits that was to him arrant silliness. He glowered silently over his
+      food, finding compensation in the thought that they would soon have to go
+      to work. That would take the edge off of them and make them sedate and
+      dignified&mdash;like him. Thus it was, after the fashion of the human,
+      that Johnny made of himself a yardstick with which to measure the
+      universe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the meal, his mother explained in various ways and with infinite
+      repetition that she was trying to do the best she could; so that it was
+      with relief, the scant meal ended, that Johnny shoved back his chair and
+      arose. He debated for a moment between bed and the front door, and finally
+      went out the latter. He did not go far. He sat down on the stoop, his
+      knees drawn up and his narrow shoulders drooping forward, his elbows on
+      his knees and the palms of his hands supporting his chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he sat there, he did no thinking. He was just resting. So far as his
+      mind was concerned, it was asleep. His brothers and sisters came out, and
+      with other children played noisily about him. An electric globe at the
+      corner lighted their frolics. He was peevish and irritable, that they
+      knew; but the spirit of adventure lured them into teasing him. They joined
+      hands before him, and, keeping time with their bodies, chanted in his face
+      weird and uncomplimentary doggerel. At first he snarled curses at them&mdash;curses
+      he had learned from the lips of various foremen. Finding this futile, and
+      remembering his dignity, he relapsed into dogged silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His brother Will, next to him in age, having just passed his tenth
+      birthday, was the ringleader. Johnny did not possess particularly kindly
+      feelings toward him. His life had early been embittered by continual
+      giving over and giving way to Will. He had a definite feeling that Will
+      was greatly in his debt and was ungrateful about it. In his own playtime,
+      far back in the dim past, he had been robbed of a large part of that
+      playtime by being compelled to take care of Will. Will was a baby then,
+      and then, as now, their mother had spent her days in the mills. To Johnny
+      had fallen the part of little father and little mother as well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will seemed to show the benefit of the giving over and the giving way. He
+      was well-built, fairly rugged, as tall as his elder brother and even
+      heavier. It was as though the life-blood of the one had been diverted into
+      the other's veins. And in spirits it was the same. Johnny was jaded, worn
+      out, without resilience, while his younger brother seemed bursting and
+      spilling over with exuberance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mocking chant rose louder and louder. Will leaned closer as he danced,
+      thrusting out his tongue. Johnny's left arm shot out and caught the other
+      around the neck. At the same time he rapped his bony fist to the other's
+      nose. It was a pathetically bony fist, but that it was sharp to hurt was
+      evidenced by the squeal of pain it produced. The other children were
+      uttering frightened cries, while Johnny's sister, Jennie, had dashed into
+      the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thrust Will from him, kicked him savagely on the shins, then reached
+      for him and slammed him face downward in the dirt. Nor did he release him
+      till the face had been rubbed into the dirt several times. Then the mother
+      arrived, an anaemic whirlwind of solicitude and maternal wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why can't he leave me alone?&rdquo; was Johnny's reply to her upbraiding.
+      &ldquo;Can't he see I'm tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm as big as you,&rdquo; Will raged in her arms, his face a mass of tears,
+      dirt, and blood. &ldquo;I'm as big as you now, an' I'm goin' to git bigger. Then
+      I'll lick you&mdash;see if I don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to be to work, seein' how big you are,&rdquo; Johnny snarled. &ldquo;That's
+      what's the matter with you. You ought to be to work. An' it's up to your
+      ma to put you to work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he's too young,&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;He's only a little boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was younger'n him when I started to work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny's mouth was open, further to express the sense of unfairness that
+      he felt, but the mouth closed with a snap. He turned gloomily on his heel
+      and stalked into the house and to bed. The door of his room was open to
+      let in warmth from the kitchen. As he undressed in the semi-darkness he
+      could hear his mother talking with a neighbour woman who had dropped in.
+      His mother was crying, and her speech was punctuated with spiritless
+      sniffles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't make out what's gittin' into Johnny,&rdquo; he could hear her say. &ldquo;He
+      didn't used to be this way. He was a patient little angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' he is a good boy,&rdquo; she hastened to defend. &ldquo;He's worked faithful, an'
+      he did go to work too young. But it wasn't my fault. I do the best I can,
+      I'm sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Prolonged sniffling from the kitchen, and Johnny murmured to himself as
+      his eyelids closed down, &ldquo;You betcher life I've worked faithful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning he was torn bodily by his mother from the grip of sleep.
+      Then came the meagre breakfast, the tramp through the dark, and the pale
+      glimpse of day across the housetops as he turned his back on it and went
+      in through the factory gate. It was another day, of all the days, and all
+      the days were alike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet there had been variety in his life&mdash;at the times he changed
+      from one job to another, or was taken sick. When he was six, he was little
+      mother and father to Will and the other children still younger. At seven
+      he went into the mills&mdash;winding bobbins. When he was eight, he got
+      work in another mill. His new job was marvellously easy. All he had to do
+      was to sit down with a little stick in his hand and guide a stream of
+      cloth that flowed past him. This stream of cloth came out of the maw of a
+      machine, passed over a hot roller, and went on its way elsewhere. But he
+      sat always in one place, beyond the reach of daylight, a gas-jet flaring
+      over him, himself part of the mechanism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very happy at that job, in spite of the moist heat, for he was
+      still young and in possession of dreams and illusions. And wonderful
+      dreams he dreamed as he watched the steaming cloth streaming endlessly by.
+      But there was no exercise about the work, no call upon his mind, and he
+      dreamed less and less, while his mind grew torpid and drowsy.
+      Nevertheless, he earned two dollars a week, and two dollars represented
+      the difference between acute starvation and chronic underfeeding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when he was nine, he lost his job. Measles was the cause of it. After
+      he recovered, he got work in a glass factory. The pay was better, and the
+      work demanded skill. It was piecework, and the more skilful he was, the
+      bigger wages he earned. Here was incentive. And under this incentive he
+      developed into a remarkable worker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was simple work, the tying of glass stoppers into small bottles. At his
+      waist he carried a bundle of twine. He held the bottles between his knees
+      so that he might work with both hands. Thus, in a sitting position and
+      bending over his own knees, his narrow shoulders grew humped and his chest
+      was contracted for ten hours each day. This was not good for the lungs,
+      but he tied three hundred dozen bottles a day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The superintendent was very proud of him, and brought visitors to look at
+      him. In ten hours three hundred dozen bottles passed through his hands.
+      This meant that he had attained machine-like perfection. All waste
+      movements were eliminated. Every motion of his thin arms, every movement
+      of a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate. He worked at high
+      tension, and the result was that he grew nervous. At night his muscles
+      twitched in his sleep, and in the daytime he could not relax and rest. He
+      remained keyed up and his muscles continued to twitch. Also he grew sallow
+      and his lint-cough grew worse. Then pneumonia laid hold of the feeble
+      lungs within the contracted chest, and he lost his job in the glass-works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he had returned to the jute mills where he had first begun with
+      winding bobbins. But promotion was waiting for him. He was a good worker.
+      He would next go on the starcher, and later he would go into the loom
+      room. There was nothing after that except increased efficiency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The machinery ran faster than when he had first gone to work, and his mind
+      ran slower. He no longer dreamed at all, though his earlier years had been
+      full of dreaming. Once he had been in love. It was when he first began
+      guiding the cloth over the hot roller, and it was with the daughter of the
+      superintendent. She was much older than he, a young woman, and he had seen
+      her at a distance only a paltry half-dozen times. But that made no
+      difference. On the surface of the cloth stream that poured past him, he
+      pictured radiant futures wherein he performed prodigies of toil, invented
+      miraculous machines, won to the mastership of the mills, and in the end
+      took her in his arms and kissed her soberly on the brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that was all in the long ago, before he had grown too old and tired to
+      love. Also, she had married and gone away, and his mind had gone to sleep.
+      Yet it had been a wonderful experience, and he used often to look back
+      upon it as other men and women look back upon the time they believed in
+      fairies. He had never believed in fairies nor Santa Claus; but he had
+      believed implicitly in the smiling future his imagination had wrought into
+      the steaming cloth stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had become a man very early in life. At seven, when he drew his first
+      wages, began his adolescence. A certain feeling of independence crept up
+      in him, and the relationship between him and his mother changed. Somehow,
+      as an earner and breadwinner, doing his own work in the world, he was more
+      like an equal with her. Manhood, full-blown manhood, had come when he was
+      eleven, at which time he had gone to work on the night shift for six
+      months. No child works on the night shift and remains a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been several great events in his life. One of these had been
+      when his mother bought some California prunes. Two others had been the two
+      times when she cooked custard. Those had been events. He remembered them
+      kindly. And at that time his mother had told him of a blissful dish she
+      would sometime make&mdash;&ldquo;floating island,&rdquo; she had called it, &ldquo;better
+      than custard.&rdquo; For years he had looked forward to the day when he would
+      sit down to the table with floating island before him, until at last he
+      had relegated the idea of it to the limbo of unattainable ideals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once he found a silver quarter lying on the sidewalk. That, also, was a
+      great event in his life, withal a tragic one. He knew his duty on the
+      instant the silver flashed on his eyes, before even he had picked it up.
+      At home, as usual, there was not enough to eat, and home he should have
+      taken it as he did his wages every Saturday night. Right conduct in this
+      case was obvious; but he never had any spending of his money, and he was
+      suffering from candy hunger. He was ravenous for the sweets that only on
+      red-letter days he had ever tasted in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew it was sin, and
+      deliberately he sinned when he went on a fifteen-cent candy debauch. Ten
+      cents he saved for a future orgy; but not being accustomed to the carrying
+      of money, he lost the ten cents. This occurred at the time when he was
+      suffering all the torments of conscience, and it was to him an act of
+      divine retribution. He had a frightened sense of the closeness of an awful
+      and wrathful God. God had seen, and God had been swift to punish, denying
+      him even the full wages of sin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In memory he always looked back upon that as the one great criminal deed
+      of his life, and at the recollection his conscience always awoke and gave
+      him another twinge. It was the one skeleton in his closet. Also, being so
+      made, and circumstanced, he looked back upon the deed with regret. He was
+      dissatisfied with the manner in which he had spent the quarter. He could
+      have invested it better, and, out of his later knowledge of the quickness
+      of God, he would have beaten God out by spending the whole quarter at one
+      fell swoop. In retrospect he spent the quarter a thousand times, and each
+      time to better advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one other memory of the past, dim and faded, but stamped into
+      his soul everlasting by the savage feet of his father. It was more like a
+      nightmare than a remembered vision of a concrete thing&mdash;more like the
+      race-memory of man that makes him fall in his sleep and that goes back to
+      his arboreal ancestry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This particular memory never came to Johnny in broad daylight when he was
+      wide awake. It came at night, in bed, at the moment that his consciousness
+      was sinking down and losing itself in sleep. It always aroused him to
+      frightened wakefulness, and for the moment, in the first sickening start,
+      it seemed to him that he lay crosswise on the foot of the bed. In the bed
+      were the vague forms of his father and mother. He never saw what his
+      father looked like. He had but one impression of his father, and that was
+      that he had savage and pitiless feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His earlier memories lingered with him, but he had no late memories. All
+      days were alike. Yesterday or last year were the same as a thousand years&mdash;or
+      a minute. Nothing ever happened. There were no events to mark the march of
+      time. Time did not march. It stood always still. It was only the whirling
+      machines that moved, and they moved nowhere&mdash;in spite of the fact
+      that they moved faster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was fourteen, he went to work on the starcher. It was a colossal
+      event. Something had at last happened that could be remembered beyond a
+      night's sleep or a week's pay-day. It marked an era. It was a machine
+      Olympiad, a thing to date from. &ldquo;When I went to work on the starcher,&rdquo; or,
+      &ldquo;after,&rdquo; or &ldquo;before I went to work on the starcher,&rdquo; were sentences often
+      on his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He celebrated his sixteenth birthday by going into the loom room and
+      taking a loom. Here was an incentive again, for it was piece-work. And he
+      excelled, because the clay of him had been moulded by the mills into the
+      perfect machine. At the end of three months he was running two looms, and,
+      later, three and four.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of his second year at the looms he was turning out more yards
+      than any other weaver, and more than twice as much as some of the less
+      skilful ones. And at home things began to prosper as he approached the
+      full stature of his earning power. Not, however, that his increased
+      earnings were in excess of need. The children were growing up. They ate
+      more. And they were going to school, and school-books cost money. And
+      somehow, the faster he worked, the faster climbed the prices of things.
+      Even the rent went up, though the house had fallen from bad to worse
+      disrepair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had grown taller; but with his increased height he seemed leaner than
+      ever. Also, he was more nervous. With the nervousness increased his
+      peevishness and irritability. The children had learned by many bitter
+      lessons to fight shy of him. His mother respected him for his earning
+      power, but somehow her respect was tinctured with fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no joyousness in life for him. The procession of the days he
+      never saw. The nights he slept away in twitching unconsciousness. The rest
+      of the time he worked, and his consciousness was machine consciousness.
+      Outside this his mind was a blank. He had no ideals, and but one illusion;
+      namely, that he drank excellent coffee. He was a work-beast. He had no
+      mental life whatever; yet deep down in the crypts of his mind, unknown to
+      him, were being weighed and sifted every hour of his toil, every movement
+      of his hands, every twitch of his muscles, and preparations were making
+      for a future course of action that would amaze him and all his little
+      world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in the late spring that he came home from work one night aware of
+      unusual tiredness. There was a keen expectancy in the air as he sat down
+      to the table, but he did not notice. He went through the meal in moody
+      silence, mechanically eating what was before him. The children um'd and
+      ah'd and made smacking noises with their mouths. But he was deaf to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'ye know what you're eatin'?&rdquo; his mother demanded at last, desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked vacantly at the dish before him, and vacantly at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Floatin' island,&rdquo; she announced triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Floating island!&rdquo; the children chorussed loudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he said. And after two or three mouthfuls, he added, &ldquo;I guess I
+      ain't hungry to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped the spoon, shoved back his chair, and arose wearily from the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' I guess I'll go to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His feet dragged more heavily than usual as he crossed the kitchen floor.
+      Undressing was a Titan's task, a monstrous futility, and he wept weakly as
+      he crawled into bed, one shoe still on. He was aware of a rising, swelling
+      something inside his head that made his brain thick and fuzzy. His lean
+      fingers felt as big as his wrist, while in the ends of them was a
+      remoteness of sensation vague and fuzzy like his brain. The small of his
+      back ached intolerably. All his bones ached. He ached everywhere. And in
+      his head began the shrieking, pounding, crashing, roaring of a million
+      looms. All space was filled with flying shuttles. They darted in and out,
+      intricately, amongst the stars. He worked a thousand looms himself, and
+      ever they speeded up, faster and faster, and his brain unwound, faster and
+      faster, and became the thread that fed the thousand flying shuttles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not go to work next morning. He was too busy weaving colossally on
+      the thousand looms that ran inside his head. His mother went to work, but
+      first she sent for the doctor. It was a severe attack of la grippe, he
+      said. Jennie served as nurse and carried out his instructions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a very severe attack, and it was a week before Johnny dressed and
+      tottered feebly across the floor. Another week, the doctor said, and he
+      would be fit to return to work. The foreman of the loom room visited him
+      on Sunday afternoon, the first day of his convalescence. The best weaver
+      in the room, the foreman told his mother. His job would be held for him.
+      He could come back to work a week from Monday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you thank 'im, Johnny?&rdquo; his mother asked anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's ben that sick he ain't himself yet,&rdquo; she explained apologetically to
+      the visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny sat hunched up and gazing steadfastly at the floor. He sat in the
+      same position long after the foreman had gone. It was warm outdoors, and
+      he sat on the stoop in the afternoon. Sometimes his lips moved. He seemed
+      lost in endless calculations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning, after the day grew warm, he took his seat on the stoop. He
+      had pencil and paper this time with which to continue his calculations,
+      and he calculated painfully and amazingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What comes after millions?&rdquo; he asked at noon, when Will came home from
+      school. &ldquo;An' how d'ye work 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon finished his task. Each day, but without paper and pencil,
+      he returned to the stoop. He was greatly absorbed in the one tree that
+      grew across the street. He studied it for hours at a time, and was
+      unusually interested when the wind swayed its branches and fluttered its
+      leaves. Throughout the week he seemed lost in a great communion with
+      himself. On Sunday, sitting on the stoop, he laughed aloud, several times,
+      to the perturbation of his mother, who had not heard him laugh for years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning, in the early darkness, she came to his bed to rouse him. He
+      had had his fill of sleep all the week, and awoke easily. He made no
+      struggle, nor did he attempt to hold on to the bedding when she stripped
+      it from him. He lay quietly, and spoke quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't no use, ma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll be late,&rdquo; she said, under the impression that he was still stupid
+      with sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm awake, ma, an' I tell you it ain't no use. You might as well lemme
+      alone. I ain't goin' to git up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you'll lose your job!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't goin' to git up,&rdquo; he repeated in a strange, passionless voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not go to work herself that morning. This was sickness beyond any
+      sickness she had ever known. Fever and delirium she could understand; but
+      this was insanity. She pulled the bedding up over him and sent Jennie for
+      the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When that person arrived, Johnny was sleeping gently, and gently he awoke
+      and allowed his pulse to be taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing the matter with him,&rdquo; the doctor reported. &ldquo;Badly debilitated,
+      that's all. Not much meat on his bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's always been that way,&rdquo; his mother volunteered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now go 'way, ma, an' let me finish my snooze.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny spoke sweetly and placidly, and sweetly and placidly he rolled over
+      on his side and went to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At ten o'clock he awoke and dressed himself. He walked out into the
+      kitchen, where he found his mother with a frightened expression on her
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm goin' away, ma,&rdquo; he announced, &ldquo;an' I jes' want to say good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She threw her apron over her head and sat down suddenly and wept. He
+      waited patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I might a-known it,&rdquo; she was sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo; she finally asked, removing the apron from her head and gazing up
+      at him with a stricken face in which there was little curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know&mdash;anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, the tree across the street appeared with dazzling brightness
+      on his inner vision. It seemed to lurk just under his eyelids, and he
+      could see it whenever he wished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' your job?&rdquo; she quavered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't never goin' to work again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, Johnny!&rdquo; she wailed, &ldquo;don't say that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What he had said was blasphemy to her. As a mother who hears her child
+      deny God, was Johnny's mother shocked by his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's got into you, anyway?&rdquo; she demanded, with a lame attempt at
+      imperativeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Figures,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Jes' figures. I've ben doin' a lot of figurin'
+      this week, an' it's most surprisin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see what that's got to do with it,&rdquo; she sniffled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother was aware of a distinct shock at
+      the persistent absence of his peevishness and irritability.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll show you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm plum' tired out. What makes me tired?
+      Moves. I've ben movin' ever since I was born. I'm tired of movin', an' I
+      ain't goin' to move any more. Remember when I worked in the glass-house? I
+      used to do three hundred dozen a day. Now I reckon I made about ten
+      different moves to each bottle. That's thirty-six thousan' moves a day.
+      Ten days, three hundred an' sixty thousan' moves. One month, one million
+      an' eighty thousan' moves. Chuck out the eighty thousan'&rdquo;&mdash;he spoke
+      with the complacent beneficence of a philanthropist&mdash;&ldquo;chuck out the
+      eighty thousan', that leaves a million moves a month&mdash;twelve million
+      moves a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the looms I'm movin' twic'st as much. That makes twenty-five million
+      moves a year, an' it seems to me I've ben a movin' that way 'most a
+      million years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now this week I ain't moved at all. I ain't made one move in hours an'
+      hours. I tell you it was swell, jes' settin' there, hours an' hours, an'
+      doin' nothin'. I ain't never ben happy before. I never had any time. I've
+      ben movin' all the time. That ain't no way to be happy. An' I ain't going
+      to do it any more. I'm jes' goin' to set, an' set, an' rest, an' rest, and
+      then rest some more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what's goin' to come of Will an' the children?&rdquo; she asked
+      despairingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it, 'Will an' the children,'&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was no bitterness in his voice. He had long known his mother's
+      ambition for the younger boy, but the thought of it no longer rankled.
+      Nothing mattered any more. Not even that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, ma, what you've ben plannin' for Will&mdash;keepin' him in school
+      to make a book-keeper out of him. But it ain't no use, I've quit. He's got
+      to go to work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' after I have brung you up the way I have,&rdquo; she wept, starting to
+      cover her head with the apron and changing her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never brung me up,&rdquo; he answered with sad kindliness. &ldquo;I brung myself
+      up, ma, an' I brung up Will. He's bigger'n me, an' heavier, an' taller.
+      When I was a kid, I reckon I didn't git enough to eat. When he come along
+      an' was a kid, I was workin' an' earnin' grub for him too. But that's done
+      with. Will can go to work, same as me, or he can go to hell, I don't care
+      which. I'm tired. I'm goin' now. Ain't you goin' to say goodbye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no reply. The apron had gone over her head again, and she was
+      crying. He paused a moment in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sure I done the best I knew how,&rdquo; she was sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He passed out of the house and down the street. A wan delight came into
+      his face at the sight of the lone tree. &ldquo;Jes' ain't goin' to do nothin',&rdquo;
+       he said to himself, half aloud, in a crooning tone. He glanced wistfully
+      up at the sky, but the bright sun dazzled and blinded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a long walk he took, and he did not walk fast. It took him past the
+      jute-mill. The muffled roar of the loom room came to his ears, and he
+      smiled. It was a gentle, placid smile. He hated no one, not even the
+      pounding, shrieking machines. There was no bitterness in him, nothing but
+      an inordinate hunger for rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The houses and factories thinned out and the open spaces increased as he
+      approached the country. At last the city was behind him, and he was
+      walking down a leafy lane beside the railroad track. He did not walk like
+      a man. He did not look like a man. He was a travesty of the human. It was
+      a twisted and stunted and nameless piece of life that shambled like a
+      sickly ape, arms loose-hanging, stoop-shouldered, narrow-chested,
+      grotesque and terrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He passed by a small railroad station and lay down in the grass under a
+      tree. All afternoon he lay there. Sometimes he dozed, with muscles that
+      twitched in his sleep. When awake, he lay without movement, watching the
+      birds or looking up at the sky through the branches of the tree above him.
+      Once or twice he laughed aloud, but without relevance to anything he had
+      seen or felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After twilight had gone, in the first darkness of the night, a freight
+      train rumbled into the station. When the engine was switching cars on to
+      the side-track, Johnny crept along the side of the train. He pulled open
+      the side-door of an empty box-car and awkwardly and laboriously climbed
+      in. He closed the door. The engine whistled. Johnny was lying down, and in
+      the darkness he smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A WICKED WOMAN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was because she had broken with Billy that Loretta had come visiting to
+      Santa Clara. Billy could not understand. His sister had reported that he
+      had walked the floor and cried all night. Loretta had not slept all night
+      either, while she had wept most of the night. Daisy knew this, because it
+      was in her arms that the weeping had been done. And Daisy's husband,
+      Captain Kitt, knew, too. The tears of Loretta, and the comforting by
+      Daisy, had lost him some sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Captain Kitt did not like to lose sleep. Neither did he want Loretta
+      to marry Billy&mdash;nor anybody else. It was Captain Kitt's belief that
+      Daisy needed the help of her younger sister in the household. But he did
+      not say this aloud. Instead, he always insisted that Loretta was too young
+      to think of marriage. So it was Captain Kitt's idea that Loretta should be
+      packed off on a visit to Mrs. Hemingway. There wouldn't be any Billy
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Loretta had been at Santa Clara a week, she was convinced that
+      Captain Kitt's idea was a good one. In the first place, though Billy
+      wouldn't believe it, she did not want to marry Billy. And in the second
+      place, though Captain Kitt wouldn't believe it, she did not want to leave
+      Daisy. By the time Loretta had been at Santa Clara two weeks, she was
+      absolutely certain that she did not want to marry Billy. But she was not
+      so sure about not wanting to leave Daisy. Not that she loved Daisy less,
+      but that she&mdash;had doubts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day of Loretta's arrival, a nebulous plan began shaping itself in Mrs.
+      Hemingway's brain. The second day she remarked to Jack Hemingway, her
+      husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young thing that were it not for
+      her sweet guilelessness she would be positively stupid. In proof of which,
+      Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that made him chuckle. By
+      the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable form. Then it
+      was that she composed a letter. On the envelope she wrote: &ldquo;Mr. Edward
+      Bashford, Athenian Club, San Francisco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Ned,&rdquo; the letter began. She had once been violently loved by him for
+      three weeks in her pre-marital days. But she had covenanted herself to
+      Jack Hemingway, who had prior claims, and her heart as well; and Ned
+      Bashford had philosophically not broken his heart over it. He merely added
+      the experience to a large fund of similarly collected data out of which he
+      manufactured philosophy. Artistically and temperamentally he was a Greek&mdash;a
+      tired Greek. He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in token that he, too,
+      had passed through the long sickness that follows upon the ardent search
+      for truth; that he too had emerged, too experienced, too shrewd, too
+      profound, ever again to be afflicted by the madness of youths in their
+      love of truth. &ldquo;'To worship appearance,'&rdquo; he often quoted; &ldquo;'to believe in
+      forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance!'&rdquo; This
+      particular excerpt he always concluded with, &ldquo;'Those Greeks were
+      superficial&mdash;OUT OF PROFUNDITY!'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a fairly young Greek, jaded and worn. Women were faithless and
+      unveracious, he held&mdash;at such times that he had relapses and
+      descended to pessimism from his wonted high philosophical calm. He did not
+      believe in the truth of women; but, faithful to his German master, he did
+      not strip from them the airy gauzes that veiled their untruth. He was
+      content to accept them as appearances and to make the best of it. He was
+      superficial&mdash;OUT OF PROFUNDITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jack says to be sure to say to you, 'good swimming,'&rdquo; Mrs. Hemingway
+      wrote in her letter; &ldquo;and also 'to bring your fishing duds along.'&rdquo; Mrs.
+      Hemingway wrote other things in the letter. She told him that at last she
+      was prepared to exhibit to him an absolutely true, unsullied, and innocent
+      woman. &ldquo;A more guileless, immaculate bud of womanhood never blushed on the
+      planet,&rdquo; was one of the several ways in which she phrased the inducement.
+      And to her husband she said triumphantly, &ldquo;If I don't marry Ned off this
+      time&mdash;&rdquo; leaving unstated the terrible alternative that she lacked
+      either vocabulary to express or imagination to conceive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Contrary to all her forebodings, Loretta found that she was not unhappy at
+      Santa Clara. Truly, Billy wrote to her every day, but his letters were
+      less distressing than his presence. Also, the ordeal of being away from
+      Daisy was not so severe as she had expected. For the first time in her
+      life she was not lost in eclipse in the blaze of Daisy's brilliant and
+      mature personality. Under such favourable circumstances Loretta came
+      rapidly to the front, while Mrs. Hemingway modestly and shamelessly
+      retreated into the background.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Loretta began to discover that she was not a pale orb shining by
+      reflection. Quite unconsciously she became a small centre of things. When
+      she was at the piano, there was some one to turn the pages for her and to
+      express preferences for certain songs. When she dropped her handkerchief,
+      there was some one to pick it up. And there was some one to accompany her
+      in ramblings and flower gatherings. Also, she learned to cast flies in
+      still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to entangle silk lines
+      and gut-leaders with the shrubbery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jack Hemingway did not care to teach beginners, and fished much by
+      himself, or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford ample time in which to
+      consider Loretta as an appearance. As such, she was all that his
+      philosophy demanded. Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and out
+      of his profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the
+      duplicity his philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths. She
+      had the grace of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of
+      fine china, in all of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the
+      Life Force palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw&mdash;in whom
+      he believed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Loretta burgeoned. She swiftly developed personality. She discovered a
+      will of her own and wishes of her own that were not everlastingly entwined
+      with the will and the wishes of Daisy. She was petted by Jack Hemingway,
+      spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned Bashford. They
+      encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while she developed the
+      pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty and delicate women.
+      Her environment acted as a soporific upon her ancient desire always to
+      live with Daisy. This desire no longer prodded her as in the days of her
+      companionship with Billy. The more she saw of Billy, the more certain she
+      had been that she could not live away from Daisy. The more she saw of Ned
+      Bashford, the more she forgot her pressing need of Daisy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting. He confused superficiality with
+      profundity, and entangled appearance with reality until he accounted them
+      one. Loretta was different from other women. There was no masquerade about
+      her. She was real. He said as much to Mrs. Hemingway, and more, who agreed
+      with him and at the same time caught her husband's eyelid drooping down
+      for the moment in an unmistakable wink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was at this time that Loretta received a letter from Billy that was
+      somewhat different from his others. In the main, like all his letters, it
+      was pathological. It was a long recital of symptoms and sufferings, his
+      nervousness, his sleeplessness, and the state of his heart. Then followed
+      reproaches, such as he had never made before. They were sharp enough to
+      make her weep, and true enough to put tragedy into her face. This tragedy
+      she carried down to the breakfast table. It made Jack and Mrs. Hemingway
+      speculative, and it worried Ned. They glanced to him for explanation, but
+      he shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll find out to-night,&rdquo; Mrs. Hemingway said to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Ned caught Loretta in the afternoon in the big living-room. She tried
+      to turn away. He caught her hands, and she faced him with wet lashes and
+      trembling lips. He looked at her, silently and kindly. The lashes grew
+      wetter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, there, don't cry, little one,&rdquo; he said soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He put his arm protectingly around her shoulder. And to his shoulder, like
+      a tired child, she turned her face. He thrilled in ways unusual for a
+      Greek who has recovered from the long sickness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Ned,&rdquo; she sobbed on his shoulder, &ldquo;if you only knew how wicked I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled indulgently, and breathed in a great breath freighted with the
+      fragrance of her hair. He thought of his world-experience of women, and
+      drew another long breath. There seemed to emanate from her the perfect
+      sweetness of a child&mdash;&ldquo;the aura of a white soul,&rdquo; was the way he
+      phrased it to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he noticed that her sobs were increasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter, little one?&rdquo; he asked pettingly and almost paternally.
+      &ldquo;Has Jack been bullying you? Or has your dearly beloved sister failed to
+      write?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer, and he felt that he really must kiss her hair, that he
+      could not be responsible if the situation continued much longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; he said gently, &ldquo;and we'll see what I can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't. You will despise me.&mdash;Oh, Ned, I am so ashamed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed incredulously, and lightly touched her hair with his lips&mdash;so
+      lightly that she did not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear little one, let us forget all about it, whatever it is. I want to
+      tell you how I love&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She uttered a sharp cry that was all delight, and then moaned&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too late!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too late?&rdquo; he echoed in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, why did I? Why did I?&rdquo; she was moaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was aware of a swift chill at his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I... he... Billy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am such a wicked woman, Ned. I know you will never speak to me again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This&mdash;er&mdash;this Billy,&rdquo; he began haltingly. &ldquo;He is your
+      brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No... he... I didn't know. I was so young. I could not help it. Oh, I
+      shall go mad! I shall go mad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then that Loretta felt his shoulder and the encircling arm become
+      limp. He drew away from her gently, and gently he deposited her in a big
+      chair, where she buried her face and sobbed afresh. He twisted his
+      moustache fiercely, then drew up another chair and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I do not understand,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am so unhappy,&rdquo; she wailed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why unhappy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because... he... he wants me to marry him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face cleared on the instant, and he placed a hand soothingly on hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That should not make any girl unhappy,&rdquo; he remarked sagely. &ldquo;Because you
+      don't love him is no reason&mdash;of course, you don't love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Loretta shook her head and shoulders in a vigorous negative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bashford wanted to make sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she asserted explosively. &ldquo;I don't love Billy! I don't want to love
+      Billy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you don't love him,&rdquo; Bashford resumed with confidence, &ldquo;is no
+      reason that you should be unhappy just because he has proposed to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sobbed again, and from the midst of her sobs she cried&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the trouble. I wish I did love him. Oh, I wish I were dead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, my dear child, you are worrying yourself over trifles.&rdquo; His other
+      hand crossed over after its mate and rested on hers. &ldquo;Women do it every
+      day. Because you have changed your mind or did not know your mind, because
+      you have&mdash;to use an unnecessarily harsh word&mdash;jilted a man&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jilted!&rdquo; She had raised her head and was looking at him with tear-dimmed
+      eyes. &ldquo;Oh, Ned, if that were all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All?&rdquo; he asked in a hollow voice, while his hands slowly retreated from
+      hers. He was about to speak further, then remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I don't want to marry him,&rdquo; Loretta broke forth protestingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I shouldn't,&rdquo; he counselled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I ought to marry him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;OUGHT to marry him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is a strong word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it is,&rdquo; she acquiesced, while she strove to control her trembling
+      lips. Then she spoke more calmly. &ldquo;I am a wicked woman, a terribly wicked
+      woman. No one knows how wicked I am&mdash;except Billy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause. Ned Bashford's face was grave, and he looked queerly at
+      Loretta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&mdash;Billy knows?&rdquo; he asked finally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A reluctant nod and flaming cheeks was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He debated with himself for a while, seeming, like a diver, to be
+      preparing himself for the plunge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about it.&rdquo; He spoke very firmly. &ldquo;You must tell me all of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And will you&mdash;ever&mdash;forgive me?&rdquo; she asked in a faint, small
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated, drew a long breath, and made the plunge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said desperately. &ldquo;I'll forgive you. Go ahead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no one to tell me,&rdquo; she began. &ldquo;We were with each other so
+      much. I did not know anything of the world&mdash;then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused to meditate. Bashford was biting his lip impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had only known&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, go on,&rdquo; he urged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were together almost every evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Billy?&rdquo; he demanded, with a savageness that startled her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, of course, Billy. We were with each other so much... If I had only
+      known... There was no one to tell me... I was so young&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her lips parted as though to speak further, and she regarded him
+      anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The scoundrel!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his feet, no longer a tired Greek,
+      but a violently angry young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a good man,&rdquo; Loretta defended, with a
+      firmness that surprised Bashford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you'll be telling me next that it was all your fault,&rdquo; he said
+      sarcastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was all my fault,&rdquo; she said steadily. &ldquo;I should never have let him. I
+      was to blame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bashford ceased from his pacing up and down, and when he spoke, his voice
+      was resigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you
+      have been very honest. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must get
+      married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Billy?&rdquo; she asked, in a dim, far-away voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, to Billy. I'll see to it. Where does he live? I'll make him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I don't want to marry Billy!&rdquo; she cried out in alarm. &ldquo;Oh, Ned, you
+      won't do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall,&rdquo; he answered sternly. &ldquo;You must. And Billy must. Do you
+      understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Loretta buried her face in the cushioned chair back, and broke into a
+      passionate storm of sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that Bashford could make out at first, as he listened, was: &ldquo;But I
+      don't want to leave Daisy! I don't want to leave Daisy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped curiously to listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How was I to know?&mdash;Boo&mdash;hoo,&rdquo; Loretta was crying. &ldquo;He didn't
+      tell me. Nobody else ever kissed me. I never dreamed a kiss could be so
+      terrible... until, boo-hoo... until he wrote to me. I only got the letter
+      this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face brightened. It seemed as though light was dawning on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that what you're crying about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;N&mdash;no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His heart sank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what are you crying about?&rdquo; he asked in a hopeless voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you said I had to marry Billy. And I don't want to marry Billy. I
+      don't want to leave Daisy. I don't know what I want. I wish I were dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nerved himself for another effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now look here, Loretta, be sensible. What is this about kisses. You
+      haven't told me everything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I don't want to tell you everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him beseechingly in the silence that fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must I?&rdquo; she quavered finally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must,&rdquo; he said imperatively. &ldquo;You must tell me everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then... must I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He... I... we...&rdquo; she began flounderingly. Then blurted out, &ldquo;I let him,
+      and he kissed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; Bashford commanded desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All?&rdquo; There was a vast incredulity in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All?&rdquo; In her voice was an interrogation no less vast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean&mdash;er&mdash;nothing worse?&rdquo; He was overwhelmingly aware of his
+      own awkwardness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Worse?&rdquo; She was frankly puzzled. &ldquo;As though there could be! Billy said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did he say it?&rdquo; Bashford demanded abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In his letter I got this morning. Billy said that my... our... our kisses
+      were terrible if we didn't get married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bashford's head was swimming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else did Billy say?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said that when a woman allowed a man to kiss her, she always married
+      him&mdash;that it was terrible if she didn't. It was the custom, he said;
+      and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I don't like it. I know I'm
+      terrible,&rdquo; she added defiantly, &ldquo;but I can't help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bashford absent-mindedly brought out a cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mind if I smoke?&rdquo; he asked, as he struck a match.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he came to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; he cried, flinging away match and cigarette. &ldquo;I don't
+      want to smoke. I didn't mean that at all. What I mean is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bent over Loretta, caught her hands in his, then sat on the arm of the
+      chair and softly put one arm around her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loretta, I am a fool. I mean it. And I mean something more. I want you to
+      be my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He waited anxiously in the pause that followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might answer me,&rdquo; he urged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will... if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, go on. If what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I don't have to marry Billy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't marry both of us,&rdquo; he almost shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it isn't the custom... what... what Billy said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it isn't the custom. Now, Loretta, will you marry me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be angry with me,&rdquo; she pouted demurely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gathered her into his arms and kissed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish it were the custom,&rdquo; she said in a faint voice, from the midst of
+      the embrace, &ldquo;because then I'd have to marry you, Ned dear... wouldn't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      JUST MEAT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down the intersecting street,
+      but saw nothing save the oases of light shed by the street lamps at the
+      successive crossings. Then he strolled back the way he had come. He was a
+      shadow of a man, sliding noiselessly and without undue movement through
+      the semi-darkness. Also he was very alert, like a wild animal in the
+      jungle, keenly perceptive and receptive. The movement of another in the
+      darkness about him would need to have been more shadowy than he to have
+      escaped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to the running advertisement of the state of affairs carried
+      to him by his senses, he had a subtler perception, a FEEL, of the
+      atmosphere around him. He knew that the house in front of which he paused
+      for a moment, contained children. Yet by no willed effort of perception
+      did he have this knowledge. For that matter, he was not even aware that he
+      knew, so occult was the impression. Yet, did a moment arise in which
+      action, in relation to that house, were imperative, he would have acted on
+      the assumption that it contained children. He was not aware of all that he
+      knew about the neighbourhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same way, he knew not how, he knew that no danger threatened in the
+      footfalls that came up the cross street. Before he saw the walker, he knew
+      him for a belated pedestrian hurrying home. The walker came into view at
+      the crossing and disappeared on up the street. The man that watched, noted
+      a light that flared up in the window of a house on the corner, and as it
+      died down he knew it for an expiring match. This was conscious
+      identification of familiar phenomena, and through his mind flitted the
+      thought, &ldquo;Wanted to know what time.&rdquo; In another house one room was
+      lighted. The light burned dimly and steadily, and he had the feel that it
+      was a sick-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was especially interested in a house across the street in the middle of
+      the block. To this house he paid most attention. No matter what way he
+      looked, nor what way he walked, his looks and his steps always returned to
+      it. Except for an open window above the porch, there was nothing unusual
+      about the house. Nothing came in nor out. Nothing happened. There were no
+      lighted windows, nor had lights appeared and disappeared in any of the
+      windows. Yet it was the central point of his consideration. He rallied to
+      it each time after a divination of the state of the neighbourhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Despite his feel of things, he was not confident. He was supremely
+      conscious of the precariousness of his situation. Though unperturbed by
+      the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive
+      and ready to be startled as any timorous deer. He was aware of the
+      possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the darkness&mdash;intelligences
+      similar to his own in movement, perception, and divination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far down the street he caught a glimpse of something that moved. And he
+      knew it was no late home-goer, but menace and danger. He whistled twice to
+      the house across the street, then faded away shadow-like to the corner and
+      around the corner. Here he paused and looked about him carefully.
+      Reassured, he peered back around the corner and studied the object that
+      moved and that was coming nearer. He had divined aright. It was a
+      policeman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man went down the cross street to the next corner, from the shelter of
+      which he watched the corner he had just left. He saw the policeman pass
+      by, going straight on up the street. He paralleled the policeman's course,
+      and from the next corner again watched him go by; then he returned the way
+      he had come. He whistled once to the house across the street, and after a
+      time whistled once again. There was reassurance in the whistle, just as
+      there had been warning in the previous double whistle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw a dark bulk outline itself on the roof of the porch and slowly
+      descend a pillar. Then it came down the steps, passed through the small
+      iron gate, and went down the sidewalk, taking on the form of a man. He
+      that watched kept on his own side of the street and moved on abreast to
+      the corner, where he crossed over and joined the other. He was quite small
+      alongside the man he accosted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How'd you make out, Matt?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other grunted indistinctly, and walked on in silence a few steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon I landed the goods,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim chuckled in the darkness, and waited for further information. The
+      blocks passed by under their feet, and he grew impatient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how about them goods?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;What kind of a haul did you make,
+      anyway?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was too busy to figger it out, but it's fat. I can tell you that much,
+      Jim, it's fat. I don't dast to think how fat it is. Wait till we get to
+      the room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim looked at him keenly under the street lamp of the next crossing, and
+      saw that his face was a trifle grim and that he carried his left arm
+      peculiarly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with your arm?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The little cuss bit me. Hope I don't get hydrophoby. Folks gets
+      hydrophoby from manbite sometimes, don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gave you fight, eh?&rdquo; Jim asked encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other grunted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're harder'n hell to get information from,&rdquo; Jim burst out irritably.
+      &ldquo;Tell us about it. You ain't goin' to lose money just a-tellin' a guy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I choked him some,&rdquo; came the answer. Then, by way of explanation,
+      &ldquo;He woke up on me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did it neat. I never heard a sound.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; the other said with seriousness, &ldquo;it's a hangin' matter. I fixed
+      'm. I had to. He woke up on me. You an' me's got to do some layin' low for
+      a spell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim gave a low whistle of comprehension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear me whistle?&rdquo; he asked suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure. I was all done. I was just comin' out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a bull. But he wasn't on a little bit. Went right by an' kept
+      a-paddin' the hoof out a sight. Then I come back an' gave you the whistle.
+      What made you take so long after that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was waitin' to make sure,&rdquo; Matt explained. &ldquo;I was mighty glad when I
+      heard you whistle again. It's hard work waitin'. I just sat there an'
+      thought an' thought... oh, all kinds of things. It's remarkable what a
+      fellow'll think about. And then there was a darn cat that kept movin'
+      around the house all' botherin' me with its noises.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' it's fat!&rdquo; Jim exclaimed irrelevantly and with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sure tellin' you, Jim, it's fat. I'm plum' anxious for another look
+      at 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Unconsciously the two men quickened their pace. Yet they did not relax
+      from their caution. Twice they changed their course in order to avoid
+      policemen, and they made very sure that they were not observed when they
+      dived into the dark hallway of a cheap rooming house down town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not until they had gained their own room on the top floor, did they
+      scratch a match. While Jim lighted a lamp, Matt locked the door and threw
+      the bolts into place. As he turned, he noticed that his partner was
+      waiting expectantly. Matt smiled to himself at the other's eagerness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Them search-lights is all right,&rdquo; he said, drawing forth a small pocket
+      electric lamp and examining it. &ldquo;But we got to get a new battery. It's
+      runnin' pretty weak. I thought once or twice it'd leave me in the dark.
+      Funny arrangements in that house. I near got lost. His room was on the
+      left, an' that fooled me some.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you it was on the left,&rdquo; Jim interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told me it was on the right,&rdquo; Matt went on. &ldquo;I guess I know what you
+      told me, an' there's the map you drew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fumbling in his vest pocket, he drew out a folded slip of paper. As he
+      unfolded it, Jim bent over and looked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did make a mistake,&rdquo; he confessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sure did. It got me guessin' some for a while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it don't matter now,&rdquo; Jim cried. &ldquo;Let's see what you got.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does matter,&rdquo; Matt retorted. &ldquo;It matters a lot... to me. I've got to
+      run all the risk. I put my head in the trap while you stay on the street.
+      You got to get on to yourself an' be more careful. All right, I'll show
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dipped loosely into his trousers pocket and brought out a handful of
+      small diamonds. He spilled them out in a blazing stream on the greasy
+      table. Jim let out a great oath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's nothing,&rdquo; Matt said with triumphant complacence. &ldquo;I ain't begun
+      yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From one pocket after another he continued bringing forth the spoil. There
+      were many diamonds wrapped in chamois skin that were larger than those in
+      the first handful. From one pocket he brought out a handful of very small
+      cut gems.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sun dust,&rdquo; he remarked, as he spilled them on the table in a space by
+      themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim examined them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just the same, they retail for a couple of dollars each,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Is
+      that all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't it enough?&rdquo; the other demanded in an aggrieved tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure it is,&rdquo; Jim answered with unqualified approval. &ldquo;Better'n I
+      expected. I wouldn't take a cent less than ten thousan' for the bunch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten thousan',&rdquo; Matt sneered. &ldquo;They're worth twic't that, an' I don't know
+      anything about joolery, either. Look at that big boy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He picked it out from the sparkling heap and held it near to the lamp with
+      the air of an expert, weighing and judging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Worth a thousan' all by its lonely,&rdquo; was Jim's quicker judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousan' your grandmother,&rdquo; was Matt's scornful rejoinder. &ldquo;You
+      couldn't buy it for three.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wake me up! I'm dreamin'!&rdquo; The sparkle of the gems was in Jim's eyes, and
+      he began sorting out the larger diamonds and examining them. &ldquo;We're rich
+      men, Matt&mdash;we'll be regular swells.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll take years to get rid of 'em,&rdquo; was Matt's more practical thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But think how we'll live! Nothin' to do but spend the money an' go on
+      gettin' rid of em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt's eyes were beginning to sparkle, though sombrely, as his phlegmatic
+      nature woke up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you I didn't dast think how fat it was,&rdquo; he murmured in a low
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a killin'! What a killin'!&rdquo; was the other's more ecstatic utterance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I almost forgot,&rdquo; Matt said, thrusting his hand into his inside coat
+      pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A string of large pearls emerged from wrappings of tissue paper and
+      chamois skin. Jim scarcely glanced at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're worth money,&rdquo; he said, and returned to the diamonds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence fell on the two men. Jim played with the gems, running them
+      through his fingers, sorting them into piles, and spreading them out flat
+      and wide. He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable, high-strung,
+      and anaemic&mdash;a typical child of the gutter, with unbeautiful twisted
+      features, small-eyed, with face and mouth perpetually and feverishly
+      hungry, brutish in a cat-like way, stamped to the core with degeneracy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt did not finger the diamonds. He sat with chin on hands and elbows on
+      table, blinking heavily at the blazing array. He was in every way a
+      contrast to the other. No city had bred him. He was heavy-muscled and
+      hairy, gorilla-like in strength and aspect. For him there was no unseen
+      world. His eyes were full and wide apart, and there seemed in them a
+      certain bold brotherliness. They inspired confidence. But a closer
+      inspection would have shown that his eyes were just a trifle too full,
+      just a shade too wide apart. He exceeded, spilled over the limits of
+      normality, and his features told lies about the man beneath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The bunch is worth fifty thousan',&rdquo; Jim remarked suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hundred thousan',&rdquo; Matt said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence returned and endured a long time, to be broken again by Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What in hell was he doin' with 'em all at the house?&mdash;that's what I
+      want to know. I'd a-thought he'd kept 'em in the safe down at the store.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt had just been considering the vision of the throttled man as he had
+      last looked upon him in the dim light of the electric lantern; but he did
+      not start at the mention of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's no tellin',&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;He might a-ben gettin' ready to chuck
+      his pardner. He might a-pulled out in the mornin' for parts unknown, if we
+      hadn't happened along. I guess there's just as many thieves among honest
+      men as there is among thieves. You read about such things in the papers,
+      Jim. Pardners is always knifin' each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A queer, nervous look came into the other's eyes. Matt did not betray that
+      he noted it, though he said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was you thinkin' about, Jim?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim was a trifle awkward for the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothin',&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Only I was thinkin' just how funny it was&mdash;all
+      them jools at his house. What made you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothin'. I was just wonderin', that was all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence settled down, broken by an occasional low and nervous giggle
+      on the part of Jim. He was overcome by the spread of gems. It was not that
+      he felt their beauty. He was unaware that they were beautiful in
+      themselves. But in them his swift imagination visioned the joys of life
+      they would buy, and all the desires and appetites of his diseased mind and
+      sickly flesh were tickled by the promise they extended. He builded
+      wondrous, orgy-haunted castles out of their brilliant fires, and was
+      appalled at what he builded. Then it was that he giggled. It was all too
+      impossible to be real. And yet there they blazed on the table before him,
+      fanning the flame of the lust of him, and he giggled again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess we might as well count 'em,&rdquo; Matt said suddenly, tearing himself
+      away from his own visions. &ldquo;You watch me an' see that it's square, because
+      you an' me has got to be on the square, Jim. Understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim did not like this, and betrayed it in his eyes, while Matt did not
+      like what he saw in his partner's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Understand?&rdquo; Matt repeated, almost menacingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't we always ben square?&rdquo; the other replied, on the defensive because
+      of the treachery already whispering in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It don't cost nothin', bein' square in hard times,&rdquo; Matt retorted. &ldquo;It's
+      bein' square in prosperity that counts. When we ain't got nothin', we
+      can't help bein' square. We're prosperous now, an' we've got to be
+      business men&mdash;honest business men. Understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the talk for me,&rdquo; Jim approved, but deep down in the meagre soul
+      of him,&mdash;and in spite of him,&mdash;wanton and lawless thoughts were
+      stirring like chained beasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt stepped to the food shelf behind the two-burner kerosene cooking
+      stove. He emptied the tea from a paper bag, and from a second bag emptied
+      some red peppers. Returning to the table with the bags, he put into them
+      the two sizes of small diamonds. Then he counted the large gems and
+      wrapped them in their tissue paper and chamois skin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hundred an' forty-seven good-sized ones,&rdquo; was his inventory; &ldquo;twenty real
+      big ones; two big boys and one whopper; an' a couple of fistfuls of teeny
+      ones an' dust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Correct,&rdquo; was the response.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote the count out on a slip of memorandum paper, and made a copy of
+      it, giving one slip to his partner and retaining the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just for reference,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he had recourse to the food shelf, where he emptied the sugar from a
+      large paper bag. Into this he thrust the diamonds, large and small,
+      wrapped it up in a bandanna handkerchief, and stowed it away under his
+      pillow. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' you think they're worth a hundred thousan'?&rdquo; Jim asked, pausing and
+      looking up from the unlacing of his shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;I seen a dance-house girl down in Arizona once,
+      with some big sparklers on her. They wasn't real. She said if they was she
+      wouldn't be dancin'. Said they'd be worth all of fifty thousan', an' she
+      didn't have a dozen of 'em all told.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who'd work for a livin'?&rdquo; Jim triumphantly demanded. &ldquo;Pick an' shovel
+      work!&rdquo; he sneered. &ldquo;Work like a dog all my life, an' save all my wages,
+      an' I wouldn't have half as much as we got tonight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dish washin's about your measure, an' you couldn't get more'n twenty a
+      month an' board. Your figgers is 'way off, but your point is well taken.
+      Let them that likes it, work. I rode range for thirty a month when I was
+      young an' foolish. Well, I'm older, an' I ain't ridin' range.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got into bed on one side. Jim put out the light and followed him in on
+      the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How's your arm feel?&rdquo; Jim queried amiably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such concern was unusual, and Matt noted it, and replied&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess there's no danger of hydrophoby. What made you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim felt in himself a guilty stir, and under his breath he cursed the
+      other's way of asking disagreeable questions; but aloud he answered&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothin', only you seemed scared of it at first. What are you goin' to do
+      with your share, Matt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Buy a cattle ranch in Arizona an' set down an' pay other men to ride
+      range for me. There's some several I'd like to see askin' a job from me,
+      damn them! An' now you shut your face, Jim. It'll be some time before I
+      buy that ranch. Just now I'm goin' to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Jim lay long awake, nervous and twitching, rolling about restlessly
+      and rolling himself wide awake every time he dozed. The diamonds still
+      blazed under his eyelids, and the fire of them hurt. Matt, in spite of his
+      heavy nature, slept lightly, like a wild animal alert in its sleep; and
+      Jim noticed, every time he moved, that his partner's body moved
+      sufficiently to show that it had received the impression and that it was
+      trembling on the verge of awakening. For that matter, Jim did not know
+      whether or not, frequently, the other was awake. Once, quietly, betokening
+      complete consciousness, Matt said to him: &ldquo;Aw, go to sleep, Jim. Don't
+      worry about them jools. They'll keep.&rdquo; And Jim had thought that at that
+      particular moment Matt had been surely asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the late morning Matt was awake with Jim's first movement, and
+      thereafter he awoke and dozed with him until midday, when they got up
+      together and began dressing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm goin' out to get a paper an' some bread,&rdquo; Matt said. &ldquo;You boil the
+      coffee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Jim listened, unconsciously his gaze left Matt's face and roved to the
+      pillow, beneath which was the bundle wrapped in the bandanna handkerchief.
+      On the instant Matt's face became like a wild beast's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Jim,&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;You've got to play square. If you do me
+      dirt, I'll fix you. Understand? I'd eat you, Jim. You know that. I'd bite
+      right into your throat an' eat you like that much beefsteak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His sunburned skin was black with the surge of blood in it, and his
+      tobacco-stained teeth were exposed by the snarling lips. Jim shivered and
+      involuntarily cowered. There was death in the man he looked at. Only the
+      night before that black-faced man had killed another with his hands, and
+      it had not hurt his sleep. And in his own heart Jim was aware of a
+      sneaking guilt, of a train of thought that merited all that was
+      threatened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt passed out, leaving him still shivering. Then a hatred twisted his
+      own face, and he softly hurled savage curses at the door. He remembered
+      the jewels, and hastened to the bed, feeling under the pillow for the
+      bandanna bundle. He crushed it with his fingers to make certain that it
+      still contained the diamonds. Assured that Matt had not carried them away,
+      he looked toward the kerosene stove with a guilty start. Then he hurriedly
+      lighted it, filled the coffee-pot at the sink, and put it over the flame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coffee was boiling when Matt returned, and while the latter cut the
+      bread and put a slice of butter on the table, Jim poured out the coffee.
+      It was not until he sat down and had taken a few sips of the coffee, that
+      Matt pulled out the morning paper from his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We was way off,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I told you I didn't dast figger out how fat it
+      was. Look at that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pointed to the head-lines on the first page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;SWIFT NEMESIS ON BUJANNOFF'S TRACK,&rdquo; they read. &ldquo;MURDERED IN HIS SLEEP
+      AFTER ROBBING HIS PARTNER.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you have it!&rdquo; Matt cried. &ldquo;He robbed his partner&mdash;robbed him
+      like a dirty thief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half a million of jewels missin',&rdquo; Jim read aloud. He put the paper down
+      and stared at Matt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what I told you,&rdquo; the latter said. &ldquo;What in hell do we know about
+      jools? Half a million!&mdash;an' the best I could figger it was a hundred
+      thousan'. Go on an' read the rest of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They read on silently, their heads side by side, the untouched coffee
+      growing cold; and ever and anon one or the other burst forth with some
+      salient printed fact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd like to seen Metzner's face when he opened the safe at the store this
+      mornin',&rdquo; Jim gloated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He hit the high places right away for Bujannoff's house,&rdquo; Matt explained.
+      &ldquo;Go on an' read.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was to have sailed last night at ten on the Sajoda for the South Seas&mdash;steamship
+      delayed by extra freight&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's why we caught 'm in bed,&rdquo; Matt interrupted. &ldquo;It was just luck&mdash;like
+      pickin' a fifty-to-one winner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sajoda sailed at six this mornin'&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn't catch her,&rdquo; Matt said. &ldquo;I saw his alarm-clock was set at five.
+      That'd given 'm plenty of time... only I come along an' put the kibosh on
+      his time. Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adolph Metzner in despair&mdash;the famous Haythorne pearl necklace&mdash;magnificently
+      assorted pearls&mdash;valued by experts at from fifty to seventy thousan'
+      dollars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim broke off to swear vilely and solemnly, concluding with, &ldquo;Those damn
+      oyster-eggs worth all that money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He licked his lips and added, &ldquo;They was beauties an' no mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Big Brazilian gem,&rdquo; he read on. &ldquo;Eighty thousan' dollars&mdash;many
+      valuable gems of the first water&mdash;several thousan' small diamonds
+      well worth forty thousan'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you don't know about jools is worth knowin',&rdquo; Matt smiled
+      good-humouredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Theory of the sleuths,&rdquo; Jim read. &ldquo;Thieves must have known&mdash;cleverly
+      kept watch on Bujannoff's actions&mdash;must have learned his plan and
+      trailed him to his house with the fruits of his robbery&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clever&mdash;hell!&rdquo; Matt broke out. &ldquo;That's the way reputations is
+      made... in the noospapers. How'd we know he was robbin' his pardner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyway, we've got the goods,&rdquo; Jim grinned. &ldquo;Let's look at 'em again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He assured himself that the door was locked and bolted, while Matt brought
+      out the bundle in the bandanna and opened it on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't they beauties, though!&rdquo; Jim exclaimed at sight of the pearls; and
+      for a time he had eyes only for them. &ldquo;Accordin' to the experts, worth
+      from fifty to seventy thousan' dollars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' women like them things,&rdquo; Matt commented. &ldquo;An' they'll do everything
+      to get 'em&mdash;sell themselves, commit murder, anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just like you an' me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not on your life,&rdquo; Matt retorted. &ldquo;I'll commit murder for 'em, but not
+      for their own sakes, but for sake of what they'll get me. That's the
+      difference. Women want the jools for themselves, an' I want the jools for
+      the women an' such things they'll get me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lucky that men an' women don't want the same things,&rdquo; Jim remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what makes commerce,&rdquo; Matt agreed; &ldquo;people wantin' different
+      things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of the afternoon Jim went out to buy food. While he was
+      gone, Matt cleared the table of the jewels, wrapping them up as before and
+      putting them under the pillow. Then he lighted the kerosene stove and
+      started to boil water for coffee. A few minutes later, Jim returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most surprising,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;Streets, an' stores, an' people just like
+      they always was. Nothin' changed. An' me walking along through it all a
+      millionaire. Nobody looked at me an' guessed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt grunted unsympathetically. He had little comprehension of the lighter
+      whims and fancies of his partner's imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you get a porterhouse?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, an' an inch thick. It's a peach. Look at it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He unwrapped the steak and held it up for the other's inspection. Then he
+      made the coffee and set the table, while Matt fried the steak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't put on too much of them red peppers,&rdquo; Jim warned. &ldquo;I ain't used to
+      your Mexican cookin'. You always season too hot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt grunted a laugh and went on with his cooking. Jim poured out the
+      coffee, but first, into the nicked china cup, he emptied a powder he had
+      carried in his vest pocket wrapped in a rice-paper. He had turned his back
+      for the moment on his partner, but he did not dare to glance around at
+      him. Matt placed a newspaper on the table, and on the newspaper set the
+      hot frying-pan. He cut the steak in half, and served Jim and himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat her while she's hot,&rdquo; he counselled, and with knife and fork set the
+      example.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's a dandy,&rdquo; was Jim's judgment, after his first mouthful. &ldquo;But I tell
+      you one thing straight. I'm never goin' to visit you on that Arizona
+      ranch, so you needn't ask me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter now?&rdquo; Matt asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hell's the matter,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;The Mexican cookin' on your ranch'd
+      be too much for me. If I've got hell a-comin' in the next life, I'm not
+      goin' to torment my insides in this one. Damned peppers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled, expelled his breath forcibly to cool his burning mouth, drank
+      some coffee, and went on eating the steak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think about the next life anyway, Matt?&rdquo; he asked a little
+      later, while secretly he wondered why the other had not yet touched his
+      coffee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't no next life,&rdquo; Matt answered, pausing from the steak to take his
+      first sip of coffee. &ldquo;Nor heaven nor hell, nor nothin'. You get all that's
+      comin' right here in this life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' afterward?&rdquo; Jim queried out of his morbid curiosity, for he knew that
+      he looked upon a man that was soon to die. &ldquo;An' afterward?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you ever see a man two weeks dead?&rdquo; the other asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I have. He was like this beefsteak you an' me is eatin'. It was
+      once steer cavortin' over the landscape. But now it's just meat. That's
+      all, just meat. An' that's what you an' me an' all people come to&mdash;meat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt gulped down the whole cup of coffee, and refilled the cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you scared to die?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim shook his head. &ldquo;What's the use? I don't die anyway. I pass on an'
+      live again&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To go stealin', an' lyin' an' snivellin' through another life, an' go on
+      that way forever an' ever an' ever?&rdquo; Matt sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe I'll improve,&rdquo; Jim suggested hopefully. &ldquo;Maybe stealin' won't be
+      necessary in the life to come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ceased abruptly, and stared straight before him, a frightened
+      expression on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter!&rdquo; Matt demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothin'. I was just wonderin'&rdquo;&mdash;Jim returned to himself with an
+      effort&mdash;&ldquo;about this dyin', that was all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he could not shake off the fright that had startled him. It was as if
+      an unseen thing of gloom had passed him by, casting upon him the
+      intangible shadow of its presence. He was aware of a feeling of
+      foreboding. Something ominous was about to happen. Calamity hovered in the
+      air. He gazed fixedly across the table at the other man. He could not
+      understand. Was it that he had blundered and poisoned himself? No, Matt
+      had the nicked cup, and he had certainly put the poison in the nicked cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was all his own imagination, was his next thought. It had played him
+      tricks before. Fool! Of course it was. Of course something was about to
+      happen, but it was about to happen to Matt. Had not Matt drunk the whole
+      cup of coffee?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim brightened up and finished his steak, sopping bread in the gravy when
+      the meat was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was a kid&mdash;&rdquo; he began, but broke off abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the unseen thing of gloom had fluttered, and his being was vibrant
+      with premonition of impending misfortune. He felt a disruptive influence
+      at work in the flesh of him, and in all his muscles there was a seeming
+      that they were about to begin to twitch. He sat back suddenly, and as
+      suddenly leaned forward with his elbows on the table. A tremor ran dimly
+      through the muscles of his body. It was like the first rustling of leaves
+      before the oncoming of wind. He clenched his teeth. It came again, a
+      spasmodic tensing of his muscles. He knew panic at the revolt within his
+      being. His muscles no longer recognized his mastery over them. Again they
+      spasmodically tensed, despite the will of him, for he had willed that they
+      should not tense. This was revolution within himself, this was anarchy;
+      and the terror of impotence rushed up in him as his flesh gripped and
+      seemed to seize him in a clutch, chills running up and down his back and
+      sweat starting on his brow. He glanced about the room, and all the details
+      of it smote him with a strange sense of familiarity. It was as though he
+      had just returned from a long journey. He looked across the table at his
+      partner. Matt was watching him and smiling. An expression of horror spread
+      over Jim's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, Matt!&rdquo; he screamed. &ldquo;You ain't doped me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt smiled and continued to watch him. In the paroxysm that followed, Jim
+      did not become unconscious. His muscles tensed and twitched and knotted,
+      hurting him and crushing him in their savage grip. And in the midst of it
+      all, it came to him that Matt was acting queerly. He was travelling the
+      same road. The smile had gone from his face, and there was on it an intent
+      expression, as if he were listening to some inner tale of himself and
+      trying to divine the message. Matt got up and walked across the room and
+      back again, then sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did this, Jim,&rdquo; he said quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I didn't think you'd try to fix ME,&rdquo; Jim answered reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I fixed you all right,&rdquo; Matt said, with teeth close together and
+      shivering body. &ldquo;What did you give me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strychnine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Same as I gave you,&rdquo; Matt volunteered. &ldquo;It's a hell of a mess, ain't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're lyin', Matt,&rdquo; Jim pleaded. &ldquo;You ain't doped me, have you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sure did, Jim; an' I didn't overdose you, neither. I cooked it in as
+      neat as you please in your half the porterhouse.&mdash;Hold on! Where're
+      you goin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim had made a dash for the door, and was throwing back the bolts. Matt
+      sprang in between and shoved him away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drug store,&rdquo; Jim panted. &ldquo;Drug store.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No you don't. You'll stay right here. There ain't goin' to be any runnin'
+      out an' makin' a poison play on the street&mdash;not with all them jools
+      reposin' under the pillow. Savve? Even if you didn't die, you'd be in the
+      hands of the police with a whole lot of explanations comin'. Emetics is
+      the stuff for poison. I'm just as bad bit as you, an' I'm goin' to take a
+      emetic. That's all they'd give you at a drug store, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thrust Jim back into the middle of the room and shot the bolts into
+      place. As he went across the floor to the food shelf, he passed one hand
+      over his brow and flung off the beaded sweat. It spattered audibly on the
+      floor. Jim watched agonizedly as Matt got the mustard-can and a cup and
+      ran for the sink. He stirred a cupful of mustard and water and drank it
+      down. Jim had followed him and was reaching with trembling hands for the
+      empty cup. Again Matt shoved him away. As he mixed a second cupful, he
+      demanded&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'you think one cup'll do for me? You can wait till I'm done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim started to totter toward the door, but Matt checked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you monkey with that door, I'll twist your neck. Savve? You can take
+      yours when I'm done. An' if it saves you, I'll twist your neck, anyway.
+      You ain't got no chance, nohow. I told you many times what you'd get if
+      you did me dirt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you did me dirt, too,&rdquo; Jim articulated with an effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt was drinking the second cupful, and did not answer. The sweat had got
+      into Jim's eyes, and he could scarcely see his way to the table, where he
+      got a cup for himself. But Matt was mixing a third cupful, and, as before,
+      thrust him away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you to wait till I was done,&rdquo; Matt growled. &ldquo;Get outa my way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Jim supported his twitching body by holding on to the sink, the while
+      he yearned toward the yellowish concoction that stood for life. It was by
+      sheer will that he stood and clung to the sink. His flesh strove to double
+      him up and bring him to the floor. Matt drank the third cupful, and with
+      difficulty managed to get to a chair and sit down. His first paroxysm was
+      passing. The spasms that afflicted him were dying away. This good effect
+      he ascribed to the mustard and water. He was safe, at any rate. He wiped
+      the sweat from his face, and, in the interval of calm, found room for
+      curiosity. He looked at his partner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A spasm had shaken the mustard can out of Jim's hands, and the contents
+      were spilled upon the floor. He stooped to scoop some of the mustard into
+      the cup, and the succeeding spasm doubled him upon the floor. Matt smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay with it,&rdquo; he encouraged. &ldquo;It's the stuff all right. It's fixed me
+      up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim heard him and turned toward him a stricken face, twisted with
+      suffering and pleading. Spasm now followed spasm till he was in
+      convulsions, rolling on the floor and yellowing his face and hair in the
+      mustard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt laughed hoarsely at the sight, but the laugh broke midway. A tremor
+      had run through his body. A new paroxysm was beginning. He arose and
+      staggered across to the sink, where, with probing forefinger, he vainly
+      strove to assist the action of the emetic. In the end, he clung to the
+      sink as Jim had clung, filled with the horror of going down to the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other's paroxysm had passed, and he sat up, weak and fainting, too
+      weak to rise, his forehead dripping, his lips flecked with a foam made
+      yellow by the mustard in which he had rolled. He rubbed his eyes with his
+      knuckles, and groans that were like whines came from his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you snifflin' about?&rdquo; Matt demanded out of his agony. &ldquo;All you
+      got to do is die. An' when you die you're dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I... ain't... snifflin'... it's... the... mustard... stingin'... my...
+      eyes,&rdquo; Jim panted with desperate slowness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was his last successful attempt at speech. Thereafter he babbled
+      incoherently, pawing the air with shaking arms till a fresh convulsion
+      stretched him on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matt struggled back to the chair, and, doubled up on it, with his arms
+      clasped about his knees, he fought with his disintegrating flesh. He came
+      out of the convulsion cool and weak. He looked to see how it went with the
+      other, and saw him lying motionless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to soliloquize, to be facetious, to have his last grim laugh at
+      life, but his lips made only incoherent sounds. The thought came to him
+      that the emetic had failed, and that nothing remained but the drug store.
+      He looked toward the door and drew himself to his feet. There he saved
+      himself from falling by clutching the chair. Another paroxysm had begun.
+      And in the midst of the paroxysm, with his body and all the parts of it
+      flying apart and writhing and twisting back again into knots, he clung to
+      the chair and shoved it before him across the floor. The last shreds of
+      his will were leaving him when he gained the door. He turned the key and
+      shot back one bolt. He fumbled for the second bolt, but failed. Then he
+      leaned his weight against the door and slid down gently to the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CREATED HE THEM
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      She met him at the door.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not think you would be so early.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is half past eight.&rdquo; He looked at his watch. &ldquo;The train leaves at
+      9.12.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very businesslike, until he saw her lips tremble as she abruptly
+      turned and led the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll be all right, little woman,&rdquo; he said soothingly. &ldquo;Doctor Bodineau's
+      the man. He'll pull him through, you'll see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They entered the living-room. His glance quested apprehensively about,
+      then turned to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's Al?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer, but with a sudden impulse came close to him and stood
+      motionless. She was a slender, dark-eyed woman, in whose face was stamped
+      the strain and stress of living. But the fine lines and the haunted look
+      in the eyes were not the handiwork of mere worry. He knew whose handiwork
+      it was as he looked upon it, and she knew when she consulted her mirror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use, Mary,&rdquo; he said. He put his hand on her shoulder. &ldquo;We've
+      tried everything. It's a wretched business, I know, but what else can we
+      do? You've failed. Doctor Bodineau's all that's left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had another chance...&rdquo; she began falteringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've threshed that all out,&rdquo; he answered harshly. &ldquo;You've got to buck
+      up, now. You know what conclusion we arrived at. You know you haven't the
+      ghost of a hope in another chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. &ldquo;I know it. But it is terrible, the thought of his
+      going away to fight it out alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He won't be alone. There's Doctor Bodineau. And besides, it's a beautiful
+      place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the only thing,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the only thing,&rdquo; she repeated mechanically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at his watch. &ldquo;Where's Al?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll send him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the door had closed behind her, he walked over to the window and
+      looked out, drumming absently with his knuckles on the pane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and responded to the greeting of the man who had just entered.
+      There was a perceptible drag to the man's feet as he walked across toward
+      the window and paused irresolutely halfway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've changed my mind, George,&rdquo; he announced hurriedly and nervously. &ldquo;I'm
+      not going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He plucked at his sleeve, shuffled with his feet, dropped his eyes, and
+      with a strong effort raised them again to confront the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George regarded him silently, his nostrils distending and his lean fingers
+      unconsciously crooking like an eagle's talons about to clutch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In line and feature, there was much of resemblance between the two men;
+      and yet, in the strongest resemblances there was a radical difference.
+      Theirs were the same black eyes, but those of the man at the window were
+      sharp and straight looking, while those of the man in the middle of the
+      room were cloudy and furtive. He could not face the other's gaze, and
+      continually and vainly struggled with himself to do so. The high cheek
+      bones with the hollows beneath were the same, yet the texture of the
+      hollows seemed different. The thin-lipped mouths were from the same mould,
+      but George's lips were firm and muscular, while Al's were soft and loose&mdash;the
+      lips of an ascetic turned voluptuary. There was also a sag at the corners.
+      His flesh hinted of grossness, especially so in the eagle-like aquiline
+      nose that must once have been like the other's, but that had lost the
+      austerity the other's still retained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Al fought for steadiness in the middle of the floor. The silence bothered
+      him. He had a feeling that he was about to begin swaying back and forth.
+      He moistened his lips with his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to stay,&rdquo; he said desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped his eyes and plucked again at his sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you are only twenty-six years old,&rdquo; George said at last. &ldquo;You poor,
+      feeble old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be so sure of that,&rdquo; Al retorted, with a flash of belligerence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you remember when we swam that mile and a half across the channel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and what of it?&rdquo; A sullen expression was creeping across Al's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you remember when we boxed in the barn after school?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could take all you gave me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I gave you!&rdquo; George's voice rose momentarily to a higher pitch. &ldquo;You
+      licked me four afternoons out of five. You were twice as strong as I&mdash;three
+      times as strong. And now I'd be afraid to land on you with a sofa cushion;
+      you'd crumple up like a last year's leaf. You'd die, you poor, miserable
+      old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't abuse me just because I've changed my mind,&rdquo; the other
+      protested, the hint of a whine in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife entered, and he looked appealingly to her; but the man at the
+      window strode suddenly up to him and burst out&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't know your own mind for two successive minutes! You haven't any
+      mind, you spineless, crawling worm!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't make me angry.&rdquo; Al smiled with cunning, and glanced
+      triumphantly at his wife. &ldquo;You can't make me angry,&rdquo; he repeated, as
+      though the idea were thoroughly gratifying to him. &ldquo;I know your game. It's
+      my stomach, I tell you. I can't help it. Before God, I can't! Isn't it my
+      stomach, Mary?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She glanced at George and spoke composedly, though she hid a trembling
+      hand in a fold of her skirt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't it time?&rdquo; she asked softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband turned upon her savagely. &ldquo;I'm not going to go!&rdquo; he cried.
+      &ldquo;That's just what I've been telling... him. And I tell you again, all of
+      you, I'm not going. You can't bully me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Al, dear, you said&mdash;&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind what I said!&rdquo; he broke out. &ldquo;I've said something else right
+      now, and you've heard it, and that settles it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked across the room and threw himself with emphasis into a Morris
+      chair. But the other man was swiftly upon him. The talon-like fingers
+      gripped his shoulders, jerked him to his feet, and held him there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've reached the limit, Al, and I want you to understand it. I've tried
+      to treat you like... like my brother, but hereafter I shall treat you like
+      the thing that you are. Do you understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The anger in his voice was cold. The blaze in his eyes was cold. It was
+      vastly more effective than any outburst, and Al cringed under it and under
+      the clutching hand that was bruising his shoulder muscles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only because of me that you have this house, that you have the food
+      you eat. Your position? Any other man would have been shown the door a
+      year ago&mdash;two years ago. I have held you in it. Your salary has been
+      charity. It has been paid out of my pocket. Mary... her dresses... that
+      gown she has on is made over; she wears the discarded dresses of her
+      sisters, of my wife. Charity&mdash;do you understand? Your children&mdash;they
+      are wearing the discarded clothes of my children, of the children of my
+      neighbours who think the clothes went to some orphan asylum. And it is an
+      orphan asylum... or it soon will be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He emphasized each point with an unconscious tightening of his grip on the
+      shoulder. Al was squirming with the pain of it. The sweat was starting out
+      on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now listen well to me,&rdquo; his brother went on. &ldquo;In three minutes you will
+      tell me that you are going with me. If you don't, Mary and the children
+      will be taken away from you&mdash;to-day. You needn't ever come to the
+      office. This house will be closed to you. And in six months I shall have
+      the pleasure of burying you. You have three minutes to make up your mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Al made a strangling movement, and reached up with weak fingers to the
+      clutching hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My heart... let me go... you'll be the death of me,&rdquo; he gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hand thrust him down forcibly into the Morris chair and released him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clock on the mantle ticked loudly. George glanced at it, and at Mary.
+      She was leaning against the table, unable to conceal her trembling. He
+      became unpleasantly aware of the feeling of his brother's fingers on his
+      hand. Quite unconsciously he wiped the back of the hand upon his coat. The
+      clock ticked on in the silence. It seemed to George that the room
+      reverberated with his voice. He could hear himself still speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go,&rdquo; came from the Morris chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a weak and shaken voice, and it was a weak and shaken man that
+      pulled himself out of the Morris chair. He started toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; George demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suit case,&rdquo; came the response. &ldquo;Mary'll send the trunk later. I'll be
+      back in a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed after him. A moment later, struck with sudden suspicion,
+      George was opening the door. He glanced in. His brother stood at a
+      sideboard, in one hand a decanter, in the other hand, bottom up and to his
+      lips, a whisky glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the glass Al saw that he was observed. It threw him into a panic.
+      Hastily he tried to refill the glass and get it to his lips; but glass and
+      decanter were sent smashing to the floor. He snarled. It was like the
+      sound of a wild beast. But the grip on his shoulder subdued and frightened
+      him. He was being propelled toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The suit case,&rdquo; he gasped. &ldquo;It's there in that room. Let me get it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the key?&rdquo; his brother asked, when he had brought it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't locked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next moment the suit case was spread open, and George's hand was
+      searching the contents. From one side it brought out a bottle of whisky,
+      from the other side a flask. He snapped the case to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If we miss one car, we miss that train.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went out into the hallway, leaving Al with his wife. It was like a
+      funeral, George thought, as he waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His brother's overcoat caught on the knob of the front door and delayed
+      its closing long enough for Mary's first sob to come to their ears.
+      George's lips were very thin and compressed as he went down the steps. In
+      one hand he carried the suit case. With the other hand he held his
+      brother's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they neared the corner, he heard the electric car a block away, and
+      urged his brother on. Al was breathing hard. His feet dragged and
+      shuffled, and he held back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hell of a brother YOU are,&rdquo; he panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For reply, he received a vicious jerk on his arm. It reminded him of his
+      childhood when he was hurried along by some angry grown-up. And like a
+      child, he had to be helped up the car step. He sank down on an outside
+      seat, panting, sweating, overcome by the exertion. He followed George's
+      eyes as the latter looked him up and down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hell of a brother YOU are,&rdquo; was George's comment when he had finished
+      the inspection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisture welled into Al's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's my stomach,&rdquo; he said with self-pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't wonder,&rdquo; was the retort. &ldquo;Burnt out like the crater of a volcano.
+      Fervent heat isn't a circumstance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter they did not speak. When they arrived at the transfer point,
+      George came to himself with a start. He smiled. With fixed gaze that did
+      not see the houses that streamed across his field of vision, he had
+      himself been sunk deep in self-pity. He helped his brother from the car,
+      and looked up the intersecting street. The car they were to take was not
+      in sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Al's eyes chanced upon the corner grocery and saloon across the way. At
+      once he became restless. His hands passed beyond his control, and he
+      yearned hungrily across the street to the door that swung open even as he
+      looked and let in a happy pilgrim. And in that instant he saw the
+      white-jacketed bartender against an array of glittering glass. Quite
+      unconsciously he started to cross the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold on.&rdquo; George's hand was on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want some whisky,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've already had some.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was hours ago. Go on, George, let me have some. It's the last day.
+      Don't shut off on me until we get there&mdash;God knows it will be soon
+      enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      George glanced desperately up the street. The car was in sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There isn't time for a drink,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want a drink. I want a bottle.&rdquo; Al's voice became wheedling. &ldquo;Go
+      on, George. It's the last, the very last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo; The denial was as final as George's thin lips could make it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Al glanced at the approaching car. He sat down suddenly on the curbstone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; his brother asked, with momentary alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing. I want some whisky. It's my stomach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on now, get up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      George reached for him, but was anticipated, for his brother sprawled flat
+      on the pavement, oblivious to the dirt and to the curious glances of the
+      passers-by. The car was clanging its gong at the crossing, a block away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll miss it,&rdquo; Al grinned from the pavement. &ldquo;And it will be your
+      fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      George's fists clenched tightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For two cents I'd give you a thrashing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And miss the car,&rdquo; was the triumphant comment from the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George looked at the car. It was halfway down the block. He looked at his
+      watch. He debated a second longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'll get it. But you get on that car. If you miss
+      it, I'll break the bottle over your head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dashed across the street and into the saloon. The car came in and
+      stopped. There were no passengers to get off. Al dragged himself up the
+      steps and sat down. He smiled as the conductor rang the bell and the car
+      started. The swinging door of the saloon burst open. Clutching in his hand
+      the suit case and a pint bottle of whisky, George started in pursuit. The
+      conductor, his hand on the bell cord, waited to see if it would be
+      necessary to stop. It was not. George swung lightly aboard, sat down
+      beside his brother, and passed him the bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might have got a quart,&rdquo; Al said reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He extracted the cork with a pocket corkscrew, and elevated the bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sick... my stomach,&rdquo; he explained in apologetic tones to the
+      passenger who sat next to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the train they sat in the smoking-car. George felt that it was
+      imperative. Also, having successfully caught the train, his heart
+      softened. He felt more kindly toward his brother, and accused himself of
+      unnecessary harshness. He strove to atone by talking about their mother,
+      and sisters, and the little affairs and interests of the family. But Al
+      was morose, and devoted himself to the bottle. As the time passed, his
+      mouth hung looser and looser, while the rings under his eyes seemed to
+      puff out and all his facial muscles to relax.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's my stomach,&rdquo; he said, once, when he finished the bottle and dropped
+      it under the seat; but the swift hardening of his brother's face did not
+      encourage further explanations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conveyance that met them at the station had all the dignity and
+      luxuriousness of a private carriage. George's eyes were keen for the ear
+      marks of the institution to which they were going, but his apprehensions
+      were allayed from moment to moment. As they entered the wide gateway and
+      rolled on through the spacious grounds, he felt sure that the
+      institutional side of the place would not jar upon his brother. It was
+      more like a summer hotel, or, better yet, a country club. And as they
+      swept on through the spring sunshine, the songs of birds in his ears, and
+      in his nostrils the breath of flowers, George sighed for a week of rest in
+      such a place, and before his eyes loomed the arid vista of summer in town
+      and at the office. There was not room in his income for his brother and
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us take a walk in the grounds,&rdquo; he suggested, after they had met
+      Doctor Bodineau and inspected the quarters assigned to Al. &ldquo;The carriage
+      leaves for the station in half an hour, and we'll just have time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's beautiful,&rdquo; he remarked a moment later. Under his feet was the
+      velvet grass, the trees arched overhead, and he stood in mottled sunshine.
+      &ldquo;I wish I could stay for a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll trade places with you,&rdquo; Al said quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George laughed it off, but he felt a sinking of the heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at that oak!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;And that woodpecker! Isn't he a beauty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't like it here,&rdquo; he heard his brother mutter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George's lips tightened in preparation for the struggle, but he said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to send Mary and the children off to the mountains. She needs
+      it, and so do they. And when you're in shape, I'll send you right on to
+      join them. Then you can take your summer vacation before you come back to
+      the office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not going to stay in this damned hole, for all you talk about it,&rdquo; Al
+      announced abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes you are, and you're going to get your health and strength back again,
+      so that the look of you will put the colour in Mary's cheeks where it used
+      to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going back with you.&rdquo; Al's voice was firm. &ldquo;I'm going to take the
+      same train back. It's about time for that carriage, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't told you all my plans,&rdquo; George tried to go on, but Al cut him
+      off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might as well quit that. I don't want any of your soapy talking. You
+      treat me like a child. I'm not a child. My mind's made up, and I'll show
+      you how long it can stay made up. You needn't talk to me. I don't care a
+      rap for what you're going to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A baleful light was in his eyes, and to his brother he seemed for all the
+      world like a cornered rat, desperate and ready to fight. As George looked
+      at him he remembered back to their childhood, and it came to him that at
+      last was aroused in Al the same old stubborn strain that had enabled him,
+      as a child, to stand against all force and persuasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George abandoned hope. He had lost. This creature was not human. The last
+      fine instinct of the human had fled. It was a brute, sluggish and stolid,
+      impossible to move&mdash;just the raw stuff of life, combative,
+      rebellious, and indomitable. And as he contemplated his brother he felt in
+      himself the rising up of a similar brute. He became suddenly aware that
+      his fingers were tensing and crooking like a thug's, and he knew the
+      desire to kill. And his reason, turned traitor at last, counselled that he
+      should kill, that it was the only thing left for him to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was aroused by a servant calling to him through the trees that the
+      carriage was waiting. He answered. Then, looking straight before him, he
+      discovered his brother. He had forgotten it was his brother. It had been
+      only a thing the moment before. He began to talk, and as he talked the way
+      became clear to him. His reason had not turned traitor. The brute in him
+      had merely orientated his reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are no earthly good, Al,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You know that. You've made Mary's
+      life a hell. You are a curse to your children. And you have not made life
+      exactly a paradise for the rest of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's no use your talking,&rdquo; Al interjected. &ldquo;I'm not going to stay
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what I'm coming to,&rdquo; George continued. &ldquo;You don't have to stay
+      here.&rdquo; (Al's face brightened, and he involuntarily made a movement, as
+      though about to start toward the carriage.) &ldquo;On the other hand, it is not
+      necessary that you should return with me. There is another way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      George's hand went to his hip pocket and appeared with a revolver. It lay
+      along his palm, the butt toward Al, and toward Al he extended it. At the
+      same time, with his head, he indicated the near-by thicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't bluff me,&rdquo; Al snarled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not a bluff, Al. Look at me. I mean it. And if you don't do it for
+      yourself, I shall have to do it for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They faced each other, the proffered revolver still extended. Al debated
+      for a moment, then his eyes blazed. With a quick movement he seized the
+      revolver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God! I'll do it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'll show you what I've got in me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      George felt suddenly sick. He turned away. He did not see his brother
+      enter the thicket, but he heard the passage of his body through the leaves
+      and branches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Al,&rdquo; he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; came from the thicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George felt the sweat upon his forehead. He began mopping his face with
+      his handkerchief. He heard, as from a remote distance, the voice of the
+      servant again calling to him that the carriage was waiting. The woodpecker
+      dropped down through the mottled sunshine and lighted on the trunk of a
+      tree a dozen feet away. George felt that it was all a dream, and yet
+      through it all he felt supreme justification. It was the right thing to
+      do. It was the only thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His whole body gave a spasmodic start, as though the revolver had been
+      fired. It was the voice of Al, close at his back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's your gun,&rdquo; Al said. &ldquo;I'll stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The servant appeared among the trees, approaching rapidly and calling
+      anxiously. George put the weapon in his pocket and caught both his
+      brother's hands in his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless you, old man,&rdquo; he murmured; &ldquo;and&rdquo;&mdash;with a final squeeze of
+      the hands&mdash;&ldquo;good luck!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm coming,&rdquo; he called to the servant, and turned and ran through the
+      trees toward the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE CHINAGO
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs.&rdquo;
+                                   &mdash;Tahitian proverb.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho did not understand French. He sat in the crowded court room, very
+      weary and bored, listening to the unceasing, explosive French that now one
+      official and now another uttered. It was just so much gabble to Ah Cho,
+      and he marvelled at the stupidity of the Frenchmen who took so long to
+      find out the murderer of Chung Ga, and who did not find him at all. The
+      five hundred coolies on the plantation knew that Ah San had done the
+      killing, and here was Ah San not even arrested. It was true that all the
+      coolies had agreed secretly not to testify against one another; but then,
+      it was so simple, the Frenchmen should have been able to discover that Ah
+      San was the man. They were very stupid, these Frenchmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho had done nothing of which to be afraid. He had had no hand in the
+      killing. It was true he had been present at it, and Schemmer, the overseer
+      on the plantation, had rushed into the barracks immediately afterward and
+      caught him there, along with four or five others; but what of that? Chung
+      Ga had been stabbed only twice. It stood to reason that five or six men
+      could not inflict two stab wounds. At the most, if a man had struck but
+      once, only two men could have done it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it was that Ah Cho reasoned, when he, along with his four companions,
+      had lied and blocked and obfuscated in their statements to the court
+      concerning what had taken place. They had heard the sounds of the killing,
+      and, like Schemmer, they had run to the spot. They had got there before
+      Schemmer&mdash;that was all. True, Schemmer had testified that, attracted
+      by the sound of quarrelling as he chanced to pass by, he had stood for at
+      least five minutes outside; that then, when he entered, he found the
+      prisoners already inside; and that they had not entered just before,
+      because he had been standing by the one door to the barracks. But what of
+      that? Ah Cho and his four fellow-prisoners had testified that Schemmer was
+      mistaken. In the end they would be let go. They were all confident of
+      that. Five men could not have their heads cut off for two stab wounds.
+      Besides, no foreign devil had seen the killing. But these Frenchmen were
+      so stupid. In China, as Ah Cho well knew, the magistrate would order all
+      of them to the torture and learn the truth. The truth was very easy to
+      learn under torture. But these Frenchmen did not torture&mdash;bigger
+      fools they! Therefore they would never find out who killed Chung Ga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Ah Cho did not understand everything. The English Company that owned
+      the plantation had imported into Tahiti, at great expense, the five
+      hundred coolies. The stockholders were clamouring for dividends, and the
+      Company had not yet paid any; wherefore the Company did not want its
+      costly contract labourers to start the practice of killing one another.
+      Also, there were the French, eager and willing to impose upon the Chinagos
+      the virtues and excellences of French law. There was nothing like setting
+      an example once in a while; and, besides, of what use was New Caledonia
+      except to send men to live out their days in misery and pain in payment of
+      the penalty for being frail and human?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho did not understand all this. He sat in the court room and waited
+      for the baffled judgment that would set him and his comrades free to go
+      back to the plantation and work out the terms of their contracts. This
+      judgment would soon be rendered. Proceedings were drawing to a close. He
+      could see that. There was no more testifying, no more gabble of tongues.
+      The French devils were tired, too, and evidently waiting for the judgment.
+      And as he waited he remembered back in his life to the time when he had
+      signed the contract and set sail in the ship for Tahiti. Times had been
+      hard in his sea-coast village, and when he indentured himself to labour
+      for five years in the South Seas at fifty cents Mexican a day, he had
+      thought himself fortunate. There were men in his village who toiled a
+      whole year for ten dollars Mexican, and there were women who made nets all
+      the year round for five dollars, while in the houses of shopkeepers there
+      were maidservants who received four dollars for a year of service. And
+      here he was to receive fifty cents a day; for one day, only one day, he
+      was to receive that princely sum! What if the work were hard? At the end
+      of the five years he would return home&mdash;that was in the contract&mdash;and
+      he would never have to work again. He would be a rich man for life, with a
+      house of his own, a wife, and children growing up to venerate him. Yes,
+      and back of the house he would have a small garden, a place of meditation
+      and repose, with goldfish in a tiny lakelet, and wind bells tinkling in
+      the several trees, and there would be a high wall all around so that his
+      meditation and repose should be undisturbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, he had worked out three of those five years. He was already a
+      wealthy man (in his own country) through his earnings, and only two years
+      more intervened between the cotton plantation on Tahiti and the meditation
+      and repose that awaited him. But just now he was losing money because of
+      the unfortunate accident of being present at the killing of Chung Ga. He
+      had lain three weeks in prison, and for each day of those three weeks he
+      had lost fifty cents. But now judgment would soon be given, and he would
+      go back to work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho was twenty-two years old. He was happy and good-natured, and it was
+      easy for him to smile. While his body was slim in the Asiatic way, his
+      face was rotund. It was round, like the moon, and it irradiated a gentle
+      complacence and a sweet kindliness of spirit that was unusual among his
+      countrymen. Nor did his looks belie him. He never caused trouble, never
+      took part in wrangling. He did not gamble. His soul was not harsh enough
+      for the soul that must belong to a gambler. He was content with little
+      things and simple pleasures. The hush and quiet in the cool of the day
+      after the blazing toil in the cotton field was to him an infinite
+      satisfaction. He could sit for hours gazing at a solitary flower and
+      philosophizing about the mysteries and riddles of being. A blue heron on a
+      tiny crescent of sandy beach, a silvery splatter of flying fish, or a
+      sunset of pearl and rose across the lagoon, could entrance him to all
+      forgetfulness of the procession of wearisome days and of the heavy lash of
+      Schemmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute. But he earned his
+      salary. He got the last particle of strength out of the five hundred
+      slaves; for slaves they were until their term of years was up. Schemmer
+      worked hard to extract the strength from those five hundred sweating
+      bodies and to transmute it into bales of fluffy cotton ready for export.
+      His dominant, iron-clad, primeval brutishness was what enabled him to
+      effect the transmutation. Also, he was assisted by a thick leather belt,
+      three inches wide and a yard in length, with which he always rode and
+      which, on occasion, could come down on the naked back of a stooping coolie
+      with a report like a pistol-shot. These reports were frequent when
+      Schemmer rode down the furrowed field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, at the beginning of the first year of contract labour, he had killed
+      a coolie with a single blow of his fist. He had not exactly crushed the
+      man's head like an egg-shell, but the blow had been sufficient to addle
+      what was inside, and, after being sick for a week, the man had died. But
+      the Chinese had not complained to the French devils that ruled over
+      Tahiti. It was their own look out. Schemmer was their problem. They must
+      avoid his wrath as they avoided the venom of the centipedes that lurked in
+      the grass or crept into the sleeping quarters on rainy nights. The
+      Chinagos&mdash;such they were called by the indolent, brown-skinned island
+      folk&mdash;saw to it that they did not displease Schemmer too greatly.
+      This was equivalent to rendering up to him a full measure of efficient
+      toil. That blow of Schemmer's fist had been worth thousands of dollars to
+      the Company, and no trouble ever came of it to Schemmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French, with no instinct for colonization, futile in their childish
+      playgame of developing the resources of the island, were only too glad to
+      see the English Company succeed. What matter of Schemmer and his
+      redoubtable fist? The Chinago that died? Well, he was only a Chinago.
+      Besides, he died of sunstroke, as the doctor's certificate attested. True,
+      in all the history of Tahiti no one had ever died of sunstroke. But it was
+      that, precisely that, which made the death of this Chinago unique. The
+      doctor said as much in his report. He was very candid. Dividends must be
+      paid, or else one more failure would be added to the long history of
+      failure in Tahiti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no understanding these white devils. Ah Cho pondered their
+      inscrutableness as he sat in the court room waiting the judgment. There
+      was no telling what went on at the back of their minds. He had seen a few
+      of the white devils. They were all alike&mdash;the officers and sailors on
+      the ship, the French officials, the several white men on the plantation,
+      including Schemmer. Their minds all moved in mysterious ways there was no
+      getting at. They grew angry without apparent cause, and their anger was
+      always dangerous. They were like wild beasts at such times. They worried
+      about little things, and on occasion could out-toil even a Chinago. They
+      were not temperate as Chinagos were temperate; they were gluttons, eating
+      prodigiously and drinking more prodigiously. A Chinago never knew when an
+      act would please them or arouse a storm of wrath. A Chinago could never
+      tell. What pleased one time, the very next time might provoke an outburst
+      of anger. There was a curtain behind the eyes of the white devils that
+      screened the backs of their minds from the Chinago's gaze. And then, on
+      top of it all, was that terrible efficiency of the white devils, that
+      ability to do things, to make things go, to work results, to bend to their
+      wills all creeping, crawling things, and the powers of the very elements
+      themselves. Yes, the white men were strange and wonderful, and they were
+      devils. Look at Schemmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho wondered why the judgment was so long in forming. Not a man on
+      trial had laid hand on Chung Ga. Ah San alone had killed him. Ah San had
+      done it, bending Chung Ga's head back with one hand by a grip of his
+      queue, and with the other hand, from behind, reaching over and driving the
+      knife into his body. Twice had he driven it in. There in the court room,
+      with closed eyes, Ah Cho saw the killing acted over again&mdash;the
+      squabble, the vile words bandied back and forth, the filth and insult
+      flung upon venerable ancestors, the curses laid upon unbegotten
+      generations, the leap of Ah San, the grip on the queue of Chung Ga, the
+      knife that sank twice into his flesh, the bursting open of the door, the
+      irruption of Schemmer, the dash for the door, the escape of Ah San, the
+      flying belt of Schemmer that drove the rest into the corner, and the
+      firing of the revolver as a signal that brought help to Schemmer. Ah Cho
+      shivered as he lived it over. One blow of the belt had bruised his cheek,
+      taking off some of the skin. Schemmer had pointed to the bruises when, on
+      the witness-stand, he had identified Ah Cho. It was only just now that the
+      marks had become no longer visible. That had been a blow. Half an inch
+      nearer the centre and it would have taken out his eye. Then Ah Cho forgot
+      the whole happening in a vision he caught of the garden of meditation and
+      repose that would be his when he returned to his own land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat with impassive face, while the magistrate rendered the judgment.
+      Likewise were the faces of his four companions impassive. And they
+      remained impassive when the interpreter explained that the five of them
+      had been found guilty of the murder of Chung Ga, and that Ah Chow should
+      have his head cut off, Ah Cho serve twenty years in prison in New
+      Caledonia, Wong Li twelve years, and Ah Tong ten years. There was no use
+      in getting excited about it. Even Ah Chow remained expressionless as a
+      mummy, though it was his head that was to be cut off. The magistrate added
+      a few words, and the interpreter explained that Ah Chow's face having been
+      most severely bruised by Schemmer's strap had made his identification so
+      positive that, since one man must die, he might as well be that man. Also,
+      the fact that Ah Cho's face likewise had been severely bruised,
+      conclusively proving his presence at the murder and his undoubted
+      participation, had merited him the twenty years of penal servitude. And
+      down to the ten years of Ah Tong, the proportioned reason for each
+      sentence was explained. Let the Chinagos take the lesson to heart, the
+      Court said finally, for they must learn that the law would be fulfilled in
+      Tahiti though the heavens fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The five Chinagos were taken back to jail. They were not shocked nor
+      grieved. The sentences being unexpected was quite what they were
+      accustomed to in their dealings with the white devils. From them a Chinago
+      rarely expected more than the unexpected. The heavy punishment for a crime
+      they had not committed was no stranger than the countless strange things
+      that white devils did. In the weeks that followed, Ah Cho often
+      contemplated Ah Chow with mild curiosity. His head was to be cut off by
+      the guillotine that was being erected on the plantation. For him there
+      would be no declining years, no gardens of tranquillity. Ah Cho
+      philosophized and speculated about life and death. As for himself, he was
+      not perturbed. Twenty years were merely twenty years. By that much was his
+      garden removed from him&mdash;that was all. He was young, and the patience
+      of Asia was in his bones. He could wait those twenty years, and by that
+      time the heats of his blood would be assuaged and he would be better
+      fitted for that garden of calm delight. He thought of a name for it; he
+      would call it The Garden of the Morning Calm. He was made happy all day by
+      the thought, and he was inspired to devise a moral maxim on the virtue of
+      patience, which maxim proved a great comfort, especially to Wong Li and Ah
+      Tong. Ah Chow, however, did not care for the maxim. His head was to be
+      separated from his body in so short a time that he had no need for
+      patience to wait for that event. He smoked well, ate well, slept well, and
+      did not worry about the slow passage of time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cruchot was a gendarme. He had seen twenty years of service in the
+      colonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those twenty
+      years had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind. He was as slow-witted
+      and stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France. He knew
+      discipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant of
+      gendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish obedience
+      which he rendered. In point of fact, the sergeant bulked bigger in his
+      mind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces had their say. God
+      was usually very remote, while the sergeant was ordinarily very close at
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the jailer
+      commanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person of Ah
+      Chow. Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner the night
+      before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war. His hand was
+      shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were aching so
+      dreadfully that he did not read over the order. It was only a Chinago's
+      life he was signing away, anyway. So he did not notice that he had omitted
+      the final letter in Ah Chow's name. The order read &ldquo;Ah Cho,&rdquo; and, when
+      Cruchot presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the person of
+      Ah Cho. Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a wagon, behind
+      two mules, and drove away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme and
+      beamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules headed
+      south toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to be brought
+      back. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work well. Schemmer
+      would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day. There had been a
+      stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot sweated, and Ah Cho
+      sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with the least concern. He
+      had toiled three years under that sun on the plantation. He beamed and
+      beamed with such genial good nature that even Cruchot's heavy mind was
+      stirred to wonderment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very funny,&rdquo; he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot
+      spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all
+      foreign devils, Ah Cho understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You laugh too much,&rdquo; Cruchot chided. &ldquo;One's heart should be full of tears
+      on a day like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to get out of the jail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all?&rdquo; The gendarme shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it not enough?&rdquo; was the retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for Schemmer.
+      Are you not taking me to Atimaono?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively. &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; he said
+      finally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, &ldquo;so you don't know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Know what?&rdquo; Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm. &ldquo;Won't Schemmer
+      let me work for him any more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not after to-day.&rdquo; Cruchot laughed heartily. It was a good joke. &ldquo;You
+      see, you won't be able to work after to-day. A man with his head off can't
+      work, eh?&rdquo; He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile. Then he
+      spoke: &ldquo;Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cruchot grinned as he nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a mistake,&rdquo; said Ah Cho, gravely. &ldquo;I am not the Chinago that is to
+      have his head cut off. I am Ah Cho. The honourable judge has determined
+      that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to
+      cheat the guillotine. The mules trotted through a coconut grove and for
+      half a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you I am not Ah Chow. The honourable judge did not say that my
+      head was to go off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be afraid,&rdquo; said Cruchot, with the philanthropic intention of
+      making it easier for his prisoner. &ldquo;It is not difficult to die that way.&rdquo;
+       He snapped his fingers. &ldquo;It is quick&mdash;like that. It is not like
+      hanging on the end of a rope and kicking and making faces for five
+      minutes. It is like killing a chicken with a hatchet. You cut its head
+      off, that is all. And it is the same with a man. Pouf!&mdash;it is over.
+      It doesn't hurt. You don't even think it hurts. You don't think. Your head
+      is gone, so you cannot think. It is very good. That is the way I want to
+      die&mdash;quick, ah, quick. You are lucky to die that way. You might get
+      the leprosy and fall to pieces slowly, a finger at a time, and now and
+      again a thumb, also the toes. I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It
+      took him two days to die. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away. But
+      you? Ah! so easy! Chck!&mdash;the knife cuts your neck like that. It is
+      finished. The knife may even tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that way
+      ever came back to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered this last an excruciating joke, and permitted himself to be
+      convulsed with laughter for half a minute. Part of his mirth was assumed,
+      but he considered it his humane duty to cheer up the Chinago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I tell you I am Ah Cho,&rdquo; the other persisted. &ldquo;I don't want my head
+      cut off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cruchot scowled. The Chinago was carrying the foolishness too far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not Ah Chow&mdash;&rdquo; Ah Cho began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will do,&rdquo; the gendarme interrupted. He puffed up his cheeks and
+      strove to appear fierce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you I am not&mdash;&rdquo; Ah Cho began again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up!&rdquo; bawled Cruchot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that they rode along in silence. It was twenty miles from Papeete to
+      Atimaono, and over half the distance was covered by the time the Chinago
+      again ventured into speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw you in the court room, when the honourable judge sought after our
+      guilt,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;Very good. And do you remember that Ah Chow, whose head
+      is to be cut off&mdash;do you remember that he&mdash;Ah Chow&mdash;was a
+      tall man? Look at me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood up suddenly, and Cruchot saw that he was a short man. And just as
+      suddenly Cruchot caught a glimpse of a memory picture of Ah Chow, and in
+      that picture Ah Chow was tall. To the gendarme all Chinagos looked alike.
+      One face was like another. But between tallness and shortness he could
+      differentiate, and he knew that he had the wrong man beside him on the
+      seat. He pulled up the mules abruptly, so that the pole shot ahead of
+      them, elevating their collars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, it was a mistake,&rdquo; said Ah Cho, smiling pleasantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Cruchot was thinking. Already he regretted that he had stopped the
+      wagon. He was unaware of the error of the Chief Justice, and he had no way
+      of working it out; but he did know that he had been given this Chinago to
+      take to Atimaono and that it was his duty to take him to Atimaono. What if
+      he was the wrong man and they cut his head off? It was only a Chinago when
+      all was said, and what was a Chinago, anyway? Besides, it might not be a
+      mistake. He did not know what went on in the minds of his superiors. They
+      knew their business best. Who was he to do their thinking for them? Once,
+      in the long ago, he had attempted to think for them, and the sergeant had
+      said: &ldquo;Cruchot, you are a fool! The quicker you know that, the better you
+      will get on. You are not to think; you are to obey and leave thinking to
+      your betters.&rdquo; He smarted under the recollection. Also, if he turned back
+      to Papeete, he would delay the execution at Atimaono, and if he were wrong
+      in turning back, he would get a reprimand from the sergeant who was
+      waiting for the prisoner. And, furthermore, he would get a reprimand at
+      Papeete as well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He touched the mules with the whip and drove on. He looked at his watch.
+      He would be half an hour late as it was, and the sergeant was bound to be
+      angry. He put the mules into a faster trot. The more Ah Cho persisted in
+      explaining the mistake, the more stubborn Cruchot became. The knowledge
+      that he had the wrong man did not make his temper better. The knowledge
+      that it was through no mistake of his confirmed him in the belief that the
+      wrong he was doing was the right. And, rather than incur the displeasure
+      of the sergeant, he would willingly have assisted a dozen wrong Chinagos
+      to their doom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Ah Cho, after the gendarme had struck him over the head with the
+      butt of the whip and commanded him in a loud voice to shut up, there
+      remained nothing for him to do but to shut up. The long ride continued in
+      silence. Ah Cho pondered the strange ways of the foreign devils. There was
+      no explaining them. What they were doing with him was of a piece with
+      everything they did. First they found guilty five innocent men, and next
+      they cut off the head of the man that even they, in their benighted
+      ignorance, had deemed meritorious of no more than twenty years'
+      imprisonment. And there was nothing he could do. He could only sit idly
+      and take what these lords of life measured out to him. Once, he got in a
+      panic, and the sweat upon his body turned cold; but he fought his way out
+      of it. He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate by remembering and
+      repeating certain passages from the &ldquo;Yin Chih Wen&rdquo; (&ldquo;The Tract of the
+      Quiet Way&rdquo;); but, instead, he kept seeing his dream-garden of meditation
+      and repose. This bothered him, until he abandoned himself to the dream and
+      sat in his garden listening to the tinkling of the windbells in the
+      several trees. And lo! sitting thus, in the dream, he was able to remember
+      and repeat the passages from &ldquo;The Tract of the Quiet Way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So the time passed nicely until Atimaono was reached and the mules trotted
+      up to the foot of the scaffold, in the shade of which stood the impatient
+      sergeant. Ah Cho was hurried up the ladder of the scaffold. Beneath him on
+      one side he saw assembled all the coolies of the plantation. Schemmer had
+      decided that the event would be a good object-lesson, and so he called in
+      the coolies from the fields and compelled them to be present. As they
+      caught sight of Ah Cho they gabbled among themselves in low voices. They
+      saw the mistake; but they kept it to themselves. The inexplicable white
+      devils had doubtlessly changed their minds. Instead of taking the life of
+      one innocent man, they were taking the life of another innocent man. Ah
+      Chow or Ah Cho&mdash;what did it matter which? They could never understand
+      the white dogs any more than could the white dogs understand them. Ah Cho
+      was going to have his head cut off, but they, when their two remaining
+      years of servitude were up, were going back to China.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schemmer had made the guillotine himself. He was a handy man, and though
+      he had never seen a guillotine, the French officials had explained the
+      principle to him. It was on his suggestion that they had ordered the
+      execution to take place at Atimaono instead of at Papeete. The scene of
+      the crime, Schemmer had argued, was the best possible place for the
+      punishment, and, in addition, it would have a salutary influence upon the
+      half-thousand Chinagos on the plantation. Schemmer had also volunteered to
+      act as executioner, and in that capacity he was now on the scaffold,
+      experimenting with the instrument he had made. A banana tree, of the size
+      and consistency of a man's neck, lay under the guillotine. Ah Cho watched
+      with fascinated eyes. The German, turning a small crank, hoisted the blade
+      to the top of the little derrick he had rigged. A jerk on a stout piece of
+      cord loosed the blade and it dropped with a flash, neatly severing the
+      banana trunk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How does it work?&rdquo; The sergeant, coming out on top the scaffold, had
+      asked the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautifully,&rdquo; was Schemmer's exultant answer. &ldquo;Let me show you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he turned the crank that hoisted the blade, jerked the cord, and
+      sent the blade crashing down on the soft tree. But this time it went no
+      more than two-thirds of the way through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant scowled. &ldquo;That will not serve,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schemmer wiped the sweat from his forehead. &ldquo;What it needs is more
+      weight,&rdquo; he announced. Walking up to the edge of the scaffold, he called
+      his orders to the blacksmith for a twenty-five-pound piece of iron. As he
+      stooped over to attach the iron to the broad top of the blade, Ah Cho
+      glanced at the sergeant and saw his opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The honourable judge said that Ah Chow was to have his head cut off,&rdquo; he
+      began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant nodded impatiently. He was thinking of the fifteen-mile ride
+      before him that afternoon, to the windward side of the island, and of
+      Berthe, the pretty half-caste daughter of Lafiere, the pearl-trader, who
+      was waiting for him at the end of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I am not Ah Chow. I am Ah Cho. The honourable jailer has made a
+      mistake. Ah Chow is a tall man, and you see I am short.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant looked at him hastily and saw the mistake. &ldquo;Schemmer!&rdquo; he
+      called, imperatively. &ldquo;Come here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The German grunted, but remained bent over his task till the chunk of iron
+      was lashed to his satisfaction. &ldquo;Is your Chinago ready?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at him,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;Is he the Chinago?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Schemmer was surprised. He swore tersely for a few seconds, and looked
+      regretfully across at the thing he had made with his own hands and which
+      he was eager to see work. &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said finally, &ldquo;we can't postpone
+      this affair. I've lost three hours' work already out of those five hundred
+      Chinagos. I can't afford to lose it all over again for the right man.
+      Let's put the performance through just the same. It is only a Chinago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant remembered the long ride before him, and the pearl-trader's
+      daughter, and debated with himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will blame it on Cruchot&mdash;if it is discovered,&rdquo; the German
+      urged. &ldquo;But there's little chance of its being discovered. Ah Chow won't
+      give it away, at any rate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The blame won't lie with Cruchot, anyway,&rdquo; the sergeant said. &ldquo;It must
+      have been the jailer's mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then let's go on with it. They can't blame us. Who can tell one Chinago
+      from another? We can say that we merely carried out instructions with the
+      Chinago that was turned over to us. Besides, I really can't take all those
+      coolies a second time away from their labour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They spoke in French, and Ah Cho, who did not understand a word of it,
+      nevertheless knew that they were determining his destiny. He knew, also,
+      that the decision rested with the sergeant, and he hung upon that
+      official's lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; announced the sergeant. &ldquo;Go ahead with it. He is only a
+      Chinago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to try it once more, just to make sure.&rdquo; Schemmer moved the
+      banana trunk forward under the knife, which he had hoisted to the top of
+      the derrick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah Cho tried to remember maxims from &ldquo;The Tract of the Quiet Way.&rdquo; &ldquo;Live
+      in concord,&rdquo; came to him; but it was not applicable. He was not going to
+      live. He was about to die. No, that would not do. &ldquo;Forgive malice&rdquo;&mdash;yes,
+      but there was no malice to forgive. Schemmer and the rest were doing this
+      thing without malice. It was to them merely a piece of work that had to be
+      done, just as clearing the jungle, ditching the water, and planting cotton
+      were pieces of work that had to be done. Schemmer jerked the cord, and Ah
+      Cho forgot &ldquo;The Tract of the Quiet Way.&rdquo; The knife shot down with a thud,
+      making a clean slice of the tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful!&rdquo; exclaimed the sergeant, pausing in the act of lighting a
+      cigarette. &ldquo;Beautiful, my friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Schemmer was pleased at the praise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, Ah Chow,&rdquo; he said, in the Tahitian tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am not Ah Chow&mdash;&rdquo; Ah Cho began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up!&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;If you open your mouth again, I'll break your
+      head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The overseer threatened him with a clenched fist, and he remained silent.
+      What was the good of protesting? Those foreign devils always had their
+      way. He allowed himself to be lashed to the vertical board that was the
+      size of his body. Schemmer drew the buckles tight&mdash;so tight that the
+      straps cut into his flesh and hurt. But he did not complain. The hurt
+      would not last long. He felt the board tilting over in the air toward the
+      horizontal, and closed his eyes. And in that moment he caught a last
+      glimpse of his garden of meditation and repose. It seemed to him that he
+      sat in the garden. A cool wind was blowing, and the bells in the several
+      trees were tinkling softly. Also, birds were making sleepy noises, and
+      from beyond the high wall came the subdued sound of village life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he was aware that the board had come to rest, and from muscular
+      pressures and tensions he knew that he was lying on his back. He opened
+      his eyes. Straight above him he saw the suspended knife blazing in the
+      sunshine. He saw the weight which had been added, and noted that one of
+      Schemmer's knots had slipped. Then he heard the sergeant's voice in sharp
+      command. Ah Cho closed his eyes hastily. He did not want to see that knife
+      descend. But he felt it&mdash;for one great fleeting instant. And in that
+      instant he remembered Cruchot and what Cruchot had said. But Cruchot was
+      wrong. The knife did not tickle. That much he knew before he ceased to
+      know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      MAKE WESTING
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Whatever you do, make westing! make westing!
+                    &mdash;Sailing directions for Cape Horn.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For seven weeks the Mary Rogers had been between 50 degrees south in the
+      Atlantic and 50 degrees south in the Pacific, which meant that for seven
+      weeks she had been struggling to round Cape Horn. For seven weeks she had
+      been either in dirt, or close to dirt, save once, and then, following upon
+      six days of excessive dirt, which she had ridden out under the shelter of
+      the redoubtable Terra del Fuego coast, she had almost gone ashore during a
+      heavy swell in the dead calm that had suddenly fallen. For seven weeks she
+      had wrestled with the Cape Horn graybeards, and in return been buffeted
+      and smashed by them. She was a wooden ship, and her ceaseless straining
+      had opened her seams, so that twice a day the watch took its turn at the
+      pumps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mary Rogers was strained, the crew was strained, and big Dan Cullen,
+      master, was likewise strained. Perhaps he was strained most of all, for
+      upon him rested the responsibility of that titanic struggle. He slept most
+      of the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept. He haunted the deck at
+      night, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the sunburn of thirty
+      years of sea and hairy as an orang-outang. He, in turn, was haunted by one
+      thought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn: Whatever you do, make
+      westing! make westing! It was an obsession. He thought of nothing else,
+      except, at times, to blaspheme God for sending such bitter weather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Make westing! He hugged the Horn, and a dozen times lay hove to with the
+      iron Cape bearing east-by-north, or north-north-east, a score of miles
+      away. And each time the eternal west wind smote him back and he made
+      easting. He fought gale after gale, south to 64 degrees, inside the
+      antarctic drift-ice, and pledged his immortal soul to the Powers of
+      Darkness for a bit of westing, for a slant to take him around. And he made
+      easting. In despair, he had tried to make the passage through the Straits
+      of Le Maire. Halfway through, the wind hauled to the north'ard of
+      north-west, the glass dropped to 28.88, and he turned and ran before a
+      gale of cyclonic fury, missing, by a hair's-breadth, piling up the Mary
+      Rogers on the black-toothed rocks. Twice he had made west to the Diego
+      Ramirez Rocks, one of the times saved between two snow-squalls by sighting
+      the gravestones of ships a quarter of a mile dead ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blow! Captain Dan Cullen instanced all his thirty years at sea to prove
+      that never had it blown so before. The Mary Rogers was hove to at the time
+      he gave the evidence, and, to clinch it, inside half an hour the Mary
+      Rogers was hove down to the hatches. Her new maintopsail and brand new
+      spencer were blown away like tissue paper; and five sails, furled and fast
+      under double gaskets, were blown loose and stripped from the yards. And
+      before morning the Mary Rogers was hove down twice again, and holes were
+      knocked in her bulwarks to ease her decks from the weight of ocean that
+      pressed her down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On an average of once a week Captain Dan Cullen caught glimpses of the
+      sun. Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes
+      afterward a new gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail, and
+      all was buried in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall. For a fortnight,
+      once, Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a chronometer sight.
+      Rarely did he know his position within half of a degree, except when in
+      sight of land; for sun and stars remained hidden behind the sky, and it
+      was so gloomy that even at the best the horizons were poor for accurate
+      observations. A gray gloom shrouded the world. The clouds were gray; the
+      great driving seas were leaden gray; the smoking crests were a gray
+      churning; even the occasional albatrosses were gray, while the
+      snow-flurries were not white, but gray, under the sombre pall of the
+      heavens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Life on board the Mary Rogers was gray&mdash;gray and gloomy. The faces of
+      the sailors were blue-gray; they were afflicted with sea-cuts and
+      sea-boils, and suffered exquisitely. They were shadows of men. For seven
+      weeks, in the forecastle or on deck, they had not known what it was to be
+      dry. They had forgotten what it was to sleep out a watch, and all watches
+      it was, &ldquo;All hands on deck!&rdquo; They caught snatches of agonized sleep, and
+      they slept in their oilskins ready for the everlasting call. So weak and
+      worn were they that it took both watches to do the work of one. That was
+      why both watches were on deck so much of the time. And no shadow of a man
+      could shirk duty. Nothing less than a broken leg could enable a man to
+      knock off work; and there were two such, who had been mauled and pulped by
+      the seas that broke aboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One other man who was the shadow of a man was George Dorety. He was the
+      only passenger on board, a friend of the firm, and he had elected to make
+      the voyage for his health. But seven weeks of Cape Horn had not bettered
+      his health. He gasped and panted in his bunk through the long, heaving
+      nights; and when on deck he was so bundled up for warmth that he resembled
+      a peripatetic old-clothes shop. At midday, eating at the cabin table in a
+      gloom so deep that the swinging sea-lamps burned always, he looked as
+      blue-gray as the sickest, saddest man for'ard. Nor did gazing across the
+      table at Captain Dan Cullen have any cheering effect upon him. Captain
+      Cullen chewed and scowled and kept silent. The scowls were for God, and
+      with every chew he reiterated the sole thought of his existence, which was
+      make westing. He was a big, hairy brute, and the sight of him was not
+      stimulating to the other's appetite. He looked upon George Dorety as a
+      Jonah, and told him so, once each meal, savagely transferring the scowl
+      from God to the passenger and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor did the mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite. Joshua Higgins
+      by name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper by capacity,
+      he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and selfish and
+      cowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen, and a bully
+      over the sailors, who knew that behind the mate was Captain Cullen, the
+      law-giver and compeller, the driver and the destroyer, the incarnation of
+      a dozen bucko mates. In that wild weather at the southern end of the
+      earth, Joshua Higgins ceased washing. His grimy face usually robbed George
+      Dorety of what little appetite he managed to accumulate. Ordinarily this
+      lavatorial dereliction would have caught Captain Cullen's eye and
+      vocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with making westing, to
+      the exclusion of all other things not contributory thereto. Whether the
+      mate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing upon westing. Later on, when
+      50 degrees south in the Pacific had been reached, Joshua Higgins would
+      wash his face very abruptly. In the meantime, at the cabin table, where
+      gray twilight alternated with lamplight while the lamps were being filled,
+      George Dorety sat between the two men, one a tiger and the other a hyena,
+      and wondered why God had made them. The second mate, Matthew Turner, was a
+      true sailor and a man, but George Dorety did not have the solace of his
+      company, for he ate by himself, solitary, when they had finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life and
+      headlong movement. On deck he found the Mary Rogers running off before a
+      howling south-easter. Nothing was set but the lower topsails and the
+      foresail. It was all she could stand, yet she was making fourteen knots,
+      as Mr. Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on deck. And it was all
+      westing. She was going around the Horn at last... if the wind held. Mr.
+      Turner looked happy. The end of the struggle was in sight. But Captain
+      Cullen did not look happy. He scowled at Dorety in passing. Captain Cullen
+      did not want God to know that he was pleased with that wind. He had a
+      conception of a malicious God, and believed in his secret soul that if God
+      knew it was a desirable wind, God would promptly efface it and send a
+      snorter from the west. So he walked softly before God, smothering his joy
+      down under scowls and muttered curses, and, so, fooling God, for God was
+      the only thing in the universe of which Dan Cullen was afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All Saturday and Saturday night the Mary Rogers raced her westing.
+      Persistently she logged her fourteen knots, so that by Sunday morning she
+      had covered three hundred and fifty miles. If the wind held, she would
+      make around. If it failed, and the snorter came from anywhere between
+      south-west and north, back the Mary Rogers would be hurled and be no
+      better off than she had been seven weeks before. And on Sunday morning the
+      wind was failing. The big sea was going down and running smooth. Both
+      watches were on deck setting sail after sail as fast as the ship could
+      stand it. And now Captain Cullen went around brazenly before God, smoking
+      a big cigar, smiling jubilantly, as if the failing wind delighted him,
+      while down underneath he was raging against God for taking the life out of
+      the blessed wind. Make westing! So he would, if God would only leave him
+      alone. Secretly, he pledged himself anew to the Powers of Darkness, if
+      they would let him make westing. He pledged himself so easily because he
+      did not believe in the Powers of Darkness. He really believed only in God,
+      though he did not know it. And in his inverted theology God was really the
+      Prince of Darkness. Captain Cullen was a devil-worshipper, but he called
+      the devil by another name, that was all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At midday, after calling eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals
+      on. The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks. Not alone were
+      they nimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining down
+      and limbering their stiff bodies. George Dorety stood aft, near Captain
+      Cullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the grateful warmth
+      as he watched the scene. Swiftly and abruptly the incident occurred. There
+      was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of &ldquo;Man overboard!&rdquo; Somebody threw a
+      life-buoy over the side, and at the same instant the second mate's voice
+      came aft, ringing and peremptory&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hard down your helm!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man at the wheel never moved a spoke. He knew better, for Captain Dan
+      Cullen was standing alongside of him. He wanted to move a spoke, to move
+      all the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comrade
+      drowning in the sea. He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain Dan
+      Cullen gave no sign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Down! Hard down!&rdquo; the second mate roared, as he sprang aft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw Dan
+      Cullen by the wheel. And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said
+      nothing. Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor. He had
+      caught the life-buoy and was clinging to it. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
+      The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-stricken
+      faces. And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing. A long, silent
+      minute passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was it?&rdquo; Captain Cullen demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mops, sir,&rdquo; eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough. It
+      was a large wave, but it was no graybeard. A small boat could live easily
+      in such a sea, and in such a sea the Mary Rogers could easily come to. But
+      she could not come to and make westing at the same time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real drama
+      of life and death&mdash;a sordid little drama in which the scales balanced
+      an unknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude. At first he
+      had watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan Cullen, hairy and
+      black, vested with power of life and death, smoking a cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute. Then he removed the
+      cigar from his mouth. He glanced aloft at the spars of the Mary Rogers,
+      and overside at the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sheet home the royals!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food served
+      before them. On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, on
+      the other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena. Nobody spoke. On deck the men
+      were sheeting home the skysails. George Dorety could hear their cries,
+      while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and
+      well, clinging to a life-buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean. He
+      glanced at Captain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the
+      man was eating his food with relish, almost bolting it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Cullen,&rdquo; Dorety said, &ldquo;you are in command of this ship, and it is
+      not proper for me to comment now upon what you do. But I wish to say one
+      thing. There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Cullen did not even scowl. In his voice was regret as he said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was blowing a living gale. It was impossible to save the man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He fell from the royal-yard,&rdquo; Dorety cried hotly. &ldquo;You were setting the
+      royals at the time. Fifteen minutes afterward you were setting the
+      skysails.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a living gale, wasn't it, Mr. Higgins?&rdquo; Captain Cullen said,
+      turning to the mate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you'd brought her to, it'd have taken the sticks out of her,&rdquo; was the
+      mate's answer. &ldquo;You did the proper thing, Captain Cullen. The man hadn't a
+      ghost of a show.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal's end no one spoke. After
+      that, Dorety had his meals served in his state-room. Captain Cullen
+      scowled at him no longer, though no speech was exchanged between them,
+      while the Mary Rogers sped north toward warmer latitudes. At the end of
+      the week, Dan Cullen cornered Dorety on deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do when we get to 'Frisco?&rdquo; he demanded bluntly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to swear out a warrant for your arrest,&rdquo; Dorety answered
+      quietly. &ldquo;I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see you
+      hanged for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're almighty sure of yourself,&rdquo; Captain Cullen sneered, turning on his
+      heel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second week passed, and one morning found George Dorety standing in the
+      coach-house companionway at the for'ard end of the long poop, taking his
+      first gaze around the deck. The Mary Rogers was reaching full-and-by, in a
+      stiff breeze. Every sail was set and drawing, including the staysails.
+      Captain Cullen strolled for'ard along the poop. He strolled carelessly,
+      glancing at the passenger out of the corner of his eye. Dorety was looking
+      the other way, standing with head and shoulders outside the companionway,
+      and only the back of his head was to be seen. Captain Cullen, with swift
+      eye, embraced the mainstaysail-block and the head and estimated the
+      distance. He glanced about him. Nobody was looking. Aft, Joshua Higgins,
+      pacing up and down, had just turned his back and was going the other way.
+      Captain Cullen bent over suddenly and cast the staysail-sheet off from its
+      pin. The heavy block hurtled through the air, smashing Dorety's head like
+      an egg-shell and hurtling on and back and forth as the staysail whipped
+      and slatted in the wind. Joshua Higgins turned around to see what had
+      carried away, and met the full blast of the vilest portion of Captain
+      Cullen's profanity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I made the sheet fast myself,&rdquo; whimpered the mate in the first lull,
+      &ldquo;with an extra turn to make sure. I remember it distinctly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made fast?&rdquo; the Captain snarled back, for the benefit of the watch as it
+      struggled to capture the flying sail before it tore to ribbons. &ldquo;You
+      couldn't make your grandmother fast, you useless hell's scullion. If you
+      made that sheet fast with an extra turn, why in hell didn't it stay fast?
+      That's what I want to know. Why in hell didn't it stay fast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mate whined inarticulately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, shut up!&rdquo; was the final word of Captain Cullen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half an hour later he was as surprised as any when the body of George
+      Dorety was found inside the companionway on the floor. In the afternoon,
+      alone in his room, he doctored up the log.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ordinary seaman, Karl Brun,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;lost overboard from
+      foreroyal-yard in a gale of wind. Was running at the time, and for the
+      safety of the ship did not dare come up to the wind. Nor could a boat have
+      lived in the sea that was running.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On another page, he wrote
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had often warned Mr. Dorety about the danger he ran because of his
+      carelessness on deck. I told him, once, that some day he would get his
+      head knocked off by a block. A carelessly fastened mainstaysail sheet was
+      the cause of the accident, which was deeply to be regretted because Mr.
+      Dorety was a favourite with all of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dan Cullen read over his literary effort with admiration, blotted
+      the page, and closed the log. He lighted a cigar and stared before him. He
+      felt the Mary Rogers lift, and heel, and surge along, and knew that she
+      was making nine knots. A smile of satisfaction slowly dawned on his black
+      and hairy face. Well, anyway, he had made his westing and fooled God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SEMPER IDEM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bicknell was in a remarkably gracious mood. Through a minor
+      accident, a slight bit of carelessness, that was all, a man who might have
+      pulled through had died the preceding night. Though it had been only a
+      sailorman, one of the innumerable unwashed, the steward of the receiving
+      hospital had been on the anxious seat all the morning. It was not that the
+      man had died that gave him discomfort, he knew the Doctor too well for
+      that, but his distress lay in the fact that the operation had been done so
+      well. One of the most delicate in surgery, it had been as successful as it
+      was clever and audacious. All had then depended upon the treatment, the
+      nurses, the steward. And the man had died. Nothing much, a bit of
+      carelessness, yet enough to bring the professional wrath of Doctor
+      Bicknell about his ears and to perturb the working of the staff and nurses
+      for twenty-four hours to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as already stated, the Doctor was in a remarkably gracious mood. When
+      informed by the steward, in fear and trembling, of the man's unexpected
+      take-off, his lips did not so much as form one syllable of censure; nay,
+      they were so pursed that snatches of rag-time floated softly from them, to
+      be broken only by a pleasant query after the health of the other's
+      eldest-born. The steward, deeming it impossible that he could have caught
+      the gist of the case, repeated it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; Doctor Bicknell said impatiently; &ldquo;I understand. But how about
+      Semper Idem? Is he ready to leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. They're helping him dress now,&rdquo; the steward answered, passing on to
+      the round of his duties, content that peace still reigned within the
+      iodine-saturated walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Semper Idem's recovery which had so fully compensated Doctor
+      Bicknell for the loss of the sailorman. Lives were to him as nothing, the
+      unpleasant but inevitable incidents of the profession, but cases, ah,
+      cases were everything. People who knew him were prone to brand him a
+      butcher, but his colleagues were at one in the belief that a bolder and
+      yet a more capable man never stood over the table. He was not an
+      imaginative man. He did not possess, and hence had no tolerance for,
+      emotion. His nature was accurate, precise, scientific. Men were to him no
+      more than pawns, without individuality or personal value. But as cases it
+      was different. The more broken a man was, the more precarious his grip on
+      life, the greater his significance in the eyes of Doctor Bicknell. He
+      would as readily forsake a poet laureate suffering from a common accident
+      for a nameless, mangled vagrant who defied every law of life by refusing
+      to die, as would a child forsake a Punch and Judy for a circus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it had been in the case of Semper Idem. The mystery of the man had not
+      appealed to him, nor had his silence and the veiled romance which the
+      yellow reporters had so sensationally and so fruitlessly exploited in
+      divers Sunday editions. But Semper Idem's throat had been cut. That was
+      the point. That was where his interest had centred. Cut from ear to ear,
+      and not one surgeon in a thousand to give a snap of the fingers for his
+      chance of recovery. But, thanks to the swift municipal ambulance service
+      and to Doctor Bicknell, he had been dragged back into the world he had
+      sought to leave. The Doctor's co-workers had shaken their heads when the
+      case was brought in. Impossible, they said. Throat, windpipe, jugular, all
+      but actually severed, and the loss of blood frightful. As it was such a
+      foregone conclusion, Doctor Bicknell had employed methods and done things
+      which made them, even in their professional capacities, shudder. And lo!
+      the man had recovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, on this morning that Semper Idem was to leave the hospital, hale and
+      hearty, Doctor Bicknell's geniality was in nowise disturbed by the
+      steward's report, and he proceeded cheerfully to bring order out of the
+      chaos of a child's body which had been ground and crunched beneath the
+      wheels of an electric car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As many will remember, the case of Semper Idem aroused a vast deal of
+      unseemly yet highly natural curiosity. He had been found in a slum
+      lodging, with throat cut as aforementioned, and blood dripping down upon
+      the inmates of the room below and disturbing their festivities. He had
+      evidently done the deed standing, with head bowed forward that he might
+      gaze his last upon a photograph which stood on the table propped against a
+      candlestick. It was this attitude which had made it possible for Doctor
+      Bicknell to save him. So terrific had been the sweep of the razor that had
+      he had his head thrown back, as he should have done to have accomplished
+      the act properly, with his neck stretched and the elastic vascular walls
+      distended, he would have of a certainty well-nigh decapitated himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the hospital, during all the time he travelled the repugnant road back
+      to life, not a word had left his lips. Nor could anything be learned of
+      him by the sleuths detailed by the chief of police. Nobody knew him, nor
+      had ever seen or heard of him before. He was strictly, uniquely, of the
+      present. His clothes and surroundings were those of the lowest labourer,
+      his hands the hands of a gentleman. But not a shred of writing was
+      discovered, nothing, save in one particular, which would serve to indicate
+      his past or his position in life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that one particular was the photograph. If it were at all a likeness,
+      the woman who gazed frankly out upon the onlooker from the card-mount must
+      have been a striking creature indeed. It was an amateur production, for
+      the detectives were baffled in that no professional photographer's
+      signature or studio was appended. Across a corner of the mount, in
+      delicate feminine tracery, was written: &ldquo;Semper idem; semper fidelis.&rdquo; And
+      she looked it. As many recollect, it was a face one could never forget.
+      Clever half-tones, remarkably like, were published in all the leading
+      papers at the time; but such procedure gave rise to nothing but the
+      uncontrollable public curiosity and interminable copy to the
+      space-writers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For want of a better name, the rescued suicide was known to the hospital
+      attendants, and to the world, as Semper Idem. And Semper Idem he remained.
+      Reporters, detectives, and nurses gave him up in despair. Not one word
+      could he be persuaded to utter; yet the flitting conscious light of his
+      eyes showed that his ears heard and his brain grasped every question put
+      to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this mystery and romance played no part in Doctor Bicknell's interest
+      when he paused in the office to have a parting word with his patient. He,
+      the Doctor, had performed a prodigy in the matter of this man, done what
+      was virtually unprecedented in the annals of surgery. He did not care who
+      or what the man was, and it was highly improbable that he should ever see
+      him again; but, like the artist gazing upon a finished creation, he wished
+      to look for the last time upon the work of his hand and brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Semper Idem still remained mute. He seemed anxious to be gone. Not a word
+      could the Doctor extract from him, and little the Doctor cared. He
+      examined the throat of the convalescent carefully, idling over the hideous
+      scar with the lingering, half-caressing fondness of a parent. It was not a
+      particularly pleasing sight. An angry line circled the throat&mdash;for
+      all the world as though the man had just escaped the hangman's noose&mdash;and,
+      disappearing below the ear on either side, had the appearance of
+      completing the fiery periphery at the nape of the neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maintaining his dogged silence, yielding to the other's examination in
+      much the manner of a leashed lion, Semper Idem betrayed only his desire to
+      drop from out of the public eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll not keep you,&rdquo; Doctor Bicknell finally said, laying a hand on
+      the man's shoulder and stealing a last glance at his own handiwork. &ldquo;But
+      let me give you a bit of advice. Next time you try it on, hold your chin
+      up, so. Don't snuggle it down and butcher yourself like a cow. Neatness
+      and despatch, you know. Neatness and despatch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Semper Idem's eyes flashed in token that he heard, and a moment later the
+      hospital door swung to on his heel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a busy day for Doctor Bicknell, and the afternoon was well along
+      when he lighted a cigar preparatory to leaving the table upon which it
+      seemed the sufferers almost clamoured to be laid. But the last one, an old
+      rag-picker with a broken shoulder-blade, had been disposed of, and the
+      first fragrant smoke wreaths had begun to curl about his head, when the
+      gong of a hurrying ambulance came through the open window from the street,
+      followed by the inevitable entry of the stretcher with its ghastly
+      freight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lay it on the table,&rdquo; the Doctor directed, turning for a moment to place
+      his cigar in safety. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suicide&mdash;throat cut,&rdquo; responded one of the stretcher bearers. &ldquo;Down
+      on Morgan Alley. Little hope, I think, sir. He's 'most gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Well, I'll give him a look, anyway.&rdquo; He leaned over the man at the
+      moment when the quick made its last faint flutter and succumbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Semper Idem come back again,&rdquo; the steward said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; replied Doctor Bicknell, &ldquo;and gone again. No bungling this time.
+      Properly done, upon my life, sir, properly done. Took my advice to the
+      letter. I'm not required here. Take it along to the morgue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bicknell secured his cigar and relighted it. &ldquo;That,&rdquo; he said
+      between the puffs, looking at the steward, &ldquo;that evens up for the one you
+      lost last night. We're quits now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A NOSE FOR THE KING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the morning calm of Korea, when its peace and tranquillity truly
+      merited its ancient name, &ldquo;Cho-sen,&rdquo; there lived a politician by name Yi
+      Chin Ho. He was a man of parts, and&mdash;who shall say?&mdash;perhaps in
+      no wise worse than politicians the world over. But, unlike his brethren in
+      other lands, Yi Chin Ho was in jail. Not that he had inadvertently
+      diverted to himself public moneys, but that he had inadvertently diverted
+      too much. Excess is to be deplored in all things, even in grafting, and Yi
+      Chin Ho's excess had brought him to most deplorable straits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten thousand strings of cash he owed the Government, and he lay in prison
+      under sentence of death. There was one advantage to the situation&mdash;he
+      had plenty of time in which to think. And he thought well. Then called he
+      the jailer to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most worthy man, you see before you one most wretched,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;Yet
+      all will be well with me if you will but let me go free for one short hour
+      this night. And all will be well with you, for I shall see to your
+      advancement through the years, and you shall come at length to the
+      directorship of all the prisons of Cho-sen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How now?&rdquo; demanded the jailer. &ldquo;What foolishness is this? One short hour,
+      and you but waiting for your head to be chopped off! And I, with an aged
+      and much-to-be-respected mother, not to say anything of a wife and several
+      children of tender years! Out upon you for the scoundrel that you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the Sacred City to the ends of all the Eight Coasts there is no
+      place for me to hide,&rdquo; Yi Chin Ho made reply. &ldquo;I am a man of wisdom, but
+      of what worth my wisdom here in prison? Were I free, well I know I could
+      seek out and obtain the money wherewith to repay the Government. I know of
+      a nose that will save me from all my difficulties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A nose!&rdquo; cried the jailer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A nose,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho. &ldquo;A remarkable nose, if I may say so, a most
+      remarkable nose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The jailer threw up his hands despairingly. &ldquo;Ah, what a wag you are, what
+      a wag,&rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;To think that that very admirable wit of yours must
+      go the way of the chopping-block!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so saying, he turned and went away. But in the end, being a man soft
+      of head and heart, when the night was well along he permitted Yi Chin Ho
+      to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Straight he went to the Governor, catching him alone and arousing him from
+      his sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yi Chin Ho, or I'm no Governor!&rdquo; cried the Governor. &ldquo;What do you here
+      who should be in prison waiting on the chopping-block?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I pray Your Excellency to listen to me,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho, squatting on
+      his hams by the bedside and lighting his pipe from the fire-box. &ldquo;A dead
+      man is without value. It is true, I am as a dead man, without value to the
+      Government, to Your Excellency, or to myself. But if, so to say, Your
+      Excellency were to give me my freedom&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; cried the Governor. &ldquo;Beside, you are condemned to death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Excellency well knows that if I can repay the ten thousand strings
+      of cash, the Government will pardon me,&rdquo; Yi Chin Ho went on. &ldquo;So, as I
+      say, if Your Excellency were to give me my freedom for a few days, being a
+      man of understanding, I should then repay the Government and be in
+      position to be of service to Your Excellency. I should be in position to
+      be of very great service to Your Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you a plan whereby you hope to obtain this money?&rdquo; asked the
+      Governor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then come with it to me to-morrow night; I would now sleep,&rdquo; said the
+      Governor, taking up his snore where it had been interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following night, having again obtained leave of absence from the
+      jailer, Yi Chin Ho presented himself at the Governor's bedside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it you, Yi Chin Ho?&rdquo; asked the Governor. &ldquo;And have you the plan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is I, Your Excellency,&rdquo; answered Yi Chin Ho, &ldquo;and the plan is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak,&rdquo; commanded the Governor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The plan is here,&rdquo; repeated Yi Chin Ho, &ldquo;here in my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor sat up and opened his eyes. Yi Chin Ho proffered in his hand
+      a sheet of paper. The Governor held it to the light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing but a nose,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bit pinched, so, and so, Your Excellency,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a bit pinched here and there, as you say,&rdquo; said the Governor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Withal it is an exceeding corpulent nose, thus, and so, all in one place,
+      at the end,&rdquo; proceeded Yi Chin Ho. &ldquo;Your Excellency would seek far and
+      wide and many a day for that nose and find it not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An unusual nose,&rdquo; admitted the Governor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a wart upon it,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A most unusual nose,&rdquo; said the Governor. &ldquo;Never have I seen the like. But
+      what do you with this nose, Yi Chin Ho?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I seek it whereby to repay the money to the Government,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho.
+      &ldquo;I seek it to be of service to Your Excellency, and I seek it to save my
+      own worthless head. Further, I seek Your Excellency's seal upon this
+      picture of the nose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the Governor laughed and affixed the seal of State, and Yi Chin Ho
+      departed. For a month and a day he travelled the King's Road which leads
+      to the shore of the Eastern Sea; and there, one night, at the gate of the
+      largest mansion of a wealthy city he knocked loudly for admittance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None other than the master of the house will I see,&rdquo; said he fiercely to
+      the frightened servants. &ldquo;I travel upon the King's business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Straightway was he led to an inner room, where the master of the house was
+      roused from his sleep and brought blinking before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are Pak Chung Chang, head man of this city,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho in tones
+      that were all-accusing. &ldquo;I am upon the King's business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pak Chung Chang trembled. Well he knew the King's business was ever a
+      terrible business. His knees smote together, and he near fell to the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hour is late,&rdquo; he quavered. &ldquo;Were it not well to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The King's business never waits!&rdquo; thundered Yi Chin Ho. &ldquo;Come apart with
+      me, and swiftly. I have an affair of moment to discuss with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the King's affair,&rdquo; he added with even greater fierceness; so that
+      Pak Chung Chang's silver pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers and
+      clattered on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Know then,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho, when they had gone apart, &ldquo;that the King is
+      troubled with an affliction, a very terrible affliction. In that he failed
+      to cure, the Court physician has had nothing else than his head chopped
+      off. From all the Eight Provinces have the physicians come to wait upon
+      the King. Wise consultation have they held, and they have decided that for
+      a remedy for the King's affliction nothing else is required than a nose, a
+      certain kind of nose, a very peculiar certain kind of nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then by none other was I summoned than His Excellency the Prime Minister
+      himself. He put a paper into my hand. Upon this paper was the very
+      peculiar kind of nose drawn by the physicians of the Eight Provinces, with
+      the seal of State upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Go,' said His Excellency the Prime Minister. 'Seek out this nose, for
+      the King's affliction is sore. And wheresoever you find this nose upon the
+      face of a man, strike it off forthright and bring it in all haste to the
+      Court, for the King must be cured. Go, and come not back until your search
+      is rewarded.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so I departed upon my quest,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho. &ldquo;I have sought out the
+      remotest corners of the kingdom; I have travelled the Eight Highways,
+      searched the Eight Provinces, and sailed the seas of the Eight Coasts. And
+      here I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a great flourish he drew a paper from his girdle, unrolled it with
+      many snappings and cracklings, and thrust it before the face of Pak Chung
+      Chang. Upon the paper was the picture of the nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pak Chung Chang stared upon it with bulging eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never have I beheld such a nose,&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a wart upon it,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never have I beheld&mdash;&rdquo; Pak Chung Chang began again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring your father before me,&rdquo; Yi Chin Ho interrupted sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor sleeps,&rdquo; said Pak Chung
+      Chang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why dissemble?&rdquo; demanded Yi Chin Ho. &ldquo;You know it is your father's nose.
+      Bring him before me that I may strike it off and be gone. Hurry, lest I
+      make bad report of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy!&rdquo; cried Pak Chung Chang, falling on his knees. &ldquo;It is impossible!
+      It is impossible! You cannot strike off my father's nose. He cannot go
+      down without his nose to the grave. He will become a laughter and a
+      byword, and all my days and nights will be filled with woe. O reflect!
+      Report that you have seen no such nose in your travels. You, too, have a
+      father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pak Chung Chang clasped Yi Chin Ho's knees and fell to weeping on his
+      sandals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My heart softens strangely at your tears,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho. &ldquo;I, too, know
+      filial piety and regard. But&mdash;&rdquo; He hesitated, then added, as though
+      thinking aloud, &ldquo;It is as much as my head is worth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much is your head worth?&rdquo; asked Pak Chung Chang in a thin, small
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A not remarkable head,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho. &ldquo;An absurdly unremarkable head;
+      but, such is my great foolishness, I value it at nothing less than one
+      hundred thousand strings of cash.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; said Pak Chung Chang, rising to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall need horses to carry the treasure,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho, &ldquo;and men to
+      guard it well as I journey through the mountains. There are robbers abroad
+      in the land.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are robbers abroad in the land,&rdquo; said Pak Chung Chang, sadly. &ldquo;But
+      it shall be as you wish, so long as my ancient and
+      very-much-to-be-respected ancestor's nose abide in its appointed place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say nothing to any man of this occurrence,&rdquo; said Yi Chin Ho, &ldquo;else will
+      other and more loyal servants than I be sent to strike off your father's
+      nose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so Yi Chin Ho departed on his way through the mountains, blithe of
+      heart and gay of song as he listened to the jingling bells of his
+      treasure-laden ponies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is little more to tell. Yi Chin Ho prospered through the years. By
+      his efforts the jailer attained at length to the directorship of all the
+      prisons of Cho-sen; the Governor ultimately betook himself to the Sacred
+      City to be Prime Minister to the King, while Yi Chin Ho became the King's
+      boon companion and sat at table with him to the end of a round, fat life.
+      But Pak Chung Chang fell into a melancholy, and ever after he shook his
+      head sadly, with tears in his eyes, whenever he regarded the expensive
+      nose of his ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE &ldquo;FRANCIS SPAIGHT&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <h3>
+      (A TRUE TALE RETOLD)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The Francis Spaight was running before it solely under a mizzentopsail,
+      when the thing happened. It was not due to carelessness so much as to the
+      lack of discipline of the crew and to the fact that they were indifferent
+      seamen at best. The man at the wheel in particular, a Limerick man, had
+      had no experience with salt water beyond that of rafting timber on the
+      Shannon between the Quebec vessels and the shore. He was afraid of the
+      huge seas that rose out of the murk astern and bore down upon him, and he
+      was more given to cowering away from their threatened impact than he was
+      to meeting their blows with the wheel and checking the ship's rush to
+      broach to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was three in the morning when his unseamanlike conduct precipitated the
+      catastrophe. At sight of a sea far larger than its fellows, he crouched
+      down, releasing his hands from the spokes. The Francis Spaight sheered as
+      her stern lifted on the sea, receiving the full fling of the cap on her
+      quarter. The next instant she was in the trough, her lee-rail buried till
+      the ocean was level with her hatch-coamings, sea after sea breaking over
+      her weather rail and sweeping what remained exposed of the deck with icy
+      deluges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men were out of hand, helpless and hopeless, stupid in their
+      bewilderment and fear, and resolute only in that they would not obey
+      orders. Some wailed, others clung silently in the weather shrouds, and
+      still others muttered prayers or shrieked vile imprecations; and neither
+      captain nor mate could get them to bear a hand at the pumps or at setting
+      patches of sails to bring the vessel up to the wind and sea. Inside the
+      hour the ship was over on her beam ends, the lubberly cowards climbing up
+      her side and hanging on in the rigging. When she went over, the mate was
+      caught and drowned in the after-cabin, as were two sailors who had sought
+      refuge in the forecastle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mate had been the ablest man on board, and the captain was now
+      scarcely less helpless than his men. Beyond cursing them for their
+      worthlessness, he did nothing; and it remained for a man named Mahoney, a
+      Belfast man, and a boy, O'Brien, of Limerick, to cut away the fore and
+      main masts. This they did at great risk on the perpendicular wall of the
+      wreck, sending the mizzentopmast overside along in the general crash. The
+      Francis Spaight righted, and it was well that she was lumber laden, else
+      she would have sunk, for she was already water-logged. The mainmast, still
+      fast by the shrouds, beat like a thunderous sledge-hammer against the
+      ship's side, every stroke bringing groans from the men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Day dawned on the savage ocean, and in the cold gray light all that could
+      be seen of the Francis Spaight emerging from the sea were the poop, the
+      shattered mizzenmast, and a ragged line of bulwarks. It was midwinter in
+      the North Atlantic, and the wretched men were half-dead from cold. But
+      there was no place where they could find rest. Every sea breached clean
+      over the wreck, washing away the salt incrustations from their bodies and
+      depositing fresh incrustations. The cabin under the poop was awash to the
+      knees, but here at least was shelter from the chill wind, and here the
+      survivors congregated, standing upright, holding on by the cabin
+      furnishings, and leaning against one another for support.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In vain Mahoney strove to get the men to take turns in watching aloft from
+      the mizzenmast for any chance vessel. The icy gale was too much for them,
+      and they preferred the shelter of the cabin. O'Brien, the boy, who was
+      only fifteen, took turns with Mahoney on the freezing perch. It was the
+      boy, at three in the afternoon, who called down that he had sighted a
+      sail. This did bring them from the cabin, and they crowded the poop rail
+      and weather mizzen shrouds as they watched the strange ship. But its
+      course did not lie near, and when it disappeared below the skyline, they
+      returned shivering to the cabin, not one offering to relieve the watch at
+      the mast head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the end of the second day, Mahoney and O'Brien gave up their attempt,
+      and thereafter the vessel drifted in the gale uncared for and without a
+      lookout. There were thirteen alive, and for seventy-two hours they stood
+      knee-deep in the sloshing water on the cabin floor, half-frozen, without
+      food, and with but three bottles of wine shared among them. All food and
+      fresh water were below, and there was no getting at such supplies in the
+      water-logged condition of the wreck. As the days went by, no food whatever
+      passed their lips. Fresh water, in small quantities, they were able to
+      obtain by holding a cover of a tureen under the saddle of the mizzenmast.
+      But the rain fell infrequently, and they were hard put. When it rained,
+      they also soaked their handkerchiefs, squeezing them out into their mouths
+      or into their shoes. As the wind and sea went down, they were even able to
+      mop the exposed portions of the deck that were free from brine and so add
+      to their water supply. But food they had none, and no way of getting it,
+      though sea-birds flew repeatedly overhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the calm weather that followed the gale, after having remained on their
+      feet for ninety-six hours, they were able to find dry planks in the cabin
+      on which to lie. But the long hours of standing in the salt water had
+      caused sores to form on their legs. These sores were extremely painful.
+      The slightest contact or scrape caused severe anguish, and in their weak
+      condition and crowded situation they were continually hurting one another
+      in this manner. Not a man could move about without being followed by
+      volleys of abuse, curses, and groans. So great was their misery that the
+      strong oppressed the weak, shoving them aside from the dry planks to shift
+      for themselves in the cold and wet. The boy, O'Brien, was specially
+      maltreated. Though there were three other boys, it was O'Brien who came in
+      for most of the abuse. There was no explaining it, except on the ground
+      that his was a stronger and more dominant spirit than those of the other
+      boys, and that he stood up more for his rights, resenting the petty
+      injustices that were meted out to all the boys by the men. Whenever
+      O'Brien came near the men in search of a dry place to sleep, or merely
+      moved about, he was kicked and cuffed away. In return, he cursed them for
+      their selfish brutishness, and blows and kicks and curses were rained upon
+      him. Miserable as were all of them, he was thus made far more miserable;
+      and it was only the flame of life, unusually strong in him, that enabled
+      him to endure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the days went by and they grew weaker, their peevishness and ill-temper
+      increased, which, in turn, increased the ill-treatment and sufferings of
+      O'Brien. By the sixteenth day all hands were far gone with hunger, and
+      they stood together in small groups, talking in undertones and
+      occasionally glancing at O'Brien. It was at high noon that the conference
+      came to a head. The captain was the spokesman. All were collected on the
+      poop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men,&rdquo; the captain began, &ldquo;we have been a long time without food&mdash;two
+      weeks and two days it is, though it seems more like two years and two
+      months. We can't hang out much longer. It is beyond human nature to go on
+      hanging out with nothing in our stomachs. There is a serious question to
+      consider: whether it is better for all to die, or for one to die. We are
+      standing with our feet in our graves. If one of us dies, the rest may live
+      until a ship is sighted. What say you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Michael Behane, the man who had been at the wheel when the Francis Spaight
+      broached to, called out that it was well. The others joined in the cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let it be one of the b'ys!&rdquo; cried Sullivan, a Tarbert man, glancing at
+      the same time significantly at O'Brien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my opinion,&rdquo; the captain went on, &ldquo;that it will be a good deed for
+      one of us to die for the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good deed! A good deed!&rdquo; the men interjected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is my opinion that 'tis best for one of the boys to die. They have
+      no families to support, nor would they be considered so great a loss to
+      their friends as those who have wives and children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis right.&rdquo; &ldquo;Very right.&rdquo; &ldquo;Very fit it should be done,&rdquo; the men muttered
+      one to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the four boys cried out against the injustice of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our lives is just as dear to us as the rest iv yez,&rdquo; O'Brien protested.
+      &ldquo;An' our famblies, too. As for wives an' childer, who is there savin'
+      meself to care for me old mother that's a widow, as you know well, Michael
+      Behane, that comes from Limerick? 'Tis not fair. Let the lots be drawn
+      between all of us, men and b'ys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahoney was the only man who spoke in favour of the boys, declaring that
+      it was the fair thing for all to share alike. Sullivan and the captain
+      insisted on the drawing of lots being confined to the boys. There were
+      high words, in the midst of which Sullivan turned upon O'Brien, snarling&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twould be a good deed to put you out of the way. You deserve it. 'Twould
+      be the right way to serve you, an' serve you we will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He started toward O'Brien, with intent to lay hands on him and proceed at
+      once with the killing, while several others likewise shuffled toward him
+      and reached for him. He stumbled backwards to escape them, at the same
+      time crying that he would submit to the drawing of the lots among the
+      boys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain prepared four sticks of different lengths and handed them to
+      Sullivan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're thinkin' the drawin'll not be fair,&rdquo; the latter sneered to
+      O'Brien. &ldquo;So it's yerself'll do the drawin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this O'Brien agreed. A handkerchief was tied over his eyes,
+      blindfolding him, and he knelt down on the deck with his back to Sullivan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoever you name for the shortest stick'll die,&rdquo; the captain said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sullivan held up one of the sticks. The rest were concealed in his hand so
+      that no one could see whether it was the short stick or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' whose stick will it be?&rdquo; Sullivan demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For little Johnny Sheehan,&rdquo; O'Brien answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sullivan laid the stick aside. Those who looked could not tell if it were
+      the fatal one. Sullivan held up another stick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose will it be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For George Burns,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stick was laid with the first one, and a third held up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' whose is this wan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For myself,&rdquo; said O'Brien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a quick movement, Sullivan threw the four sticks together. No one had
+      seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis for yourself ye've drawn it,&rdquo; Sullivan announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good deed,&rdquo; several of the men muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O'Brien was very quiet. He arose to his feet, took the bandage off, and
+      looked around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is ut?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;The short stick? The wan for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain pointed to the four sticks lying on the deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know the stick was mine?&rdquo; O'Brien questioned. &ldquo;Did you see ut,
+      Johnny Sheehan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny Sheehan, who was the youngest of the boys, did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you see ut?&rdquo; O'Brien next asked Mahoney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I didn't see ut.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men were muttering and growling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twas a fair drawin',&rdquo; Sullivan said. &ldquo;Ye had yer chanct an' ye lost,
+      that's all iv ut.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fair drawin',&rdquo; the captain added. &ldquo;Didn't I behold it myself? The stick
+      was yours, O'Brien, an' ye may as well get ready. Where's the cook?
+      Gorman, come here. Fetch the tureen cover, some of ye. Gorman, do your
+      duty like a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how'll I do it,&rdquo; the cook demanded. He was a weak-eyed, weak-chinned,
+      indecisive man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a damned murder!&rdquo; O'Brien cried out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll have none of ut,&rdquo; Mahoney announced. &ldquo;Not a bite shall pass me
+      lips.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then 'tis yer share for better men than yerself,&rdquo; Sullivan sneered. &ldquo;Go
+      on with yer duty, cook.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis not me duty, the killin' of b'ys,&rdquo; Gorman protested irresolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If yez don't make mate for us, we'll be makin' mate of yerself,&rdquo; Behane
+      threatened. &ldquo;Somebody must die, an' as well you as another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnny Sheehan began to cry. O'Brien listened anxiously. His face was
+      pale. His lips trembled, and at times his whole body shook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I signed on as cook,&rdquo; Gorman enounced. &ldquo;An' cook I wud if galley there
+      was. But I'll not lay me hand to murder. 'Tis not in the articles. I'm the
+      cook&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' cook ye'll be for wan minute more only,&rdquo; Sullivan said grimly, at the
+      same moment gripping the cook's head from behind and bending it back till
+      the windpipe and jugular were stretched taut. &ldquo;Where's yer knife, Mike?
+      Pass it along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the touch of the steel, Gorman whimpered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll do ut, if yez'll hold the b'y.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pitiable condition of the cook seemed in some fashion to nerve up
+      O'Brien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all right, Gorman,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Go on with ut. 'Tis meself knows yer
+      not wantin' to do ut. It's all right, sir&rdquo;&mdash;this to the captain, who
+      had laid a hand heavily on his arm. &ldquo;Ye won't have to hold me, sir. I'll
+      stand still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop yer blitherin', an' go an' get the tureen cover,&rdquo; Behane commanded
+      Johnny Sheehan, at the same time dealing him a heavy cuff alongside the
+      head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy, who was scarcely more than a child, fetched the cover. He crawled
+      and tottered along the deck, so weak was he from hunger. The tears still
+      ran down his cheeks. Behane took the cover from him, at the same time
+      administering another cuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O'Brien took off his coat and bared his right arm. His under lip still
+      trembled, but he held a tight grip on himself. The captain's penknife was
+      opened and passed to Gorman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mahoney, tell me mother what happened to me, if ever ye get back,&rdquo;
+       O'Brien requested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahoney nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis black murder, black an' damned,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The b'y's flesh'll do
+      none iv yez anny good. Mark me words. Ye'll not profit by it, none iv
+      yez.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get ready,&rdquo; the captain ordered. &ldquo;You, Sullivan, hold the cover&mdash;that's
+      it&mdash;close up. Spill nothing. It's precious stuff.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gorman made an effort. The knife was dull. He was weak. Besides, his hand
+      was shaking so violently that he nearly dropped the knife. The three boys
+      were crouched apart, in a huddle, crying and sobbing. With the exception
+      of Mahoney, the men were gathered about the victim, craning their necks to
+      see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be a man, Gorman,&rdquo; the captain cautioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wretched cook was seized with a spasm of resolution, sawing back and
+      forth with the blade on O'Brien's wrist. The veins were severed. Sullivan
+      held the tureen cover close underneath. The cut veins gaped wide, but no
+      ruddy flood gushed forth. There was no blood at all. The veins were dry
+      and empty. No one spoke. The grim and silent figures swayed in unison with
+      each heave of the ship. Every eye was turned fixedly upon that
+      inconceivable and monstrous thing, the dry veins of a creature that was
+      alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a warnin',&rdquo; Mahoney cried. &ldquo;Lave the b'y alone. Mark me words. His
+      death'll do none iv yez anny good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try at the elbow&mdash;the left elbow, 'tis nearer the heart,&rdquo; the
+      captain said finally, in a dim and husky voice that was unlike his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me the knife,&rdquo; O'Brien said roughly, taking it out of the cook's
+      hand. &ldquo;I can't be lookin' at ye puttin' me to hurt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite coolly he cut the vein at the left elbow, but, like the cook, he
+      failed to bring blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is all iv no use,&rdquo; Sullivan said. &ldquo;'Tis better to put him out iv his
+      misery by bleedin' him at the throat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The strain had been too much for the lad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be doin' ut,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;There'll be no blood in me throat. Give me
+      a little time. 'Tis cold an' weak I am. Be lettin' me lay down an' slape a
+      bit. Then I'll be warm an' the blood'll flow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis no use,&rdquo; Sullivan objected. &ldquo;As if ye cud be slapin' at a time like
+      this. Ye'll not slape, and ye'll not warm up. Look at ye now. You've an
+      ague.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was sick at Limerick wan night,&rdquo; O'Brien hurried on, &ldquo;an' the dochtor
+      cudn't bleed me. But after slapin' a few hours an' gettin' warm in bed the
+      blood came freely. It's God's truth I'm tellin' yez. Don't be murderin'
+      me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His veins are open now,&rdquo; the captain said. &ldquo;'Tis no use leavin' him in
+      his pain. Do it now an' be done with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They started to reach for O'Brien, but he backed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be the death iv yez!&rdquo; he screamed. &ldquo;Take yer hands off iv me,
+      Sullivan! I'll come back! I'll haunt yez! Wakin' or slapin', I'll haunt
+      yez till you die!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis disgraceful!&rdquo; yelled Behane. &ldquo;If the short stick'd ben mine, I'd
+      a-let me mates cut the head off iv me an' died happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sullivan leaped in and caught the unhappy lad by the hair. The rest of the
+      men followed, O'Brien kicked and struggled, snarling and snapping at the
+      hands that clutched him from every side. Little Johnny Sheehan broke out
+      into wild screaming, but the men took no notice of him. O'Brien was bent
+      backward to the deck, the tureen cover under his neck. Gorman was shoved
+      forward. Some one had thrust a large sheath-knife into his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do yer duty! Do yer duty!&rdquo; the men cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cook bent over, but he caught the boy's eyes and faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ye don't, I'll kill ye with me own hands,&rdquo; Behane shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From every side a torrent of abuse and threats poured in upon the cook.
+      Still he hung back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe there'll be more blood in his veins than O'Brien's,&rdquo; Sullivan
+      suggested significantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behane caught Gorman by the hair and twisted his head back, while Sullivan
+      attempted to take possession of the sheath-knife. But Gorman clung to it
+      desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lave go, an' I'll do ut!&rdquo; he screamed frantically. &ldquo;Don't be cuttin' me
+      throat! I'll do the deed! I'll do the deed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See that you do it, then,&rdquo; the captain threatened him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gorman allowed himself to be shoved forward. He looked at the boy, closed
+      his eyes, and muttered a prayer. Then, without opening his eyes, he did
+      the deed that had been appointed him. O'Brien emitted a shriek that sank
+      swiftly to a gurgling sob. The men held him till his struggles ceased,
+      when he was laid upon the deck. They were eager and impatient, and with
+      oaths and threats they urged Gorman to hurry with the preparation of the
+      meal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lave ut, you bloody butchers,&rdquo; Mahoney said quietly. &ldquo;Lave ut, I tell
+      yez. Ye'll not be needin' anny iv ut now. 'Tis as I said: ye'll not be
+      profitin' by the lad's blood. Empty ut overside, Behane. Empty ut
+      overside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Behane, still holding the tureen cover in both his hands, glanced to
+      windward. He walked to the rail and threw the cover and contents into the
+      sea. A full-rigged ship was bearing down upon them a short mile away. So
+      occupied had they been with the deed just committed, that none had had
+      eyes for a lookout. All hands watched her coming on&mdash;the brightly
+      coppered forefoot parting the water like a golden knife, the headsails
+      flapping lazily and emptily at each downward surge, and the towering
+      canvas tiers dipping and curtsying with each stately swing of the sea. No
+      man spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she hove to, a cable length away, the captain of the Francis Spaight
+      bestirred himself and ordered a tarpaulin to be thrown over O'Brien's
+      corpse. A boat was lowered from the stranger's side and began to pull
+      toward them. John Gorman laughed. He laughed softly at first, but he
+      accompanied each stroke of the oars with spasmodically increasing glee. It
+      was this maniacal laughter that greeted the rescue boat as it hauled
+      alongside and the first officer clambered on board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A CURIOUS FRAGMENT
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [The capitalist, or industrial oligarch, Roger Vanderwater,
+     mentioned in the narrative, has been identified as the ninth
+     in the line of the Vanderwaters that controlled for hundreds
+     of years the cotton factories of the South. This Roger
+     Vanderwater flourished in the last decades of the twenty-
+     sixth century after Christ, which was the fifth century of
+     the terrible industrial oligarchy that was reared upon the
+     ruins of the early Republic.
+
+     From internal evidences we are convinced that the narrative
+     which follows was not reduced to writing till the twenty-
+     ninth century. Not only was it unlawful to write or print
+     such matter during that period, but the working-class was so
+     illiterate that only in rare instances were its members able
+     to read and write. This was the dark reign of the overman,
+     in whose speech the great mass of the people were
+     characterized as the &ldquo;herd animals.&rdquo; All literacy was
+     frowned upon and stamped out. From the statute-books of the
+     times may be instanced that black law that made it a capital
+     offence for any man, no matter of what class, to teach even
+     the alphabet to a member of the working-class. Such
+     stringent limitation of education to the ruling class was
+     necessary if that class was to continue to rule.
+
+     One result of the foregoing was the development of the
+     professional story-tellers. These story-tellers were paid by
+     the oligarchy, and the tales they told were legendary,
+     mythical, romantic, and harmless. But the spirit of freedom
+     never quite died out, and agitators, under the guise of
+     story-tellers, preached revolt to the slave class. That the
+     following tale was banned by the oligarchs we have proof
+     from the records of the criminal police court of Ashbury,
+     wherein, on January 27, 2734, one John Tourney, found guilty
+     of telling the tale in a boozing-ken of labourers, was
+     sentenced to five years' penal servitude in the borax mines
+     of the Arizona Desert.&mdash;EDITOR'S NOTE.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Listen, my brothers, and I will tell you a tale of an arm. It was the arm
+      of Tom Dixon, and Tom Dixon was a weaver of the first class in a factory
+      of that hell-hound and master, Roger Vanderwater. This factory was called
+      &ldquo;Hell's Bottom&rdquo;... by the slaves who toiled in it, and I guess they ought
+      to know; and it was situated in Kingsbury, at the other end of the town
+      from Vanderwater's summer palace. You do not know where Kingsbury is?
+      There are many things, my brothers, that you do not know, and it is sad.
+      It is because you do not know that you are slaves. When I have told you
+      this tale, I should like to form a class among you for the learning of
+      written and printed speech. Our masters read and write and possess many
+      books, and it is because of that that they are our masters, and live in
+      palaces, and do not work. When the toilers learn to read and write&mdash;all
+      of them&mdash;they will grow strong; then they will use their strength to
+      break their bonds, and there will be no more masters and no more slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kingsbury, my brothers, is in the old State of Alabama. For three hundred
+      years the Vanderwaters have owned Kingsbury and its slave pens and
+      factories, and slave pens and factories in many other places and States.
+      You have heard of the Vanderwaters&mdash;who has not?&mdash;but let me
+      tell you things you do not know about them. The first Vanderwater was a
+      slave, even as you and I. Have you got that? He was a slave, and that was
+      over three hundred years ago. His father was a machinist in the slave pen
+      of Alexander Burrell, and his mother was a washerwoman in the same slave
+      pen. There is no doubt about this. I am telling you truth. It is history.
+      It is printed, every word of it, in the history books of our masters,
+      which you cannot read because your masters will not permit you to learn to
+      read. You can understand why they will not permit you to learn to read,
+      when there are such things in the books. They know, and they are very
+      wise. If you did read such things, you might be wanting in respect to your
+      masters, which would be a dangerous thing... to your masters. But I know,
+      for I can read, and I am telling you what I have read with my own eyes in
+      the history books of our masters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first Vanderwater's name was not Vanderwater; it was Vange&mdash;Bill
+      Vange, the son of Yergis Vange, the machinist, and Laura Carnly, the
+      washerwoman. Young Bill Vange was strong. He might have remained with the
+      slaves and led them to freedom; instead, however, he served the masters
+      and was well rewarded. He began his service, when yet a small child, as a
+      spy in his home slave pen. He is known to have informed on his own father
+      for seditious utterance. This is fact. I have read it with my own eyes in
+      the records. He was too good a slave for the slave pen. Alexander Burrell
+      took him out, while yet a child, and he was taught to read and write. He
+      was taught many things, and he was entered in the secret service of the
+      Government. Of course, he no longer wore the slave dress, except for
+      disguise at such times when he sought to penetrate the secrets and plots
+      of the slaves. It was he, when but eighteen years of age, who brought that
+      great hero and comrade, Ralph Jacobus, to trial and execution in the
+      electric chair. Of course, you have all heard the sacred name of Ralph
+      Jacobus, but it is news to you that he was brought to his death by the
+      first Vanderwater, whose name was Vange. I know. I have read it in the
+      books. There are many interesting things like that in the books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And after Ralph Jacobus died his shameful death, Bill Vange's name began
+      the many changes it was to undergo. He was known as &ldquo;Sly Vange&rdquo; far and
+      wide. He rose high in the secret service, and he was rewarded in grand
+      ways, but still he was not a member of the master class. The men were
+      willing that he should become so; it was the women of the master class who
+      refused to have Sly Vange one of them. Sly Vange gave good service to the
+      masters. He had been a slave himself, and he knew the ways of the slaves.
+      There was no fooling him. In those days the slaves were braver than now,
+      and they were always trying for their freedom. And Sly Vange was
+      everywhere, in all their schemes and plans, bringing their schemes and
+      plans to naught and their leaders to the electric chair. It was in 2255
+      that his name was next changed for him. It was in that year that the Great
+      Mutiny took place. In that region west of the Rocky Mountains, seventeen
+      millions of slaves strove bravely to overthrow their masters. Who knows,
+      if Sly Vange had not lived, but that they would have succeeded? But Sly
+      Vange was very much alive. The masters gave him supreme command of the
+      situation. In eight months of fighting, one million and three hundred and
+      fifty thousand slaves were killed. Vange, Bill Vange, Sly Vange, killed
+      them, and he broke the Great Mutiny. And he was greatly rewarded, and so
+      red were his hands with the blood of the slaves that thereafter he was
+      called &ldquo;Bloody Vange.&rdquo; You see, my brothers, what interesting things are
+      to be found in the books when one can read them. And, take my word for it,
+      there are many other things, even more interesting, in the books. And if
+      you will but study with me, in a year's time you can read those books for
+      yourselves&mdash;ay, in six months some of you will be able to read those
+      books for yourselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bloody Vange lived to a ripe old age, and always, to the last, was he
+      received in the councils of the masters; but never was he made a master
+      himself. He had first opened his eyes, you see, in a slave pen. But oh, he
+      was well rewarded! He had a dozen palaces in which to live. He, who was no
+      master, owned thousands of slaves. He had a great pleasure yacht upon the
+      sea that was a floating palace, and he owned a whole island in the sea
+      where toiled ten thousand slaves on his coffee plantations. But in his old
+      age he was lonely, for he lived apart, hated by his brothers, the slaves,
+      and looked down upon by those he had served and who refused to be his
+      brothers. The masters looked down upon him because he had been born a
+      slave. Enormously wealthy he died; but he died horribly, tormented by his
+      conscience, regretting all he had done and the red stain on his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But with his children it was different. They had not been born in the
+      slave pen, and by the special ruling of the Chief Oligarch of that time,
+      John Morrison, they were elevated to the master class. And it was then
+      that the name of Vange disappears from the page of history. It becomes
+      Vanderwater, and Jason Vange, the son of Bloody Vange, becomes Jason
+      Vanderwater, the founder of the Vanderwater line. But that was three
+      hundred years ago, and the Vanderwaters of to-day forget their beginnings
+      and imagine that somehow the clay of their bodies is different stuff from
+      the clay in your body and mine and in the bodies of all slaves. And I ask
+      you, Why should a slave become the master of another slave? And why should
+      the son of a slave become the master of many slaves? I leave these
+      questions for you to answer for yourselves, but do not forget that in the
+      beginning the Vanderwaters were slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, my brothers, I come back to the beginning of my tale to tell you
+      of Tom Dixon's arm. Roger Vanderwater's factory in Kingsbury was rightly
+      named &ldquo;Hell's Bottom,&rdquo; but the men who toiled in it were men, as you shall
+      see. Women toiled there, too, and children, little children. All that
+      toiled there had the regular slave rights under the law, but only under
+      the law, for they were deprived of many of their rights by the two
+      overseers of Hell's Bottom, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a long story, but I shall not tell all of it to you. I shall tell
+      only about the arm. It happened that, according to the law, a portion of
+      the starvation wage of the slaves was held back each month and put into a
+      fund. This fund was for the purpose of helping such unfortunate
+      fellow-workmen as happened to be injured by accidents or to be overtaken
+      by sickness. As you know with yourselves, these funds are controlled by
+      the overseers. It is the law, and so it was that the fund at Hell's Bottom
+      was controlled by the two overseers of accursed memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Clancy and Munster took this fund for their own use. When accidents
+      happened to the workmen, their fellows, as was the custom, made grants
+      from the fund; but the overseers refused to pay over the grants. What
+      could the slaves do? They had their rights under the law, but they had no
+      access to the law. Those that complained to the overseers were punished.
+      You know yourselves what form such punishment takes&mdash;the fines for
+      faulty work that is not faulty; the overcharging of accounts in the
+      Company's store; the vile treatment of one's women and children; and the
+      allotment to bad machines whereon, work as one will, he starves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, the slaves of Hell's Bottom protested to Vanderwater. It was the
+      time of the year when he spent several months in Kingsbury. One of the
+      slaves could write; it chanced that his mother could write, and she had
+      secretly taught him as her mother had secretly taught her. So this slave
+      wrote a round robin, wherein was contained their grievances, and all the
+      slaves signed by mark. And, with proper stamps upon the envelope, the
+      round robin was mailed to Roger Vanderwater. And Roger Vanderwater did
+      nothing, save to turn the round robin over to the two overseers. Clancy
+      and Munster were angered. They turned the guards loose at night on the
+      slave pen. The guards were armed with pick handles. It is said that next
+      day only half of the slaves were able to work in Hell's Bottom. They were
+      well beaten. The slave who could write was so badly beaten that he lived
+      only three months. But before he died, he wrote once more, to what purpose
+      you shall hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Four or five weeks afterward, Tom Dixon, a slave, had his arm torn off by
+      a belt in Hell's Bottom. His fellow-workmen, as usual, made a grant to him
+      from the fund, and Clancy and Munster, as usual, refused to pay it over
+      from the fund. The slave who could write, and who even then was dying,
+      wrote anew a recital of their grievances. And this document was thrust
+      into the hand of the arm that had been torn from Tom Dixon's body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it chanced that Roger Vanderwater was lying ill in his palace at the
+      other end of Kingsbury&mdash;not the dire illness that strikes down you
+      and me, brothers; just a bit of biliousness, mayhap, or no more than a bad
+      headache because he had eaten too heartily or drunk too deeply. But it was
+      enough for him, being tender and soft from careful rearing. Such men,
+      packed in cotton wool all their lives, are exceeding tender and soft.
+      Believe me, brothers, Roger Vanderwater felt as badly with his aching
+      head, or THOUGHT he felt as badly, as Tom Dixon really felt with his arm
+      torn out by the roots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It happened that Roger Vanderwater was fond of scientific farming, and
+      that on his farm, three miles outside of Kingsbury, he had managed to grow
+      a new kind of strawberry. He was very proud of that new strawberry of his,
+      and he would have been out to see and pick the first ripe ones, had it not
+      been for his illness. Because of his illness he had ordered the old farm
+      slave to bring in personally the first box of the berries. All this was
+      learned from the gossip of a palace scullion, who slept each night in the
+      slave pen. The overseer of the plantation should have brought in the
+      berries, but he was on his back with a broken leg from trying to break a
+      colt. The scullion brought the word in the night, and it was known that
+      next day the berries would come in. And the men in the slave pen of Hell's
+      Bottom, being men and not cowards, held a council.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The slave who could write, and who was sick and dying from the pick-handle
+      beating, said he would carry Tom Dixon's arm; also, he said he must die
+      anyway, and that it mattered nothing if he died a little sooner. So five
+      slaves stole from the slave pen that night after the guards had made their
+      last rounds. One of the slaves was the man who could write. They lay in
+      the brush by the roadside until late in the morning, when the old farm
+      slave came driving to town with the precious fruit for the master. What of
+      the farm slave being old and rheumatic, and of the slave who could write
+      being stiff and injured from his beating, they moved their bodies about
+      when they walked, very much in the same fashion. The slave who could write
+      put on the other's clothes, pulled the broad-brimmed hat over his eyes,
+      climbed upon the seat of the wagon, and drove on to town. The old farm
+      slave was kept tied all day in the bushes until evening, when the others
+      loosed him and went back to the slave pen to take their punishment for
+      having broken bounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Roger Vanderwater lay waiting for the berries in his
+      wonderful bedroom&mdash;such wonders and such comforts were there that
+      they would have blinded the eyes of you and me who have never seen such
+      things. The slave who could write said afterward that it was like a
+      glimpse of Paradise! And why not? The labour and the lives of ten thousand
+      slaves had gone to the making of that bedchamber, while they themselves
+      slept in vile lairs like wild beasts. The slave who could write brought in
+      the berries on a silver tray or platter&mdash;you see, Roger Vanderwater
+      wanted to speak with him in person about the berries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The slave who could write tottered his dying body across the wonderful
+      room and knelt by the couch of Vanderwater, holding out before him the
+      tray. Large green leaves covered the top of the tray, and these the
+      body-servant alongside whisked away so that Vanderwater could see. And
+      Roger Vanderwater, propped upon his elbow, saw. He saw the fresh,
+      wonderful fruit lying there like precious jewels, and in the midst of it
+      the arm of Tom Dixon as it had been torn from his body, well washed, of
+      course, my brothers, and very white against the blood-red fruit. And also
+      he saw, clutched in the stiff, dead fingers, the petition of his slaves
+      who toiled in Hell's Bottom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take and read,&rdquo; said the slave who could write. And even as the master
+      took the petition, the body-servant, who till then had been motionless
+      with surprise, struck with his fist the kneeling slave upon the mouth. The
+      slave was dying anyway, and was very weak, and did not mind. He made no
+      sound, and, having fallen over on his side, he lay there quietly, bleeding
+      from the blow on the mouth. The physician, who had run for the palace
+      guards, came back with them, and the slave was dragged upright upon his
+      feet. But as they dragged him up, his hand clutched Tom Dixon's arm from
+      where it had fallen on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall be flung alive to the hounds!&rdquo; the body-servant was crying in
+      great wrath. &ldquo;He shall be flung alive to the hounds!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Roger Vanderwater, forgetting his headache, still leaning on his
+      elbow, commanded silence, and went on reading the petition. And while he
+      read, there was silence, all standing upright, the wrathful body-servant,
+      the physician, the palace guards, and in their midst the slave, bleeding
+      at the mouth and still holding Tom Dixon's arm. And when Roger Vanderwater
+      had done, he turned upon the slave, saying&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If in this paper there be one lie, you shall be sorry that you were ever
+      born.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the slave said, &ldquo;I have been sorry all my life that I was born.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Roger Vanderwater looked at him closely, and the slave said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have done your worst to me. I am dying now. In a week I shall be
+      dead, so it does not matter if you kill me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you with that?&rdquo; the master asked, pointing to the arm; and the
+      slave made answer&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take it back to the pen to give it burial. Tom Dixon was my friend. We
+      worked beside each other at our looms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There is little more to my tale, brothers. The slave and the arm were sent
+      back in a cart to the pen. Nor were any of the slaves punished for what
+      they had done. Indeed, Roger Vanderwater made investigation and punished
+      the two overseers, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster. Their freeholds were
+      taken from them. They were branded, each upon the forehead, their right
+      hands were cut off, and they were turned loose upon the highway to wander
+      and beg until they died. And the fund was managed rightfully thereafter
+      for a time&mdash;for a time only, my brothers; for after Roger Vanderwater
+      came his son, Albert, who was a cruel master and half mad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brothers, that slave who carried the arm into the presence of the master
+      was my father. He was a brave man. And even as his mother secretly taught
+      him to read, so did he teach me. Because he died shortly after from the
+      pick-handle beating, Roger Vanderwater took me out of the slave pen and
+      tried to make various better things out of me. I might have become an
+      overseer in Hell's Bottom, but I chose to become a story-teller, wandering
+      over the land and getting close to my brothers, the slaves, everywhere.
+      And I tell you stories like this, secretly, knowing that you will not
+      betray me; for if you did, you know as well as I that my tongue will be
+      torn out and that I shall tell stories no more. And my message is,
+      brothers, that there is a good time coming, when all will be well in the
+      world and there will be neither masters nor slaves. But first you must
+      prepare for that good time by learning to read. There is power in the
+      printed word. And here am I to teach you to read, and as well there are
+      others to see that you get the books when I am gone along upon my way&mdash;the
+      history books wherein you will learn about your masters, and learn to
+      become strong even as they.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [EDITOR'S NOTE.&mdash;From &ldquo;Historical Fragments and Sketches,&rdquo; first
+      published in fifty volumes in 4427, and now, after two hundred years,
+      because of its accuracy and value, edited and republished by the National
+      Committee on Historical Research.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A PIECE OF STEAK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last
+      particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and
+      meditative way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the
+      feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two
+      children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in
+      sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched
+      nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She
+      was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier
+      prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had
+      borrowed from the neighbour across the hall. The last two ha'pennies had
+      gone to buy the bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his
+      weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped
+      into the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him
+      aware of his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the
+      pipe away. His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were
+      burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied,
+      stolid-looking man, and his appearance did not suffer from being
+      overprepossessing. His rough clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of
+      his shoes were too weak to carry the heavy re-soling that was itself of no
+      recent date. And his cotton shirt, a cheap, two shilling affair, showed a
+      frayed collar and ineradicable paint stains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he
+      was. It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in
+      long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed
+      and emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a
+      lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it
+      was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless and constituted a mouth harsh to
+      excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive, brutal,
+      heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost
+      expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he was,
+      the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were sleepy,
+      lion-like&mdash;the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted
+      quickly back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a
+      villainous-looking head. A nose twice broken and moulded variously by
+      countless blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted
+      to twice its size, completed his adornment, while the beard, fresh-shaven
+      as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the face a blue-black stain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or
+      lonely place. And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done
+      anything criminal. Outside of brawls, common to his walk in life, he had
+      harmed no one. Nor had he ever been known to pick a quarrel. He was a
+      professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved for his
+      professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going,
+      easy-natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too
+      open-handed for his own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies.
+      Fighting was a business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to
+      maim, struck to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was a plain
+      business proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the spectacle of
+      men knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of the purse.
+      When Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years before, he
+      knew that the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after having been
+      broken in a Newcastle bout. And he had played for that jaw and broken it
+      again in the ninth round, not because he bore the Gouger any ill-will, but
+      because that was the surest way to put the Gouger out and win the big end
+      of the purse. Nor had the Gouger borne him any ill-will for it. It was the
+      game, and both knew the game and played it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely
+      silent, staring at his hands. The veins stood out on the backs of the
+      hands, large and swollen; and the knuckles, smashed and battered and
+      malformed, testified to the use to which they had been put. He had never
+      heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but well he knew the
+      meaning of those big upstanding veins. His heart had pumped too much blood
+      through them at top pressure. They no longer did the work. He had
+      stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distension had passed
+      his endurance. He tired easily now. No longer could he do a fast twenty
+      rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong, with
+      fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and in turn
+      beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and fastest of
+      all in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its feet and yelling,
+      himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers of blows upon showers
+      of blows and receiving showers of blows in return, and all the time the
+      heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through the adequate veins. The
+      veins, swollen at the time, had always shrunk down again, though each
+      time, imperceptibly at first, not quite&mdash;remaining just a trifle
+      larger than before. He stared at them and at his battered knuckles, and,
+      for the moment, caught a vision of the youthful excellence of those hands
+      before the first knuckle had been smashed on the head of Benny Jones,
+      otherwise known as the Welsh Terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impression of his hunger came back on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!&rdquo; he muttered aloud, clenching
+      his huge fists and spitting out a smothered oath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's,&rdquo; his wife said half apologetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' they wouldn't?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a ha'penny. Burke said&mdash;&rdquo; She faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;G'wan! Wot'd he say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score was
+      comfortable big as it was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tom King grunted, but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull
+      terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks without
+      end. Burke would have given him credit for a thousand steaks&mdash;then.
+      But times had changed. Tom King was getting old; and old men, fighting
+      before second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills of any size with
+      the tradesmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and the
+      longing had not abated. He had not had a fair training for this fight. It
+      was a drought year in Australia, times were hard, and even the most
+      irregular work was difficult to find. He had had no sparring partner, and
+      his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient. He had done a few
+      days' navvy work when he could get it, and he had run around the Domain in
+      the early mornings to get his legs in shape. But it was hard, training
+      without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies that must be fed. Credit
+      with the tradesmen had undergone very slight expansion when he was matched
+      with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety Club had advanced him three
+      pounds&mdash;the loser's end of the purse&mdash;and beyond that had
+      refused to go. Now and again he had managed to borrow a few shillings from
+      old pals, who would have lent more only that it was a drought year and
+      they were hard put themselves. No&mdash;and there was no use in disguising
+      the fact&mdash;his training had not been satisfactory. He should have had
+      better food and no worries. Besides, when a man is forty, it is harder to
+      get into condition than when he is twenty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time is it, Lizzie?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quarter before eight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Only a
+      try-out. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley,
+      an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come on
+      for over an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of another silent ten minutes, he rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reached for his hat and started for the door. He did not offer to kiss
+      her&mdash;he never did on going out&mdash;but on this night she dared to
+      kiss him, throwing her arms around him and compelling him to bend down to
+      her face. She looked quite small against the massive bulk of the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good luck, Tom,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You gotter do 'im.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, I gotter do 'im,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;That's all there is to it. I jus'
+      gotter do 'im.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely
+      against him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was
+      all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies.
+      And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate
+      and cubs&mdash;not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind,
+      but in the old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gotter do 'im,&rdquo; he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his
+      voice. &ldquo;If it's a win, it's thirty quid&mdash;an' I can pay all that's
+      owin', with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught&mdash;not
+      even a penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all
+      that's comin' from a loser's end. Good-bye, old woman. I'll come straight
+      home if it's a win.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An' I'll be waitin' up,&rdquo; she called to him along the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he remembered
+      how in his palmy days&mdash;he had once been the heavyweight champion of
+      New South Wales&mdash;he would have ridden in a cab to the fight, and how,
+      most likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and ridden with
+      him. There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack Johnson&mdash;they
+      rode about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man knew, a hard two
+      miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was an old un, and the
+      world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for nothing now except
+      navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were against him even in
+      that. He found himself wishing that he had learned a trade. It would have
+      been better in the long run. But no one had told him, and he knew, deep
+      down in his heart, that he would not have listened if they had. It had
+      been so easy. Big money&mdash;sharp, glorious fights&mdash;periods of rest
+      and loafing in between&mdash;a following of eager flatterers, the slaps on
+      the back, the shakes of the hand, the toffs glad to buy him a drink for
+      the privilege of five minutes' talk&mdash;and the glory of it, the yelling
+      houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee's &ldquo;King wins!&rdquo; and his name in
+      the sporting columns next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those had been times! But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way,
+      that it was the old uns he had been putting away. He was Youth, rising;
+      and they were Age, sinking. No wonder it had been easy&mdash;they with
+      their swollen veins and battered knuckles and weary in the bones of them
+      from the long battles they had already fought. He remembered the time he
+      put out old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round,
+      and how old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby.
+      Perhaps old Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a
+      missus an' a couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the
+      fight, had had a hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought game and
+      taken incredible punishment. He could see now, after he had gone through
+      the mill himself, that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger stake, that
+      night twenty years ago, than had young Tom King, who had fought for glory
+      and easy money. No wonder Stowsher Bill had cried afterward in the
+      dressing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with. It was the iron
+      law of the game. One man might have a hundred hard fights in him, another
+      man only twenty; each, according to the make of him and the quality of his
+      fibre, had a definite number, and, when he had fought them, he was done.
+      Yes, he had had more fights in him than most of them, and he had had far
+      more than his share of the hard, gruelling fights&mdash;the kind that
+      worked the heart and lungs to bursting, that took the elastic out of the
+      arteries and made hard knots of muscle out of Youth's sleek suppleness,
+      that wore out nerve and stamina and made brain and bones weary from excess
+      of effort and endurance overwrought. Yes, he had done better than all of
+      them. There were none of his old fighting partners left. He was the last
+      of the old guard. He had seen them all finished, and he had had a hand in
+      finishing some of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had
+      put them away&mdash;laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in
+      the dressing-room. And now he was an old un, and they tried out the
+      youngsters on him. There was that bloke, Sandel. He had come over from New
+      Zealand with a record behind him. But nobody in Australia knew anything
+      about him, so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel made a
+      showing, he would be given better men to fight, with bigger purses to win;
+      so it was to be depended upon that he would put up a fierce battle. He had
+      everything to win by it&mdash;money and glory and career; and Tom King was
+      the grizzled old chopping-block that guarded the highway to fame and
+      fortune. And he had nothing to win except thirty quid, to pay to the
+      landlord and the tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus ruminated, there came to
+      his stolid vision the form of Youth, glorious Youth, rising exultant and
+      invincible, supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that
+      had never been tired and torn and that laughed at limitation of effort.
+      Yes, Youth was the Nemesis. It destroyed the old uns and recked not that,
+      in so doing, it destroyed itself. It enlarged its arteries and smashed its
+      knuckles, and was in turn destroyed by Youth. For Youth was ever youthful.
+      It was only Age that grew old.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Castlereagh Street he turned to the left, and three blocks along came
+      to the Gayety. A crowd of young larrikins hanging outside the door made
+      respectful way for him, and he heard one say to another: &ldquo;That's 'im!
+      That's Tom King!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inside, on the way to his dressing-room, he encountered the secretary, a
+      keen-eyed, shrewd-faced young man, who shook his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you feelin', Tom?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fit as a fiddle,&rdquo; King answered, though he knew that he lied, and that if
+      he had a quid, he would give it right there for a good piece of steak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he emerged from the dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and came
+      down the aisle to the squared ring in the centre of the hall, a burst of
+      greeting and applause went up from the waiting crowd. He acknowledged
+      salutations right and left, though few of the faces did he know. Most of
+      them were the faces of kiddies unborn when he was winning his first
+      laurels in the squared ring. He leaped lightly to the raised platform and
+      ducked through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a folding
+      stool. Jack Ball, the referee, came over and shook his hand. Ball was a
+      broken-down pugilist who for over ten years had not entered the ring as a
+      principal. King was glad that he had him for referee. They were both old
+      uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the rules, he knew
+      Ball could be depended upon to pass it by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aspiring young heavyweights, one after another, were climbing into the
+      ring and being presented to the audience by the referee. Also, he issued
+      their challenges for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Young Pronto,&rdquo; Bill announced, &ldquo;from North Sydney, challenges the winner
+      for fifty pounds side bet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The audience applauded, and applauded again as Sandel himself sprang
+      through the ropes and sat down in his corner. Tom King looked across the
+      ring at him curiously, for in a few minutes they would be locked together
+      in merciless combat, each trying with all the force of him to knock the
+      other into unconsciousness. But little could he see, for Sandel, like
+      himself, had trousers and sweater on over his ring costume. His face was
+      strongly handsome, crowned with a curly mop of yellow hair, while his
+      thick, muscular neck hinted at bodily magnificence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Pronto went to one corner and then the other, shaking hands with the
+      principals and dropping down out of the ring. The challenges went on. Ever
+      Youth climbed through the ropes&mdash;Youth unknown, but insatiable&mdash;crying
+      out to mankind that with strength and skill it would match issues with the
+      winner. A few years before, in his own heyday of invincibleness, Tom King
+      would have been amused and bored by these preliminaries. But now he sat
+      fascinated, unable to shake the vision of Youth from his eyes. Always were
+      these youngsters rising up in the boxing game, springing through the ropes
+      and shouting their defiance; and always were the old uns going down before
+      them. They climbed to success over the bodies of the old uns. And ever
+      they came, more and more youngsters&mdash;Youth unquenchable and
+      irresistible&mdash;and ever they put the old uns away, themselves becoming
+      old uns and travelling the same downward path, while behind them, ever
+      pressing on them, was Youth eternal&mdash;the new babies, grown lusty and
+      dragging their elders down, with behind them more babies to the end of
+      time&mdash;Youth that must have its will and that will never die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      King glanced over to the press box and nodded to Morgan, of the Sportsman,
+      and Corbett, of the Referee. Then he held out his hands, while Sid
+      Sullivan and Charley Bates, his seconds, slipped on his gloves and laced
+      them tight, closely watched by one of Sandel's seconds, who first examined
+      critically the tapes on King's knuckles. A second of his own was in
+      Sandel's corner, performing a like office. Sandel's trousers were pulled
+      off, and, as he stood up, his sweater was skinned off over his head. And
+      Tom King, looking, saw Youth incarnate, deep-chested, heavy-thewed, with
+      muscles that slipped and slid like live things under the white satin skin.
+      The whole body was a-crawl with life, and Tom King knew that it was a life
+      that had never oozed its freshness out through the aching pores during the
+      long fights wherein Youth paid its toll and departed not quite so young as
+      when it entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men advanced to meet each other, and, as the gong sounded and the
+      seconds clattered out of the ring with the folding stools, they shook
+      hands and instantly took their fighting attitudes. And instantly, like a
+      mechanism of steel and springs balanced on a hair trigger, Sandel was in
+      and out and in again, landing a left to the eyes, a right to the ribs,
+      ducking a counter, dancing lightly away and dancing menacingly back again.
+      He was swift and clever. It was a dazzling exhibition. The house yelled
+      its approbation. But King was not dazzled. He had fought too many fights
+      and too many youngsters. He knew the blows for what they were&mdash;too
+      quick and too deft to be dangerous. Evidently Sandel was going to rush
+      things from the start. It was to be expected. It was the way of Youth,
+      expending its splendour and excellence in wild insurgence and furious
+      onslaught, overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory of
+      strength and desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sandel was in and out, here, there, and everywhere, light-footed and
+      eager-hearted, a living wonder of white flesh and stinging muscle that
+      wove itself into a dazzling fabric of attack, slipping and leaping like a
+      flying shuttle from action to action through a thousand actions, all of
+      them centred upon the destruction of Tom King, who stood between him and
+      fortune. And Tom King patiently endured. He knew his business, and he knew
+      Youth now that Youth was no longer his. There was nothing to do till the
+      other lost some of his steam, was his thought, and he grinned to himself
+      as he deliberately ducked so as to receive a heavy blow on the top of his
+      head. It was a wicked thing to do, yet eminently fair according to the
+      rules of the boxing game. A man was supposed to take care of his own
+      knuckles, and, if he insisted on hitting an opponent on the top of the
+      head, he did so at his own peril. King could have ducked lower and let the
+      blow whiz harmlessly past, but he remembered his own early fights and how
+      he smashed his first knuckle on the head of the Welsh Terror. He was but
+      playing the game. That duck had accounted for one of Sandel's knuckles.
+      Not that Sandel would mind it now. He would go on, superbly regardless,
+      hitting as hard as ever throughout the fight. But later on, when the long
+      ring battles had begun to tell, he would regret that knuckle and look back
+      and remember how he smashed it on Tom King's head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first round was all Sandel's, and he had the house yelling with the
+      rapidity of his whirlwind rushes. He overwhelmed King with avalanches of
+      punches, and King did nothing. He never struck once, contenting himself
+      with covering up, blocking and ducking and clinching to avoid punishment.
+      He occasionally feinted, shook his head when the weight of a punch landed,
+      and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing or wasting an ounce
+      of strength. Sandel must foam the froth of Youth away before discreet Age
+      could dare to retaliate. All King's movements were slow and methodical,
+      and his heavy-lidded, slow-moving eyes gave him the appearance of being
+      half asleep or dazed. Yet they were eyes that saw everything, that had
+      been trained to see everything through all his twenty years and odd in the
+      ring. They were eyes that did not blink or waver before an impending blow,
+      but that coolly saw and measured distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seated in his corner for the minute's rest at the end of the round, he lay
+      back with outstretched legs, his arms resting on the right angle of the
+      ropes, his chest and abdomen heaving frankly and deeply as he gulped down
+      the air driven by the towels of his seconds. He listened with closed eyes
+      to the voices of the house, &ldquo;Why don't yeh fight, Tom?&rdquo; many were crying.
+      &ldquo;Yeh ain't afraid of 'im, are yeh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Muscle-bound,&rdquo; he heard a man on a front seat comment. &ldquo;He can't move
+      quicker. Two to one on Sandel, in quids.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gong struck and the two men advanced from their corners. Sandel came
+      forward fully three-quarters of the distance, eager to begin again; but
+      King was content to advance the shorter distance. It was in line with his
+      policy of economy. He had not been well trained, and he had not had enough
+      to eat, and every step counted. Besides, he had already walked two miles
+      to the ringside. It was a repetition of the first round, with Sandel
+      attacking like a whirlwind and with the audience indignantly demanding why
+      King did not fight. Beyond feinting and several slowly delivered and
+      ineffectual blows he did nothing save block and stall and clinch. Sandel
+      wanted to make the pace fast, while King, out of his wisdom, refused to
+      accommodate him. He grinned with a certain wistful pathos in his
+      ring-battered countenance, and went on cherishing his strength with the
+      jealousy of which only Age is capable. Sandel was Youth, and he threw his
+      strength away with the munificent abandon of Youth. To King belonged the
+      ring generalship, the wisdom bred of long, aching fights. He watched with
+      cool eyes and head, moving slowly and waiting for Sandel's froth to foam
+      away. To the majority of the onlookers it seemed as though King was
+      hopelessly outclassed, and they voiced their opinion in offers of three to
+      one on Sandel. But there were wise ones, a few, who knew King of old time,
+      and who covered what they considered easy money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third round began as usual, one-sided, with Sandel doing all the
+      leading, and delivering all the punishment. A half-minute had passed when
+      Sandel, over-confident, left an opening. King's eyes and right arm flashed
+      in the same instant. It was his first real blow&mdash;a hook, with the
+      twisted arch of the arm to make it rigid, and with all the weight of the
+      half-pivoted body behind it. It was like a sleepy-seeming lion suddenly
+      thrusting out a lightning paw. Sandel, caught on the side of the jaw, was
+      felled like a bullock. The audience gasped and murmured awe-stricken
+      applause. The man was not muscle-bound, after all, and he could drive a
+      blow like a trip-hammer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sandel was shaken. He rolled over and attempted to rise, but the sharp
+      yells from his seconds to take the count restrained him. He knelt on one
+      knee, ready to rise, and waited, while the referee stood over him,
+      counting the seconds loudly in his ear. At the ninth he rose in fighting
+      attitude, and Tom King, facing him, knew regret that the blow had not been
+      an inch nearer the point of the jaw. That would have been a knock-out, and
+      he could have carried the thirty quid home to the missus and the kiddies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The round continued to the end of its three minutes, Sandel for the first
+      time respectful of his opponent and King slow of movement and sleepy-eyed
+      as ever. As the round neared its close, King, warned of the fact by sight
+      of the seconds crouching outside ready for the spring in through the
+      ropes, worked the fight around to his own corner. And when the gong
+      struck, he sat down immediately on the waiting stool, while Sandel had to
+      walk all the way across the diagonal of the square to his own corner. It
+      was a little thing, but it was the sum of little things that counted.
+      Sandel was compelled to walk that many more steps, to give up that much
+      energy, and to lose a part of the precious minute of rest. At the
+      beginning of every round King loafed slowly out from his corner, forcing
+      his opponent to advance the greater distance. The end of every round found
+      the fight manoeuvred by King into his own corner so that he could
+      immediately sit down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two more rounds went by, in which King was parsimonious of effort and
+      Sandel prodigal. The latter's attempt to force a fast pace made King
+      uncomfortable, for a fair percentage of the multitudinous blows showered
+      upon him went home. Yet King persisted in his dogged slowness, despite the
+      crying of the young hot-heads for him to go in and fight. Again, in the
+      sixth round, Sandel was careless, again Tom King's fearful right flashed
+      out to the jaw, and again Sandel took the nine seconds count.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the seventh round Sandel's pink of condition was gone, and he settled
+      down to what he knew was to be the hardest fight in his experience. Tom
+      King was an old un, but a better old un than he had ever encountered&mdash;an
+      old un who never lost his head, who was remarkably able at defence, whose
+      blows had the impact of a knotted club, and who had a knockout in either
+      hand. Nevertheless, Tom King dared not hit often. He never forgot his
+      battered knuckles, and knew that every hit must count if the knuckles were
+      to last out the fight. As he sat in his corner, glancing across at his
+      opponent, the thought came to him that the sum of his wisdom and Sandel's
+      youth would constitute a world's champion heavyweight. But that was the
+      trouble. Sandel would never become a world champion. He lacked the wisdom,
+      and the only way for him to get it was to buy it with Youth; and when
+      wisdom was his, Youth would have been spent in buying it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      King took every advantage he knew. He never missed an opportunity to
+      clinch, and in effecting most of the clinches his shoulder drove stiffly
+      into the other's ribs. In the philosophy of the ring a shoulder was as
+      good as a punch so far as damage was concerned, and a great deal better so
+      far as concerned expenditure of effort. Also, in the clinches King rested
+      his weight on his opponent, and was loath to let go. This compelled the
+      interference of the referee, who tore them apart, always assisted by
+      Sandel, who had not yet learned to rest. He could not refrain from using
+      those glorious flying arms and writhing muscles of his, and when the other
+      rushed into a clinch, striking shoulder against ribs, and with head
+      resting under Sandel's left arm, Sandel almost invariably swung his right
+      behind his own back and into the projecting face. It was a clever stroke,
+      much admired by the audience, but it was not dangerous, and was,
+      therefore, just that much wasted strength. But Sandel was tireless and
+      unaware of limitations, and King grinned and doggedly endured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sandel developed a fierce right to the body, which made it appear that
+      King was taking an enormous amount of punishment, and it was only the old
+      ringsters who appreciated the deft touch of King's left glove to the
+      other's biceps just before the impact of the blow. It was true, the blow
+      landed each time; but each time it was robbed of its power by that touch
+      on the biceps. In the ninth round, three times inside a minute, King's
+      right hooked its twisted arch to the jaw; and three times Sandel's body,
+      heavy as it was, was levelled to the mat. Each time he took the nine
+      seconds allowed him and rose to his feet, shaken and jarred, but still
+      strong. He had lost much of his speed, and he wasted less effort. He was
+      fighting grimly; but he continued to draw upon his chief asset, which was
+      Youth. King's chief asset was experience. As his vitality had dimmed and
+      his vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom born of
+      the long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength. Not alone had
+      he learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had learned how to
+      seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away. Again and again, by
+      feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle Sandel into
+      leaping back, ducking, or countering. King rested, but he never permitted
+      Sandel to rest. It was the strategy of Age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in the tenth round King began stopping the other's rushes with
+      straight lefts to the face, and Sandel, grown wary, responded by drawing
+      the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook
+      to the side of the head. It was too high up to be vitally effective; but
+      when first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black
+      veil of unconsciousness across his mind. For the instant, or for the
+      slighest fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased. In the one moment he
+      saw his opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background of
+      white, watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent and
+      the background of faces. It was as if he had slept for a time and just
+      opened his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was so
+      microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall. The
+      audience saw him totter and his knees give, and then saw him recover and
+      tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several times Sandel repeated the blow, keeping King partially dazed, and
+      then the latter worked out his defence, which was also a counter. Feinting
+      with his left he took a half-step backward, at the same time upper cutting
+      with the whole strength of his right. So accurately was it timed that it
+      landed squarely on Sandel's face in the full, downward sweep of the duck,
+      and Sandel lifted in the air and curled backward, striking the mat on his
+      head and shoulders. Twice King achieved this, then turned loose and
+      hammered his opponent to the ropes. He gave Sandel no chance to rest or to
+      set himself, but smashed blow in upon blow till the house rose to its feet
+      and the air was filled with an unbroken roar of applause. But Sandel's
+      strength and endurance were superb, and he continued to stay on his feet.
+      A knock-out seemed certain, and a captain of police, appalled at the
+      dreadful punishment, arose by the ringside to stop the fight. The gong
+      struck for the end of the round and Sandel staggered to his corner,
+      protesting to the captain that he was sound and strong. To prove it, he
+      threw two back-air-springs, and the police captain gave in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tom King, leaning back in his corner and breathing hard, was disappointed.
+      If the fight had been stopped, the referee, perforce, would have rendered
+      him the decision and the purse would have been his. Unlike Sandel, he was
+      not fighting for glory or career, but for thirty quid. And now Sandel
+      would recuperate in the minute of rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Youth will be served&mdash;this saying flashed into King's mind, and he
+      remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put away
+      Stowsher Bill. The toff who had bought him a drink after the fight and
+      patted him on the shoulder had used those words. Youth will be served! The
+      toff was right. And on that night in the long ago he had been Youth.
+      To-night Youth sat in the opposite corner. As for himself, he had been
+      fighting for half an hour now, and he was an old man. Had he fought like
+      Sandel, he would not have lasted fifteen minutes. But the point was that
+      he did not recuperate. Those upstanding arteries and that sorely tried
+      heart would not enable him to gather strength in the intervals between the
+      rounds. And he had not had sufficient strength in him to begin with. His
+      legs were heavy under him and beginning to cramp. He should not have
+      walked those two miles to the fight. And there was the steak which he had
+      got up longing for that morning. A great and terrible hatred rose up in
+      him for the butchers who had refused him credit. It was hard for an old
+      man to go into a fight without enough to eat. And a piece of steak was
+      such a little thing, a few pennies at best; yet it meant thirty quid to
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the gong that opened the eleventh round, Sandel rushed, making a show
+      of freshness which he did not really possess. King knew it for what it was&mdash;a
+      bluff as old as the game itself. He clinched to save himself, then, going
+      free, allowed Sandel to get set. This was what King desired. He feinted
+      with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward hook, then made
+      the half-step backward, delivered the upper cut full to the face and
+      crumpled Sandel over to the mat. After that he never let him rest,
+      receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more, smashing Sandel to
+      the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of blows into him, tearing away
+      from his clinches or punching him out of attempted clinches, and ever when
+      Sandel would have fallen, catching him with one uplifting hand and with
+      the other immediately smashing him into the ropes where he could not fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house by this time had gone mad, and it was his house, nearly every
+      voice yelling: &ldquo;Go it, Tom!&rdquo; &ldquo;Get 'im! Get 'im!&rdquo; &ldquo;You've got 'im, Tom!
+      You've got 'im!&rdquo; It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a
+      ringside audience paid to see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now
+      expended it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him. It
+      was his one chance&mdash;now or not at all. His strength was waning fast,
+      and his hope was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have
+      beaten his opponent down for the count. And as he continued to strike and
+      force, coolly estimating the weight of his blows and the quality of the
+      damage wrought, he realized how hard a man Sandel was to knock out.
+      Stamina and endurance were his to an extreme degree, and they were the
+      virgin stamina and endurance of Youth. Sandel was certainly a coming man.
+      He had it in him. Only out of such rugged fibre were successful fighters
+      fashioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sandel was reeling and staggering, but Tom King's legs were cramping and
+      his knuckles going back on him. Yet he steeled himself to strike the
+      fierce blows, every one of which brought anguish to his tortured hands.
+      Though now he was receiving practically no punishment, he was weakening as
+      rapidly as the other. His blows went home, but there was no longer the
+      weight behind them, and each blow was the result of a severe effort of
+      will. His legs were like lead, and they dragged visibly under him; while
+      Sandel's backers, cheered by this symptom, began calling encouragement to
+      their man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      King was spurred to a burst of effort. He delivered two blows in
+      succession&mdash;a left, a trifle too high, to the solar plexus, and a
+      right cross to the jaw. They were not heavy blows, yet so weak and dazed
+      was Sandel that he went down and lay quivering. The referee stood over
+      him, shouting the count of the fatal seconds in his ear. If before the
+      tenth second was called, he did not rise, the fight was lost. The house
+      stood in hushed silence. King rested on trembling legs. A mortal dizziness
+      was upon him, and before his eyes the sea of faces sagged and swayed,
+      while to his ears, as from a remote distance, came the count of the
+      referee. Yet he looked upon the fight as his. It was impossible that a man
+      so punished could rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only Youth could rise, and Sandel rose. At the fourth second he rolled
+      over on his face and groped blindly for the ropes. By the seventh second
+      he had dragged himself to his knee, where he rested, his head rolling
+      groggily on his shoulders. As the referee cried &ldquo;Nine!&rdquo; Sandel stood
+      upright, in proper stalling position, his left arm wrapped about his face,
+      his right wrapped about his stomach. Thus were his vital points guarded,
+      while he lurched forward toward King in the hope of effecting a clinch and
+      gaining more time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the instant Sandel arose, King was at him, but the two blows he
+      delivered were muffled on the stalled arms. The next moment Sandel was in
+      the clinch and holding on desperately while the referee strove to drag the
+      two men apart. King helped to force himself free. He knew the rapidity
+      with which Youth recovered, and he knew that Sandel was his if he could
+      prevent that recovery. One stiff punch would do it. Sandel was his,
+      indubitably his. He had out-generalled him, out-fought him, out-pointed
+      him. Sandel reeled out of the clinch, balanced on the hair line between
+      defeat or survival. One good blow would topple him over and down and out.
+      And Tom King, in a flash of bitterness, remembered the piece of steak and
+      wished that he had it then behind that necessary punch he must deliver. He
+      nerved himself for the blow, but it was not heavy enough nor swift enough.
+      Sandel swayed, but did not fall, staggering back to the ropes and holding
+      on. King staggered after him, and, with a pang like that of dissolution,
+      delivered another blow. But his body had deserted him. All that was left
+      of him was a fighting intelligence that was dimmed and clouded from
+      exhaustion. The blow that was aimed for the jaw struck no higher than the
+      shoulder. He had willed the blow higher, but the tired muscles had not
+      been able to obey. And, from the impact of the blow, Tom King himself
+      reeled back and nearly fell. Once again he strove. This time his punch
+      missed altogether, and, from absolute weakness, he fell against Sandel and
+      clinched, holding on to him to save himself from sinking to the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      King did not attempt to free himself. He had shot his bolt. He was gone.
+      And Youth had been served. Even in the clinch he could feel Sandel growing
+      stronger against him. When the referee thrust them apart, there, before
+      his eyes, he saw Youth recuperate. From instant to instant Sandel grew
+      stronger. His punches, weak and futile at first, became stiff and
+      accurate. Tom King's bleared eyes saw the gloved fist driving at his jaw,
+      and he willed to guard it by interposing his arm. He saw the danger,
+      willed the act; but the arm was too heavy. It seemed burdened with a
+      hundredweight of lead. It would not lift itself, and he strove to lift it
+      with his soul. Then the gloved fist landed home. He experienced a sharp
+      snap that was like an electric spark, and, simultaneously, the veil of
+      blackness enveloped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he opened his eyes again he was in his corner, and he heard the
+      yelling of the audience like the roar of the surf at Bondi Beach. A wet
+      sponge was being pressed against the base of his brain, and Sid Sullivan
+      was blowing cold water in a refreshing spray over his face and chest. His
+      gloves had already been removed, and Sandel, bending over him, was shaking
+      his hand. He bore no ill-will toward the man who had put him out and he
+      returned the grip with a heartiness that made his battered knuckles
+      protest. Then Sandel stepped to the centre of the ring and the audience
+      hushed its pandemonium to hear him accept young Pronto's challenge and
+      offer to increase the side bet to one hundred pounds. King looked on
+      apathetically while his seconds mopped the streaming water from him, dried
+      his face, and prepared him to leave the ring. He felt hungry. It was not
+      the ordinary, gnawing kind, but a great faintness, a palpitation at the
+      pit of the stomach that communicated itself to all his body. He remembered
+      back into the fight to the moment when he had Sandel swaying and tottering
+      on the hair-line balance of defeat. Ah, that piece of steak would have
+      done it! He had lacked just that for the decisive blow, and he had lost.
+      It was all because of the piece of steak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His seconds were half-supporting him as they helped him through the ropes.
+      He tore free from them, ducked through the ropes unaided, and leaped
+      heavily to the floor, following on their heels as they forced a passage
+      for him down the crowded centre aisle. Leaving the dressing-room for the
+      street, in the entrance to the hall, some young fellow spoke to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;W'y didn't yuh go in an' get 'im when yuh 'ad 'im?&rdquo; the young fellow
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aw, go to hell!&rdquo; said Tom King, and passed down the steps to the
+      sidewalk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doors of the public-house at the corner were swinging wide, and he saw
+      the lights and the smiling barmaids, heard the many voices discussing the
+      fight and the prosperous chink of money on the bar. Somebody called to him
+      to have a drink. He hesitated perceptibly, then refused and went on his
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not a copper in his pocket, and the two-mile walk home seemed very
+      long. He was certainly getting old. Crossing the Domain, he sat down
+      suddenly on a bench, unnerved by the thought of the missus sitting up for
+      him, waiting to learn the outcome of the fight. That was harder than any
+      knockout, and it seemed almost impossible to face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him
+      that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week before
+      he could grip a pick handle or a shovel. The hunger palpitation at the pit
+      of the stomach was sickening. His wretchedness overwhelmed him, and into
+      his eyes came an unwonted moisture. He covered his face with his hands,
+      and, as he cried, he remembered Stowsher Bill and how he had served him
+      that night in the long ago. Poor old Stowsher Bill! He could understand
+      now why Bill had cried in the dressing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's When God Laughs and Other Stories, by Jack London
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GOD LAUGHS AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2545-h.htm or 2545-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/4/2545/
+
+Produced by Les Bowler, and David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&ldquo;the Foundation&rdquo;
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; appears, or with which the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo; is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+&ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original &ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, &ldquo;Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.&rdquo;
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+&ldquo;Defects,&rdquo; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &ldquo;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&rdquo; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/2545.txt b/2545.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f9d9344
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2545.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6109 @@
+Project Gutenberg's When God Laughs and Other Stories, by Jack London
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: When God Laughs and Other Stories
+
+Author: Jack London
+
+Posting Date: December 14, 2008 [EBook #2545]
+Release Date: March, 2001
+Last updated: November 10, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GOD LAUGHS AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Les Bowler
+
+
+
+
+
+WHEN GOD LAUGHS, AND OTHER STORIES
+
+By Jack London
+
+
+1911 Mills and Boon edition
+
+
+Contents:
+
+     When God Laughs
+     The Apostate
+     A Wicked Woman
+     Just Meat
+     Created He Them
+     The Chinago
+     Make Westing
+     Semper Idem
+     A Nose For The King
+     The "Francis Spaight"
+     A Curious Fragment
+     A Piece Of Steak
+
+
+
+
+WHEN GOD LAUGHS (with compliments to Harry Cowell)
+
+     "The gods, the gods are stronger; time
+      Falls down before them, all men's knees
+      Bow, all men's prayers and sorrows climb
+      Like incense toward them; yea, for these
+          Are gods, Felise."
+
+Carquinez had relaxed finally. He stole a glance at the rattling
+windows, looked upward at the beamed roof, and listened for a moment
+to the savage roar of the south-easter as it caught the bungalow in
+its bellowing jaws. Then he held his glass between him and the fire and
+laughed for joy through the golden wine.
+
+"It is beautiful," he said. "It is sweetly sweet. It is a woman's wine,
+and it was made for gray-robed saints to drink."
+
+"We grow it on our own warm hills," I said, with pardonable California
+pride. "You rode up yesterday through the vines from which it was made."
+
+It was worth while to get Carquinez to loosen up. Nor was he ever really
+himself until he felt the mellow warmth of the vine singing in his
+blood. He was an artist, it is true, always an artist; but somehow,
+sober, the high pitch and lilt went out of his thought-processes and he
+was prone to be as deadly dull as a British Sunday--not dull as other
+men are dull, but dull when measured by the sprightly wight that Monte
+Carquinez was when he was really himself.
+
+From all this it must not be inferred that Carquinez, who is my dear
+friend and dearer comrade, was a sot. Far from it. He rarely erred. As
+I have said, he was an artist. He knew when he had enough, and enough,
+with him, was equilibrium--the equilibrium that is yours and mine when
+we are sober.
+
+His was a wise and instinctive temperateness that savoured of the Greek.
+Yet he was far from Greek. "I am Aztec, I am Inca, I am Spaniard," I
+have heard him say. And in truth he looked it, a compound of strange
+and ancient races, what with his swarthy skin and the asymmetry and
+primitiveness of his features. His eyes, under massively arched brows,
+were wide apart and black with the blackness that is barbaric, while
+before them was perpetually falling down a great black mop of hair
+through which he gazed like a roguish satyr from a thicket. He
+invariably wore a soft flannel shirt under his velvet-corduroy jacket,
+and his necktie was red. This latter stood for the red flag (he had once
+lived with the socialists of Paris), and it symbolized the blood and
+brotherhood of man. Also, he had never been known to wear anything on
+his head save a leather-banded sombrero. It was even rumoured that
+he had been born with this particular piece of headgear. And in my
+experience it was provocative of nothing short of sheer delight to see
+that Mexican sombrero hailing a cab in Piccadilly or storm-tossed in the
+crush for the New York Elevated.
+
+As I have said, Carquinez was made quick by wine--"as the clay was made
+quick when God breathed the breath of life into it," was his way of
+saying it. I confess that he was blasphemously intimate with God; and I
+must add that there was no blasphemy in him. He was at all times honest,
+and, because he was compounded of paradoxes, greatly misunderstood by
+those who did not know him. He could be as elementally raw at times as a
+screaming savage; and at other times as delicate as a maid, as subtle as
+a Spaniard. And--well, was he not Aztec? Inca? Spaniard?
+
+And now I must ask pardon for the space I have given him. (He is my
+friend, and I love him.) The house was shaking to the storm, as he drew
+closer to the fire and laughed at it through his wine. He looked at me,
+and by the added lustre of his eye, and by the alertness of it, I knew
+that at last he was pitched in his proper key.
+
+"And so you think you've won out against the gods?" he demanded.
+
+"Why the gods?"
+
+"Whose will but theirs has put satiety upon man?" he cried.
+
+"And whence the will in me to escape satiety?" I asked triumphantly.
+
+"Again the gods," he laughed. "It is their game we play. They deal and
+shuffle all the cards... and take the stakes. Think not that you have
+escaped by fleeing from the mad cities. You with your vine-clad hills,
+your sunsets and your sunrises, your homely fare and simple round of
+living!
+
+"I've watched you ever since I came. You have not won. You have
+surrendered. You have made terms with the enemy. You have made
+confession that you are tired. You have flown the white flag of fatigue.
+You have nailed up a notice to the effect that life is ebbing down in
+you. You have run away from life. You have played a trick, shabby trick.
+You have balked at the game. You refuse to play. You have thrown your
+cards under the table and run away to hide, here amongst your hills."
+
+He tossed his straight hair back from his flashing eyes, and scarcely
+interrupted to roll a long, brown, Mexican cigarette.
+
+"But the gods know. It is an old trick. All the generations of man have
+tried it... and lost. The gods know how to deal with such as you. To
+pursue is to possess, and to possess is to be sated. And so you, in your
+wisdom, have refused any longer to pursue. You have elected surcease.
+Very well. You will become sated with surcease. You say you have escaped
+satiety! You have merely bartered it for senility. And senility is
+another name for satiety. It is satiety's masquerade. Bah!"
+
+"But look at me!" I cried.
+
+Carquinez was ever a demon for haling ones soul out and making rags and
+tatters of it.
+
+He looked me witheringly up and down.
+
+"You see no signs," I challenged.
+
+"Decay is insidious," he retorted. "You are rotten ripe."
+
+I laughed and forgave him for his very deviltry. But he refused to be
+forgiven.
+
+"Do I not know?" he asked. "The gods always win. I have watched men play
+for years what seemed a winning game. In the end they lost."
+
+"Don't you ever make mistakes?" I asked.
+
+He blew many meditative rings of smoke before replying.
+
+"Yes, I was nearly fooled, once. Let me tell you. There was Marvin
+Fiske. You remember him? And his Dantesque face and poet's soul, singing
+his chant of the flesh, the very priest of Love? And there was Ethel
+Baird, whom also you must remember."
+
+"A warm saint," I said.
+
+"That is she! Holy as Love, and sweeter! Just a woman, made for love;
+and yet--how shall I say?--drenched through with holiness as your own
+air here is with the perfume of flowers. Well, they married. They played
+a hand with the gods--"
+
+"And they won, they gloriously won!" I broke in.
+
+Carquinez looked at me pityingly, and his voice was like a funeral bell.
+
+"They lost. They supremely, colossally lost."
+
+"But the world believes otherwise," I ventured coldly.
+
+"The world conjectures. The world sees only the face of things. But I
+know. Has it ever entered your mind to wonder why she took the veil,
+buried herself in that dolorous convent of the living dead?"
+
+"Because she loved him so, and when he died..."
+
+Speech was frozen on my lips by Carquinez's sneer.
+
+"A pat answer," he said, "machine-made like a piece of cotton-drill. The
+world's judgment! And much the world knows about it. Like you, she fled
+from life. She was beaten. She flung out the white flag of fatigue. And
+no beleaguered city ever flew that flag in such bitterness and tears.
+
+"Now I shall tell you the whole tale, and you must believe me, for I
+know. They had pondered the problem of satiety. They loved Love. They
+knew to the uttermost farthing the value of Love. They loved him so
+well that they were fain to keep him always, warm and a-thrill in their
+hearts. They welcomed his coming; they feared to have him depart.
+
+"Love was desire, they held, a delicious pain. He was ever seeking
+easement, and when he found that for which he sought, he died. Love
+denied was Love alive; Love granted was Love deceased. Do you follow me?
+They saw it was not the way of life to be hungry for what it has. To eat
+and still be hungry--man has never accomplished that feat. The problem
+of satiety. That is it. To have and to keep the sharp famine-edge of
+appetite at the groaning board. This was their problem, for they loved
+Love. Often did they discuss it, with all Love's sweet ardours brimming
+in their eyes; his ruddy blood spraying their cheeks; his voice playing
+in and out with their voices, now hiding as a tremolo in their throats,
+and again shading a tone with that ineffable tenderness which he alone
+can utter.
+
+"How do I know all this? I saw--much. More I learned from her diary.
+This I found in it, from Fiona Macleod: 'For, truly, that wandering
+voice, that twilight-whisper, that breath so dewy-sweet, that
+flame-winged lute-player whom none sees but for a moment, in a
+rainbow-shimmer of joy, or a sudden lightning-flare of passion, this
+exquisite mystery we call Amor, comes, to some rapt visionaries at
+least, not with a song upon the lips that all may hear, or with blithe
+viol of public music, but as one wrought by ecstasy, dumbly eloquent
+with desire.'
+
+"How to keep the flame-winged lute-player with his dumb eloquence of
+desire? To feast him was to lose him. Their love for each other was a
+great love. Their granaries were overflowing with plenitude; yet they
+wanted to keep the sharp famine-edge of their love undulled.
+
+"Nor were they lean little fledglings theorizing on the threshold of
+Love. They were robust and realized souls. They had loved before,
+with others, in the days before they met; and in those days they had
+throttled Love with caresses, and killed him with kisses, and buried him
+in the pit of satiety.
+
+"They were not cold wraiths, this man and woman. They were warm human.
+They had no Saxon soberness in their blood. The colour of it was
+sunset-red. They glowed with it. Temperamentally theirs was the French
+joy in the flesh. They were idealists, but their idealism was Gallic.
+It was not tempered by the chill and sombre fluid that for the English
+serves as blood. There was no stoicism about them. They were Americans,
+descended out of the English, and yet the refraining and self-denying of
+the English spirit-groping were not theirs.
+
+"They were all this that I have said, and they were made for joy, only
+they achieved a concept. A curse on concepts! They played with logic,
+and this was their logic.--But first let me tell you of a talk we had
+one night. It was of Gautier's Madeline de Maupin. You remember the
+maid? She kissed once, and once only, and kisses she would have no
+more. Not that she found kisses were not sweet, but that she feared with
+repetition they would cloy. Satiety again! She tried to play without
+stakes against the gods. Now this is contrary to a rule of the game the
+gods themselves have made. Only the rules are not posted over the table.
+Mortals must play in order to learn the rules.
+
+"Well, to the logic. The man and the woman argued thus: Why kiss once
+only? If to kiss once were wise, was it not wiser to kiss not at all?
+Thus could they keep Love alive. Fasting, he would knock forever at
+their hearts.
+
+"Perhaps it was out of their heredity that they achieved this unholy
+concept. The breed will out and sometimes most fantastically. Thus
+in them did cursed Albion array herself a scheming wanton, a bold,
+cold-calculating, and artful hussy. After all, I do not know. But this
+I know: it was out of their inordinate desire for joy that they forewent
+joy.
+
+"As he said (I read it long afterward in one of his letters to her):
+'To hold you in my arms, close, and yet not close. To yearn for you, and
+never to have you, and so always to have you.' And she: 'For you to be
+always just beyond my reach. To be ever attaining you, and yet never
+attaining you, and for this to last forever, always fresh and new, and
+always with the first flush upon us.
+
+"That is not the way they said it. On my lips their love-philosophy is
+mangled. And who am I to delve into their soul-stuff? I am a frog, on
+the dank edge of a great darkness, gazing goggle-eyed at the mystery and
+wonder of their flaming souls.
+
+"And they were right, as far as they went. Everything is good... as long
+as it is unpossessed. Satiety and possession are Death's horses; they
+run in span.
+
+     "'And time could only tutor us to eke
+       Our rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow.'
+
+"They got that from a sonnet of Alfred Austin's. It was called 'Love's
+Wisdom.' It was the one kiss of Madeline de Maupin. How did it run?
+
+     "'Kiss we and part; no further can we go;
+       And better death than we from high to low
+   Should dwindle, or decline from strong to weak.'
+
+"But they were wiser. They would not kiss and part. They would not
+kiss at all, and thus they planned to stay at Love's topmost peak. They
+married. You were in England at the time. And never was there such a
+marriage. They kept their secret to themselves. I did not know, then.
+Their rapture's warmth did not cool. Their love burned with increasing
+brightness. Never was there anything like it. The time passed, the
+months, the years, and ever the flame-winged lute-player grew more
+resplendent.
+
+"Everybody marvelled. They became the wonderful lovers, and they were
+greatly envied. Sometimes women pitied her because she was childless; it
+is the form the envy of such creatures takes.
+
+"And I did not know their secret. I pondered and I marvelled. As first I
+had expected, subconsciously I imagine, the passing of their love. Then
+I became aware that it was Time that passed and Love that remained. Then
+I became curious. What was their secret? What were the magic fetters
+with which they bound Love to them? How did they hold the graceless elf?
+What elixir of eternal love had they drunk together as had Tristram and
+Iseult of old time? And whose hand had brewed the fairy drink?
+
+"As I say, I was curious, and I watched them. They were love-mad. They
+lived in an unending revel of Love. They made a pomp and ceremonial of
+it. They saturated themselves in the art and poetry of Love. No, they
+were not neurotics. They were sane and healthy, and they were artists.
+But they had accomplished the impossible. They had achieved deathless
+desire.
+
+"And I? I saw much of them and their everlasting miracle of Love. I
+puzzled and wondered, and then one day--"
+
+Carquinez broke off abruptly and asked, "Have you ever read, 'Love's
+Waiting Time'?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Page wrote it--Curtis Hidden Page, I think. Well, it was that bit of
+verse that gave me the clue. One day, in the window-seat near the big
+piano--you remember how she could play? She used to laugh, sometimes,
+and doubt whether it was for them I came, or for the music. She called
+me a 'music-sot' once, a 'sound-debauchee.' What a voice he had! When
+he sang I believed in immortality, my regard for the gods grew almost
+patronizing and I devised ways and means whereby I surely could outwit
+them and their tricks.
+
+"It was a spectacle for God, that man and woman, years married, and
+singing love-songs with a freshness virginal as new-born Love himself,
+with a ripeness and wealth of ardour that young lovers can never know.
+Young lovers were pale and anaemic beside that long-married pair. To
+see them, all fire and flame and tenderness, at a trembling distance,
+lavishing caresses of eye and voice with every action, through every
+silence--their love driving them toward each other, and they withholding
+like fluttering moths, each to the other a candle-flame, and revolving
+each about the other in the mad gyrations of an amazing orbit-flight!
+It seemed, in obedience to some great law of physics, more potent than
+gravitation and more subtle, that they must corporeally melt each
+into each there before my very eyes. Small wonder they were called the
+wonderful lovers.
+
+"I have wandered. Now to the clue. One day in the window-seat I found
+a book of verse. It opened of itself, betraying long habit, to 'Love's
+Waiting Time.' The page was thumbed and limp with overhandling, and
+there I read:--
+
+     "'So sweet it is to stand but just apart,
+       To know each other better, and to keep
+       The soft, delicious sense of two that touch...
+
+       O love, not yet!...  Sweet, let us keep our love
+       Wrapped round with sacred mystery awhile,
+       Waiting the secret of the coming years,
+       That come not yet, not yet... sometime...
+                    not yet...
+
+       Oh, yet a little while our love may grow!
+       When it has blossomed it will haply die.
+       Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep,
+       Bedded in dead denial yet some while...
+       Oh, yet a little while, a little while.'
+
+"I folded the book on my thumb and sat there silent and without moving
+for a long time. I was stunned by the clearness of vision the verse
+had imparted to me. It was illumination. It was like a bolt of God's
+lightning in the Pit. They would keep Love, the fickle sprite, the
+forerunner of young life--young life that is imperative to be born!
+
+"I conned the lines over in my mind--'Not yet, sometime'--'O Love, not
+yet'--'Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep.' And I laughed
+aloud, ha, ha! I saw with white vision their blameless souls. They were
+children. They did not understand. They played with Nature's fire and
+bedded with a naked sword. They laughed at the gods. They would stop
+the cosmic sap. They had invented a system, and brought it to the
+gaming-table of life, and expected to win out. 'Beware!' I cried. 'The
+gods are behind the table. They make new rules for every system that is
+devised. You have no chance to win.'
+
+"But I did not so cry to them. I waited. They would learn that their
+system was worthless and throw it away. They would be content with
+whatever happiness the gods gave them and not strive to wrest more away.
+
+"I watched. I said nothing. The months continued to come and go, and
+still the famine-edge of their love grew the sharper. Never did they
+dull it with a permitted love-clasp. They ground and whetted it on
+self-denial, and sharper and sharper it grew. This went on until even I
+doubted. Did the gods sleep? I wondered. Or were they dead? I laughed
+to myself. The man and the woman had made a miracle. They had outwitted
+God. They had shamed the flesh, and blackened the face of the good Earth
+Mother. They had played with her fire and not been burned. They were
+immune. They were themselves gods, knowing good from evil and tasting
+not. 'Was this the way gods came to be?' I asked myself. 'I am a frog,'
+I said. 'But for my mud-lidded eyes I should have been blinded by the
+brightness of this wonder I have witnessed. I have puffed myself up with
+my wisdom and passed judgment upon gods.'
+
+"Yet even in this, my latest wisdom, I was wrong. They were not gods.
+They were man and woman--soft clay that sighed and thrilled, shot
+through with desire, thumbed with strange weaknesses which the gods have
+not."
+
+Carquinez broke from his narrative to roll another cigarette and to
+laugh harshly. It was not a pretty laugh; it was like the mockery of a
+devil, and it rose over and rode the roar of the storm that came muffled
+to our ears from the crashing outside world.
+
+"I am a frog," he said apologetically. "How were they to understand?
+They were artists, not biologists. They knew the clay of the studio, but
+they did not know the clay of which they themselves were made. But this
+I will say--they played high. Never was there such a game before, and I
+doubt me if there will ever be such a game again.
+
+"Never was lovers' ecstasy like theirs. They had not killed Love with
+kisses. They had quickened him with denial. And by denial they drove him
+on till he was all aburst with desire. And the flame-winged lute-player
+fanned them with his warm wings till they were all but swooning. It was
+the very delirium of Love, and it continued undiminished and increasing
+through the weeks and months.
+
+"They longed and yearned, with all the fond pangs and sweet delicious
+agonies, with an intensity never felt by lovers before nor since.
+
+"And then one day the drowsy gods ceased nodding. They aroused and
+looked at the man and woman who had made a mock of them. And the man and
+woman looked into each other's eyes one morning and knew that something
+was gone. It was the flame-winged one. He had fled, silently, in the
+night, from their anchorites' board.
+
+"They looked into each other's eyes and knew that they did not care.
+Desire was dead. Do you understand? Desire was dead. And they had never
+kissed. Not once had they kissed. Love was gone. They would never yearn
+and burn again. For them there was nothing left--no more tremblings and
+flutterings and delicious anguishes, no more throbbing and pulsing, and
+sighing and song. Desire was dead. It had died in the night, on a couch
+cold and unattended; nor had they witnessed its passing. They learned it
+for the first time in each other's eyes.
+
+"The gods may not be kind, but they are often merciful. They had twirled
+the little ivory ball and swept the stakes from the table. All that
+remained was the man and woman gazing into each other's cold eyes.
+And then he died. That was the mercy. Within the week Marvin Fiske was
+dead--you remember the accident. And in her diary, written at this time,
+I long afterward read Mitchell Kennerly's:--
+
+     "'There was not a single hour
+       We might have kissed and did not kiss.'"
+
+"Oh, the irony of it!" I cried out.
+
+And Carquinez, in the firelight a veritable Mephistopheles in velvet
+jacket, fixed me with his black eyes.
+
+"And they won, you said? The world's judgment! I have told you, and I
+know. They won as you are winning, here in your hills."
+
+"But you," I demanded hotly; "you with your orgies of sound and sense,
+with your mad cities and madder frolics--bethink you that you win?"
+
+He shook his head slowly. "Because you with your sober bucolic regime,
+lose, is no reason that I should win. We never win. Sometimes we think
+we win. That is a little pleasantry of the gods."
+
+
+
+
+THE APOSTATE
+
+     "Now I wake me up to work;
+      I pray the Lord I may not shirk.
+      If I should die before the night,
+      I pray the Lord my work's all right.
+                                    Amen."
+
+"If you don't git up, Johnny, I won't give you a bite to eat!"
+
+The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep,
+fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy's
+hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows
+at the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed
+practised familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the
+shoulder.
+
+"Lemme 'lone!"
+
+It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly
+rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died
+away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as
+of a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.
+
+But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had
+grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She
+got a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy,
+ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle, at the
+foot of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the
+bedding to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers
+was the superior weight, and the boy and bedding gave, the former
+instinctively following the latter in order to shelter against the chill
+of the room that bit into his body.
+
+As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall
+head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He
+righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the
+floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders
+and shook him. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and
+directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was
+awake.
+
+"All right," he mumbled.
+
+She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.
+
+"You'll be docked," she warned back to him.
+
+He did not mind the darkness. When he had got into his clothes, he went
+out into the kitchen. His tread was very heavy for so thin and light a
+boy. His legs dragged with their own weight, which seemed unreasonable
+because they were such skinny legs. He drew a broken-bottomed chair to
+the table.
+
+"Johnny," his mother called sharply.
+
+He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word, went to the
+sink. It was a greasy, filthy sink. A smell came up from the outlet. He
+took no notice of it. That a sink should smell was to him part of the
+natural order, just as it was a part of the natural order that the soap
+should be grimy with dish-water and hard to lather. Nor did he try very
+hard to make it lather. Several splashes of the cold water from the
+running faucet completed the function. He did not wash his teeth. For
+that matter he had never seen a toothbrush, nor did he know that there
+existed beings in the world who were guilty of so great a foolishness as
+tooth washing.
+
+"You might wash yourself wunst a day without bein' told," his mother
+complained.
+
+She was holding a broken lid on the pot as she poured two cups of
+coffee. He made no remark, for this was a standing quarrel between them,
+and the one thing upon which his mother was hard as adamant. "Wunst" a
+day it was compulsory that he should wash his face. He dried himself on
+a greasy towel, damp and dirty and ragged, that left his face covered
+with shreds of lint.
+
+"I wish we didn't live so far away," she said, as he sat down. "I try
+to do the best I can. You know that. But a dollar on the rent is such a
+savin', an' we've more room here. You know that."
+
+He scarcely followed her. He had heard it all before, many times. The
+range of her thought was limited, and she was ever harking back to the
+hardship worked upon them by living so far from the mills.
+
+"A dollar means more grub," he remarked sententiously. "I'd sooner do
+the walkin' an' git the grub."
+
+He ate hurriedly, half chewing the bread and washing the unmasticated
+chunks down with coffee. The hot and muddy liquid went by the name of
+coffee. Johnny thought it was coffee--and excellent coffee. That was one
+of the few of life's illusions that remained to him. He had never drunk
+real coffee in his life.
+
+In addition to the bread, there was a small piece of cold pork. His
+mother refilled his cup with coffee. As he was finishing the bread, he
+began to watch if more was forthcoming. She intercepted his questioning
+glance.
+
+"Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny," was her comment. "You've had your
+share. Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you."
+
+He did not answer the rebuke. He was not much of a talker. Also, he
+ceased his hungry glancing for more. He was uncomplaining, with a
+patience that was as terrible as the school in which it had been
+learned. He finished his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his
+hand, and started to rise.
+
+"Wait a second," she said hastily. "I guess the loaf kin stand you
+another slice--a thin un."
+
+There was legerdemain in her actions. With all the seeming of cutting
+a slice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice back in the bread
+box and conveyed to him one of her own two slices. She believed she had
+deceived him, but he had noted her sleight-of-hand. Nevertheless, he
+took the bread shamelessly. He had a philosophy that his mother, because
+of her chronic sickliness, was not much of an eater anyway.
+
+She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached over and emptied
+her coffee cup into his.
+
+"Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning," she explained.
+
+A distant whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of them to
+their feet. She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf. The hands
+stood at half-past five. The rest of the factory world was just arousing
+from sleep. She drew a shawl about her shoulders, and on her head put a
+dingy hat, shapeless and ancient.
+
+"We've got to run," she said, turning the wick of the lamp and blowing
+down the chimney.
+
+They groped their way out and down the stairs. It was clear and cold,
+and Johnny shivered at the first contact with the outside air. The stars
+had not yet begun to pale in the sky, and the city lay in blackness.
+Both Johnny and his mother shuffled their feet as they walked. There was
+no ambition in the leg muscles to swing the feet clear of the ground.
+
+After fifteen silent minutes, his mother turned off to the right.
+
+"Don't be late," was her final warning from out of the dark that was
+swallowing her up.
+
+He made no response, steadily keeping on his way. In the factory
+quarter, doors were opening everywhere, and he was soon one of a
+multitude that pressed onward through the dark. As he entered the
+factory gate the whistle blew again. He glanced at the east. Across a
+ragged sky-line of housetops a pale light was beginning to creep. This
+much he saw of the day as he turned his back upon it and joined his work
+gang.
+
+He took his place in one of many long rows of machines. Before him,
+above a bin filled with small bobbins, were large bobbins revolving
+rapidly. Upon these he wound the jute-twine of the small bobbins. The
+work was simple. All that was required was celerity. The small bobbins
+were emptied so rapidly, and there were so many large bobbins that did
+the emptying, that there were no idle moments.
+
+He worked mechanically. When a small bobbin ran out, he used his left
+hand for a brake, stopping the large bobbin and at the same time, with
+thumb and forefinger, catching the flying end of twine. Also, at the
+same time, with his right hand, he caught up the loose twine-end of
+a small bobbin. These various acts with both hands were performed
+simultaneously and swiftly. Then there would come a flash of his hands
+as he looped the weaver's knot and released the bobbin. There was
+nothing difficult about weaver's knots. He once boasted he could tie
+them in his sleep. And for that matter, he sometimes did, toiling
+centuries long in a single night at tying an endless succession of
+weaver's knots.
+
+Some of the boys shirked, wasting time and machinery by not replacing
+the small bobbins when they ran out. And there was an overseer to
+prevent this. He caught Johnny's neighbour at the trick, and boxed his
+ears.
+
+"Look at Johnny there--why ain't you like him?" the overseer wrathfully
+demanded.
+
+Johnny's bobbins were running full blast, but he did not thrill at the
+indirect praise. There had been a time... but that was long ago, very
+long ago. His apathetic face was expressionless as he listened to
+himself being held up as a shining example. He was the perfect worker.
+He knew that. He had been told so, often. It was a commonplace, and
+besides it didn't seem to mean anything to him any more. From the
+perfect worker he had evolved into the perfect machine. When his work
+went wrong, it was with him as with the machine, due to faulty material.
+It would have been as possible for a perfect nail-die to cut imperfect
+nails as for him to make a mistake.
+
+And small wonder. There had never been a time when he had not been in
+intimate relationship with machines. Machinery had almost been bred into
+him, and at any rate he had been brought up on it. Twelve years before,
+there had been a small flutter of excitement in the loom room of this
+very mill. Johnny's mother had fainted. They stretched her out on the
+floor in the midst of the shrieking machines. A couple of elderly women
+were called from their looms. The foreman assisted. And in a few minutes
+there was one more soul in the loom room than had entered by the doors.
+It was Johnny, born with the pounding, crashing roar of the looms in his
+ears, drawing with his first breath the warm, moist air that was thick
+with flying lint. He had coughed that first day in order to rid his
+lungs of the lint; and for the same reason he had coughed ever since.
+
+The boy alongside of Johnny whimpered and sniffed. The boy's face was
+convulsed with hatred for the overseer who kept a threatening eye on
+him from a distance; but every bobbin was running full. The boy yelled
+terrible oaths into the whirling bobbins before him; but the sound did
+not carry half a dozen feet, the roaring of the room holding it in and
+containing it like a wall.
+
+Of all this Johnny took no notice. He had a way of accepting things.
+Besides, things grow monotonous by repetition, and this particular
+happening he had witnessed many times. It seemed to him as useless to
+oppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine. Machines were made
+to go in certain ways and to perform certain tasks. It was the same with
+the overseer.
+
+But at eleven o'clock there was excitement in the room. In an apparently
+occult way the excitement instantly permeated everywhere. The one-legged
+boy who worked on the other side of Johnny bobbed swiftly across the
+floor to a bin truck that stood empty. Into this he dived out of
+sight, crutch and all. The superintendent of the mill was coming along,
+accompanied by a young man. He was well dressed and wore a starched
+shirt--a gentleman, in Johnny's classification of men, and also, "the
+Inspector."
+
+He looked sharply at the boys as he passed along. Sometimes he stopped
+and asked questions. When he did so, he was compelled to shout at the
+top of his lungs, at which moments his face was ludicrously contorted
+with the strain of making himself heard. His quick eye noted the empty
+machine alongside of Johnny's, but he said nothing. Johnny also caught
+his eye, and he stopped abruptly. He caught Johnny by the arm to draw
+him back a step from the machine; but with an exclamation of surprise he
+released the arm.
+
+"Pretty skinny," the superintendent laughed anxiously.
+
+"Pipe stems," was the answer. "Look at those legs. The boy's got the
+rickets--incipient, but he's got them. If epilepsy doesn't get him in
+the end, it will be because tuberculosis gets him first."
+
+Johnny listened, but did not understand. Furthermore he was not
+interested in future ills. There was an immediate and more serious ill
+that threatened him in the form of the inspector.
+
+"Now, my boy, I want you to tell me the truth," the inspector said, or
+shouted, bending close to the boy's ear to make him hear. "How old are
+you?"
+
+"Fourteen," Johnny lied, and he lied with the full force of his lungs.
+So loudly did he lie that it started him off in a dry, hacking cough
+that lifted the lint which had been settling in his lungs all morning.
+
+"Looks sixteen at least," said the superintendent.
+
+"Or sixty," snapped the inspector.
+
+"He's always looked that way."
+
+"How long?" asked the inspector, quickly.
+
+"For years. Never gets a bit older."
+
+"Or younger, I dare say. I suppose he's worked here all those years?"
+
+"Off and on--but that was before the new law was passed," the
+superintendent hastened to add.
+
+"Machine idle?" the inspector asked, pointing at the unoccupied machine
+beside Johnny's, in which the part-filled bobbins were flying like mad.
+
+"Looks that way." The superintendent motioned the overseer to him and
+shouted in his ear and pointed at the machine. "Machine's idle," he
+reported back to the inspector.
+
+They passed on, and Johnny returned to his work, relieved in that the
+ill had been averted. But the one-legged boy was not so fortunate. The
+sharp-eyed inspector haled him out at arms length from the bin truck.
+His lips were quivering, and his face had all the expression of one upon
+whom was fallen profound and irremediable disaster. The overseer looked
+astounded, as though for the first time he had laid eyes on the boy,
+while the superintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure.
+
+"I know him," the inspector said. "He's twelve years old. I've had him
+discharged from three factories inside the year. This makes the fourth."
+
+He turned to the one-legged boy. "You promised me, word and honour, that
+you'd go to school."
+
+The one-legged boy burst into tears. "Please, Mr. Inspector, two babies
+died on us, and we're awful poor."
+
+"What makes you cough that way?" the inspector demanded, as though
+charging him with crime.
+
+And as in denial of guilt, the one-legged boy replied: "It ain't
+nothin'. I jes' caught a cold last week, Mr. Inspector, that's all."
+
+In the end the one-legged boy went out of the room with the inspector,
+the latter accompanied by the anxious and protesting superintendent.
+After that monotony settled down again. The long morning and the longer
+afternoon wore away and the whistle blew for quitting time. Darkness had
+already fallen when Johnny passed out through the factory gate. In the
+interval the sun had made a golden ladder of the sky, flooded the world
+with its gracious warmth, and dropped down and disappeared in the west
+behind a ragged sky-line of housetops.
+
+Supper was the family meal of the day--the one meal at which Johnny
+encountered his younger brothers and sisters. It partook of the
+nature of an encounter, to him, for he was very old, while they were
+distressingly young. He had no patience with their excessive and amazing
+juvenility. He did not understand it. His own childhood was too far
+behind him. He was like an old and irritable man, annoyed by the
+turbulence of their young spirits that was to him arrant silliness. He
+glowered silently over his food, finding compensation in the thought
+that they would soon have to go to work. That would take the edge off
+of them and make them sedate and dignified--like him. Thus it was, after
+the fashion of the human, that Johnny made of himself a yardstick with
+which to measure the universe.
+
+During the meal, his mother explained in various ways and with infinite
+repetition that she was trying to do the best she could; so that it was
+with relief, the scant meal ended, that Johnny shoved back his chair
+and arose. He debated for a moment between bed and the front door,
+and finally went out the latter. He did not go far. He sat down on the
+stoop, his knees drawn up and his narrow shoulders drooping forward, his
+elbows on his knees and the palms of his hands supporting his chin.
+
+As he sat there, he did no thinking. He was just resting. So far as his
+mind was concerned, it was asleep. His brothers and sisters came out,
+and with other children played noisily about him. An electric globe at
+the corner lighted their frolics. He was peevish and irritable, that
+they knew; but the spirit of adventure lured them into teasing him. They
+joined hands before him, and, keeping time with their bodies, chanted in
+his face weird and uncomplimentary doggerel. At first he snarled curses
+at them--curses he had learned from the lips of various foremen. Finding
+this futile, and remembering his dignity, he relapsed into dogged
+silence.
+
+His brother Will, next to him in age, having just passed his tenth
+birthday, was the ringleader. Johnny did not possess particularly kindly
+feelings toward him. His life had early been embittered by continual
+giving over and giving way to Will. He had a definite feeling that
+Will was greatly in his debt and was ungrateful about it. In his own
+playtime, far back in the dim past, he had been robbed of a large part
+of that playtime by being compelled to take care of Will. Will was a
+baby then, and then, as now, their mother had spent her days in the
+mills. To Johnny had fallen the part of little father and little mother
+as well.
+
+Will seemed to show the benefit of the giving over and the giving way.
+He was well-built, fairly rugged, as tall as his elder brother and even
+heavier. It was as though the life-blood of the one had been diverted
+into the other's veins. And in spirits it was the same. Johnny was
+jaded, worn out, without resilience, while his younger brother seemed
+bursting and spilling over with exuberance.
+
+The mocking chant rose louder and louder. Will leaned closer as he
+danced, thrusting out his tongue. Johnny's left arm shot out and caught
+the other around the neck. At the same time he rapped his bony fist to
+the other's nose. It was a pathetically bony fist, but that it was
+sharp to hurt was evidenced by the squeal of pain it produced. The other
+children were uttering frightened cries, while Johnny's sister, Jennie,
+had dashed into the house.
+
+He thrust Will from him, kicked him savagely on the shins, then reached
+for him and slammed him face downward in the dirt. Nor did he release
+him till the face had been rubbed into the dirt several times. Then the
+mother arrived, an anaemic whirlwind of solicitude and maternal wrath.
+
+"Why can't he leave me alone?" was Johnny's reply to her upbraiding.
+"Can't he see I'm tired?"
+
+"I'm as big as you," Will raged in her arms, his face a mass of tears,
+dirt, and blood. "I'm as big as you now, an' I'm goin' to git bigger.
+Then I'll lick you--see if I don't."
+
+"You ought to be to work, seein' how big you are," Johnny snarled.
+"That's what's the matter with you. You ought to be to work. An' it's up
+to your ma to put you to work."
+
+"But he's too young," she protested. "He's only a little boy."
+
+"I was younger'n him when I started to work."
+
+Johnny's mouth was open, further to express the sense of unfairness that
+he felt, but the mouth closed with a snap. He turned gloomily on his
+heel and stalked into the house and to bed. The door of his room
+was open to let in warmth from the kitchen. As he undressed in the
+semi-darkness he could hear his mother talking with a neighbour woman
+who had dropped in. His mother was crying, and her speech was punctuated
+with spiritless sniffles.
+
+"I can't make out what's gittin' into Johnny," he could hear her say.
+"He didn't used to be this way. He was a patient little angel.
+
+"An' he is a good boy," she hastened to defend. "He's worked faithful,
+an' he did go to work too young. But it wasn't my fault. I do the best I
+can, I'm sure."
+
+Prolonged sniffling from the kitchen, and Johnny murmured to himself as
+his eyelids closed down, "You betcher life I've worked faithful."
+
+The next morning he was torn bodily by his mother from the grip of
+sleep. Then came the meagre breakfast, the tramp through the dark, and
+the pale glimpse of day across the housetops as he turned his back on
+it and went in through the factory gate. It was another day, of all the
+days, and all the days were alike.
+
+And yet there had been variety in his life--at the times he changed from
+one job to another, or was taken sick. When he was six, he was little
+mother and father to Will and the other children still younger. At seven
+he went into the mills--winding bobbins. When he was eight, he got work
+in another mill. His new job was marvellously easy. All he had to do was
+to sit down with a little stick in his hand and guide a stream of cloth
+that flowed past him. This stream of cloth came out of the maw of a
+machine, passed over a hot roller, and went on its way elsewhere. But he
+sat always in one place, beyond the reach of daylight, a gas-jet flaring
+over him, himself part of the mechanism.
+
+He was very happy at that job, in spite of the moist heat, for he was
+still young and in possession of dreams and illusions. And wonderful
+dreams he dreamed as he watched the steaming cloth streaming endlessly
+by. But there was no exercise about the work, no call upon his mind,
+and he dreamed less and less, while his mind grew torpid and drowsy.
+Nevertheless, he earned two dollars a week, and two dollars represented
+the difference between acute starvation and chronic underfeeding.
+
+But when he was nine, he lost his job. Measles was the cause of it.
+After he recovered, he got work in a glass factory. The pay was better,
+and the work demanded skill. It was piecework, and the more skilful
+he was, the bigger wages he earned. Here was incentive. And under this
+incentive he developed into a remarkable worker.
+
+It was simple work, the tying of glass stoppers into small bottles. At
+his waist he carried a bundle of twine. He held the bottles between his
+knees so that he might work with both hands. Thus, in a sitting position
+and bending over his own knees, his narrow shoulders grew humped and his
+chest was contracted for ten hours each day. This was not good for the
+lungs, but he tied three hundred dozen bottles a day.
+
+The superintendent was very proud of him, and brought visitors to look
+at him. In ten hours three hundred dozen bottles passed through his
+hands. This meant that he had attained machine-like perfection. All
+waste movements were eliminated. Every motion of his thin arms, every
+movement of a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate. He
+worked at high tension, and the result was that he grew nervous. At
+night his muscles twitched in his sleep, and in the daytime he could
+not relax and rest. He remained keyed up and his muscles continued
+to twitch. Also he grew sallow and his lint-cough grew worse. Then
+pneumonia laid hold of the feeble lungs within the contracted chest, and
+he lost his job in the glass-works.
+
+Now he had returned to the jute mills where he had first begun with
+winding bobbins. But promotion was waiting for him. He was a good
+worker. He would next go on the starcher, and later he would go into the
+loom room. There was nothing after that except increased efficiency.
+
+The machinery ran faster than when he had first gone to work, and his
+mind ran slower. He no longer dreamed at all, though his earlier years
+had been full of dreaming. Once he had been in love. It was when he
+first began guiding the cloth over the hot roller, and it was with the
+daughter of the superintendent. She was much older than he, a young
+woman, and he had seen her at a distance only a paltry half-dozen times.
+But that made no difference. On the surface of the cloth stream that
+poured past him, he pictured radiant futures wherein he performed
+prodigies of toil, invented miraculous machines, won to the mastership
+of the mills, and in the end took her in his arms and kissed her soberly
+on the brow.
+
+But that was all in the long ago, before he had grown too old and tired
+to love. Also, she had married and gone away, and his mind had gone to
+sleep. Yet it had been a wonderful experience, and he used often to
+look back upon it as other men and women look back upon the time they
+believed in fairies. He had never believed in fairies nor Santa Claus;
+but he had believed implicitly in the smiling future his imagination had
+wrought into the steaming cloth stream.
+
+He had become a man very early in life. At seven, when he drew his first
+wages, began his adolescence. A certain feeling of independence crept
+up in him, and the relationship between him and his mother changed.
+Somehow, as an earner and breadwinner, doing his own work in the world,
+he was more like an equal with her. Manhood, full-blown manhood, had
+come when he was eleven, at which time he had gone to work on the night
+shift for six months. No child works on the night shift and remains a
+child.
+
+There had been several great events in his life. One of these had been
+when his mother bought some California prunes. Two others had been the
+two times when she cooked custard. Those had been events. He remembered
+them kindly. And at that time his mother had told him of a blissful dish
+she would sometime make--"floating island," she had called it, "better
+than custard." For years he had looked forward to the day when he would
+sit down to the table with floating island before him, until at last he
+had relegated the idea of it to the limbo of unattainable ideals.
+
+Once he found a silver quarter lying on the sidewalk. That, also, was
+a great event in his life, withal a tragic one. He knew his duty on the
+instant the silver flashed on his eyes, before even he had picked it up.
+At home, as usual, there was not enough to eat, and home he should have
+taken it as he did his wages every Saturday night. Right conduct in this
+case was obvious; but he never had any spending of his money, and he was
+suffering from candy hunger. He was ravenous for the sweets that only on
+red-letter days he had ever tasted in his life.
+
+He did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew it was sin, and
+deliberately he sinned when he went on a fifteen-cent candy debauch.
+Ten cents he saved for a future orgy; but not being accustomed to the
+carrying of money, he lost the ten cents. This occurred at the time when
+he was suffering all the torments of conscience, and it was to him an
+act of divine retribution. He had a frightened sense of the closeness
+of an awful and wrathful God. God had seen, and God had been swift to
+punish, denying him even the full wages of sin.
+
+In memory he always looked back upon that as the one great criminal deed
+of his life, and at the recollection his conscience always awoke and
+gave him another twinge. It was the one skeleton in his closet. Also,
+being so made, and circumstanced, he looked back upon the deed with
+regret. He was dissatisfied with the manner in which he had spent
+the quarter. He could have invested it better, and, out of his later
+knowledge of the quickness of God, he would have beaten God out by
+spending the whole quarter at one fell swoop. In retrospect he spent the
+quarter a thousand times, and each time to better advantage.
+
+There was one other memory of the past, dim and faded, but stamped into
+his soul everlasting by the savage feet of his father. It was more like
+a nightmare than a remembered vision of a concrete thing--more like the
+race-memory of man that makes him fall in his sleep and that goes back
+to his arboreal ancestry.
+
+This particular memory never came to Johnny in broad daylight when
+he was wide awake. It came at night, in bed, at the moment that his
+consciousness was sinking down and losing itself in sleep. It always
+aroused him to frightened wakefulness, and for the moment, in the first
+sickening start, it seemed to him that he lay crosswise on the foot of
+the bed. In the bed were the vague forms of his father and mother. He
+never saw what his father looked like. He had but one impression of his
+father, and that was that he had savage and pitiless feet.
+
+His earlier memories lingered with him, but he had no late memories.
+All days were alike. Yesterday or last year were the same as a thousand
+years--or a minute. Nothing ever happened. There were no events to mark
+the march of time. Time did not march. It stood always still. It was
+only the whirling machines that moved, and they moved nowhere--in spite
+of the fact that they moved faster.
+
+When he was fourteen, he went to work on the starcher. It was a colossal
+event. Something had at last happened that could be remembered beyond
+a night's sleep or a week's pay-day. It marked an era. It was a machine
+Olympiad, a thing to date from. "When I went to work on the starcher,"
+or, "after," or "before I went to work on the starcher," were sentences
+often on his lips.
+
+He celebrated his sixteenth birthday by going into the loom room and
+taking a loom. Here was an incentive again, for it was piece-work. And
+he excelled, because the clay of him had been moulded by the mills
+into the perfect machine. At the end of three months he was running two
+looms, and, later, three and four.
+
+At the end of his second year at the looms he was turning out more yards
+than any other weaver, and more than twice as much as some of the less
+skilful ones. And at home things began to prosper as he approached the
+full stature of his earning power. Not, however, that his increased
+earnings were in excess of need. The children were growing up. They ate
+more. And they were going to school, and school-books cost money. And
+somehow, the faster he worked, the faster climbed the prices of things.
+Even the rent went up, though the house had fallen from bad to worse
+disrepair.
+
+He had grown taller; but with his increased height he seemed leaner
+than ever. Also, he was more nervous. With the nervousness increased his
+peevishness and irritability. The children had learned by many bitter
+lessons to fight shy of him. His mother respected him for his earning
+power, but somehow her respect was tinctured with fear.
+
+There was no joyousness in life for him. The procession of the days he
+never saw. The nights he slept away in twitching unconsciousness.
+The rest of the time he worked, and his consciousness was machine
+consciousness. Outside this his mind was a blank. He had no ideals,
+and but one illusion; namely, that he drank excellent coffee. He was a
+work-beast. He had no mental life whatever; yet deep down in the crypts
+of his mind, unknown to him, were being weighed and sifted every hour of
+his toil, every movement of his hands, every twitch of his muscles, and
+preparations were making for a future course of action that would amaze
+him and all his little world.
+
+It was in the late spring that he came home from work one night aware of
+unusual tiredness. There was a keen expectancy in the air as he sat down
+to the table, but he did not notice. He went through the meal in moody
+silence, mechanically eating what was before him. The children um'd
+and ah'd and made smacking noises with their mouths. But he was deaf to
+them.
+
+"D'ye know what you're eatin'?" his mother demanded at last,
+desperately.
+
+He looked vacantly at the dish before him, and vacantly at her.
+
+"Floatin' island," she announced triumphantly.
+
+"Oh," he said.
+
+"Floating island!" the children chorussed loudly.
+
+"Oh," he said. And after two or three mouthfuls, he added, "I guess I
+ain't hungry to-night."
+
+He dropped the spoon, shoved back his chair, and arose wearily from the
+table.
+
+"An' I guess I'll go to bed."
+
+His feet dragged more heavily than usual as he crossed the kitchen
+floor. Undressing was a Titan's task, a monstrous futility, and he wept
+weakly as he crawled into bed, one shoe still on. He was aware of a
+rising, swelling something inside his head that made his brain thick and
+fuzzy. His lean fingers felt as big as his wrist, while in the ends of
+them was a remoteness of sensation vague and fuzzy like his brain.
+The small of his back ached intolerably. All his bones ached. He ached
+everywhere. And in his head began the shrieking, pounding, crashing,
+roaring of a million looms. All space was filled with flying shuttles.
+They darted in and out, intricately, amongst the stars. He worked a
+thousand looms himself, and ever they speeded up, faster and faster, and
+his brain unwound, faster and faster, and became the thread that fed the
+thousand flying shuttles.
+
+He did not go to work next morning. He was too busy weaving colossally
+on the thousand looms that ran inside his head. His mother went to work,
+but first she sent for the doctor. It was a severe attack of la grippe,
+he said. Jennie served as nurse and carried out his instructions.
+
+It was a very severe attack, and it was a week before Johnny dressed and
+tottered feebly across the floor. Another week, the doctor said, and he
+would be fit to return to work. The foreman of the loom room visited him
+on Sunday afternoon, the first day of his convalescence. The best weaver
+in the room, the foreman told his mother. His job would be held for him.
+He could come back to work a week from Monday.
+
+"Why don't you thank 'im, Johnny?" his mother asked anxiously.
+
+"He's ben that sick he ain't himself yet," she explained apologetically
+to the visitor.
+
+Johnny sat hunched up and gazing steadfastly at the floor. He sat in the
+same position long after the foreman had gone. It was warm outdoors,
+and he sat on the stoop in the afternoon. Sometimes his lips moved. He
+seemed lost in endless calculations.
+
+Next morning, after the day grew warm, he took his seat on the stoop. He
+had pencil and paper this time with which to continue his calculations,
+and he calculated painfully and amazingly.
+
+"What comes after millions?" he asked at noon, when Will came home from
+school. "An' how d'ye work 'em?"
+
+That afternoon finished his task. Each day, but without paper and
+pencil, he returned to the stoop. He was greatly absorbed in the one
+tree that grew across the street. He studied it for hours at a time, and
+was unusually interested when the wind swayed its branches and fluttered
+its leaves. Throughout the week he seemed lost in a great communion
+with himself. On Sunday, sitting on the stoop, he laughed aloud, several
+times, to the perturbation of his mother, who had not heard him laugh
+for years.
+
+Next morning, in the early darkness, she came to his bed to rouse him.
+He had had his fill of sleep all the week, and awoke easily. He made no
+struggle, nor did he attempt to hold on to the bedding when she stripped
+it from him. He lay quietly, and spoke quietly.
+
+"It ain't no use, ma."
+
+"You'll be late," she said, under the impression that he was still
+stupid with sleep.
+
+"I'm awake, ma, an' I tell you it ain't no use. You might as well lemme
+alone. I ain't goin' to git up."
+
+"But you'll lose your job!" she cried.
+
+"I ain't goin' to git up," he repeated in a strange, passionless voice.
+
+She did not go to work herself that morning. This was sickness
+beyond any sickness she had ever known. Fever and delirium she could
+understand; but this was insanity. She pulled the bedding up over him
+and sent Jennie for the doctor.
+
+When that person arrived, Johnny was sleeping gently, and gently he
+awoke and allowed his pulse to be taken.
+
+"Nothing the matter with him," the doctor reported. "Badly debilitated,
+that's all. Not much meat on his bones."
+
+"He's always been that way," his mother volunteered.
+
+"Now go 'way, ma, an' let me finish my snooze."
+
+Johnny spoke sweetly and placidly, and sweetly and placidly he rolled
+over on his side and went to sleep.
+
+At ten o'clock he awoke and dressed himself. He walked out into the
+kitchen, where he found his mother with a frightened expression on her
+face.
+
+"I'm goin' away, ma," he announced, "an' I jes' want to say good-bye."
+
+She threw her apron over her head and sat down suddenly and wept. He
+waited patiently.
+
+"I might a-known it," she was sobbing.
+
+"Where?" she finally asked, removing the apron from her head and gazing
+up at him with a stricken face in which there was little curiosity.
+
+"I don't know--anywhere."
+
+As he spoke, the tree across the street appeared with dazzling
+brightness on his inner vision. It seemed to lurk just under his
+eyelids, and he could see it whenever he wished.
+
+"An' your job?" she quavered.
+
+"I ain't never goin' to work again."
+
+"My God, Johnny!" she wailed, "don't say that!"
+
+What he had said was blasphemy to her. As a mother who hears her child
+deny God, was Johnny's mother shocked by his words.
+
+"What's got into you, anyway?" she demanded, with a lame attempt at
+imperativeness.
+
+"Figures," he answered. "Jes' figures. I've ben doin' a lot of figurin'
+this week, an' it's most surprisin'."
+
+"I don't see what that's got to do with it," she sniffled.
+
+Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother was aware of a distinct shock at
+the persistent absence of his peevishness and irritability.
+
+"I'll show you," he said. "I'm plum' tired out. What makes me tired?
+Moves. I've ben movin' ever since I was born. I'm tired of movin', an' I
+ain't goin' to move any more. Remember when I worked in the glass-house?
+I used to do three hundred dozen a day. Now I reckon I made about ten
+different moves to each bottle. That's thirty-six thousan' moves a day.
+Ten days, three hundred an' sixty thousan' moves. One month, one million
+an' eighty thousan' moves. Chuck out the eighty thousan'"--he spoke with
+the complacent beneficence of a philanthropist--"chuck out the eighty
+thousan', that leaves a million moves a month--twelve million moves a
+year.
+
+"At the looms I'm movin' twic'st as much. That makes twenty-five million
+moves a year, an' it seems to me I've ben a movin' that way 'most a
+million years.
+
+"Now this week I ain't moved at all. I ain't made one move in hours an'
+hours. I tell you it was swell, jes' settin' there, hours an' hours,
+an' doin' nothin'. I ain't never ben happy before. I never had any time.
+I've ben movin' all the time. That ain't no way to be happy. An' I ain't
+going to do it any more. I'm jes' goin' to set, an' set, an' rest, an'
+rest, and then rest some more."
+
+"But what's goin' to come of Will an' the children?" she asked
+despairingly.
+
+"That's it, 'Will an' the children,'" he repeated.
+
+But there was no bitterness in his voice. He had long known his mother's
+ambition for the younger boy, but the thought of it no longer rankled.
+Nothing mattered any more. Not even that.
+
+"I know, ma, what you've ben plannin' for Will--keepin' him in school to
+make a book-keeper out of him. But it ain't no use, I've quit. He's got
+to go to work."
+
+"An' after I have brung you up the way I have," she wept, starting to
+cover her head with the apron and changing her mind.
+
+"You never brung me up," he answered with sad kindliness. "I brung
+myself up, ma, an' I brung up Will. He's bigger'n me, an' heavier, an'
+taller. When I was a kid, I reckon I didn't git enough to eat. When he
+come along an' was a kid, I was workin' an' earnin' grub for him too.
+But that's done with. Will can go to work, same as me, or he can go to
+hell, I don't care which. I'm tired. I'm goin' now. Ain't you goin' to
+say goodbye?"
+
+She made no reply. The apron had gone over her head again, and she was
+crying. He paused a moment in the doorway.
+
+"I'm sure I done the best I knew how," she was sobbing.
+
+He passed out of the house and down the street. A wan delight came
+into his face at the sight of the lone tree. "Jes' ain't goin' to do
+nothin'," he said to himself, half aloud, in a crooning tone. He glanced
+wistfully up at the sky, but the bright sun dazzled and blinded him.
+
+It was a long walk he took, and he did not walk fast. It took him past
+the jute-mill. The muffled roar of the loom room came to his ears, and
+he smiled. It was a gentle, placid smile. He hated no one, not even the
+pounding, shrieking machines. There was no bitterness in him, nothing
+but an inordinate hunger for rest.
+
+The houses and factories thinned out and the open spaces increased as
+he approached the country. At last the city was behind him, and he was
+walking down a leafy lane beside the railroad track. He did not walk
+like a man. He did not look like a man. He was a travesty of the human.
+It was a twisted and stunted and nameless piece of life that shambled
+like a sickly ape, arms loose-hanging, stoop-shouldered, narrow-chested,
+grotesque and terrible.
+
+He passed by a small railroad station and lay down in the grass under a
+tree. All afternoon he lay there. Sometimes he dozed, with muscles that
+twitched in his sleep. When awake, he lay without movement, watching the
+birds or looking up at the sky through the branches of the tree above
+him. Once or twice he laughed aloud, but without relevance to anything
+he had seen or felt.
+
+After twilight had gone, in the first darkness of the night, a freight
+train rumbled into the station. When the engine was switching cars on to
+the side-track, Johnny crept along the side of the train. He pulled open
+the side-door of an empty box-car and awkwardly and laboriously climbed
+in. He closed the door. The engine whistled. Johnny was lying down, and
+in the darkness he smiled.
+
+
+
+
+A WICKED WOMAN
+
+It was because she had broken with Billy that Loretta had come visiting
+to Santa Clara. Billy could not understand. His sister had reported that
+he had walked the floor and cried all night. Loretta had not slept all
+night either, while she had wept most of the night. Daisy knew this,
+because it was in her arms that the weeping had been done. And Daisy's
+husband, Captain Kitt, knew, too. The tears of Loretta, and the
+comforting by Daisy, had lost him some sleep.
+
+Now Captain Kitt did not like to lose sleep. Neither did he want Loretta
+to marry Billy--nor anybody else. It was Captain Kitt's belief that
+Daisy needed the help of her younger sister in the household. But he
+did not say this aloud. Instead, he always insisted that Loretta was too
+young to think of marriage. So it was Captain Kitt's idea that Loretta
+should be packed off on a visit to Mrs. Hemingway. There wouldn't be any
+Billy there.
+
+Before Loretta had been at Santa Clara a week, she was convinced that
+Captain Kitt's idea was a good one. In the first place, though Billy
+wouldn't believe it, she did not want to marry Billy. And in the second
+place, though Captain Kitt wouldn't believe it, she did not want to
+leave Daisy. By the time Loretta had been at Santa Clara two weeks, she
+was absolutely certain that she did not want to marry Billy. But she was
+not so sure about not wanting to leave Daisy. Not that she loved Daisy
+less, but that she--had doubts.
+
+The day of Loretta's arrival, a nebulous plan began shaping itself in
+Mrs. Hemingway's brain. The second day she remarked to Jack Hemingway,
+her husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young thing that were it not
+for her sweet guilelessness she would be positively stupid. In proof
+of which, Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that made him
+chuckle. By the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable
+form. Then it was that she composed a letter. On the envelope she wrote:
+"Mr. Edward Bashford, Athenian Club, San Francisco."
+
+"Dear Ned," the letter began. She had once been violently loved by him
+for three weeks in her pre-marital days. But she had covenanted herself
+to Jack Hemingway, who had prior claims, and her heart as well; and Ned
+Bashford had philosophically not broken his heart over it. He merely
+added the experience to a large fund of similarly collected data out of
+which he manufactured philosophy. Artistically and temperamentally he
+was a Greek--a tired Greek. He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in
+token that he, too, had passed through the long sickness that follows
+upon the ardent search for truth; that he too had emerged, too
+experienced, too shrewd, too profound, ever again to be afflicted by the
+madness of youths in their love of truth. "'To worship appearance,'" he
+often quoted; "'to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole
+Olympus of appearance!'" This particular excerpt he always concluded
+with, "'Those Greeks were superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY!'"
+
+He was a fairly young Greek, jaded and worn. Women were faithless and
+unveracious, he held--at such times that he had relapses and descended
+to pessimism from his wonted high philosophical calm. He did not believe
+in the truth of women; but, faithful to his German master, he did
+not strip from them the airy gauzes that veiled their untruth. He was
+content to accept them as appearances and to make the best of it. He was
+superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY.
+
+"Jack says to be sure to say to you, 'good swimming,'" Mrs. Hemingway
+wrote in her letter; "and also 'to bring your fishing duds along.'" Mrs.
+Hemingway wrote other things in the letter. She told him that at last
+she was prepared to exhibit to him an absolutely true, unsullied, and
+innocent woman. "A more guileless, immaculate bud of womanhood never
+blushed on the planet," was one of the several ways in which she phrased
+the inducement. And to her husband she said triumphantly, "If I don't
+marry Ned off this time--" leaving unstated the terrible alternative
+that she lacked either vocabulary to express or imagination to conceive.
+
+Contrary to all her forebodings, Loretta found that she was not unhappy
+at Santa Clara. Truly, Billy wrote to her every day, but his letters
+were less distressing than his presence. Also, the ordeal of being away
+from Daisy was not so severe as she had expected. For the first time in
+her life she was not lost in eclipse in the blaze of Daisy's brilliant
+and mature personality. Under such favourable circumstances Loretta
+came rapidly to the front, while Mrs. Hemingway modestly and shamelessly
+retreated into the background.
+
+Loretta began to discover that she was not a pale orb shining by
+reflection. Quite unconsciously she became a small centre of things.
+When she was at the piano, there was some one to turn the pages for
+her and to express preferences for certain songs. When she dropped her
+handkerchief, there was some one to pick it up. And there was some one
+to accompany her in ramblings and flower gatherings. Also, she learned
+to cast flies in still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to
+entangle silk lines and gut-leaders with the shrubbery.
+
+Jack Hemingway did not care to teach beginners, and fished much by
+himself, or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford ample time in which
+to consider Loretta as an appearance. As such, she was all that his
+philosophy demanded. Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and
+out of his profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the
+duplicity his philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths. She
+had the grace of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of
+fine china, in all of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the
+Life Force palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw--in whom he
+believed.
+
+Loretta burgeoned. She swiftly developed personality. She discovered
+a will of her own and wishes of her own that were not everlastingly
+entwined with the will and the wishes of Daisy. She was petted by Jack
+Hemingway, spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned
+Bashford. They encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while
+she developed the pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty
+and delicate women. Her environment acted as a soporific upon her
+ancient desire always to live with Daisy. This desire no longer prodded
+her as in the days of her companionship with Billy. The more she saw of
+Billy, the more certain she had been that she could not live away
+from Daisy. The more she saw of Ned Bashford, the more she forgot her
+pressing need of Daisy.
+
+Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting. He confused superficiality
+with profundity, and entangled appearance with reality until he
+accounted them one. Loretta was different from other women. There was no
+masquerade about her. She was real. He said as much to Mrs. Hemingway,
+and more, who agreed with him and at the same time caught her husband's
+eyelid drooping down for the moment in an unmistakable wink.
+
+It was at this time that Loretta received a letter from Billy that was
+somewhat different from his others. In the main, like all his letters,
+it was pathological. It was a long recital of symptoms and sufferings,
+his nervousness, his sleeplessness, and the state of his heart. Then
+followed reproaches, such as he had never made before. They were sharp
+enough to make her weep, and true enough to put tragedy into her face.
+This tragedy she carried down to the breakfast table. It made Jack and
+Mrs. Hemingway speculative, and it worried Ned. They glanced to him for
+explanation, but he shook his head.
+
+"I'll find out to-night," Mrs. Hemingway said to her husband.
+
+But Ned caught Loretta in the afternoon in the big living-room. She
+tried to turn away. He caught her hands, and she faced him with wet
+lashes and trembling lips. He looked at her, silently and kindly. The
+lashes grew wetter.
+
+"There, there, don't cry, little one," he said soothingly.
+
+He put his arm protectingly around her shoulder. And to his shoulder,
+like a tired child, she turned her face. He thrilled in ways unusual for
+a Greek who has recovered from the long sickness.
+
+"Oh, Ned," she sobbed on his shoulder, "if you only knew how wicked I
+am!"
+
+He smiled indulgently, and breathed in a great breath freighted with the
+fragrance of her hair. He thought of his world-experience of women, and
+drew another long breath. There seemed to emanate from her the perfect
+sweetness of a child--"the aura of a white soul," was the way he phrased
+it to himself.
+
+Then he noticed that her sobs were increasing.
+
+"What's the matter, little one?" he asked pettingly and almost
+paternally. "Has Jack been bullying you? Or has your dearly beloved
+sister failed to write?"
+
+She did not answer, and he felt that he really must kiss her hair, that
+he could not be responsible if the situation continued much longer.
+
+"Tell me," he said gently, "and we'll see what I can do."
+
+"I can't. You will despise me.--Oh, Ned, I am so ashamed!"
+
+He laughed incredulously, and lightly touched her hair with his lips--so
+lightly that she did not know.
+
+"Dear little one, let us forget all about it, whatever it is. I want to
+tell you how I love--"
+
+She uttered a sharp cry that was all delight, and then moaned--
+
+"Too late!"
+
+"Too late?" he echoed in surprise.
+
+"Oh, why did I? Why did I?" she was moaning.
+
+He was aware of a swift chill at his heart.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I... he... Billy.
+
+"I am such a wicked woman, Ned. I know you will never speak to me
+again."
+
+"This--er--this Billy," he began haltingly. "He is your brother?"
+
+"No... he... I didn't know. I was so young. I could not help it. Oh, I
+shall go mad! I shall go mad!"
+
+It was then that Loretta felt his shoulder and the encircling arm become
+limp. He drew away from her gently, and gently he deposited her in a
+big chair, where she buried her face and sobbed afresh. He twisted his
+moustache fiercely, then drew up another chair and sat down.
+
+"I--I do not understand," he said.
+
+"I am so unhappy," she wailed.
+
+"Why unhappy?"
+
+"Because... he... he wants me to marry him."
+
+His face cleared on the instant, and he placed a hand soothingly on
+hers.
+
+"That should not make any girl unhappy," he remarked sagely. "Because
+you don't love him is no reason--of course, you don't love him?"
+
+Loretta shook her head and shoulders in a vigorous negative.
+
+"What?"
+
+Bashford wanted to make sure.
+
+"No," she asserted explosively. "I don't love Billy! I don't want to
+love Billy!"
+
+"Because you don't love him," Bashford resumed with confidence, "is no
+reason that you should be unhappy just because he has proposed to you."
+
+She sobbed again, and from the midst of her sobs she cried--
+
+"That's the trouble. I wish I did love him. Oh, I wish I were dead!"
+
+"Now, my dear child, you are worrying yourself over trifles." His other
+hand crossed over after its mate and rested on hers. "Women do it every
+day. Because you have changed your mind or did not know your mind,
+because you have--to use an unnecessarily harsh word--jilted a man--"
+
+"Jilted!" She had raised her head and was looking at him with
+tear-dimmed eyes. "Oh, Ned, if that were all!"
+
+"All?" he asked in a hollow voice, while his hands slowly retreated from
+hers. He was about to speak further, then remained silent.
+
+"But I don't want to marry him," Loretta broke forth protestingly.
+
+"Then I shouldn't," he counselled.
+
+"But I ought to marry him."
+
+"OUGHT to marry him?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"That is a strong word."
+
+"I know it is," she acquiesced, while she strove to control her
+trembling lips. Then she spoke more calmly. "I am a wicked woman, a
+terribly wicked woman. No one knows how wicked I am--except Billy."
+
+There was a pause. Ned Bashford's face was grave, and he looked queerly
+at Loretta.
+
+"He--Billy knows?" he asked finally.
+
+A reluctant nod and flaming cheeks was the reply.
+
+He debated with himself for a while, seeming, like a diver, to be
+preparing himself for the plunge.
+
+"Tell me about it." He spoke very firmly. "You must tell me all of it."
+
+"And will you--ever--forgive me?" she asked in a faint, small voice.
+
+He hesitated, drew a long breath, and made the plunge.
+
+"Yes," he said desperately. "I'll forgive you. Go ahead."
+
+"There was no one to tell me," she began. "We were with each other so
+much. I did not know anything of the world--then."
+
+She paused to meditate. Bashford was biting his lip impatiently.
+
+"If I had only known--"
+
+She paused again.
+
+"Yes, go on," he urged.
+
+"We were together almost every evening."
+
+"Billy?" he demanded, with a savageness that startled her.
+
+"Yes, of course, Billy. We were with each other so much... If I had only
+known... There was no one to tell me... I was so young--"
+
+Her lips parted as though to speak further, and she regarded him
+anxiously.
+
+"The scoundrel!"
+
+With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his feet, no longer a tired
+Greek, but a violently angry young man.
+
+"Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a good man," Loretta defended, with a
+firmness that surprised Bashford.
+
+"I suppose you'll be telling me next that it was all your fault," he
+said sarcastically.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"What?" he shouted.
+
+"It was all my fault," she said steadily. "I should never have let him.
+I was to blame."
+
+Bashford ceased from his pacing up and down, and when he spoke, his
+voice was resigned.
+
+"All right," he said. "I don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you
+have been very honest. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must
+get married."
+
+"To Billy?" she asked, in a dim, far-away voice.
+
+"Yes, to Billy. I'll see to it. Where does he live? I'll make him."
+
+"But I don't want to marry Billy!" she cried out in alarm. "Oh, Ned, you
+won't do that?"
+
+"I shall," he answered sternly. "You must. And Billy must. Do you
+understand?"
+
+Loretta buried her face in the cushioned chair back, and broke into a
+passionate storm of sobs.
+
+All that Bashford could make out at first, as he listened, was: "But I
+don't want to leave Daisy! I don't want to leave Daisy!"
+
+He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped curiously to listen.
+
+"How was I to know?--Boo--hoo," Loretta was crying. "He didn't tell me.
+Nobody else ever kissed me. I never dreamed a kiss could be so
+terrible... until, boo-hoo... until he wrote to me. I only got the
+letter this morning."
+
+His face brightened. It seemed as though light was dawning on him.
+
+"Is that what you're crying about?"
+
+"N--no."
+
+His heart sank.
+
+"Then what are you crying about?" he asked in a hopeless voice.
+
+"Because you said I had to marry Billy. And I don't want to marry Billy.
+I don't want to leave Daisy. I don't know what I want. I wish I were
+dead."
+
+He nerved himself for another effort.
+
+"Now look here, Loretta, be sensible. What is this about kisses. You
+haven't told me everything?"
+
+"I--I don't want to tell you everything."
+
+She looked at him beseechingly in the silence that fell.
+
+"Must I?" she quavered finally.
+
+"You must," he said imperatively. "You must tell me everything."
+
+"Well, then... must I?"
+
+"You must."
+
+"He... I... we..." she began flounderingly. Then blurted out, "I let
+him, and he kissed me."
+
+"Go on," Bashford commanded desperately.
+
+"That's all," she answered.
+
+"All?" There was a vast incredulity in his voice.
+
+"All?" In her voice was an interrogation no less vast.
+
+"I mean--er--nothing worse?" He was overwhelmingly aware of his own
+awkwardness.
+
+"Worse?" She was frankly puzzled. "As though there could be! Billy
+said--"
+
+"When did he say it?" Bashford demanded abruptly.
+
+"In his letter I got this morning. Billy said that my... our... our
+kisses were terrible if we didn't get married."
+
+Bashford's head was swimming.
+
+"What else did Billy say?" he asked.
+
+"He said that when a woman allowed a man to kiss her, she always married
+him--that it was terrible if she didn't. It was the custom, he said;
+and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I don't like it. I know I'm
+terrible," she added defiantly, "but I can't help it."
+
+Bashford absent-mindedly brought out a cigarette.
+
+"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, as he struck a match.
+
+Then he came to himself.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he cried, flinging away match and cigarette. "I
+don't want to smoke. I didn't mean that at all. What I mean is--"
+
+He bent over Loretta, caught her hands in his, then sat on the arm of
+the chair and softly put one arm around her.
+
+"Loretta, I am a fool. I mean it. And I mean something more. I want you
+to be my wife."
+
+He waited anxiously in the pause that followed.
+
+"You might answer me," he urged.
+
+"I will... if--"
+
+"Yes, go on. If what?"
+
+"If I don't have to marry Billy."
+
+"You can't marry both of us," he almost shouted.
+
+"And it isn't the custom... what... what Billy said?"
+
+"No, it isn't the custom. Now, Loretta, will you marry me?"
+
+"Don't be angry with me," she pouted demurely.
+
+He gathered her into his arms and kissed her.
+
+"I wish it were the custom," she said in a faint voice, from the
+midst of the embrace, "because then I'd have to marry you, Ned dear...
+wouldn't I?"
+
+
+
+
+JUST MEAT
+
+He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down the intersecting
+street, but saw nothing save the oases of light shed by the street lamps
+at the successive crossings. Then he strolled back the way he had come.
+He was a shadow of a man, sliding noiselessly and without undue movement
+through the semi-darkness. Also he was very alert, like a wild animal in
+the jungle, keenly perceptive and receptive. The movement of another in
+the darkness about him would need to have been more shadowy than he to
+have escaped him.
+
+In addition to the running advertisement of the state of affairs carried
+to him by his senses, he had a subtler perception, a FEEL, of the
+atmosphere around him. He knew that the house in front of which he
+paused for a moment, contained children. Yet by no willed effort of
+perception did he have this knowledge. For that matter, he was not even
+aware that he knew, so occult was the impression. Yet, did a moment
+arise in which action, in relation to that house, were imperative, he
+would have acted on the assumption that it contained children. He was
+not aware of all that he knew about the neighbourhood.
+
+In the same way, he knew not how, he knew that no danger threatened in
+the footfalls that came up the cross street. Before he saw the walker,
+he knew him for a belated pedestrian hurrying home. The walker came
+into view at the crossing and disappeared on up the street. The man that
+watched, noted a light that flared up in the window of a house on the
+corner, and as it died down he knew it for an expiring match. This was
+conscious identification of familiar phenomena, and through his mind
+flitted the thought, "Wanted to know what time." In another house one
+room was lighted. The light burned dimly and steadily, and he had the
+feel that it was a sick-room.
+
+He was especially interested in a house across the street in the middle
+of the block. To this house he paid most attention. No matter what
+way he looked, nor what way he walked, his looks and his steps always
+returned to it. Except for an open window above the porch, there was
+nothing unusual about the house. Nothing came in nor out. Nothing
+happened. There were no lighted windows, nor had lights appeared and
+disappeared in any of the windows. Yet it was the central point of his
+consideration. He rallied to it each time after a divination of the
+state of the neighbourhood.
+
+Despite his feel of things, he was not confident. He was supremely
+conscious of the precariousness of his situation. Though unperturbed by
+the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive
+and ready to be startled as any timorous deer. He was aware of
+the possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the
+darkness--intelligences similar to his own in movement, perception, and
+divination.
+
+Far down the street he caught a glimpse of something that moved. And he
+knew it was no late home-goer, but menace and danger. He whistled twice
+to the house across the street, then faded away shadow-like to the
+corner and around the corner. Here he paused and looked about him
+carefully. Reassured, he peered back around the corner and studied the
+object that moved and that was coming nearer. He had divined aright. It
+was a policeman.
+
+The man went down the cross street to the next corner, from the shelter
+of which he watched the corner he had just left. He saw the policeman
+pass by, going straight on up the street. He paralleled the policeman's
+course, and from the next corner again watched him go by; then he
+returned the way he had come. He whistled once to the house across the
+street, and after a time whistled once again. There was reassurance
+in the whistle, just as there had been warning in the previous double
+whistle.
+
+He saw a dark bulk outline itself on the roof of the porch and slowly
+descend a pillar. Then it came down the steps, passed through the small
+iron gate, and went down the sidewalk, taking on the form of a man. He
+that watched kept on his own side of the street and moved on abreast
+to the corner, where he crossed over and joined the other. He was quite
+small alongside the man he accosted.
+
+"How'd you make out, Matt?" he asked.
+
+The other grunted indistinctly, and walked on in silence a few steps.
+
+"I reckon I landed the goods," he said.
+
+Jim chuckled in the darkness, and waited for further information. The
+blocks passed by under their feet, and he grew impatient.
+
+"Well, how about them goods?" he asked. "What kind of a haul did you
+make, anyway?"
+
+"I was too busy to figger it out, but it's fat. I can tell you that
+much, Jim, it's fat. I don't dast to think how fat it is. Wait till we
+get to the room."
+
+Jim looked at him keenly under the street lamp of the next crossing,
+and saw that his face was a trifle grim and that he carried his left arm
+peculiarly.
+
+"What's the matter with your arm?" he demanded.
+
+"The little cuss bit me. Hope I don't get hydrophoby. Folks gets
+hydrophoby from manbite sometimes, don't they?"
+
+"Gave you fight, eh?" Jim asked encouragingly.
+
+The other grunted.
+
+"You're harder'n hell to get information from," Jim burst out irritably.
+"Tell us about it. You ain't goin' to lose money just a-tellin' a guy."
+
+"I guess I choked him some," came the answer. Then, by way of
+explanation, "He woke up on me."
+
+"You did it neat. I never heard a sound."
+
+"Jim," the other said with seriousness, "it's a hangin' matter.
+I fixed 'm. I had to. He woke up on me. You an' me's got to do some
+layin' low for a spell."
+
+Jim gave a low whistle of comprehension.
+
+"Did you hear me whistle?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Sure. I was all done. I was just comin' out."
+
+"It was a bull. But he wasn't on a little bit. Went right by an' kept
+a-paddin' the hoof out a sight. Then I come back an' gave you the
+whistle. What made you take so long after that?"
+
+"I was waitin' to make sure," Matt explained. "I was mighty glad when
+I heard you whistle again. It's hard work waitin'. I just sat there an'
+thought an' thought... oh, all kinds of things. It's remarkable what
+a fellow'll think about. And then there was a darn cat that kept movin'
+around the house all' botherin' me with its noises."
+
+"An' it's fat!" Jim exclaimed irrelevantly and with joy.
+
+"I'm sure tellin' you, Jim, it's fat. I'm plum' anxious for another look
+at 'em."
+
+Unconsciously the two men quickened their pace. Yet they did not relax
+from their caution. Twice they changed their course in order to avoid
+policemen, and they made very sure that they were not observed when they
+dived into the dark hallway of a cheap rooming house down town.
+
+Not until they had gained their own room on the top floor, did they
+scratch a match. While Jim lighted a lamp, Matt locked the door and
+threw the bolts into place. As he turned, he noticed that his partner
+was waiting expectantly. Matt smiled to himself at the other's
+eagerness.
+
+"Them search-lights is all right," he said, drawing forth a small pocket
+electric lamp and examining it. "But we got to get a new battery. It's
+runnin' pretty weak. I thought once or twice it'd leave me in the dark.
+Funny arrangements in that house. I near got lost. His room was on the
+left, an' that fooled me some."
+
+"I told you it was on the left," Jim interrupted.
+
+"You told me it was on the right," Matt went on. "I guess I know what
+you told me, an' there's the map you drew."
+
+Fumbling in his vest pocket, he drew out a folded slip of paper. As he
+unfolded it, Jim bent over and looked.
+
+"I did make a mistake," he confessed.
+
+"You sure did. It got me guessin' some for a while."
+
+"But it don't matter now," Jim cried. "Let's see what you got."
+
+"It does matter," Matt retorted. "It matters a lot... to me. I've got
+to run all the risk. I put my head in the trap while you stay on the
+street. You got to get on to yourself an' be more careful. All right,
+I'll show you."
+
+He dipped loosely into his trousers pocket and brought out a handful of
+small diamonds. He spilled them out in a blazing stream on the greasy
+table. Jim let out a great oath.
+
+"That's nothing," Matt said with triumphant complacence. "I ain't begun
+yet."
+
+From one pocket after another he continued bringing forth the spoil.
+There were many diamonds wrapped in chamois skin that were larger than
+those in the first handful. From one pocket he brought out a handful of
+very small cut gems.
+
+"Sun dust," he remarked, as he spilled them on the table in a space by
+themselves.
+
+Jim examined them.
+
+"Just the same, they retail for a couple of dollars each," he said. "Is
+that all?"
+
+"Ain't it enough?" the other demanded in an aggrieved tone.
+
+"Sure it is," Jim answered with unqualified approval. "Better'n I
+expected. I wouldn't take a cent less than ten thousan' for the bunch."
+
+"Ten thousan'," Matt sneered. "They're worth twic't that, an' I don't
+know anything about joolery, either. Look at that big boy!"
+
+He picked it out from the sparkling heap and held it near to the lamp
+with the air of an expert, weighing and judging.
+
+"Worth a thousan' all by its lonely," was Jim's quicker judgment.
+
+"A thousan' your grandmother," was Matt's scornful rejoinder. "You
+couldn't buy it for three."
+
+"Wake me up! I'm dreamin'!" The sparkle of the gems was in Jim's eyes,
+and he began sorting out the larger diamonds and examining them. "We're
+rich men, Matt--we'll be regular swells."
+
+"It'll take years to get rid of 'em," was Matt's more practical thought.
+
+"But think how we'll live! Nothin' to do but spend the money an' go on
+gettin' rid of em."
+
+Matt's eyes were beginning to sparkle, though sombrely, as his
+phlegmatic nature woke up.
+
+"I told you I didn't dast think how fat it was," he murmured in a low
+voice.
+
+"What a killin'! What a killin'!" was the other's more ecstatic
+utterance.
+
+"I almost forgot," Matt said, thrusting his hand into his inside coat
+pocket.
+
+A string of large pearls emerged from wrappings of tissue paper and
+chamois skin. Jim scarcely glanced at them.
+
+"They're worth money," he said, and returned to the diamonds.
+
+A silence fell on the two men. Jim played with the gems, running them
+through his fingers, sorting them into piles, and spreading them out
+flat and wide. He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable,
+high-strung, and anaemic--a typical child of the gutter, with
+unbeautiful twisted features, small-eyed, with face and mouth
+perpetually and feverishly hungry, brutish in a cat-like way, stamped to
+the core with degeneracy.
+
+Matt did not finger the diamonds. He sat with chin on hands and elbows
+on table, blinking heavily at the blazing array. He was in every way a
+contrast to the other. No city had bred him. He was heavy-muscled and
+hairy, gorilla-like in strength and aspect. For him there was no unseen
+world. His eyes were full and wide apart, and there seemed in them
+a certain bold brotherliness. They inspired confidence. But a closer
+inspection would have shown that his eyes were just a trifle too full,
+just a shade too wide apart. He exceeded, spilled over the limits of
+normality, and his features told lies about the man beneath.
+
+"The bunch is worth fifty thousan'," Jim remarked suddenly.
+
+"A hundred thousan'," Matt said.
+
+The silence returned and endured a long time, to be broken again by Jim.
+
+"What in hell was he doin' with 'em all at the house?--that's what
+I want to know. I'd a-thought he'd kept 'em in the safe down at the
+store."
+
+Matt had just been considering the vision of the throttled man as he had
+last looked upon him in the dim light of the electric lantern; but he
+did not start at the mention of him.
+
+"There's no tellin'," he answered. "He might a-ben gettin' ready to
+chuck his pardner. He might a-pulled out in the mornin' for parts
+unknown, if we hadn't happened along. I guess there's just as many
+thieves among honest men as there is among thieves. You read about such
+things in the papers, Jim. Pardners is always knifin' each other."
+
+A queer, nervous look came into the other's eyes. Matt did not betray
+that he noted it, though he said--
+
+"What was you thinkin' about, Jim?"
+
+Jim was a trifle awkward for the moment.
+
+"Nothin'," he answered. "Only I was thinkin' just how funny it was--all
+them jools at his house. What made you ask?"
+
+"Nothin'. I was just wonderin', that was all."
+
+The silence settled down, broken by an occasional low and nervous giggle
+on the part of Jim. He was overcome by the spread of gems. It was not
+that he felt their beauty. He was unaware that they were beautiful in
+themselves. But in them his swift imagination visioned the joys of life
+they would buy, and all the desires and appetites of his diseased mind
+and sickly flesh were tickled by the promise they extended. He builded
+wondrous, orgy-haunted castles out of their brilliant fires, and was
+appalled at what he builded. Then it was that he giggled. It was all
+too impossible to be real. And yet there they blazed on the table before
+him, fanning the flame of the lust of him, and he giggled again.
+
+"I guess we might as well count 'em," Matt said suddenly, tearing
+himself away from his own visions. "You watch me an' see that
+it's square, because you an' me has got to be on the square, Jim.
+Understand?"
+
+Jim did not like this, and betrayed it in his eyes, while Matt did not
+like what he saw in his partner's eyes.
+
+"Understand?" Matt repeated, almost menacingly.
+
+"Ain't we always ben square?" the other replied, on the defensive
+because of the treachery already whispering in him.
+
+"It don't cost nothin', bein' square in hard times," Matt retorted.
+"It's bein' square in prosperity that counts. When we ain't got nothin',
+we can't help bein' square. We're prosperous now, an' we've got to be
+business men--honest business men. Understand?"
+
+"That's the talk for me," Jim approved, but deep down in the meagre soul
+of him,--and in spite of him,--wanton and lawless thoughts were stirring
+like chained beasts.
+
+Matt stepped to the food shelf behind the two-burner kerosene cooking
+stove. He emptied the tea from a paper bag, and from a second bag
+emptied some red peppers. Returning to the table with the bags, he put
+into them the two sizes of small diamonds. Then he counted the large
+gems and wrapped them in their tissue paper and chamois skin.
+
+"Hundred an' forty-seven good-sized ones," was his inventory; "twenty
+real big ones; two big boys and one whopper; an' a couple of fistfuls of
+teeny ones an' dust."
+
+He looked at Jim.
+
+"Correct," was the response.
+
+He wrote the count out on a slip of memorandum paper, and made a copy of
+it, giving one slip to his partner and retaining the other.
+
+"Just for reference," he said.
+
+Again he had recourse to the food shelf, where he emptied the sugar from
+a large paper bag. Into this he thrust the diamonds, large and small,
+wrapped it up in a bandanna handkerchief, and stowed it away under his
+pillow. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes.
+
+"An' you think they're worth a hundred thousan'?" Jim asked, pausing and
+looking up from the unlacing of his shoe.
+
+"Sure," was the answer. "I seen a dance-house girl down in Arizona once,
+with some big sparklers on her. They wasn't real. She said if they was
+she wouldn't be dancin'. Said they'd be worth all of fifty thousan', an'
+she didn't have a dozen of 'em all told."
+
+"Who'd work for a livin'?" Jim triumphantly demanded. "Pick an' shovel
+work!" he sneered. "Work like a dog all my life, an' save all my wages,
+an' I wouldn't have half as much as we got tonight."
+
+"Dish washin's about your measure, an' you couldn't get more'n twenty a
+month an' board. Your figgers is 'way off, but your point is well taken.
+Let them that likes it, work. I rode range for thirty a month when I was
+young an' foolish. Well, I'm older, an' I ain't ridin' range."
+
+He got into bed on one side. Jim put out the light and followed him in
+on the other side.
+
+"How's your arm feel?" Jim queried amiably.
+
+Such concern was unusual, and Matt noted it, and replied--
+
+"I guess there's no danger of hydrophoby. What made you ask?"
+
+Jim felt in himself a guilty stir, and under his breath he cursed the
+other's way of asking disagreeable questions; but aloud he answered--
+
+"Nothin', only you seemed scared of it at first. What are you goin' to
+do with your share, Matt?"
+
+"Buy a cattle ranch in Arizona an' set down an' pay other men to ride
+range for me. There's some several I'd like to see askin' a job from me,
+damn them! An' now you shut your face, Jim. It'll be some time before I
+buy that ranch. Just now I'm goin' to sleep."
+
+But Jim lay long awake, nervous and twitching, rolling about restlessly
+and rolling himself wide awake every time he dozed. The diamonds still
+blazed under his eyelids, and the fire of them hurt. Matt, in spite of
+his heavy nature, slept lightly, like a wild animal alert in its sleep;
+and Jim noticed, every time he moved, that his partner's body moved
+sufficiently to show that it had received the impression and that it was
+trembling on the verge of awakening. For that matter, Jim did not
+know whether or not, frequently, the other was awake. Once, quietly,
+betokening complete consciousness, Matt said to him: "Aw, go to sleep,
+Jim. Don't worry about them jools. They'll keep." And Jim had thought
+that at that particular moment Matt had been surely asleep.
+
+In the late morning Matt was awake with Jim's first movement, and
+thereafter he awoke and dozed with him until midday, when they got up
+together and began dressing.
+
+"I'm goin' out to get a paper an' some bread," Matt said. "You boil the
+coffee."
+
+As Jim listened, unconsciously his gaze left Matt's face and roved
+to the pillow, beneath which was the bundle wrapped in the bandanna
+handkerchief. On the instant Matt's face became like a wild beast's.
+
+"Look here, Jim," he snarled. "You've got to play square. If you do me
+dirt, I'll fix you. Understand? I'd eat you, Jim. You know that. I'd
+bite right into your throat an' eat you like that much beefsteak."
+
+His sunburned skin was black with the surge of blood in it, and his
+tobacco-stained teeth were exposed by the snarling lips. Jim shivered
+and involuntarily cowered. There was death in the man he looked at. Only
+the night before that black-faced man had killed another with his hands,
+and it had not hurt his sleep. And in his own heart Jim was aware of
+a sneaking guilt, of a train of thought that merited all that was
+threatened.
+
+Matt passed out, leaving him still shivering. Then a hatred twisted his
+own face, and he softly hurled savage curses at the door. He remembered
+the jewels, and hastened to the bed, feeling under the pillow for the
+bandanna bundle. He crushed it with his fingers to make certain that
+it still contained the diamonds. Assured that Matt had not carried them
+away, he looked toward the kerosene stove with a guilty start. Then he
+hurriedly lighted it, filled the coffee-pot at the sink, and put it over
+the flame.
+
+The coffee was boiling when Matt returned, and while the latter cut the
+bread and put a slice of butter on the table, Jim poured out the coffee.
+It was not until he sat down and had taken a few sips of the coffee,
+that Matt pulled out the morning paper from his pocket.
+
+"We was way off," he said. "I told you I didn't dast figger out how fat
+it was. Look at that."
+
+He pointed to the head-lines on the first page.
+
+"SWIFT NEMESIS ON BUJANNOFF'S TRACK," they read. "MURDERED IN HIS SLEEP
+AFTER ROBBING HIS PARTNER."
+
+"There you have it!" Matt cried. "He robbed his partner--robbed him like
+a dirty thief."
+
+"Half a million of jewels missin'," Jim read aloud. He put the paper
+down and stared at Matt.
+
+"That's what I told you," the latter said. "What in hell do we know
+about jools? Half a million!--an' the best I could figger it was a
+hundred thousan'. Go on an' read the rest of it."
+
+They read on silently, their heads side by side, the untouched coffee
+growing cold; and ever and anon one or the other burst forth with some
+salient printed fact.
+
+"I'd like to seen Metzner's face when he opened the safe at the store
+this mornin'," Jim gloated.
+
+"He hit the high places right away for Bujannoff's house," Matt
+explained. "Go on an' read."
+
+"Was to have sailed last night at ten on the Sajoda for the South
+Seas--steamship delayed by extra freight--"
+
+"That's why we caught 'm in bed," Matt interrupted. "It was just
+luck--like pickin' a fifty-to-one winner."
+
+"Sajoda sailed at six this mornin'--"
+
+"He didn't catch her," Matt said. "I saw his alarm-clock was set at
+five. That'd given 'm plenty of time... only I come along an' put the
+kibosh on his time. Go on."
+
+"Adolph Metzner in despair--the famous Haythorne pearl
+necklace--magnificently assorted pearls--valued by experts at from fifty
+to seventy thousan' dollars."
+
+Jim broke off to swear vilely and solemnly, concluding with, "Those damn
+oyster-eggs worth all that money!"
+
+He licked his lips and added, "They was beauties an' no mistake."
+
+"Big Brazilian gem," he read on. "Eighty thousan' dollars--many valuable
+gems of the first water--several thousan' small diamonds well worth
+forty thousan'."
+
+"What you don't know about jools is worth knowin'," Matt smiled
+good-humouredly.
+
+"Theory of the sleuths," Jim read. "Thieves must have known--cleverly
+kept watch on Bujannoff's actions--must have learned his plan and
+trailed him to his house with the fruits of his robbery--"
+
+"Clever--hell!" Matt broke out. "That's the way reputations is made...
+in the noospapers. How'd we know he was robbin' his pardner?"
+
+"Anyway, we've got the goods," Jim grinned. "Let's look at 'em again."
+
+He assured himself that the door was locked and bolted, while Matt
+brought out the bundle in the bandanna and opened it on the table.
+
+"Ain't they beauties, though!" Jim exclaimed at sight of the pearls; and
+for a time he had eyes only for them. "Accordin' to the experts, worth
+from fifty to seventy thousan' dollars."
+
+"An' women like them things," Matt commented. "An' they'll do everything
+to get 'em--sell themselves, commit murder, anything."
+
+"Just like you an' me."
+
+"Not on your life," Matt retorted. "I'll commit murder for 'em, but not
+for their own sakes, but for sake of what they'll get me. That's the
+difference. Women want the jools for themselves, an' I want the jools
+for the women an' such things they'll get me."
+
+"Lucky that men an' women don't want the same things," Jim remarked.
+
+"That's what makes commerce," Matt agreed; "people wantin' different
+things."
+
+In the middle of the afternoon Jim went out to buy food. While he was
+gone, Matt cleared the table of the jewels, wrapping them up as before
+and putting them under the pillow. Then he lighted the kerosene stove
+and started to boil water for coffee. A few minutes later, Jim returned.
+
+"Most surprising," he remarked. "Streets, an' stores, an' people just
+like they always was. Nothin' changed. An' me walking along through it
+all a millionaire. Nobody looked at me an' guessed it."
+
+Matt grunted unsympathetically. He had little comprehension of the
+lighter whims and fancies of his partner's imagination.
+
+"Did you get a porterhouse?" he demanded.
+
+"Sure, an' an inch thick. It's a peach. Look at it."
+
+He unwrapped the steak and held it up for the other's inspection. Then
+he made the coffee and set the table, while Matt fried the steak.
+
+"Don't put on too much of them red peppers," Jim warned. "I ain't used
+to your Mexican cookin'. You always season too hot."
+
+Matt grunted a laugh and went on with his cooking. Jim poured out the
+coffee, but first, into the nicked china cup, he emptied a powder he had
+carried in his vest pocket wrapped in a rice-paper. He had turned his
+back for the moment on his partner, but he did not dare to glance around
+at him. Matt placed a newspaper on the table, and on the newspaper
+set the hot frying-pan. He cut the steak in half, and served Jim and
+himself.
+
+"Eat her while she's hot," he counselled, and with knife and fork set
+the example.
+
+"She's a dandy," was Jim's judgment, after his first mouthful. "But
+I tell you one thing straight. I'm never goin' to visit you on that
+Arizona ranch, so you needn't ask me."
+
+"What's the matter now?" Matt asked.
+
+"Hell's the matter," was the answer. "The Mexican cookin' on your
+ranch'd be too much for me. If I've got hell a-comin' in the next life,
+I'm not goin' to torment my insides in this one. Damned peppers!"
+
+He smiled, expelled his breath forcibly to cool his burning mouth, drank
+some coffee, and went on eating the steak.
+
+"What do you think about the next life anyway, Matt?" he asked a little
+later, while secretly he wondered why the other had not yet touched his
+coffee.
+
+"Ain't no next life," Matt answered, pausing from the steak to take
+his first sip of coffee. "Nor heaven nor hell, nor nothin'. You get all
+that's comin' right here in this life."
+
+"An' afterward?" Jim queried out of his morbid curiosity, for he knew
+that he looked upon a man that was soon to die. "An' afterward?" he
+repeated.
+
+"Did you ever see a man two weeks dead?" the other asked.
+
+Jim shook his head.
+
+"Well, I have. He was like this beefsteak you an' me is eatin'. It was
+once steer cavortin' over the landscape. But now it's just meat.
+That's all, just meat. An' that's what you an' me an' all people come
+to--meat."
+
+Matt gulped down the whole cup of coffee, and refilled the cup.
+
+"Are you scared to die?" he asked.
+
+Jim shook his head. "What's the use? I don't die anyway. I pass on an'
+live again--"
+
+"To go stealin', an' lyin' an' snivellin' through another life, an' go
+on that way forever an' ever an' ever?" Matt sneered.
+
+"Maybe I'll improve," Jim suggested hopefully. "Maybe stealin' won't be
+necessary in the life to come."
+
+He ceased abruptly, and stared straight before him, a frightened
+expression on his face.
+
+"What's the matter!" Matt demanded.
+
+"Nothin'. I was just wonderin'"--Jim returned to himself with an
+effort--"about this dyin', that was all."
+
+But he could not shake off the fright that had startled him. It was
+as if an unseen thing of gloom had passed him by, casting upon him
+the intangible shadow of its presence. He was aware of a feeling of
+foreboding. Something ominous was about to happen. Calamity hovered in
+the air. He gazed fixedly across the table at the other man. He could
+not understand. Was it that he had blundered and poisoned himself? No,
+Matt had the nicked cup, and he had certainly put the poison in the
+nicked cup.
+
+It was all his own imagination, was his next thought. It had played him
+tricks before. Fool! Of course it was. Of course something was about to
+happen, but it was about to happen to Matt. Had not Matt drunk the whole
+cup of coffee?
+
+Jim brightened up and finished his steak, sopping bread in the gravy
+when the meat was gone.
+
+"When I was a kid--" he began, but broke off abruptly.
+
+Again the unseen thing of gloom had fluttered, and his being was vibrant
+with premonition of impending misfortune. He felt a disruptive influence
+at work in the flesh of him, and in all his muscles there was a seeming
+that they were about to begin to twitch. He sat back suddenly, and as
+suddenly leaned forward with his elbows on the table. A tremor ran
+dimly through the muscles of his body. It was like the first rustling
+of leaves before the oncoming of wind. He clenched his teeth. It came
+again, a spasmodic tensing of his muscles. He knew panic at the revolt
+within his being. His muscles no longer recognized his mastery over
+them. Again they spasmodically tensed, despite the will of him, for
+he had willed that they should not tense. This was revolution within
+himself, this was anarchy; and the terror of impotence rushed up in him
+as his flesh gripped and seemed to seize him in a clutch, chills running
+up and down his back and sweat starting on his brow. He glanced about
+the room, and all the details of it smote him with a strange sense of
+familiarity. It was as though he had just returned from a long journey.
+He looked across the table at his partner. Matt was watching him and
+smiling. An expression of horror spread over Jim's face.
+
+"My God, Matt!" he screamed. "You ain't doped me?"
+
+Matt smiled and continued to watch him. In the paroxysm that followed,
+Jim did not become unconscious. His muscles tensed and twitched and
+knotted, hurting him and crushing him in their savage grip. And in the
+midst of it all, it came to him that Matt was acting queerly. He was
+travelling the same road. The smile had gone from his face, and there
+was on it an intent expression, as if he were listening to some inner
+tale of himself and trying to divine the message. Matt got up and walked
+across the room and back again, then sat down.
+
+"You did this, Jim," he said quietly.
+
+"But I didn't think you'd try to fix ME," Jim answered reproachfully.
+
+"Oh, I fixed you all right," Matt said, with teeth close together and
+shivering body. "What did you give me?"
+
+"Strychnine."
+
+"Same as I gave you," Matt volunteered. "It's a hell of a mess, ain't
+it?"
+
+"You're lyin', Matt," Jim pleaded. "You ain't doped me, have you?"
+
+"I sure did, Jim; an' I didn't overdose you, neither. I cooked it in as
+neat as you please in your half the porterhouse.--Hold on! Where're you
+goin'?"
+
+Jim had made a dash for the door, and was throwing back the bolts. Matt
+sprang in between and shoved him away.
+
+"Drug store," Jim panted. "Drug store."
+
+"No you don't. You'll stay right here. There ain't goin' to be any
+runnin' out an' makin' a poison play on the street--not with all them
+jools reposin' under the pillow. Savve? Even if you didn't die, you'd
+be in the hands of the police with a whole lot of explanations comin'.
+Emetics is the stuff for poison. I'm just as bad bit as you, an' I'm
+goin' to take a emetic. That's all they'd give you at a drug store,
+anyway."
+
+He thrust Jim back into the middle of the room and shot the bolts into
+place. As he went across the floor to the food shelf, he passed one hand
+over his brow and flung off the beaded sweat. It spattered audibly on
+the floor. Jim watched agonizedly as Matt got the mustard-can and a cup
+and ran for the sink. He stirred a cupful of mustard and water and drank
+it down. Jim had followed him and was reaching with trembling hands for
+the empty cup. Again Matt shoved him away. As he mixed a second cupful,
+he demanded--
+
+"D'you think one cup'll do for me? You can wait till I'm done."
+
+Jim started to totter toward the door, but Matt checked him.
+
+"If you monkey with that door, I'll twist your neck. Savve? You can take
+yours when I'm done. An' if it saves you, I'll twist your neck, anyway.
+You ain't got no chance, nohow. I told you many times what you'd get if
+you did me dirt."
+
+"But you did me dirt, too," Jim articulated with an effort.
+
+Matt was drinking the second cupful, and did not answer. The sweat had
+got into Jim's eyes, and he could scarcely see his way to the table,
+where he got a cup for himself. But Matt was mixing a third cupful, and,
+as before, thrust him away.
+
+"I told you to wait till I was done," Matt growled. "Get outa my way."
+
+And Jim supported his twitching body by holding on to the sink, the
+while he yearned toward the yellowish concoction that stood for life. It
+was by sheer will that he stood and clung to the sink. His flesh strove
+to double him up and bring him to the floor. Matt drank the third
+cupful, and with difficulty managed to get to a chair and sit down. His
+first paroxysm was passing. The spasms that afflicted him were dying
+away. This good effect he ascribed to the mustard and water. He was
+safe, at any rate. He wiped the sweat from his face, and, in the
+interval of calm, found room for curiosity. He looked at his partner.
+
+A spasm had shaken the mustard can out of Jim's hands, and the contents
+were spilled upon the floor. He stooped to scoop some of the mustard
+into the cup, and the succeeding spasm doubled him upon the floor. Matt
+smiled.
+
+"Stay with it," he encouraged. "It's the stuff all right. It's fixed me
+up."
+
+Jim heard him and turned toward him a stricken face, twisted with
+suffering and pleading. Spasm now followed spasm till he was in
+convulsions, rolling on the floor and yellowing his face and hair in the
+mustard.
+
+Matt laughed hoarsely at the sight, but the laugh broke midway. A tremor
+had run through his body. A new paroxysm was beginning. He arose and
+staggered across to the sink, where, with probing forefinger, he vainly
+strove to assist the action of the emetic. In the end, he clung to
+the sink as Jim had clung, filled with the horror of going down to the
+floor.
+
+The other's paroxysm had passed, and he sat up, weak and fainting, too
+weak to rise, his forehead dripping, his lips flecked with a foam made
+yellow by the mustard in which he had rolled. He rubbed his eyes with
+his knuckles, and groans that were like whines came from his throat.
+
+"What are you snifflin' about?" Matt demanded out of his agony. "All you
+got to do is die. An' when you die you're dead."
+
+"I... ain't... snifflin'... it's... the... mustard... stingin'... my...
+eyes," Jim panted with desperate slowness.
+
+It was his last successful attempt at speech. Thereafter he babbled
+incoherently, pawing the air with shaking arms till a fresh convulsion
+stretched him on the floor.
+
+Matt struggled back to the chair, and, doubled up on it, with his arms
+clasped about his knees, he fought with his disintegrating flesh. He
+came out of the convulsion cool and weak. He looked to see how it went
+with the other, and saw him lying motionless.
+
+He tried to soliloquize, to be facetious, to have his last grim laugh at
+life, but his lips made only incoherent sounds. The thought came to
+him that the emetic had failed, and that nothing remained but the drug
+store. He looked toward the door and drew himself to his feet. There he
+saved himself from falling by clutching the chair. Another paroxysm had
+begun. And in the midst of the paroxysm, with his body and all the parts
+of it flying apart and writhing and twisting back again into knots, he
+clung to the chair and shoved it before him across the floor. The last
+shreds of his will were leaving him when he gained the door. He turned
+the key and shot back one bolt. He fumbled for the second bolt, but
+failed. Then he leaned his weight against the door and slid down gently
+to the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CREATED HE THEM
+
+She met him at the door.
+
+"I did not think you would be so early."
+
+"It is half past eight." He looked at his watch. "The train leaves at
+9.12."
+
+He was very businesslike, until he saw her lips tremble as she abruptly
+turned and led the way.
+
+"It'll be all right, little woman," he said soothingly. "Doctor
+Bodineau's the man. He'll pull him through, you'll see."
+
+They entered the living-room. His glance quested apprehensively about,
+then turned to her.
+
+"Where's Al?"
+
+She did not answer, but with a sudden impulse came close to him and
+stood motionless. She was a slender, dark-eyed woman, in whose face
+was stamped the strain and stress of living. But the fine lines and the
+haunted look in the eyes were not the handiwork of mere worry. He knew
+whose handiwork it was as he looked upon it, and she knew when she
+consulted her mirror.
+
+"It's no use, Mary," he said. He put his hand on her shoulder. "We've
+tried everything. It's a wretched business, I know, but what else can we
+do? You've failed. Doctor Bodineau's all that's left."
+
+"If I had another chance..." she began falteringly.
+
+"We've threshed that all out," he answered harshly. "You've got to buck
+up, now. You know what conclusion we arrived at. You know you haven't
+the ghost of a hope in another chance."
+
+She shook her head. "I know it. But it is terrible, the thought of his
+going away to fight it out alone."
+
+"He won't be alone. There's Doctor Bodineau. And besides, it's a
+beautiful place."
+
+She remained silent.
+
+"It is the only thing," he said.
+
+"It is the only thing," she repeated mechanically.
+
+He looked at his watch. "Where's Al?"
+
+"I'll send him."
+
+When the door had closed behind her, he walked over to the window and
+looked out, drumming absently with his knuckles on the pane.
+
+"Hello."
+
+He turned and responded to the greeting of the man who had just entered.
+There was a perceptible drag to the man's feet as he walked across
+toward the window and paused irresolutely halfway.
+
+"I've changed my mind, George," he announced hurriedly and nervously.
+"I'm not going."
+
+He plucked at his sleeve, shuffled with his feet, dropped his eyes, and
+with a strong effort raised them again to confront the other.
+
+George regarded him silently, his nostrils distending and his lean
+fingers unconsciously crooking like an eagle's talons about to clutch.
+
+In line and feature, there was much of resemblance between the two men;
+and yet, in the strongest resemblances there was a radical difference.
+Theirs were the same black eyes, but those of the man at the window were
+sharp and straight looking, while those of the man in the middle of the
+room were cloudy and furtive. He could not face the other's gaze, and
+continually and vainly struggled with himself to do so. The high cheek
+bones with the hollows beneath were the same, yet the texture of the
+hollows seemed different. The thin-lipped mouths were from the same
+mould, but George's lips were firm and muscular, while Al's were soft
+and loose--the lips of an ascetic turned voluptuary. There was also a
+sag at the corners. His flesh hinted of grossness, especially so in the
+eagle-like aquiline nose that must once have been like the other's, but
+that had lost the austerity the other's still retained.
+
+Al fought for steadiness in the middle of the floor. The silence
+bothered him. He had a feeling that he was about to begin swaying back
+and forth. He moistened his lips with his tongue.
+
+"I'm going to stay," he said desperately.
+
+He dropped his eyes and plucked again at his sleeve.
+
+"And you are only twenty-six years old," George said at last. "You poor,
+feeble old man."
+
+"Don't be so sure of that," Al retorted, with a flash of belligerence.
+
+"Do you remember when we swam that mile and a half across the channel?"
+
+"Well, and what of it?" A sullen expression was creeping across Al's
+face.
+
+"And do you remember when we boxed in the barn after school?"
+
+"I could take all you gave me."
+
+"All I gave you!" George's voice rose momentarily to a higher pitch.
+"You licked me four afternoons out of five. You were twice as strong as
+I--three times as strong. And now I'd be afraid to land on you with a
+sofa cushion; you'd crumple up like a last year's leaf. You'd die, you
+poor, miserable old man."
+
+"You needn't abuse me just because I've changed my mind," the other
+protested, the hint of a whine in his voice.
+
+His wife entered, and he looked appealingly to her; but the man at the
+window strode suddenly up to him and burst out--
+
+"You don't know your own mind for two successive minutes! You haven't
+any mind, you spineless, crawling worm!"
+
+"You can't make me angry." Al smiled with cunning, and glanced
+triumphantly at his wife. "You can't make me angry," he repeated, as
+though the idea were thoroughly gratifying to him. "I know your game.
+It's my stomach, I tell you. I can't help it. Before God, I can't! Isn't
+it my stomach, Mary?"
+
+She glanced at George and spoke composedly, though she hid a trembling
+hand in a fold of her skirt.
+
+"Isn't it time?" she asked softly.
+
+Her husband turned upon her savagely. "I'm not going to go!" he cried.
+"That's just what I've been telling... him. And I tell you again, all of
+you, I'm not going. You can't bully me."
+
+"Why, Al, dear, you said--" she began.
+
+"Never mind what I said!" he broke out. "I've said something else right
+now, and you've heard it, and that settles it."
+
+He walked across the room and threw himself with emphasis into a Morris
+chair. But the other man was swiftly upon him. The talon-like fingers
+gripped his shoulders, jerked him to his feet, and held him there.
+
+"You've reached the limit, Al, and I want you to understand it. I've
+tried to treat you like... like my brother, but hereafter I shall treat
+you like the thing that you are. Do you understand?"
+
+The anger in his voice was cold. The blaze in his eyes was cold. It was
+vastly more effective than any outburst, and Al cringed under it and
+under the clutching hand that was bruising his shoulder muscles.
+
+"It is only because of me that you have this house, that you have the
+food you eat. Your position? Any other man would have been shown the
+door a year ago--two years ago. I have held you in it. Your salary has
+been charity. It has been paid out of my pocket. Mary... her dresses...
+that gown she has on is made over; she wears the discarded dresses of
+her sisters, of my wife. Charity--do you understand? Your children--they
+are wearing the discarded clothes of my children, of the children of my
+neighbours who think the clothes went to some orphan asylum. And it is
+an orphan asylum... or it soon will be."
+
+He emphasized each point with an unconscious tightening of his grip
+on the shoulder. Al was squirming with the pain of it. The sweat was
+starting out on his forehead.
+
+"Now listen well to me," his brother went on. "In three minutes you will
+tell me that you are going with me. If you don't, Mary and the children
+will be taken away from you--to-day. You needn't ever come to the
+office. This house will be closed to you. And in six months I shall
+have the pleasure of burying you. You have three minutes to make up your
+mind."
+
+Al made a strangling movement, and reached up with weak fingers to the
+clutching hand.
+
+"My heart... let me go... you'll be the death of me," he gasped.
+
+The hand thrust him down forcibly into the Morris chair and released
+him.
+
+The clock on the mantle ticked loudly. George glanced at it, and
+at Mary. She was leaning against the table, unable to conceal her
+trembling. He became unpleasantly aware of the feeling of his brother's
+fingers on his hand. Quite unconsciously he wiped the back of the hand
+upon his coat. The clock ticked on in the silence. It seemed to George
+that the room reverberated with his voice. He could hear himself still
+speaking.
+
+"I'll go," came from the Morris chair.
+
+It was a weak and shaken voice, and it was a weak and shaken man that
+pulled himself out of the Morris chair. He started toward the door.
+
+"Where are you going?" George demanded.
+
+"Suit case," came the response. "Mary'll send the trunk later. I'll be
+back in a minute."
+
+The door closed after him. A moment later, struck with sudden suspicion,
+George was opening the door. He glanced in. His brother stood at a
+sideboard, in one hand a decanter, in the other hand, bottom up and to
+his lips, a whisky glass.
+
+Across the glass Al saw that he was observed. It threw him into a panic.
+Hastily he tried to refill the glass and get it to his lips; but glass
+and decanter were sent smashing to the floor. He snarled. It was like
+the sound of a wild beast. But the grip on his shoulder subdued and
+frightened him. He was being propelled toward the door.
+
+"The suit case," he gasped. "It's there in that room. Let me get it."
+
+"Where's the key?" his brother asked, when he had brought it.
+
+"It isn't locked."
+
+The next moment the suit case was spread open, and George's hand was
+searching the contents. From one side it brought out a bottle of whisky,
+from the other side a flask. He snapped the case to.
+
+"Come on," he said. "If we miss one car, we miss that train."
+
+He went out into the hallway, leaving Al with his wife. It was like a
+funeral, George thought, as he waited.
+
+His brother's overcoat caught on the knob of the front door and delayed
+its closing long enough for Mary's first sob to come to their ears.
+George's lips were very thin and compressed as he went down the steps.
+In one hand he carried the suit case. With the other hand he held his
+brother's arm.
+
+As they neared the corner, he heard the electric car a block away,
+and urged his brother on. Al was breathing hard. His feet dragged and
+shuffled, and he held back.
+
+"A hell of a brother YOU are," he panted.
+
+For reply, he received a vicious jerk on his arm. It reminded him of his
+childhood when he was hurried along by some angry grown-up. And like a
+child, he had to be helped up the car step. He sank down on an outside
+seat, panting, sweating, overcome by the exertion. He followed George's
+eyes as the latter looked him up and down.
+
+"A hell of a brother YOU are," was George's comment when he had finished
+the inspection.
+
+Moisture welled into Al's eyes.
+
+"It's my stomach," he said with self-pity.
+
+"I don't wonder," was the retort. "Burnt out like the crater of a
+volcano. Fervent heat isn't a circumstance."
+
+Thereafter they did not speak. When they arrived at the transfer point,
+George came to himself with a start. He smiled. With fixed gaze that
+did not see the houses that streamed across his field of vision, he had
+himself been sunk deep in self-pity. He helped his brother from the car,
+and looked up the intersecting street. The car they were to take was not
+in sight.
+
+Al's eyes chanced upon the corner grocery and saloon across the way.
+At once he became restless. His hands passed beyond his control, and he
+yearned hungrily across the street to the door that swung open even as
+he looked and let in a happy pilgrim. And in that instant he saw the
+white-jacketed bartender against an array of glittering glass. Quite
+unconsciously he started to cross the street.
+
+"Hold on." George's hand was on his arm.
+
+"I want some whisky," he answered.
+
+"You've already had some."
+
+"That was hours ago. Go on, George, let me have some. It's the last
+day. Don't shut off on me until we get there--God knows it will be soon
+enough."
+
+George glanced desperately up the street. The car was in sight.
+
+"There isn't time for a drink," he said.
+
+"I don't want a drink. I want a bottle." Al's voice became wheedling.
+"Go on, George. It's the last, the very last."
+
+"No." The denial was as final as George's thin lips could make it.
+
+Al glanced at the approaching car. He sat down suddenly on the
+curbstone.
+
+"What's the matter?" his brother asked, with momentary alarm.
+
+"Nothing. I want some whisky. It's my stomach."
+
+"Come on now, get up."
+
+George reached for him, but was anticipated, for his brother sprawled
+flat on the pavement, oblivious to the dirt and to the curious glances
+of the passers-by. The car was clanging its gong at the crossing, a
+block away.
+
+"You'll miss it," Al grinned from the pavement. "And it will be your
+fault."
+
+George's fists clenched tightly.
+
+"For two cents I'd give you a thrashing."
+
+"And miss the car," was the triumphant comment from the pavement.
+
+George looked at the car. It was halfway down the block. He looked at
+his watch. He debated a second longer.
+
+"All right," he said. "I'll get it. But you get on that car. If you miss
+it, I'll break the bottle over your head."
+
+He dashed across the street and into the saloon. The car came in and
+stopped. There were no passengers to get off. Al dragged himself up the
+steps and sat down. He smiled as the conductor rang the bell and the car
+started. The swinging door of the saloon burst open. Clutching in
+his hand the suit case and a pint bottle of whisky, George started in
+pursuit. The conductor, his hand on the bell cord, waited to see if it
+would be necessary to stop. It was not. George swung lightly aboard, sat
+down beside his brother, and passed him the bottle.
+
+"You might have got a quart," Al said reproachfully.
+
+He extracted the cork with a pocket corkscrew, and elevated the bottle.
+
+"I'm sick... my stomach," he explained in apologetic tones to the
+passenger who sat next to him.
+
+In the train they sat in the smoking-car. George felt that it was
+imperative. Also, having successfully caught the train, his heart
+softened. He felt more kindly toward his brother, and accused himself of
+unnecessary harshness. He strove to atone by talking about their mother,
+and sisters, and the little affairs and interests of the family. But Al
+was morose, and devoted himself to the bottle. As the time passed, his
+mouth hung looser and looser, while the rings under his eyes seemed to
+puff out and all his facial muscles to relax.
+
+"It's my stomach," he said, once, when he finished the bottle and
+dropped it under the seat; but the swift hardening of his brother's face
+did not encourage further explanations.
+
+The conveyance that met them at the station had all the dignity and
+luxuriousness of a private carriage. George's eyes were keen for the ear
+marks of the institution to which they were going, but his apprehensions
+were allayed from moment to moment. As they entered the wide gateway
+and rolled on through the spacious grounds, he felt sure that the
+institutional side of the place would not jar upon his brother. It was
+more like a summer hotel, or, better yet, a country club. And as they
+swept on through the spring sunshine, the songs of birds in his ears,
+and in his nostrils the breath of flowers, George sighed for a week
+of rest in such a place, and before his eyes loomed the arid vista of
+summer in town and at the office. There was not room in his income for
+his brother and himself.
+
+"Let us take a walk in the grounds," he suggested, after they had met
+Doctor Bodineau and inspected the quarters assigned to Al. "The carriage
+leaves for the station in half an hour, and we'll just have time."
+
+"It's beautiful," he remarked a moment later. Under his feet was
+the velvet grass, the trees arched overhead, and he stood in mottled
+sunshine. "I wish I could stay for a month."
+
+"I'll trade places with you," Al said quickly.
+
+George laughed it off, but he felt a sinking of the heart.
+
+"Look at that oak!" he cried. "And that woodpecker! Isn't he a beauty!"
+
+"I don't like it here," he heard his brother mutter.
+
+George's lips tightened in preparation for the struggle, but he said--
+
+"I'm going to send Mary and the children off to the mountains. She needs
+it, and so do they. And when you're in shape, I'll send you right on to
+join them. Then you can take your summer vacation before you come back
+to the office."
+
+"I'm not going to stay in this damned hole, for all you talk about it,"
+Al announced abruptly.
+
+"Yes you are, and you're going to get your health and strength back
+again, so that the look of you will put the colour in Mary's cheeks
+where it used to be."
+
+"I'm going back with you." Al's voice was firm. "I'm going to take the
+same train back. It's about time for that carriage, I guess."
+
+"I haven't told you all my plans," George tried to go on, but Al cut him
+off.
+
+"You might as well quit that. I don't want any of your soapy talking.
+You treat me like a child. I'm not a child. My mind's made up, and I'll
+show you how long it can stay made up. You needn't talk to me. I don't
+care a rap for what you're going to say."
+
+A baleful light was in his eyes, and to his brother he seemed for all
+the world like a cornered rat, desperate and ready to fight. As George
+looked at him he remembered back to their childhood, and it came to him
+that at last was aroused in Al the same old stubborn strain that had
+enabled him, as a child, to stand against all force and persuasion.
+
+George abandoned hope. He had lost. This creature was not human. The
+last fine instinct of the human had fled. It was a brute, sluggish
+and stolid, impossible to move--just the raw stuff of life, combative,
+rebellious, and indomitable. And as he contemplated his brother he felt
+in himself the rising up of a similar brute. He became suddenly aware
+that his fingers were tensing and crooking like a thug's, and he knew
+the desire to kill. And his reason, turned traitor at last, counselled
+that he should kill, that it was the only thing left for him to do.
+
+He was aroused by a servant calling to him through the trees that the
+carriage was waiting. He answered. Then, looking straight before him, he
+discovered his brother. He had forgotten it was his brother. It had been
+only a thing the moment before. He began to talk, and as he talked the
+way became clear to him. His reason had not turned traitor. The brute in
+him had merely orientated his reason.
+
+"You are no earthly good, Al," he said. "You know that. You've made
+Mary's life a hell. You are a curse to your children. And you have not
+made life exactly a paradise for the rest of us."
+
+"There's no use your talking," Al interjected. "I'm not going to stay
+here."
+
+"That's what I'm coming to," George continued. "You don't have to stay
+here." (Al's face brightened, and he involuntarily made a movement, as
+though about to start toward the carriage.) "On the other hand, it is
+not necessary that you should return with me. There is another way."
+
+George's hand went to his hip pocket and appeared with a revolver. It
+lay along his palm, the butt toward Al, and toward Al he extended it. At
+the same time, with his head, he indicated the near-by thicket.
+
+"You can't bluff me," Al snarled.
+
+"It is not a bluff, Al. Look at me. I mean it. And if you don't do it
+for yourself, I shall have to do it for you."
+
+They faced each other, the proffered revolver still extended. Al debated
+for a moment, then his eyes blazed. With a quick movement he seized the
+revolver.
+
+"My God! I'll do it," he said. "I'll show you what I've got in me."
+
+George felt suddenly sick. He turned away. He did not see his brother
+enter the thicket, but he heard the passage of his body through the
+leaves and branches.
+
+"Good-bye, Al," he called.
+
+"Good-bye," came from the thicket.
+
+George felt the sweat upon his forehead. He began mopping his face with
+his handkerchief. He heard, as from a remote distance, the voice of
+the servant again calling to him that the carriage was waiting. The
+woodpecker dropped down through the mottled sunshine and lighted on the
+trunk of a tree a dozen feet away. George felt that it was all a dream,
+and yet through it all he felt supreme justification. It was the right
+thing to do. It was the only thing.
+
+His whole body gave a spasmodic start, as though the revolver had been
+fired. It was the voice of Al, close at his back.
+
+"Here's your gun," Al said. "I'll stay."
+
+The servant appeared among the trees, approaching rapidly and calling
+anxiously. George put the weapon in his pocket and caught both his
+brother's hands in his own.
+
+"God bless you, old man," he murmured; "and"--with a final squeeze of
+the hands--"good luck!"
+
+"I'm coming," he called to the servant, and turned and ran through the
+trees toward the carriage.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHINAGO
+
+   "The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs."
+                                  --Tahitian proverb.
+
+Ah Cho did not understand French. He sat in the crowded court room, very
+weary and bored, listening to the unceasing, explosive French that now
+one official and now another uttered. It was just so much gabble to Ah
+Cho, and he marvelled at the stupidity of the Frenchmen who took so long
+to find out the murderer of Chung Ga, and who did not find him at all.
+The five hundred coolies on the plantation knew that Ah San had done the
+killing, and here was Ah San not even arrested. It was true that all
+the coolies had agreed secretly not to testify against one another; but
+then, it was so simple, the Frenchmen should have been able to discover
+that Ah San was the man. They were very stupid, these Frenchmen.
+
+Ah Cho had done nothing of which to be afraid. He had had no hand in
+the killing. It was true he had been present at it, and Schemmer, the
+overseer on the plantation, had rushed into the barracks immediately
+afterward and caught him there, along with four or five others; but what
+of that? Chung Ga had been stabbed only twice. It stood to reason that
+five or six men could not inflict two stab wounds. At the most, if a man
+had struck but once, only two men could have done it.
+
+So it was that Ah Cho reasoned, when he, along with his four companions,
+had lied and blocked and obfuscated in their statements to the court
+concerning what had taken place. They had heard the sounds of the
+killing, and, like Schemmer, they had run to the spot. They had got
+there before Schemmer--that was all. True, Schemmer had testified that,
+attracted by the sound of quarrelling as he chanced to pass by, he had
+stood for at least five minutes outside; that then, when he entered, he
+found the prisoners already inside; and that they had not entered just
+before, because he had been standing by the one door to the barracks.
+But what of that? Ah Cho and his four fellow-prisoners had testified
+that Schemmer was mistaken. In the end they would be let go. They were
+all confident of that. Five men could not have their heads cut off for
+two stab wounds. Besides, no foreign devil had seen the killing. But
+these Frenchmen were so stupid. In China, as Ah Cho well knew, the
+magistrate would order all of them to the torture and learn the truth.
+The truth was very easy to learn under torture. But these Frenchmen did
+not torture--bigger fools they! Therefore they would never find out who
+killed Chung Ga.
+
+But Ah Cho did not understand everything. The English Company that owned
+the plantation had imported into Tahiti, at great expense, the five
+hundred coolies. The stockholders were clamouring for dividends, and
+the Company had not yet paid any; wherefore the Company did not want its
+costly contract labourers to start the practice of killing one another.
+Also, there were the French, eager and willing to impose upon the
+Chinagos the virtues and excellences of French law. There was nothing
+like setting an example once in a while; and, besides, of what use was
+New Caledonia except to send men to live out their days in misery and
+pain in payment of the penalty for being frail and human?
+
+Ah Cho did not understand all this. He sat in the court room and waited
+for the baffled judgment that would set him and his comrades free to go
+back to the plantation and work out the terms of their contracts. This
+judgment would soon be rendered. Proceedings were drawing to a close. He
+could see that. There was no more testifying, no more gabble of tongues.
+The French devils were tired, too, and evidently waiting for the
+judgment. And as he waited he remembered back in his life to the time
+when he had signed the contract and set sail in the ship for Tahiti.
+Times had been hard in his sea-coast village, and when he indentured
+himself to labour for five years in the South Seas at fifty cents
+Mexican a day, he had thought himself fortunate. There were men in his
+village who toiled a whole year for ten dollars Mexican, and there were
+women who made nets all the year round for five dollars, while in the
+houses of shopkeepers there were maidservants who received four dollars
+for a year of service. And here he was to receive fifty cents a day; for
+one day, only one day, he was to receive that princely sum! What if the
+work were hard? At the end of the five years he would return home--that
+was in the contract--and he would never have to work again. He would
+be a rich man for life, with a house of his own, a wife, and children
+growing up to venerate him. Yes, and back of the house he would have a
+small garden, a place of meditation and repose, with goldfish in a tiny
+lakelet, and wind bells tinkling in the several trees, and there would
+be a high wall all around so that his meditation and repose should be
+undisturbed.
+
+Well, he had worked out three of those five years. He was already a
+wealthy man (in his own country) through his earnings, and only two
+years more intervened between the cotton plantation on Tahiti and the
+meditation and repose that awaited him. But just now he was losing money
+because of the unfortunate accident of being present at the killing of
+Chung Ga. He had lain three weeks in prison, and for each day of those
+three weeks he had lost fifty cents. But now judgment would soon be
+given, and he would go back to work.
+
+Ah Cho was twenty-two years old. He was happy and good-natured, and it
+was easy for him to smile. While his body was slim in the Asiatic way,
+his face was rotund. It was round, like the moon, and it irradiated a
+gentle complacence and a sweet kindliness of spirit that was unusual
+among his countrymen. Nor did his looks belie him. He never caused
+trouble, never took part in wrangling. He did not gamble. His soul was
+not harsh enough for the soul that must belong to a gambler. He was
+content with little things and simple pleasures. The hush and quiet in
+the cool of the day after the blazing toil in the cotton field was
+to him an infinite satisfaction. He could sit for hours gazing at a
+solitary flower and philosophizing about the mysteries and riddles
+of being. A blue heron on a tiny crescent of sandy beach, a silvery
+splatter of flying fish, or a sunset of pearl and rose across the
+lagoon, could entrance him to all forgetfulness of the procession of
+wearisome days and of the heavy lash of Schemmer.
+
+Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute. But he earned
+his salary. He got the last particle of strength out of the five hundred
+slaves; for slaves they were until their term of years was up. Schemmer
+worked hard to extract the strength from those five hundred sweating
+bodies and to transmute it into bales of fluffy cotton ready for export.
+His dominant, iron-clad, primeval brutishness was what enabled him to
+effect the transmutation. Also, he was assisted by a thick leather belt,
+three inches wide and a yard in length, with which he always rode and
+which, on occasion, could come down on the naked back of a stooping
+coolie with a report like a pistol-shot. These reports were frequent
+when Schemmer rode down the furrowed field.
+
+Once, at the beginning of the first year of contract labour, he had
+killed a coolie with a single blow of his fist. He had not exactly
+crushed the man's head like an egg-shell, but the blow had been
+sufficient to addle what was inside, and, after being sick for a week,
+the man had died. But the Chinese had not complained to the French
+devils that ruled over Tahiti. It was their own look out. Schemmer was
+their problem. They must avoid his wrath as they avoided the venom
+of the centipedes that lurked in the grass or crept into the sleeping
+quarters on rainy nights. The Chinagos--such they were called by
+the indolent, brown-skinned island folk--saw to it that they did not
+displease Schemmer too greatly. This was equivalent to rendering up to
+him a full measure of efficient toil. That blow of Schemmer's fist had
+been worth thousands of dollars to the Company, and no trouble ever came
+of it to Schemmer.
+
+The French, with no instinct for colonization, futile in their childish
+playgame of developing the resources of the island, were only too glad
+to see the English Company succeed. What matter of Schemmer and his
+redoubtable fist? The Chinago that died? Well, he was only a Chinago.
+Besides, he died of sunstroke, as the doctor's certificate attested.
+True, in all the history of Tahiti no one had ever died of sunstroke.
+But it was that, precisely that, which made the death of this Chinago
+unique. The doctor said as much in his report. He was very candid.
+Dividends must be paid, or else one more failure would be added to the
+long history of failure in Tahiti.
+
+There was no understanding these white devils. Ah Cho pondered their
+inscrutableness as he sat in the court room waiting the judgment. There
+was no telling what went on at the back of their minds. He had seen a
+few of the white devils. They were all alike--the officers and sailors
+on the ship, the French officials, the several white men on the
+plantation, including Schemmer. Their minds all moved in mysterious ways
+there was no getting at. They grew angry without apparent cause, and
+their anger was always dangerous. They were like wild beasts at such
+times. They worried about little things, and on occasion could out-toil
+even a Chinago. They were not temperate as Chinagos were temperate; they
+were gluttons, eating prodigiously and drinking more prodigiously. A
+Chinago never knew when an act would please them or arouse a storm of
+wrath. A Chinago could never tell. What pleased one time, the very next
+time might provoke an outburst of anger. There was a curtain behind the
+eyes of the white devils that screened the backs of their minds from the
+Chinago's gaze. And then, on top of it all, was that terrible efficiency
+of the white devils, that ability to do things, to make things go, to
+work results, to bend to their wills all creeping, crawling things,
+and the powers of the very elements themselves. Yes, the white men were
+strange and wonderful, and they were devils. Look at Schemmer.
+
+Ah Cho wondered why the judgment was so long in forming. Not a man on
+trial had laid hand on Chung Ga. Ah San alone had killed him. Ah San
+had done it, bending Chung Ga's head back with one hand by a grip of his
+queue, and with the other hand, from behind, reaching over and driving
+the knife into his body. Twice had he driven it in. There in the court
+room, with closed eyes, Ah Cho saw the killing acted over again--the
+squabble, the vile words bandied back and forth, the filth and insult
+flung upon venerable ancestors, the curses laid upon unbegotten
+generations, the leap of Ah San, the grip on the queue of Chung Ga, the
+knife that sank twice into his flesh, the bursting open of the door, the
+irruption of Schemmer, the dash for the door, the escape of Ah San, the
+flying belt of Schemmer that drove the rest into the corner, and the
+firing of the revolver as a signal that brought help to Schemmer. Ah
+Cho shivered as he lived it over. One blow of the belt had bruised his
+cheek, taking off some of the skin. Schemmer had pointed to the bruises
+when, on the witness-stand, he had identified Ah Cho. It was only just
+now that the marks had become no longer visible. That had been a blow.
+Half an inch nearer the centre and it would have taken out his eye. Then
+Ah Cho forgot the whole happening in a vision he caught of the garden
+of meditation and repose that would be his when he returned to his own
+land.
+
+He sat with impassive face, while the magistrate rendered the judgment.
+Likewise were the faces of his four companions impassive. And they
+remained impassive when the interpreter explained that the five of them
+had been found guilty of the murder of Chung Ga, and that Ah Chow
+should have his head cut off, Ah Cho serve twenty years in prison in New
+Caledonia, Wong Li twelve years, and Ah Tong ten years. There was no use
+in getting excited about it. Even Ah Chow remained expressionless as
+a mummy, though it was his head that was to be cut off. The magistrate
+added a few words, and the interpreter explained that Ah Chow's face
+having been most severely bruised by Schemmer's strap had made his
+identification so positive that, since one man must die, he might as
+well be that man. Also, the fact that Ah Cho's face likewise had been
+severely bruised, conclusively proving his presence at the murder and
+his undoubted participation, had merited him the twenty years of penal
+servitude. And down to the ten years of Ah Tong, the proportioned reason
+for each sentence was explained. Let the Chinagos take the lesson to
+heart, the Court said finally, for they must learn that the law would be
+fulfilled in Tahiti though the heavens fell.
+
+The five Chinagos were taken back to jail. They were not shocked
+nor grieved. The sentences being unexpected was quite what they were
+accustomed to in their dealings with the white devils. From them a
+Chinago rarely expected more than the unexpected. The heavy punishment
+for a crime they had not committed was no stranger than the countless
+strange things that white devils did. In the weeks that followed, Ah Cho
+often contemplated Ah Chow with mild curiosity. His head was to be cut
+off by the guillotine that was being erected on the plantation. For him
+there would be no declining years, no gardens of tranquillity. Ah Cho
+philosophized and speculated about life and death. As for himself, he
+was not perturbed. Twenty years were merely twenty years. By that much
+was his garden removed from him--that was all. He was young, and the
+patience of Asia was in his bones. He could wait those twenty years, and
+by that time the heats of his blood would be assuaged and he would be
+better fitted for that garden of calm delight. He thought of a name for
+it; he would call it The Garden of the Morning Calm. He was made happy
+all day by the thought, and he was inspired to devise a moral maxim on
+the virtue of patience, which maxim proved a great comfort, especially
+to Wong Li and Ah Tong. Ah Chow, however, did not care for the maxim.
+His head was to be separated from his body in so short a time that he
+had no need for patience to wait for that event. He smoked well, ate
+well, slept well, and did not worry about the slow passage of time.
+
+Cruchot was a gendarme. He had seen twenty years of service in the
+colonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those
+twenty years had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind. He was as
+slow-witted and stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France. He
+knew discipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant
+of gendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish
+obedience which he rendered. In point of fact, the sergeant bulked
+bigger in his mind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces
+had their say. God was usually very remote, while the sergeant was
+ordinarily very close at hand.
+
+Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the
+jailer commanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person
+of Ah Chow. Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner
+the night before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war.
+His hand was shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were
+aching so dreadfully that he did not read over the order. It was only a
+Chinago's life he was signing away, anyway. So he did not notice that he
+had omitted the final letter in Ah Chow's name. The order read "Ah Cho,"
+and, when Cruchot presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the
+person of Ah Cho. Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a
+wagon, behind two mules, and drove away.
+
+Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme
+and beamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules
+headed south toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to
+be brought back. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work
+well. Schemmer would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day.
+There had been a stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot
+sweated, and Ah Cho sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with
+the least concern. He had toiled three years under that sun on the
+plantation. He beamed and beamed with such genial good nature that even
+Cruchot's heavy mind was stirred to wonderment.
+
+"You are very funny," he said at last.
+
+Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot
+spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all
+foreign devils, Ah Cho understood.
+
+"You laugh too much," Cruchot chided. "One's heart should be full of
+tears on a day like this."
+
+"I am glad to get out of the jail."
+
+"Is that all?" The gendarme shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Is it not enough?" was the retort.
+
+"Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?"
+
+Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said--
+
+"Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for
+Schemmer. Are you not taking me to Atimaono?"
+
+Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively. "Well, well," he said
+finally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, "so you don't know?"
+
+"Know what?" Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm. "Won't Schemmer
+let me work for him any more?"
+
+"Not after to-day." Cruchot laughed heartily. It was a good joke. "You
+see, you won't be able to work after to-day. A man with his head off
+can't work, eh?" He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled.
+
+Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile. Then he
+spoke: "Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?"
+
+Cruchot grinned as he nodded.
+
+"It is a mistake," said Ah Cho, gravely. "I am not the Chinago that
+is to have his head cut off. I am Ah Cho. The honourable judge has
+determined that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia."
+
+The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to
+cheat the guillotine. The mules trotted through a coconut grove and for
+half a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again.
+
+"I tell you I am not Ah Chow. The honourable judge did not say that my
+head was to go off."
+
+"Don't be afraid," said Cruchot, with the philanthropic intention of
+making it easier for his prisoner. "It is not difficult to die that
+way." He snapped his fingers. "It is quick--like that. It is not like
+hanging on the end of a rope and kicking and making faces for five
+minutes. It is like killing a chicken with a hatchet. You cut its head
+off, that is all. And it is the same with a man. Pouf!--it is over. It
+doesn't hurt. You don't even think it hurts. You don't think. Your head
+is gone, so you cannot think. It is very good. That is the way I want to
+die--quick, ah, quick. You are lucky to die that way. You might get the
+leprosy and fall to pieces slowly, a finger at a time, and now and again
+a thumb, also the toes. I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It
+took him two days to die. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away.
+But you? Ah! so easy! Chck!--the knife cuts your neck like that. It is
+finished. The knife may even tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that
+way ever came back to say."
+
+He considered this last an excruciating joke, and permitted himself
+to be convulsed with laughter for half a minute. Part of his mirth was
+assumed, but he considered it his humane duty to cheer up the Chinago.
+
+"But I tell you I am Ah Cho," the other persisted. "I don't want my head
+cut off."
+
+Cruchot scowled. The Chinago was carrying the foolishness too far.
+
+"I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began.
+
+"That will do," the gendarme interrupted. He puffed up his cheeks and
+strove to appear fierce.
+
+"I tell you I am not--" Ah Cho began again.
+
+"Shut up!" bawled Cruchot.
+
+After that they rode along in silence. It was twenty miles from Papeete
+to Atimaono, and over half the distance was covered by the time the
+Chinago again ventured into speech.
+
+"I saw you in the court room, when the honourable judge sought after our
+guilt," he began. "Very good. And do you remember that Ah Chow, whose
+head is to be cut off--do you remember that he--Ah Chow--was a tall man?
+Look at me."
+
+He stood up suddenly, and Cruchot saw that he was a short man. And just
+as suddenly Cruchot caught a glimpse of a memory picture of Ah Chow, and
+in that picture Ah Chow was tall. To the gendarme all Chinagos looked
+alike. One face was like another. But between tallness and shortness he
+could differentiate, and he knew that he had the wrong man beside him on
+the seat. He pulled up the mules abruptly, so that the pole shot ahead
+of them, elevating their collars.
+
+"You see, it was a mistake," said Ah Cho, smiling pleasantly.
+
+But Cruchot was thinking. Already he regretted that he had stopped the
+wagon. He was unaware of the error of the Chief Justice, and he had
+no way of working it out; but he did know that he had been given this
+Chinago to take to Atimaono and that it was his duty to take him to
+Atimaono. What if he was the wrong man and they cut his head off? It
+was only a Chinago when all was said, and what was a Chinago, anyway?
+Besides, it might not be a mistake. He did not know what went on in the
+minds of his superiors. They knew their business best. Who was he to
+do their thinking for them? Once, in the long ago, he had attempted to
+think for them, and the sergeant had said: "Cruchot, you are a fool! The
+quicker you know that, the better you will get on. You are not to think;
+you are to obey and leave thinking to your betters." He smarted under
+the recollection. Also, if he turned back to Papeete, he would delay the
+execution at Atimaono, and if he were wrong in turning back, he would
+get a reprimand from the sergeant who was waiting for the prisoner. And,
+furthermore, he would get a reprimand at Papeete as well.
+
+He touched the mules with the whip and drove on. He looked at his watch.
+He would be half an hour late as it was, and the sergeant was bound to
+be angry. He put the mules into a faster trot. The more Ah Cho persisted
+in explaining the mistake, the more stubborn Cruchot became. The
+knowledge that he had the wrong man did not make his temper better. The
+knowledge that it was through no mistake of his confirmed him in the
+belief that the wrong he was doing was the right. And, rather than incur
+the displeasure of the sergeant, he would willingly have assisted a
+dozen wrong Chinagos to their doom.
+
+As for Ah Cho, after the gendarme had struck him over the head with the
+butt of the whip and commanded him in a loud voice to shut up, there
+remained nothing for him to do but to shut up. The long ride continued
+in silence. Ah Cho pondered the strange ways of the foreign devils.
+There was no explaining them. What they were doing with him was of a
+piece with everything they did. First they found guilty five innocent
+men, and next they cut off the head of the man that even they, in their
+benighted ignorance, had deemed meritorious of no more than twenty
+years' imprisonment. And there was nothing he could do. He could only
+sit idly and take what these lords of life measured out to him. Once, he
+got in a panic, and the sweat upon his body turned cold; but he fought
+his way out of it. He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate by
+remembering and repeating certain passages from the "Yin Chih Wen" ("The
+Tract of the Quiet Way"); but, instead, he kept seeing his dream-garden
+of meditation and repose. This bothered him, until he abandoned himself
+to the dream and sat in his garden listening to the tinkling of the
+windbells in the several trees. And lo! sitting thus, in the dream,
+he was able to remember and repeat the passages from "The Tract of the
+Quiet Way."
+
+So the time passed nicely until Atimaono was reached and the mules
+trotted up to the foot of the scaffold, in the shade of which stood the
+impatient sergeant. Ah Cho was hurried up the ladder of the scaffold.
+Beneath him on one side he saw assembled all the coolies of the
+plantation. Schemmer had decided that the event would be a good
+object-lesson, and so he called in the coolies from the fields and
+compelled them to be present. As they caught sight of Ah Cho they
+gabbled among themselves in low voices. They saw the mistake; but they
+kept it to themselves. The inexplicable white devils had doubtlessly
+changed their minds. Instead of taking the life of one innocent man,
+they were taking the life of another innocent man. Ah Chow or Ah
+Cho--what did it matter which? They could never understand the white
+dogs any more than could the white dogs understand them. Ah Cho was
+going to have his head cut off, but they, when their two remaining years
+of servitude were up, were going back to China.
+
+Schemmer had made the guillotine himself. He was a handy man, and though
+he had never seen a guillotine, the French officials had explained the
+principle to him. It was on his suggestion that they had ordered the
+execution to take place at Atimaono instead of at Papeete. The scene
+of the crime, Schemmer had argued, was the best possible place for the
+punishment, and, in addition, it would have a salutary influence
+upon the half-thousand Chinagos on the plantation. Schemmer had also
+volunteered to act as executioner, and in that capacity he was now on
+the scaffold, experimenting with the instrument he had made. A banana
+tree, of the size and consistency of a man's neck, lay under the
+guillotine. Ah Cho watched with fascinated eyes. The German, turning a
+small crank, hoisted the blade to the top of the little derrick he had
+rigged. A jerk on a stout piece of cord loosed the blade and it dropped
+with a flash, neatly severing the banana trunk.
+
+"How does it work?" The sergeant, coming out on top the scaffold, had
+asked the question.
+
+"Beautifully," was Schemmer's exultant answer. "Let me show you."
+
+Again he turned the crank that hoisted the blade, jerked the cord, and
+sent the blade crashing down on the soft tree. But this time it went no
+more than two-thirds of the way through.
+
+The sergeant scowled. "That will not serve," he said.
+
+Schemmer wiped the sweat from his forehead. "What it needs is more
+weight," he announced. Walking up to the edge of the scaffold, he called
+his orders to the blacksmith for a twenty-five-pound piece of iron. As
+he stooped over to attach the iron to the broad top of the blade, Ah Cho
+glanced at the sergeant and saw his opportunity.
+
+"The honourable judge said that Ah Chow was to have his head cut off,"
+he began.
+
+The sergeant nodded impatiently. He was thinking of the fifteen-mile
+ride before him that afternoon, to the windward side of the island, and
+of Berthe, the pretty half-caste daughter of Lafiere, the pearl-trader,
+who was waiting for him at the end of it.
+
+"Well, I am not Ah Chow. I am Ah Cho. The honourable jailer has made a
+mistake. Ah Chow is a tall man, and you see I am short."
+
+The sergeant looked at him hastily and saw the mistake. "Schemmer!" he
+called, imperatively. "Come here."
+
+The German grunted, but remained bent over his task till the chunk
+of iron was lashed to his satisfaction. "Is your Chinago ready?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Look at him," was the answer. "Is he the Chinago?"
+
+Schemmer was surprised. He swore tersely for a few seconds, and looked
+regretfully across at the thing he had made with his own hands and
+which he was eager to see work. "Look here," he said finally, "we can't
+postpone this affair. I've lost three hours' work already out of those
+five hundred Chinagos. I can't afford to lose it all over again for the
+right man. Let's put the performance through just the same. It is only a
+Chinago."
+
+The sergeant remembered the long ride before him, and the pearl-trader's
+daughter, and debated with himself.
+
+"They will blame it on Cruchot--if it is discovered," the German urged.
+"But there's little chance of its being discovered. Ah Chow won't give
+it away, at any rate."
+
+"The blame won't lie with Cruchot, anyway," the sergeant said. "It must
+have been the jailer's mistake."
+
+"Then let's go on with it. They can't blame us. Who can tell one Chinago
+from another? We can say that we merely carried out instructions with
+the Chinago that was turned over to us. Besides, I really can't take all
+those coolies a second time away from their labour."
+
+They spoke in French, and Ah Cho, who did not understand a word of it,
+nevertheless knew that they were determining his destiny. He knew,
+also, that the decision rested with the sergeant, and he hung upon that
+official's lips.
+
+"All right," announced the sergeant. "Go ahead with it. He is only a
+Chinago."
+
+"I'm going to try it once more, just to make sure." Schemmer moved the
+banana trunk forward under the knife, which he had hoisted to the top of
+the derrick.
+
+Ah Cho tried to remember maxims from "The Tract of the Quiet Way." "Live
+in concord," came to him; but it was not applicable. He was not going to
+live. He was about to die. No, that would not do. "Forgive malice"--yes,
+but there was no malice to forgive. Schemmer and the rest were doing
+this thing without malice. It was to them merely a piece of work that
+had to be done, just as clearing the jungle, ditching the water, and
+planting cotton were pieces of work that had to be done. Schemmer jerked
+the cord, and Ah Cho forgot "The Tract of the Quiet Way." The knife shot
+down with a thud, making a clean slice of the tree.
+
+"Beautiful!" exclaimed the sergeant, pausing in the act of lighting a
+cigarette. "Beautiful, my friend."
+
+Schemmer was pleased at the praise.
+
+"Come on, Ah Chow," he said, in the Tahitian tongue.
+
+"But I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began.
+
+"Shut up!" was the answer. "If you open your mouth again, I'll break
+your head."
+
+The overseer threatened him with a clenched fist, and he remained
+silent. What was the good of protesting? Those foreign devils always had
+their way. He allowed himself to be lashed to the vertical board that
+was the size of his body. Schemmer drew the buckles tight--so tight that
+the straps cut into his flesh and hurt. But he did not complain. The
+hurt would not last long. He felt the board tilting over in the air
+toward the horizontal, and closed his eyes. And in that moment he caught
+a last glimpse of his garden of meditation and repose. It seemed to him
+that he sat in the garden. A cool wind was blowing, and the bells in
+the several trees were tinkling softly. Also, birds were making sleepy
+noises, and from beyond the high wall came the subdued sound of village
+life.
+
+Then he was aware that the board had come to rest, and from muscular
+pressures and tensions he knew that he was lying on his back. He opened
+his eyes. Straight above him he saw the suspended knife blazing in the
+sunshine. He saw the weight which had been added, and noted that one
+of Schemmer's knots had slipped. Then he heard the sergeant's voice in
+sharp command. Ah Cho closed his eyes hastily. He did not want to see
+that knife descend. But he felt it--for one great fleeting instant. And
+in that instant he remembered Cruchot and what Cruchot had said. But
+Cruchot was wrong. The knife did not tickle. That much he knew before he
+ceased to know.
+
+
+
+
+MAKE WESTING
+
+     Whatever you do, make westing! make westing!
+                    --Sailing directions for Cape Horn.
+
+For seven weeks the Mary Rogers had been between 50 degrees south in the
+Atlantic and 50 degrees south in the Pacific, which meant that for seven
+weeks she had been struggling to round Cape Horn. For seven weeks
+she had been either in dirt, or close to dirt, save once, and then,
+following upon six days of excessive dirt, which she had ridden out
+under the shelter of the redoubtable Terra del Fuego coast, she had
+almost gone ashore during a heavy swell in the dead calm that had
+suddenly fallen. For seven weeks she had wrestled with the Cape Horn
+graybeards, and in return been buffeted and smashed by them. She was a
+wooden ship, and her ceaseless straining had opened her seams, so that
+twice a day the watch took its turn at the pumps.
+
+The Mary Rogers was strained, the crew was strained, and big Dan Cullen,
+master, was likewise strained. Perhaps he was strained most of all, for
+upon him rested the responsibility of that titanic struggle. He slept
+most of the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept. He haunted the
+deck at night, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the sunburn
+of thirty years of sea and hairy as an orang-outang. He, in turn, was
+haunted by one thought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn:
+Whatever you do, make westing! make westing! It was an obsession. He
+thought of nothing else, except, at times, to blaspheme God for sending
+such bitter weather.
+
+Make westing! He hugged the Horn, and a dozen times lay hove to with the
+iron Cape bearing east-by-north, or north-north-east, a score of miles
+away. And each time the eternal west wind smote him back and he made
+easting. He fought gale after gale, south to 64 degrees, inside the
+antarctic drift-ice, and pledged his immortal soul to the Powers of
+Darkness for a bit of westing, for a slant to take him around. And he
+made easting. In despair, he had tried to make the passage through the
+Straits of Le Maire. Halfway through, the wind hauled to the north'ard
+of north-west, the glass dropped to 28.88, and he turned and ran before
+a gale of cyclonic fury, missing, by a hair's-breadth, piling up the
+Mary Rogers on the black-toothed rocks. Twice he had made west to the
+Diego Ramirez Rocks, one of the times saved between two snow-squalls by
+sighting the gravestones of ships a quarter of a mile dead ahead.
+
+Blow! Captain Dan Cullen instanced all his thirty years at sea to prove
+that never had it blown so before. The Mary Rogers was hove to at the
+time he gave the evidence, and, to clinch it, inside half an hour the
+Mary Rogers was hove down to the hatches. Her new maintopsail and brand
+new spencer were blown away like tissue paper; and five sails, furled
+and fast under double gaskets, were blown loose and stripped from the
+yards. And before morning the Mary Rogers was hove down twice again, and
+holes were knocked in her bulwarks to ease her decks from the weight of
+ocean that pressed her down.
+
+On an average of once a week Captain Dan Cullen caught glimpses of the
+sun. Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes
+afterward a new gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail,
+and all was buried in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall. For
+a fortnight, once, Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a
+chronometer sight. Rarely did he know his position within half of a
+degree, except when in sight of land; for sun and stars remained hidden
+behind the sky, and it was so gloomy that even at the best the horizons
+were poor for accurate observations. A gray gloom shrouded the world.
+The clouds were gray; the great driving seas were leaden gray; the
+smoking crests were a gray churning; even the occasional albatrosses
+were gray, while the snow-flurries were not white, but gray, under the
+sombre pall of the heavens.
+
+Life on board the Mary Rogers was gray--gray and gloomy. The faces
+of the sailors were blue-gray; they were afflicted with sea-cuts and
+sea-boils, and suffered exquisitely. They were shadows of men. For seven
+weeks, in the forecastle or on deck, they had not known what it was to
+be dry. They had forgotten what it was to sleep out a watch, and all
+watches it was, "All hands on deck!" They caught snatches of agonized
+sleep, and they slept in their oilskins ready for the everlasting call.
+So weak and worn were they that it took both watches to do the work of
+one. That was why both watches were on deck so much of the time. And no
+shadow of a man could shirk duty. Nothing less than a broken leg could
+enable a man to knock off work; and there were two such, who had been
+mauled and pulped by the seas that broke aboard.
+
+One other man who was the shadow of a man was George Dorety. He was the
+only passenger on board, a friend of the firm, and he had elected to
+make the voyage for his health. But seven weeks of Cape Horn had not
+bettered his health. He gasped and panted in his bunk through the long,
+heaving nights; and when on deck he was so bundled up for warmth that he
+resembled a peripatetic old-clothes shop. At midday, eating at the cabin
+table in a gloom so deep that the swinging sea-lamps burned always, he
+looked as blue-gray as the sickest, saddest man for'ard. Nor did gazing
+across the table at Captain Dan Cullen have any cheering effect upon
+him. Captain Cullen chewed and scowled and kept silent. The scowls
+were for God, and with every chew he reiterated the sole thought of his
+existence, which was make westing. He was a big, hairy brute, and the
+sight of him was not stimulating to the other's appetite. He looked
+upon George Dorety as a Jonah, and told him so, once each meal, savagely
+transferring the scowl from God to the passenger and back again.
+
+Nor did the mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite. Joshua
+Higgins by name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper
+by capacity, he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and
+selfish and cowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen,
+and a bully over the sailors, who knew that behind the mate was Captain
+Cullen, the law-giver and compeller, the driver and the destroyer, the
+incarnation of a dozen bucko mates. In that wild weather at the southern
+end of the earth, Joshua Higgins ceased washing. His grimy face usually
+robbed George Dorety of what little appetite he managed to accumulate.
+Ordinarily this lavatorial dereliction would have caught Captain
+Cullen's eye and vocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with
+making westing, to the exclusion of all other things not contributory
+thereto. Whether the mate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing
+upon westing. Later on, when 50 degrees south in the Pacific had been
+reached, Joshua Higgins would wash his face very abruptly. In the
+meantime, at the cabin table, where gray twilight alternated with
+lamplight while the lamps were being filled, George Dorety sat between
+the two men, one a tiger and the other a hyena, and wondered why God had
+made them. The second mate, Matthew Turner, was a true sailor and a man,
+but George Dorety did not have the solace of his company, for he ate by
+himself, solitary, when they had finished.
+
+On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life
+and headlong movement. On deck he found the Mary Rogers running off
+before a howling south-easter. Nothing was set but the lower topsails
+and the foresail. It was all she could stand, yet she was making
+fourteen knots, as Mr. Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on
+deck. And it was all westing. She was going around the Horn at last...
+if the wind held. Mr. Turner looked happy. The end of the struggle was
+in sight. But Captain Cullen did not look happy. He scowled at Dorety
+in passing. Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased
+with that wind. He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed
+in his secret soul that if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would
+promptly efface it and send a snorter from the west. So he walked softly
+before God, smothering his joy down under scowls and muttered curses,
+and, so, fooling God, for God was the only thing in the universe of
+which Dan Cullen was afraid.
+
+All Saturday and Saturday night the Mary Rogers raced her westing.
+Persistently she logged her fourteen knots, so that by Sunday morning
+she had covered three hundred and fifty miles. If the wind held, she
+would make around. If it failed, and the snorter came from anywhere
+between south-west and north, back the Mary Rogers would be hurled and
+be no better off than she had been seven weeks before. And on Sunday
+morning the wind was failing. The big sea was going down and running
+smooth. Both watches were on deck setting sail after sail as fast as the
+ship could stand it. And now Captain Cullen went around brazenly before
+God, smoking a big cigar, smiling jubilantly, as if the failing wind
+delighted him, while down underneath he was raging against God for
+taking the life out of the blessed wind. Make westing! So he would, if
+God would only leave him alone. Secretly, he pledged himself anew to
+the Powers of Darkness, if they would let him make westing. He pledged
+himself so easily because he did not believe in the Powers of Darkness.
+He really believed only in God, though he did not know it. And in his
+inverted theology God was really the Prince of Darkness. Captain Cullen
+was a devil-worshipper, but he called the devil by another name, that
+was all.
+
+At midday, after calling eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals
+on. The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks. Not alone
+were they nimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining
+down and limbering their stiff bodies. George Dorety stood aft, near
+Captain Cullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the
+grateful warmth as he watched the scene. Swiftly and abruptly the
+incident occurred. There was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of "Man
+overboard!" Somebody threw a life-buoy over the side, and at the same
+instant the second mate's voice came aft, ringing and peremptory--
+
+"Hard down your helm!"
+
+The man at the wheel never moved a spoke. He knew better, for Captain
+Dan Cullen was standing alongside of him. He wanted to move a spoke, to
+move all the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comrade
+drowning in the sea. He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain Dan
+Cullen gave no sign.
+
+"Down! Hard down!" the second mate roared, as he sprang aft.
+
+But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw
+Dan Cullen by the wheel. And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said
+nothing. Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor. He had
+caught the life-buoy and was clinging to it. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
+The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-stricken
+faces. And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing. A long, silent
+minute passed.
+
+"Who was it?" Captain Cullen demanded.
+
+"Mops, sir," eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.
+
+Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough.
+It was a large wave, but it was no graybeard. A small boat could live
+easily in such a sea, and in such a sea the Mary Rogers could easily
+come to. But she could not come to and make westing at the same time.
+
+For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real
+drama of life and death--a sordid little drama in which the scales
+balanced an unknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude.
+At first he had watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan
+Cullen, hairy and black, vested with power of life and death, smoking a
+cigar.
+
+Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute. Then he removed
+the cigar from his mouth. He glanced aloft at the spars of the Mary
+Rogers, and overside at the sea.
+
+"Sheet home the royals!" he cried.
+
+Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food served
+before them. On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, on
+the other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena. Nobody spoke. On deck the men
+were sheeting home the skysails. George Dorety could hear their cries,
+while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and
+well, clinging to a life-buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean. He
+glanced at Captain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the
+man was eating his food with relish, almost bolting it.
+
+"Captain Cullen," Dorety said, "you are in command of this ship, and it
+is not proper for me to comment now upon what you do. But I wish to say
+one thing. There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one."
+
+Captain Cullen did not even scowl. In his voice was regret as he said--
+
+"It was blowing a living gale. It was impossible to save the man."
+
+"He fell from the royal-yard," Dorety cried hotly. "You were setting
+the royals at the time. Fifteen minutes afterward you were setting the
+skysails."
+
+"It was a living gale, wasn't it, Mr. Higgins?" Captain Cullen said,
+turning to the mate.
+
+"If you'd brought her to, it'd have taken the sticks out of her," was
+the mate's answer. "You did the proper thing, Captain Cullen. The man
+hadn't a ghost of a show."
+
+George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal's end no one spoke. After
+that, Dorety had his meals served in his state-room. Captain Cullen
+scowled at him no longer, though no speech was exchanged between them,
+while the Mary Rogers sped north toward warmer latitudes. At the end of
+the week, Dan Cullen cornered Dorety on deck.
+
+"What are you going to do when we get to 'Frisco?" he demanded bluntly.
+
+"I am going to swear out a warrant for your arrest," Dorety answered
+quietly. "I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see
+you hanged for it."
+
+"You're almighty sure of yourself," Captain Cullen sneered, turning on
+his heel.
+
+A second week passed, and one morning found George Dorety standing in
+the coach-house companionway at the for'ard end of the long poop,
+taking his first gaze around the deck. The Mary Rogers was reaching
+full-and-by, in a stiff breeze. Every sail was set and drawing,
+including the staysails. Captain Cullen strolled for'ard along the poop.
+He strolled carelessly, glancing at the passenger out of the corner
+of his eye. Dorety was looking the other way, standing with head and
+shoulders outside the companionway, and only the back of his head was to
+be seen. Captain Cullen, with swift eye, embraced the mainstaysail-block
+and the head and estimated the distance. He glanced about him. Nobody
+was looking. Aft, Joshua Higgins, pacing up and down, had just turned
+his back and was going the other way. Captain Cullen bent over suddenly
+and cast the staysail-sheet off from its pin. The heavy block hurtled
+through the air, smashing Dorety's head like an egg-shell and hurtling
+on and back and forth as the staysail whipped and slatted in the wind.
+Joshua Higgins turned around to see what had carried away, and met the
+full blast of the vilest portion of Captain Cullen's profanity.
+
+"I made the sheet fast myself," whimpered the mate in the first lull,
+"with an extra turn to make sure. I remember it distinctly."
+
+"Made fast?" the Captain snarled back, for the benefit of the watch as
+it struggled to capture the flying sail before it tore to ribbons. "You
+couldn't make your grandmother fast, you useless hell's scullion. If
+you made that sheet fast with an extra turn, why in hell didn't it stay
+fast? That's what I want to know. Why in hell didn't it stay fast?"
+
+The mate whined inarticulately.
+
+"Oh, shut up!" was the final word of Captain Cullen.
+
+Half an hour later he was as surprised as any when the body of George
+Dorety was found inside the companionway on the floor. In the afternoon,
+alone in his room, he doctored up the log.
+
+"Ordinary seaman, Karl Brun," he wrote, "lost overboard from
+foreroyal-yard in a gale of wind. Was running at the time, and for the
+safety of the ship did not dare come up to the wind. Nor could a boat
+have lived in the sea that was running."
+
+On another page, he wrote
+
+"Had often warned Mr. Dorety about the danger he ran because of his
+carelessness on deck. I told him, once, that some day he would get his
+head knocked off by a block. A carelessly fastened mainstaysail sheet
+was the cause of the accident, which was deeply to be regretted because
+Mr. Dorety was a favourite with all of us."
+
+Captain Dan Cullen read over his literary effort with admiration,
+blotted the page, and closed the log. He lighted a cigar and stared
+before him. He felt the Mary Rogers lift, and heel, and surge along,
+and knew that she was making nine knots. A smile of satisfaction slowly
+dawned on his black and hairy face. Well, anyway, he had made his
+westing and fooled God.
+
+
+
+
+SEMPER IDEM
+
+Doctor Bicknell was in a remarkably gracious mood. Through a minor
+accident, a slight bit of carelessness, that was all, a man who might
+have pulled through had died the preceding night. Though it had been
+only a sailorman, one of the innumerable unwashed, the steward of the
+receiving hospital had been on the anxious seat all the morning. It was
+not that the man had died that gave him discomfort, he knew the Doctor
+too well for that, but his distress lay in the fact that the operation
+had been done so well. One of the most delicate in surgery, it had been
+as successful as it was clever and audacious. All had then depended upon
+the treatment, the nurses, the steward. And the man had died. Nothing
+much, a bit of carelessness, yet enough to bring the professional wrath
+of Doctor Bicknell about his ears and to perturb the working of the
+staff and nurses for twenty-four hours to come.
+
+But, as already stated, the Doctor was in a remarkably gracious mood.
+When informed by the steward, in fear and trembling, of the man's
+unexpected take-off, his lips did not so much as form one syllable of
+censure; nay, they were so pursed that snatches of rag-time floated
+softly from them, to be broken only by a pleasant query after the health
+of the other's eldest-born. The steward, deeming it impossible that he
+could have caught the gist of the case, repeated it.
+
+"Yes, yes," Doctor Bicknell said impatiently; "I understand. But how
+about Semper Idem? Is he ready to leave?"
+
+"Yes. They're helping him dress now," the steward answered, passing on
+to the round of his duties, content that peace still reigned within the
+iodine-saturated walls.
+
+It was Semper Idem's recovery which had so fully compensated Doctor
+Bicknell for the loss of the sailorman. Lives were to him as nothing,
+the unpleasant but inevitable incidents of the profession, but cases,
+ah, cases were everything. People who knew him were prone to brand him a
+butcher, but his colleagues were at one in the belief that a bolder
+and yet a more capable man never stood over the table. He was not an
+imaginative man. He did not possess, and hence had no tolerance for,
+emotion. His nature was accurate, precise, scientific. Men were to him
+no more than pawns, without individuality or personal value. But as
+cases it was different. The more broken a man was, the more precarious
+his grip on life, the greater his significance in the eyes of Doctor
+Bicknell. He would as readily forsake a poet laureate suffering from a
+common accident for a nameless, mangled vagrant who defied every law of
+life by refusing to die, as would a child forsake a Punch and Judy for a
+circus.
+
+So it had been in the case of Semper Idem. The mystery of the man had
+not appealed to him, nor had his silence and the veiled romance which
+the yellow reporters had so sensationally and so fruitlessly exploited
+in divers Sunday editions. But Semper Idem's throat had been cut. That
+was the point. That was where his interest had centred. Cut from ear to
+ear, and not one surgeon in a thousand to give a snap of the fingers
+for his chance of recovery. But, thanks to the swift municipal ambulance
+service and to Doctor Bicknell, he had been dragged back into the world
+he had sought to leave. The Doctor's co-workers had shaken their heads
+when the case was brought in. Impossible, they said. Throat, windpipe,
+jugular, all but actually severed, and the loss of blood frightful. As
+it was such a foregone conclusion, Doctor Bicknell had employed methods
+and done things which made them, even in their professional capacities,
+shudder. And lo! the man had recovered.
+
+So, on this morning that Semper Idem was to leave the hospital, hale
+and hearty, Doctor Bicknell's geniality was in nowise disturbed by the
+steward's report, and he proceeded cheerfully to bring order out of the
+chaos of a child's body which had been ground and crunched beneath the
+wheels of an electric car.
+
+As many will remember, the case of Semper Idem aroused a vast deal
+of unseemly yet highly natural curiosity. He had been found in a slum
+lodging, with throat cut as aforementioned, and blood dripping down upon
+the inmates of the room below and disturbing their festivities. He had
+evidently done the deed standing, with head bowed forward that he might
+gaze his last upon a photograph which stood on the table propped against
+a candlestick. It was this attitude which had made it possible for
+Doctor Bicknell to save him. So terrific had been the sweep of the razor
+that had he had his head thrown back, as he should have done to have
+accomplished the act properly, with his neck stretched and the elastic
+vascular walls distended, he would have of a certainty well-nigh
+decapitated himself.
+
+At the hospital, during all the time he travelled the repugnant road
+back to life, not a word had left his lips. Nor could anything be
+learned of him by the sleuths detailed by the chief of police. Nobody
+knew him, nor had ever seen or heard of him before. He was strictly,
+uniquely, of the present. His clothes and surroundings were those of the
+lowest labourer, his hands the hands of a gentleman. But not a shred
+of writing was discovered, nothing, save in one particular, which would
+serve to indicate his past or his position in life.
+
+And that one particular was the photograph. If it were at all a
+likeness, the woman who gazed frankly out upon the onlooker from the
+card-mount must have been a striking creature indeed. It was an amateur
+production, for the detectives were baffled in that no professional
+photographer's signature or studio was appended. Across a corner of the
+mount, in delicate feminine tracery, was written: "Semper idem; semper
+fidelis." And she looked it. As many recollect, it was a face one could
+never forget. Clever half-tones, remarkably like, were published in all
+the leading papers at the time; but such procedure gave rise to nothing
+but the uncontrollable public curiosity and interminable copy to the
+space-writers.
+
+For want of a better name, the rescued suicide was known to the hospital
+attendants, and to the world, as Semper Idem. And Semper Idem he
+remained. Reporters, detectives, and nurses gave him up in despair.
+Not one word could he be persuaded to utter; yet the flitting conscious
+light of his eyes showed that his ears heard and his brain grasped every
+question put to him.
+
+But this mystery and romance played no part in Doctor Bicknell's
+interest when he paused in the office to have a parting word with his
+patient. He, the Doctor, had performed a prodigy in the matter of this
+man, done what was virtually unprecedented in the annals of surgery. He
+did not care who or what the man was, and it was highly improbable
+that he should ever see him again; but, like the artist gazing upon a
+finished creation, he wished to look for the last time upon the work of
+his hand and brain.
+
+Semper Idem still remained mute. He seemed anxious to be gone. Not a
+word could the Doctor extract from him, and little the Doctor cared.
+He examined the throat of the convalescent carefully, idling over the
+hideous scar with the lingering, half-caressing fondness of a parent.
+It was not a particularly pleasing sight. An angry line circled the
+throat--for all the world as though the man had just escaped the
+hangman's noose--and, disappearing below the ear on either side, had the
+appearance of completing the fiery periphery at the nape of the neck.
+
+Maintaining his dogged silence, yielding to the other's examination in
+much the manner of a leashed lion, Semper Idem betrayed only his desire
+to drop from out of the public eye.
+
+"Well, I'll not keep you," Doctor Bicknell finally said, laying a hand
+on the man's shoulder and stealing a last glance at his own handiwork.
+"But let me give you a bit of advice. Next time you try it on, hold
+your chin up, so. Don't snuggle it down and butcher yourself like a cow.
+Neatness and despatch, you know. Neatness and despatch."
+
+Semper Idem's eyes flashed in token that he heard, and a moment later
+the hospital door swung to on his heel.
+
+It was a busy day for Doctor Bicknell, and the afternoon was well along
+when he lighted a cigar preparatory to leaving the table upon which it
+seemed the sufferers almost clamoured to be laid. But the last one, an
+old rag-picker with a broken shoulder-blade, had been disposed of, and
+the first fragrant smoke wreaths had begun to curl about his head, when
+the gong of a hurrying ambulance came through the open window from
+the street, followed by the inevitable entry of the stretcher with its
+ghastly freight.
+
+"Lay it on the table," the Doctor directed, turning for a moment to
+place his cigar in safety. "What is it?"
+
+"Suicide--throat cut," responded one of the stretcher bearers. "Down on
+Morgan Alley. Little hope, I think, sir. He's 'most gone."
+
+"Eh? Well, I'll give him a look, anyway." He leaned over the man at the
+moment when the quick made its last faint flutter and succumbed.
+
+"It's Semper Idem come back again," the steward said.
+
+"Ay," replied Doctor Bicknell, "and gone again. No bungling this time.
+Properly done, upon my life, sir, properly done. Took my advice to the
+letter. I'm not required here. Take it along to the morgue."
+
+Doctor Bicknell secured his cigar and relighted it. "That," he said
+between the puffs, looking at the steward, "that evens up for the one
+you lost last night. We're quits now."
+
+
+
+
+A NOSE FOR THE KING
+
+In the morning calm of Korea, when its peace and tranquillity truly
+merited its ancient name, "Cho-sen," there lived a politician by name Yi
+Chin Ho. He was a man of parts, and--who shall say?--perhaps in no wise
+worse than politicians the world over. But, unlike his brethren in other
+lands, Yi Chin Ho was in jail. Not that he had inadvertently diverted to
+himself public moneys, but that he had inadvertently diverted too much.
+Excess is to be deplored in all things, even in grafting, and Yi Chin
+Ho's excess had brought him to most deplorable straits.
+
+Ten thousand strings of cash he owed the Government, and he lay
+in prison under sentence of death. There was one advantage to the
+situation--he had plenty of time in which to think. And he thought well.
+Then called he the jailer to him.
+
+"Most worthy man, you see before you one most wretched," he began. "Yet
+all will be well with me if you will but let me go free for one short
+hour this night. And all will be well with you, for I shall see to
+your advancement through the years, and you shall come at length to the
+directorship of all the prisons of Cho-sen."
+
+"How now?" demanded the jailer. "What foolishness is this? One short
+hour, and you but waiting for your head to be chopped off! And I, with
+an aged and much-to-be-respected mother, not to say anything of a wife
+and several children of tender years! Out upon you for the scoundrel
+that you are!"
+
+"From the Sacred City to the ends of all the Eight Coasts there is no
+place for me to hide," Yi Chin Ho made reply. "I am a man of wisdom, but
+of what worth my wisdom here in prison? Were I free, well I know I could
+seek out and obtain the money wherewith to repay the Government. I know
+of a nose that will save me from all my difficulties."
+
+"A nose!" cried the jailer.
+
+"A nose," said Yi Chin Ho. "A remarkable nose, if I may say so, a most
+remarkable nose."
+
+The jailer threw up his hands despairingly. "Ah, what a wag you are,
+what a wag," he laughed. "To think that that very admirable wit of yours
+must go the way of the chopping-block!"
+
+And so saying, he turned and went away. But in the end, being a man soft
+of head and heart, when the night was well along he permitted Yi Chin Ho
+to go.
+
+Straight he went to the Governor, catching him alone and arousing him
+from his sleep.
+
+"Yi Chin Ho, or I'm no Governor!" cried the Governor. "What do you here
+who should be in prison waiting on the chopping-block?"
+
+"I pray Your Excellency to listen to me," said Yi Chin Ho, squatting on
+his hams by the bedside and lighting his pipe from the fire-box. "A dead
+man is without value. It is true, I am as a dead man, without value to
+the Government, to Your Excellency, or to myself. But if, so to say,
+Your Excellency were to give me my freedom--"
+
+"Impossible!" cried the Governor. "Beside, you are condemned to death."
+
+"Your Excellency well knows that if I can repay the ten thousand strings
+of cash, the Government will pardon me," Yi Chin Ho went on. "So, as I
+say, if Your Excellency were to give me my freedom for a few days, being
+a man of understanding, I should then repay the Government and be in
+position to be of service to Your Excellency. I should be in position to
+be of very great service to Your Excellency."
+
+"Have you a plan whereby you hope to obtain this money?" asked the
+Governor.
+
+"I have," said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+"Then come with it to me to-morrow night; I would now sleep," said the
+Governor, taking up his snore where it had been interrupted.
+
+On the following night, having again obtained leave of absence from the
+jailer, Yi Chin Ho presented himself at the Governor's bedside.
+
+"Is it you, Yi Chin Ho?" asked the Governor. "And have you the plan?"
+
+"It is I, Your Excellency," answered Yi Chin Ho, "and the plan is here."
+
+"Speak," commanded the Governor.
+
+"The plan is here," repeated Yi Chin Ho, "here in my hand."
+
+The Governor sat up and opened his eyes. Yi Chin Ho proffered in his
+hand a sheet of paper. The Governor held it to the light.
+
+"Nothing but a nose," said he.
+
+"A bit pinched, so, and so, Your Excellency," said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+"Yes, a bit pinched here and there, as you say," said the Governor.
+
+"Withal it is an exceeding corpulent nose, thus, and so, all in one
+place, at the end," proceeded Yi Chin Ho. "Your Excellency would seek
+far and wide and many a day for that nose and find it not!"
+
+"An unusual nose," admitted the Governor.
+
+"There is a wart upon it," said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+"A most unusual nose," said the Governor. "Never have I seen the like.
+But what do you with this nose, Yi Chin Ho?"
+
+"I seek it whereby to repay the money to the Government," said Yi Chin
+Ho. "I seek it to be of service to Your Excellency, and I seek it to
+save my own worthless head. Further, I seek Your Excellency's seal upon
+this picture of the nose."
+
+And the Governor laughed and affixed the seal of State, and Yi Chin Ho
+departed. For a month and a day he travelled the King's Road which leads
+to the shore of the Eastern Sea; and there, one night, at the gate of
+the largest mansion of a wealthy city he knocked loudly for admittance.
+
+"None other than the master of the house will I see," said he fiercely
+to the frightened servants. "I travel upon the King's business."
+
+Straightway was he led to an inner room, where the master of the house
+was roused from his sleep and brought blinking before him.
+
+"You are Pak Chung Chang, head man of this city," said Yi Chin Ho in
+tones that were all-accusing. "I am upon the King's business."
+
+Pak Chung Chang trembled. Well he knew the King's business was ever a
+terrible business. His knees smote together, and he near fell to the
+floor.
+
+"The hour is late," he quavered. "Were it not well to--"
+
+"The King's business never waits!" thundered Yi Chin Ho. "Come apart
+with me, and swiftly. I have an affair of moment to discuss with you.
+
+"It is the King's affair," he added with even greater fierceness; so
+that Pak Chung Chang's silver pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers
+and clattered on the floor.
+
+"Know then," said Yi Chin Ho, when they had gone apart, "that the King
+is troubled with an affliction, a very terrible affliction. In that he
+failed to cure, the Court physician has had nothing else than his head
+chopped off. From all the Eight Provinces have the physicians come to
+wait upon the King. Wise consultation have they held, and they have
+decided that for a remedy for the King's affliction nothing else is
+required than a nose, a certain kind of nose, a very peculiar certain
+kind of nose.
+
+"Then by none other was I summoned than His Excellency the Prime
+Minister himself. He put a paper into my hand. Upon this paper was
+the very peculiar kind of nose drawn by the physicians of the Eight
+Provinces, with the seal of State upon it.
+
+"'Go,' said His Excellency the Prime Minister. 'Seek out this nose, for
+the King's affliction is sore. And wheresoever you find this nose upon
+the face of a man, strike it off forthright and bring it in all haste to
+the Court, for the King must be cured. Go, and come not back until your
+search is rewarded.'
+
+"And so I departed upon my quest," said Yi Chin Ho. "I have sought
+out the remotest corners of the kingdom; I have travelled the Eight
+Highways, searched the Eight Provinces, and sailed the seas of the Eight
+Coasts. And here I am."
+
+With a great flourish he drew a paper from his girdle, unrolled it with
+many snappings and cracklings, and thrust it before the face of Pak
+Chung Chang. Upon the paper was the picture of the nose.
+
+Pak Chung Chang stared upon it with bulging eyes.
+
+"Never have I beheld such a nose," he began.
+
+"There is a wart upon it," said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+"Never have I beheld--" Pak Chung Chang began again.
+
+"Bring your father before me," Yi Chin Ho interrupted sternly.
+
+"My ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor sleeps," said Pak
+Chung Chang.
+
+"Why dissemble?" demanded Yi Chin Ho. "You know it is your father's
+nose. Bring him before me that I may strike it off and be gone. Hurry,
+lest I make bad report of you."
+
+"Mercy!" cried Pak Chung Chang, falling on his knees. "It is impossible!
+It is impossible! You cannot strike off my father's nose. He cannot
+go down without his nose to the grave. He will become a laughter and a
+byword, and all my days and nights will be filled with woe. O reflect!
+Report that you have seen no such nose in your travels. You, too, have a
+father."
+
+Pak Chung Chang clasped Yi Chin Ho's knees and fell to weeping on his
+sandals.
+
+"My heart softens strangely at your tears," said Yi Chin Ho. "I, too,
+know filial piety and regard. But--" He hesitated, then added, as though
+thinking aloud, "It is as much as my head is worth."
+
+"How much is your head worth?" asked Pak Chung Chang in a thin, small
+voice.
+
+"A not remarkable head," said Yi Chin Ho. "An absurdly unremarkable
+head; but, such is my great foolishness, I value it at nothing less than
+one hundred thousand strings of cash."
+
+"So be it," said Pak Chung Chang, rising to his feet.
+
+"I shall need horses to carry the treasure," said Yi Chin Ho, "and men
+to guard it well as I journey through the mountains. There are robbers
+abroad in the land."
+
+"There are robbers abroad in the land," said Pak Chung Chang,
+sadly. "But it shall be as you wish, so long as my ancient and
+very-much-to-be-respected ancestor's nose abide in its appointed place."
+
+"Say nothing to any man of this occurrence," said Yi Chin Ho, "else will
+other and more loyal servants than I be sent to strike off your father's
+nose."
+
+And so Yi Chin Ho departed on his way through the mountains, blithe
+of heart and gay of song as he listened to the jingling bells of his
+treasure-laden ponies.
+
+There is little more to tell. Yi Chin Ho prospered through the years. By
+his efforts the jailer attained at length to the directorship of all the
+prisons of Cho-sen; the Governor ultimately betook himself to the Sacred
+City to be Prime Minister to the King, while Yi Chin Ho became the
+King's boon companion and sat at table with him to the end of a round,
+fat life. But Pak Chung Chang fell into a melancholy, and ever after he
+shook his head sadly, with tears in his eyes, whenever he regarded the
+expensive nose of his ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor.
+
+
+
+
+THE "FRANCIS SPAIGHT"
+
+(A TRUE TALE RETOLD)
+
+The Francis Spaight was running before it solely under a mizzentopsail,
+when the thing happened. It was not due to carelessness so much as
+to the lack of discipline of the crew and to the fact that they were
+indifferent seamen at best. The man at the wheel in particular, a
+Limerick man, had had no experience with salt water beyond that of
+rafting timber on the Shannon between the Quebec vessels and the shore.
+He was afraid of the huge seas that rose out of the murk astern and
+bore down upon him, and he was more given to cowering away from their
+threatened impact than he was to meeting their blows with the wheel and
+checking the ship's rush to broach to.
+
+It was three in the morning when his unseamanlike conduct precipitated
+the catastrophe. At sight of a sea far larger than its fellows, he
+crouched down, releasing his hands from the spokes. The Francis Spaight
+sheered as her stern lifted on the sea, receiving the full fling of the
+cap on her quarter. The next instant she was in the trough, her lee-rail
+buried till the ocean was level with her hatch-coamings, sea after sea
+breaking over her weather rail and sweeping what remained exposed of the
+deck with icy deluges.
+
+The men were out of hand, helpless and hopeless, stupid in their
+bewilderment and fear, and resolute only in that they would not obey
+orders. Some wailed, others clung silently in the weather shrouds, and
+still others muttered prayers or shrieked vile imprecations; and neither
+captain nor mate could get them to bear a hand at the pumps or at
+setting patches of sails to bring the vessel up to the wind and sea.
+Inside the hour the ship was over on her beam ends, the lubberly cowards
+climbing up her side and hanging on in the rigging. When she went over,
+the mate was caught and drowned in the after-cabin, as were two sailors
+who had sought refuge in the forecastle.
+
+The mate had been the ablest man on board, and the captain was now
+scarcely less helpless than his men. Beyond cursing them for their
+worthlessness, he did nothing; and it remained for a man named Mahoney,
+a Belfast man, and a boy, O'Brien, of Limerick, to cut away the fore and
+main masts. This they did at great risk on the perpendicular wall of the
+wreck, sending the mizzentopmast overside along in the general crash.
+The Francis Spaight righted, and it was well that she was lumber
+laden, else she would have sunk, for she was already water-logged.
+The mainmast, still fast by the shrouds, beat like a thunderous
+sledge-hammer against the ship's side, every stroke bringing groans from
+the men.
+
+Day dawned on the savage ocean, and in the cold gray light all that
+could be seen of the Francis Spaight emerging from the sea were the
+poop, the shattered mizzenmast, and a ragged line of bulwarks. It was
+midwinter in the North Atlantic, and the wretched men were half-dead
+from cold. But there was no place where they could find rest. Every sea
+breached clean over the wreck, washing away the salt incrustations from
+their bodies and depositing fresh incrustations. The cabin under the
+poop was awash to the knees, but here at least was shelter from the
+chill wind, and here the survivors congregated, standing upright,
+holding on by the cabin furnishings, and leaning against one another for
+support.
+
+In vain Mahoney strove to get the men to take turns in watching aloft
+from the mizzenmast for any chance vessel. The icy gale was too much for
+them, and they preferred the shelter of the cabin. O'Brien, the boy, who
+was only fifteen, took turns with Mahoney on the freezing perch. It was
+the boy, at three in the afternoon, who called down that he had sighted
+a sail. This did bring them from the cabin, and they crowded the poop
+rail and weather mizzen shrouds as they watched the strange ship. But
+its course did not lie near, and when it disappeared below the skyline,
+they returned shivering to the cabin, not one offering to relieve the
+watch at the mast head.
+
+By the end of the second day, Mahoney and O'Brien gave up their attempt,
+and thereafter the vessel drifted in the gale uncared for and without a
+lookout. There were thirteen alive, and for seventy-two hours they stood
+knee-deep in the sloshing water on the cabin floor, half-frozen, without
+food, and with but three bottles of wine shared among them. All food and
+fresh water were below, and there was no getting at such supplies in
+the water-logged condition of the wreck. As the days went by, no food
+whatever passed their lips. Fresh water, in small quantities, they were
+able to obtain by holding a cover of a tureen under the saddle of the
+mizzenmast. But the rain fell infrequently, and they were hard put. When
+it rained, they also soaked their handkerchiefs, squeezing them out into
+their mouths or into their shoes. As the wind and sea went down, they
+were even able to mop the exposed portions of the deck that were free
+from brine and so add to their water supply. But food they had none, and
+no way of getting it, though sea-birds flew repeatedly overhead.
+
+In the calm weather that followed the gale, after having remained on
+their feet for ninety-six hours, they were able to find dry planks in
+the cabin on which to lie. But the long hours of standing in the salt
+water had caused sores to form on their legs. These sores were extremely
+painful. The slightest contact or scrape caused severe anguish, and in
+their weak condition and crowded situation they were continually hurting
+one another in this manner. Not a man could move about without being
+followed by volleys of abuse, curses, and groans. So great was their
+misery that the strong oppressed the weak, shoving them aside from
+the dry planks to shift for themselves in the cold and wet. The boy,
+O'Brien, was specially maltreated. Though there were three other
+boys, it was O'Brien who came in for most of the abuse. There was no
+explaining it, except on the ground that his was a stronger and more
+dominant spirit than those of the other boys, and that he stood up more
+for his rights, resenting the petty injustices that were meted out to
+all the boys by the men. Whenever O'Brien came near the men in search
+of a dry place to sleep, or merely moved about, he was kicked and cuffed
+away. In return, he cursed them for their selfish brutishness, and blows
+and kicks and curses were rained upon him. Miserable as were all of
+them, he was thus made far more miserable; and it was only the flame of
+life, unusually strong in him, that enabled him to endure.
+
+As the days went by and they grew weaker, their peevishness and
+ill-temper increased, which, in turn, increased the ill-treatment and
+sufferings of O'Brien. By the sixteenth day all hands were far gone with
+hunger, and they stood together in small groups, talking in undertones
+and occasionally glancing at O'Brien. It was at high noon that the
+conference came to a head. The captain was the spokesman. All were
+collected on the poop.
+
+"Men," the captain began, "we have been a long time without food--two
+weeks and two days it is, though it seems more like two years and two
+months. We can't hang out much longer. It is beyond human nature to go
+on hanging out with nothing in our stomachs. There is a serious question
+to consider: whether it is better for all to die, or for one to die. We
+are standing with our feet in our graves. If one of us dies, the rest
+may live until a ship is sighted. What say you?"
+
+Michael Behane, the man who had been at the wheel when the Francis
+Spaight broached to, called out that it was well. The others joined in
+the cry.
+
+"Let it be one of the b'ys!" cried Sullivan, a Tarbert man, glancing at
+the same time significantly at O'Brien.
+
+"It is my opinion," the captain went on, "that it will be a good deed
+for one of us to die for the rest."
+
+"A good deed! A good deed!" the men interjected.
+
+"And it is my opinion that 'tis best for one of the boys to die. They
+have no families to support, nor would they be considered so great a
+loss to their friends as those who have wives and children."
+
+"'Tis right." "Very right." "Very fit it should be done," the men
+muttered one to another.
+
+But the four boys cried out against the injustice of it.
+
+"Our lives is just as dear to us as the rest iv yez," O'Brien protested.
+"An' our famblies, too. As for wives an' childer, who is there savin'
+meself to care for me old mother that's a widow, as you know well,
+Michael Behane, that comes from Limerick? 'Tis not fair. Let the lots be
+drawn between all of us, men and b'ys."
+
+Mahoney was the only man who spoke in favour of the boys, declaring that
+it was the fair thing for all to share alike. Sullivan and the captain
+insisted on the drawing of lots being confined to the boys. There
+were high words, in the midst of which Sullivan turned upon O'Brien,
+snarling--
+
+"'Twould be a good deed to put you out of the way. You deserve it.
+'Twould be the right way to serve you, an' serve you we will."
+
+He started toward O'Brien, with intent to lay hands on him and proceed
+at once with the killing, while several others likewise shuffled toward
+him and reached for him. He stumbled backwards to escape them, at the
+same time crying that he would submit to the drawing of the lots among
+the boys.
+
+The captain prepared four sticks of different lengths and handed them to
+Sullivan.
+
+"You're thinkin' the drawin'll not be fair," the latter sneered to
+O'Brien. "So it's yerself'll do the drawin'."
+
+To this O'Brien agreed. A handkerchief was tied over his eyes,
+blindfolding him, and he knelt down on the deck with his back to
+Sullivan.
+
+"Whoever you name for the shortest stick'll die," the captain said.
+
+Sullivan held up one of the sticks. The rest were concealed in his hand
+so that no one could see whether it was the short stick or not.
+
+"An' whose stick will it be?" Sullivan demanded.
+
+"For little Johnny Sheehan," O'Brien answered.
+
+Sullivan laid the stick aside. Those who looked could not tell if it
+were the fatal one. Sullivan held up another stick.
+
+"Whose will it be?"
+
+"For George Burns," was the reply.
+
+The stick was laid with the first one, and a third held up.
+
+"An' whose is this wan?"
+
+"For myself," said O'Brien.
+
+With a quick movement, Sullivan threw the four sticks together. No one
+had seen.
+
+"'Tis for yourself ye've drawn it," Sullivan announced.
+
+"A good deed," several of the men muttered.
+
+O'Brien was very quiet. He arose to his feet, took the bandage off, and
+looked around.
+
+"Where is ut?" he demanded. "The short stick? The wan for me?"
+
+The captain pointed to the four sticks lying on the deck.
+
+"How do you know the stick was mine?" O'Brien questioned. "Did you see
+ut, Johnny Sheehan?"
+
+Johnny Sheehan, who was the youngest of the boys, did not answer.
+
+"Did you see ut?" O'Brien next asked Mahoney.
+
+"No, I didn't see ut."
+
+The men were muttering and growling.
+
+"'Twas a fair drawin'," Sullivan said. "Ye had yer chanct an' ye lost,
+that's all iv ut."
+
+"A fair drawin'," the captain added. "Didn't I behold it myself? The
+stick was yours, O'Brien, an' ye may as well get ready. Where's the
+cook? Gorman, come here. Fetch the tureen cover, some of ye. Gorman, do
+your duty like a man."
+
+"But how'll I do it," the cook demanded. He was a weak-eyed,
+weak-chinned, indecisive man.
+
+"'Tis a damned murder!" O'Brien cried out.
+
+"I'll have none of ut," Mahoney announced. "Not a bite shall pass me
+lips."
+
+"Then 'tis yer share for better men than yerself," Sullivan sneered. "Go
+on with yer duty, cook."
+
+"'Tis not me duty, the killin' of b'ys," Gorman protested irresolutely.
+
+"If yez don't make mate for us, we'll be makin' mate of yerself," Behane
+threatened. "Somebody must die, an' as well you as another."
+
+Johnny Sheehan began to cry. O'Brien listened anxiously. His face was
+pale. His lips trembled, and at times his whole body shook.
+
+"I signed on as cook," Gorman enounced. "An' cook I wud if galley there
+was. But I'll not lay me hand to murder. 'Tis not in the articles. I'm
+the cook--"
+
+"An' cook ye'll be for wan minute more only," Sullivan said grimly, at
+the same moment gripping the cook's head from behind and bending it back
+till the windpipe and jugular were stretched taut. "Where's yer knife,
+Mike? Pass it along."
+
+At the touch of the steel, Gorman whimpered.
+
+"I'll do ut, if yez'll hold the b'y."
+
+The pitiable condition of the cook seemed in some fashion to nerve up
+O'Brien.
+
+"It's all right, Gorman," he said. "Go on with ut. 'Tis meself knows yer
+not wantin' to do ut. It's all right, sir"--this to the captain, who
+had laid a hand heavily on his arm. "Ye won't have to hold me, sir. I'll
+stand still."
+
+"Stop yer blitherin', an' go an' get the tureen cover," Behane commanded
+Johnny Sheehan, at the same time dealing him a heavy cuff alongside the
+head.
+
+The boy, who was scarcely more than a child, fetched the cover. He
+crawled and tottered along the deck, so weak was he from hunger. The
+tears still ran down his cheeks. Behane took the cover from him, at the
+same time administering another cuff.
+
+O'Brien took off his coat and bared his right arm. His under lip still
+trembled, but he held a tight grip on himself. The captain's penknife
+was opened and passed to Gorman.
+
+"Mahoney, tell me mother what happened to me, if ever ye get back,"
+O'Brien requested.
+
+Mahoney nodded.
+
+"'Tis black murder, black an' damned," he said. "The b'y's flesh'll do
+none iv yez anny good. Mark me words. Ye'll not profit by it, none iv
+yez."
+
+"Get ready," the captain ordered. "You, Sullivan, hold the cover--that's
+it--close up. Spill nothing. It's precious stuff."
+
+Gorman made an effort. The knife was dull. He was weak. Besides, his
+hand was shaking so violently that he nearly dropped the knife. The
+three boys were crouched apart, in a huddle, crying and sobbing. With
+the exception of Mahoney, the men were gathered about the victim,
+craning their necks to see.
+
+"Be a man, Gorman," the captain cautioned.
+
+The wretched cook was seized with a spasm of resolution, sawing back
+and forth with the blade on O'Brien's wrist. The veins were severed.
+Sullivan held the tureen cover close underneath. The cut veins gaped
+wide, but no ruddy flood gushed forth. There was no blood at all. The
+veins were dry and empty. No one spoke. The grim and silent figures
+swayed in unison with each heave of the ship. Every eye was turned
+fixedly upon that inconceivable and monstrous thing, the dry veins of a
+creature that was alive.
+
+"'Tis a warnin'," Mahoney cried. "Lave the b'y alone. Mark me words. His
+death'll do none iv yez anny good."
+
+"Try at the elbow--the left elbow, 'tis nearer the heart," the captain
+said finally, in a dim and husky voice that was unlike his own.
+
+"Give me the knife," O'Brien said roughly, taking it out of the cook's
+hand. "I can't be lookin' at ye puttin' me to hurt."
+
+Quite coolly he cut the vein at the left elbow, but, like the cook, he
+failed to bring blood.
+
+"This is all iv no use," Sullivan said. "'Tis better to put him out iv
+his misery by bleedin' him at the throat."
+
+The strain had been too much for the lad.
+
+"Don't be doin' ut," he cried. "There'll be no blood in me throat. Give
+me a little time. 'Tis cold an' weak I am. Be lettin' me lay down an'
+slape a bit. Then I'll be warm an' the blood'll flow."
+
+"'Tis no use," Sullivan objected. "As if ye cud be slapin' at a time
+like this. Ye'll not slape, and ye'll not warm up. Look at ye now.
+You've an ague."
+
+"I was sick at Limerick wan night," O'Brien hurried on, "an' the dochtor
+cudn't bleed me. But after slapin' a few hours an' gettin' warm in
+bed the blood came freely. It's God's truth I'm tellin' yez. Don't be
+murderin' me!"
+
+"His veins are open now," the captain said. "'Tis no use leavin' him in
+his pain. Do it now an' be done with it."
+
+They started to reach for O'Brien, but he backed away.
+
+"I'll be the death iv yez!" he screamed. "Take yer hands off iv me,
+Sullivan! I'll come back! I'll haunt yez! Wakin' or slapin', I'll haunt
+yez till you die!"
+
+"'Tis disgraceful!" yelled Behane. "If the short stick'd ben mine, I'd
+a-let me mates cut the head off iv me an' died happy."
+
+Sullivan leaped in and caught the unhappy lad by the hair. The rest of
+the men followed, O'Brien kicked and struggled, snarling and snapping at
+the hands that clutched him from every side. Little Johnny Sheehan broke
+out into wild screaming, but the men took no notice of him. O'Brien was
+bent backward to the deck, the tureen cover under his neck. Gorman was
+shoved forward. Some one had thrust a large sheath-knife into his hand.
+
+"Do yer duty! Do yer duty!" the men cried.
+
+The cook bent over, but he caught the boy's eyes and faltered.
+
+"If ye don't, I'll kill ye with me own hands," Behane shouted.
+
+From every side a torrent of abuse and threats poured in upon the cook.
+Still he hung back.
+
+"Maybe there'll be more blood in his veins than O'Brien's," Sullivan
+suggested significantly.
+
+Behane caught Gorman by the hair and twisted his head back, while
+Sullivan attempted to take possession of the sheath-knife. But Gorman
+clung to it desperately.
+
+"Lave go, an' I'll do ut!" he screamed frantically. "Don't be cuttin' me
+throat! I'll do the deed! I'll do the deed!"
+
+"See that you do it, then," the captain threatened him.
+
+Gorman allowed himself to be shoved forward. He looked at the boy,
+closed his eyes, and muttered a prayer. Then, without opening his eyes,
+he did the deed that had been appointed him. O'Brien emitted a shriek
+that sank swiftly to a gurgling sob. The men held him till his struggles
+ceased, when he was laid upon the deck. They were eager and impatient,
+and with oaths and threats they urged Gorman to hurry with the
+preparation of the meal.
+
+"Lave ut, you bloody butchers," Mahoney said quietly. "Lave ut, I tell
+yez. Ye'll not be needin' anny iv ut now. 'Tis as I said: ye'll not
+be profitin' by the lad's blood. Empty ut overside, Behane. Empty ut
+overside."
+
+Behane, still holding the tureen cover in both his hands, glanced to
+windward. He walked to the rail and threw the cover and contents into
+the sea. A full-rigged ship was bearing down upon them a short mile
+away. So occupied had they been with the deed just committed, that
+none had had eyes for a lookout. All hands watched her coming on--the
+brightly coppered forefoot parting the water like a golden knife, the
+headsails flapping lazily and emptily at each downward surge, and the
+towering canvas tiers dipping and curtsying with each stately swing of
+the sea. No man spoke.
+
+As she hove to, a cable length away, the captain of the Francis Spaight
+bestirred himself and ordered a tarpaulin to be thrown over O'Brien's
+corpse. A boat was lowered from the stranger's side and began to pull
+toward them. John Gorman laughed. He laughed softly at first, but he
+accompanied each stroke of the oars with spasmodically increasing glee.
+It was this maniacal laughter that greeted the rescue boat as it hauled
+alongside and the first officer clambered on board.
+
+
+
+
+A CURIOUS FRAGMENT
+
+     [The capitalist, or industrial oligarch, Roger Vanderwater,
+     mentioned in the narrative, has been identified as the ninth
+     in the line of the Vanderwaters that controlled for hundreds
+     of years the cotton factories of the South. This Roger
+     Vanderwater flourished in the last decades of the twenty-
+     sixth century after Christ, which was the fifth century of
+     the terrible industrial oligarchy that was reared upon the
+     ruins of the early Republic.
+
+     From internal evidences we are convinced that the narrative
+     which follows was not reduced to writing till the twenty-
+     ninth century. Not only was it unlawful to write or print
+     such matter during that period, but the working-class was so
+     illiterate that only in rare instances were its members able
+     to read and write. This was the dark reign of the overman,
+     in whose speech the great mass of the people were
+     characterized as the "herd animals." All literacy was
+     frowned upon and stamped out. From the statute-books of the
+     times may be instanced that black law that made it a capital
+     offence for any man, no matter of what class, to teach even
+     the alphabet to a member of the working-class. Such
+     stringent limitation of education to the ruling class was
+     necessary if that class was to continue to rule.
+
+     One result of the foregoing was the development of the
+     professional story-tellers. These story-tellers were paid by
+     the oligarchy, and the tales they told were legendary,
+     mythical, romantic, and harmless. But the spirit of freedom
+     never quite died out, and agitators, under the guise of
+     story-tellers, preached revolt to the slave class. That the
+     following tale was banned by the oligarchs we have proof
+     from the records of the criminal police court of Ashbury,
+     wherein, on January 27, 2734, one John Tourney, found guilty
+     of telling the tale in a boozing-ken of labourers, was
+     sentenced to five years' penal servitude in the borax mines
+     of the Arizona Desert.--EDITOR'S NOTE.]
+
+
+Listen, my brothers, and I will tell you a tale of an arm. It was the
+arm of Tom Dixon, and Tom Dixon was a weaver of the first class in a
+factory of that hell-hound and master, Roger Vanderwater. This factory
+was called "Hell's Bottom"... by the slaves who toiled in it, and I
+guess they ought to know; and it was situated in Kingsbury, at the other
+end of the town from Vanderwater's summer palace. You do not know where
+Kingsbury is? There are many things, my brothers, that you do not know,
+and it is sad. It is because you do not know that you are slaves. When I
+have told you this tale, I should like to form a class among you for the
+learning of written and printed speech. Our masters read and write and
+possess many books, and it is because of that that they are our masters,
+and live in palaces, and do not work. When the toilers learn to read
+and write--all of them--they will grow strong; then they will use their
+strength to break their bonds, and there will be no more masters and no
+more slaves.
+
+Kingsbury, my brothers, is in the old State of Alabama. For three
+hundred years the Vanderwaters have owned Kingsbury and its slave pens
+and factories, and slave pens and factories in many other places and
+States. You have heard of the Vanderwaters--who has not?--but let me
+tell you things you do not know about them. The first Vanderwater was
+a slave, even as you and I. Have you got that? He was a slave, and that
+was over three hundred years ago. His father was a machinist in the
+slave pen of Alexander Burrell, and his mother was a washerwoman in the
+same slave pen. There is no doubt about this. I am telling you truth. It
+is history. It is printed, every word of it, in the history books of our
+masters, which you cannot read because your masters will not permit you
+to learn to read. You can understand why they will not permit you to
+learn to read, when there are such things in the books. They know, and
+they are very wise. If you did read such things, you might be wanting
+in respect to your masters, which would be a dangerous thing... to your
+masters. But I know, for I can read, and I am telling you what I have
+read with my own eyes in the history books of our masters.
+
+The first Vanderwater's name was not Vanderwater; it was Vange--Bill
+Vange, the son of Yergis Vange, the machinist, and Laura Carnly, the
+washerwoman. Young Bill Vange was strong. He might have remained with
+the slaves and led them to freedom; instead, however, he served the
+masters and was well rewarded. He began his service, when yet a small
+child, as a spy in his home slave pen. He is known to have informed on
+his own father for seditious utterance. This is fact. I have read it
+with my own eyes in the records. He was too good a slave for the slave
+pen. Alexander Burrell took him out, while yet a child, and he was
+taught to read and write. He was taught many things, and he was entered
+in the secret service of the Government. Of course, he no longer wore
+the slave dress, except for disguise at such times when he sought to
+penetrate the secrets and plots of the slaves. It was he, when but
+eighteen years of age, who brought that great hero and comrade, Ralph
+Jacobus, to trial and execution in the electric chair. Of course, you
+have all heard the sacred name of Ralph Jacobus, but it is news to you
+that he was brought to his death by the first Vanderwater, whose
+name was Vange. I know. I have read it in the books. There are many
+interesting things like that in the books.
+
+And after Ralph Jacobus died his shameful death, Bill Vange's name began
+the many changes it was to undergo. He was known as "Sly Vange" far and
+wide. He rose high in the secret service, and he was rewarded in grand
+ways, but still he was not a member of the master class. The men were
+willing that he should become so; it was the women of the master class
+who refused to have Sly Vange one of them. Sly Vange gave good service
+to the masters. He had been a slave himself, and he knew the ways of the
+slaves. There was no fooling him. In those days the slaves were braver
+than now, and they were always trying for their freedom. And Sly Vange
+was everywhere, in all their schemes and plans, bringing their schemes
+and plans to naught and their leaders to the electric chair. It was in
+2255 that his name was next changed for him. It was in that year that
+the Great Mutiny took place. In that region west of the Rocky Mountains,
+seventeen millions of slaves strove bravely to overthrow their masters.
+Who knows, if Sly Vange had not lived, but that they would have
+succeeded? But Sly Vange was very much alive. The masters gave him
+supreme command of the situation. In eight months of fighting, one
+million and three hundred and fifty thousand slaves were killed. Vange,
+Bill Vange, Sly Vange, killed them, and he broke the Great Mutiny. And
+he was greatly rewarded, and so red were his hands with the blood of
+the slaves that thereafter he was called "Bloody Vange." You see, my
+brothers, what interesting things are to be found in the books when one
+can read them. And, take my word for it, there are many other things,
+even more interesting, in the books. And if you will but study with me,
+in a year's time you can read those books for yourselves--ay, in six
+months some of you will be able to read those books for yourselves.
+
+Bloody Vange lived to a ripe old age, and always, to the last, was he
+received in the councils of the masters; but never was he made a master
+himself. He had first opened his eyes, you see, in a slave pen. But oh,
+he was well rewarded! He had a dozen palaces in which to live. He, who
+was no master, owned thousands of slaves. He had a great pleasure yacht
+upon the sea that was a floating palace, and he owned a whole island in
+the sea where toiled ten thousand slaves on his coffee plantations. But
+in his old age he was lonely, for he lived apart, hated by his brothers,
+the slaves, and looked down upon by those he had served and who refused
+to be his brothers. The masters looked down upon him because he had
+been born a slave. Enormously wealthy he died; but he died horribly,
+tormented by his conscience, regretting all he had done and the red
+stain on his name.
+
+But with his children it was different. They had not been born in the
+slave pen, and by the special ruling of the Chief Oligarch of that time,
+John Morrison, they were elevated to the master class. And it was then
+that the name of Vange disappears from the page of history. It becomes
+Vanderwater, and Jason Vange, the son of Bloody Vange, becomes Jason
+Vanderwater, the founder of the Vanderwater line. But that was
+three hundred years ago, and the Vanderwaters of to-day forget their
+beginnings and imagine that somehow the clay of their bodies is
+different stuff from the clay in your body and mine and in the bodies
+of all slaves. And I ask you, Why should a slave become the master of
+another slave? And why should the son of a slave become the master of
+many slaves? I leave these questions for you to answer for yourselves,
+but do not forget that in the beginning the Vanderwaters were slaves.
+
+And now, my brothers, I come back to the beginning of my tale to tell
+you of Tom Dixon's arm. Roger Vanderwater's factory in Kingsbury was
+rightly named "Hell's Bottom," but the men who toiled in it were men, as
+you shall see. Women toiled there, too, and children, little children.
+All that toiled there had the regular slave rights under the law, but
+only under the law, for they were deprived of many of their rights by
+the two overseers of Hell's Bottom, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster.
+
+It is a long story, but I shall not tell all of it to you. I shall tell
+only about the arm. It happened that, according to the law, a portion of
+the starvation wage of the slaves was held back each month and put
+into a fund. This fund was for the purpose of helping such unfortunate
+fellow-workmen as happened to be injured by accidents or to be overtaken
+by sickness. As you know with yourselves, these funds are controlled
+by the overseers. It is the law, and so it was that the fund at Hell's
+Bottom was controlled by the two overseers of accursed memory.
+
+Now, Clancy and Munster took this fund for their own use. When accidents
+happened to the workmen, their fellows, as was the custom, made grants
+from the fund; but the overseers refused to pay over the grants. What
+could the slaves do? They had their rights under the law, but they
+had no access to the law. Those that complained to the overseers were
+punished. You know yourselves what form such punishment takes--the fines
+for faulty work that is not faulty; the overcharging of accounts in the
+Company's store; the vile treatment of one's women and children; and the
+allotment to bad machines whereon, work as one will, he starves.
+
+Once, the slaves of Hell's Bottom protested to Vanderwater. It was the
+time of the year when he spent several months in Kingsbury. One of the
+slaves could write; it chanced that his mother could write, and she had
+secretly taught him as her mother had secretly taught her. So this slave
+wrote a round robin, wherein was contained their grievances, and all the
+slaves signed by mark. And, with proper stamps upon the envelope, the
+round robin was mailed to Roger Vanderwater. And Roger Vanderwater did
+nothing, save to turn the round robin over to the two overseers. Clancy
+and Munster were angered. They turned the guards loose at night on the
+slave pen. The guards were armed with pick handles. It is said that next
+day only half of the slaves were able to work in Hell's Bottom. They
+were well beaten. The slave who could write was so badly beaten that he
+lived only three months. But before he died, he wrote once more, to what
+purpose you shall hear.
+
+Four or five weeks afterward, Tom Dixon, a slave, had his arm torn off
+by a belt in Hell's Bottom. His fellow-workmen, as usual, made a grant
+to him from the fund, and Clancy and Munster, as usual, refused to pay
+it over from the fund. The slave who could write, and who even then was
+dying, wrote anew a recital of their grievances. And this document was
+thrust into the hand of the arm that had been torn from Tom Dixon's
+body.
+
+Now it chanced that Roger Vanderwater was lying ill in his palace at the
+other end of Kingsbury--not the dire illness that strikes down you and
+me, brothers; just a bit of biliousness, mayhap, or no more than a bad
+headache because he had eaten too heartily or drunk too deeply. But it
+was enough for him, being tender and soft from careful rearing. Such
+men, packed in cotton wool all their lives, are exceeding tender and
+soft. Believe me, brothers, Roger Vanderwater felt as badly with his
+aching head, or THOUGHT he felt as badly, as Tom Dixon really felt with
+his arm torn out by the roots.
+
+It happened that Roger Vanderwater was fond of scientific farming, and
+that on his farm, three miles outside of Kingsbury, he had managed to
+grow a new kind of strawberry. He was very proud of that new strawberry
+of his, and he would have been out to see and pick the first ripe ones,
+had it not been for his illness. Because of his illness he had ordered
+the old farm slave to bring in personally the first box of the berries.
+All this was learned from the gossip of a palace scullion, who slept
+each night in the slave pen. The overseer of the plantation should have
+brought in the berries, but he was on his back with a broken leg from
+trying to break a colt. The scullion brought the word in the night, and
+it was known that next day the berries would come in. And the men in the
+slave pen of Hell's Bottom, being men and not cowards, held a council.
+
+The slave who could write, and who was sick and dying from the
+pick-handle beating, said he would carry Tom Dixon's arm; also, he said
+he must die anyway, and that it mattered nothing if he died a little
+sooner. So five slaves stole from the slave pen that night after the
+guards had made their last rounds. One of the slaves was the man who
+could write. They lay in the brush by the roadside until late in the
+morning, when the old farm slave came driving to town with the precious
+fruit for the master. What of the farm slave being old and rheumatic,
+and of the slave who could write being stiff and injured from his
+beating, they moved their bodies about when they walked, very much in
+the same fashion. The slave who could write put on the other's clothes,
+pulled the broad-brimmed hat over his eyes, climbed upon the seat of the
+wagon, and drove on to town. The old farm slave was kept tied all day
+in the bushes until evening, when the others loosed him and went back to
+the slave pen to take their punishment for having broken bounds.
+
+In the meantime, Roger Vanderwater lay waiting for the berries in his
+wonderful bedroom--such wonders and such comforts were there that they
+would have blinded the eyes of you and me who have never seen such
+things. The slave who could write said afterward that it was like
+a glimpse of Paradise! And why not? The labour and the lives of ten
+thousand slaves had gone to the making of that bedchamber, while they
+themselves slept in vile lairs like wild beasts. The slave who could
+write brought in the berries on a silver tray or platter--you see, Roger
+Vanderwater wanted to speak with him in person about the berries.
+
+The slave who could write tottered his dying body across the wonderful
+room and knelt by the couch of Vanderwater, holding out before him the
+tray. Large green leaves covered the top of the tray, and these the
+body-servant alongside whisked away so that Vanderwater could see.
+And Roger Vanderwater, propped upon his elbow, saw. He saw the fresh,
+wonderful fruit lying there like precious jewels, and in the midst of it
+the arm of Tom Dixon as it had been torn from his body, well washed,
+of course, my brothers, and very white against the blood-red fruit. And
+also he saw, clutched in the stiff, dead fingers, the petition of his
+slaves who toiled in Hell's Bottom.
+
+"Take and read," said the slave who could write. And even as the master
+took the petition, the body-servant, who till then had been motionless
+with surprise, struck with his fist the kneeling slave upon the mouth.
+The slave was dying anyway, and was very weak, and did not mind. He made
+no sound, and, having fallen over on his side, he lay there quietly,
+bleeding from the blow on the mouth. The physician, who had run for the
+palace guards, came back with them, and the slave was dragged upright
+upon his feet. But as they dragged him up, his hand clutched Tom Dixon's
+arm from where it had fallen on the floor.
+
+"He shall be flung alive to the hounds!" the body-servant was crying in
+great wrath. "He shall be flung alive to the hounds!"
+
+But Roger Vanderwater, forgetting his headache, still leaning on his
+elbow, commanded silence, and went on reading the petition. And while
+he read, there was silence, all standing upright, the wrathful
+body-servant, the physician, the palace guards, and in their midst the
+slave, bleeding at the mouth and still holding Tom Dixon's arm. And when
+Roger Vanderwater had done, he turned upon the slave, saying--
+
+"If in this paper there be one lie, you shall be sorry that you were
+ever born."
+
+And the slave said, "I have been sorry all my life that I was born."
+
+Roger Vanderwater looked at him closely, and the slave said--
+
+"You have done your worst to me. I am dying now. In a week I shall be
+dead, so it does not matter if you kill me now."
+
+"What do you with that?" the master asked, pointing to the arm; and the
+slave made answer--
+
+"I take it back to the pen to give it burial. Tom Dixon was my friend.
+We worked beside each other at our looms."
+
+There is little more to my tale, brothers. The slave and the arm were
+sent back in a cart to the pen. Nor were any of the slaves punished for
+what they had done. Indeed, Roger Vanderwater made investigation and
+punished the two overseers, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster. Their
+freeholds were taken from them. They were branded, each upon the
+forehead, their right hands were cut off, and they were turned loose
+upon the highway to wander and beg until they died. And the fund was
+managed rightfully thereafter for a time--for a time only, my brothers;
+for after Roger Vanderwater came his son, Albert, who was a cruel master
+and half mad.
+
+Brothers, that slave who carried the arm into the presence of the master
+was my father. He was a brave man. And even as his mother secretly
+taught him to read, so did he teach me. Because he died shortly after
+from the pick-handle beating, Roger Vanderwater took me out of the slave
+pen and tried to make various better things out of me. I might
+have become an overseer in Hell's Bottom, but I chose to become a
+story-teller, wandering over the land and getting close to my brothers,
+the slaves, everywhere. And I tell you stories like this, secretly,
+knowing that you will not betray me; for if you did, you know as well as
+I that my tongue will be torn out and that I shall tell stories no more.
+And my message is, brothers, that there is a good time coming, when all
+will be well in the world and there will be neither masters nor slaves.
+But first you must prepare for that good time by learning to read. There
+is power in the printed word. And here am I to teach you to read, and as
+well there are others to see that you get the books when I am gone
+along upon my way--the history books wherein you will learn about your
+masters, and learn to become strong even as they.
+
+[EDITOR'S NOTE.--From "Historical Fragments and Sketches," first
+published in fifty volumes in 4427, and now, after two hundred years,
+because of its accuracy and value, edited and republished by the
+National Committee on Historical Research.]
+
+
+
+
+A PIECE OF STEAK
+
+With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last
+particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and
+meditative way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the
+feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two
+children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in
+sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched
+nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She
+was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier
+prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had
+borrowed from the neighbour across the hall. The last two ha'pennies had
+gone to buy the bread.
+
+He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his
+weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped
+into the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him
+aware of his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the
+pipe away. His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were
+burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied,
+stolid-looking man, and his appearance did not suffer from being
+overprepossessing. His rough clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of
+his shoes were too weak to carry the heavy re-soling that was itself
+of no recent date. And his cotton shirt, a cheap, two shilling affair,
+showed a frayed collar and ineradicable paint stains.
+
+But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he
+was. It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in
+long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed
+and emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a
+lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it
+was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless and constituted a mouth harsh
+to excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive,
+brutal, heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost
+expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he
+was, the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were
+sleepy, lion-like--the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted
+quickly back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a
+villainous-looking head. A nose twice broken and moulded variously
+by countless blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and
+distorted to twice its size, completed his adornment, while the beard,
+fresh-shaven as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the face a
+blue-black stain.
+
+Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or
+lonely place. And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done
+anything criminal. Outside of brawls, common to his walk in life, he had
+harmed no one. Nor had he ever been known to pick a quarrel. He was a
+professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved
+for his professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going,
+easy-natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too
+open-handed for his own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies.
+Fighting was a business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck
+to maim, struck to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was
+a plain business proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the
+spectacle of men knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of
+the purse. When Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years
+before, he knew that the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after
+having been broken in a Newcastle bout. And he had played for that jaw
+and broken it again in the ninth round, not because he bore the Gouger
+any ill-will, but because that was the surest way to put the Gouger
+out and win the big end of the purse. Nor had the Gouger borne him any
+ill-will for it. It was the game, and both knew the game and played it.
+
+Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely
+silent, staring at his hands. The veins stood out on the backs of the
+hands, large and swollen; and the knuckles, smashed and battered and
+malformed, testified to the use to which they had been put. He had never
+heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but well he knew
+the meaning of those big upstanding veins. His heart had pumped too much
+blood through them at top pressure. They no longer did the work. He
+had stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distension had
+passed his endurance. He tired easily now. No longer could he do a fast
+twenty rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong,
+with fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and
+in turn beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and
+fastest of all in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its
+feet and yelling, himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers
+of blows upon showers of blows and receiving showers of blows in return,
+and all the time the heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through
+the adequate veins. The veins, swollen at the time, had always
+shrunk down again, though each time, imperceptibly at first, not
+quite--remaining just a trifle larger than before. He stared at them and
+at his battered knuckles, and, for the moment, caught a vision of the
+youthful excellence of those hands before the first knuckle had been
+smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise known as the Welsh Terror.
+
+The impression of his hunger came back on him.
+
+"Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!" he muttered aloud,
+clenching his huge fists and spitting out a smothered oath.
+
+"I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's," his wife said half apologetically.
+
+"An' they wouldn't?" he demanded.
+
+"Not a ha'penny. Burke said--" She faltered.
+
+"G'wan! Wot'd he say?"
+
+"As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score
+was comfortable big as it was."
+
+Tom King grunted, but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull
+terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks
+without end. Burke would have given him credit for a thousand
+steaks--then. But times had changed. Tom King was getting old; and old
+men, fighting before second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills of
+any size with the tradesmen.
+
+He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and
+the longing had not abated. He had not had a fair training for this
+fight. It was a drought year in Australia, times were hard, and even
+the most irregular work was difficult to find. He had had no sparring
+partner, and his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient.
+He had done a few days' navvy work when he could get it, and he had run
+around the Domain in the early mornings to get his legs in shape. But
+it was hard, training without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies
+that must be fed. Credit with the tradesmen had undergone very slight
+expansion when he was matched with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety
+Club had advanced him three pounds--the loser's end of the purse--and
+beyond that had refused to go. Now and again he had managed to borrow a
+few shillings from old pals, who would have lent more only that it was a
+drought year and they were hard put themselves. No--and there was no
+use in disguising the fact--his training had not been satisfactory.
+He should have had better food and no worries. Besides, when a man is
+forty, it is harder to get into condition than when he is twenty.
+
+"What time is it, Lizzie?" he asked.
+
+His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back.
+
+"Quarter before eight."
+
+"They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes," he said. "Only a
+try-out. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley,
+an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come
+on for over an hour."
+
+At the end of another silent ten minutes, he rose to his feet.
+
+"Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'."
+
+He reached for his hat and started for the door. He did not offer to
+kiss her--he never did on going out--but on this night she dared to kiss
+him, throwing her arms around him and compelling him to bend down to her
+face. She looked quite small against the massive bulk of the man.
+
+"Good luck, Tom," she said. "You gotter do 'im."
+
+"Ay, I gotter do 'im," he repeated. "That's all there is to it. I jus'
+gotter do 'im."
+
+He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely
+against him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was
+all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies.
+And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate
+and cubs--not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind, but
+in the old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.
+
+"I gotter do 'im," he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his
+voice. "If it's a win, it's thirty quid--an' I can pay all that's owin',
+with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught--not even
+a penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's
+comin' from a loser's end. Good-bye, old woman. I'll come straight home
+if it's a win."
+
+"An' I'll be waitin' up," she called to him along the hall.
+
+It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he
+remembered how in his palmy days--he had once been the heavyweight
+champion of New South Wales--he would have ridden in a cab to the fight,
+and how, most likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and
+ridden with him. There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack
+Johnson--they rode about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man
+knew, a hard two miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was
+an old un, and the world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for
+nothing now except navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were
+against him even in that. He found himself wishing that he had learned
+a trade. It would have been better in the long run. But no one had
+told him, and he knew, deep down in his heart, that he would not have
+listened if they had. It had been so easy. Big money--sharp, glorious
+fights--periods of rest and loafing in between--a following of eager
+flatterers, the slaps on the back, the shakes of the hand, the toffs
+glad to buy him a drink for the privilege of five minutes' talk--and
+the glory of it, the yelling houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee's
+"King wins!" and his name in the sporting columns next day.
+
+Those had been times! But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way,
+that it was the old uns he had been putting away. He was Youth, rising;
+and they were Age, sinking. No wonder it had been easy--they with their
+swollen veins and battered knuckles and weary in the bones of them from
+the long battles they had already fought. He remembered the time he put
+out old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round,
+and how old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby.
+Perhaps old Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a
+missus an' a couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the
+fight, had had a hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought game
+and taken incredible punishment. He could see now, after he had gone
+through the mill himself, that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger
+stake, that night twenty years ago, than had young Tom King, who had
+fought for glory and easy money. No wonder Stowsher Bill had cried
+afterward in the dressing-room.
+
+Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with. It was the
+iron law of the game. One man might have a hundred hard fights in him,
+another man only twenty; each, according to the make of him and the
+quality of his fibre, had a definite number, and, when he had fought
+them, he was done. Yes, he had had more fights in him than most of
+them, and he had had far more than his share of the hard, gruelling
+fights--the kind that worked the heart and lungs to bursting, that took
+the elastic out of the arteries and made hard knots of muscle out of
+Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out nerve and stamina and made brain
+and bones weary from excess of effort and endurance overwrought. Yes,
+he had done better than all of them. There were none of his old fighting
+partners left. He was the last of the old guard. He had seen them all
+finished, and he had had a hand in finishing some of them.
+
+They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had
+put them away--laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in
+the dressing-room. And now he was an old un, and they tried out the
+youngsters on him. There was that bloke, Sandel. He had come over from
+New Zealand with a record behind him. But nobody in Australia knew
+anything about him, so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel
+made a showing, he would be given better men to fight, with bigger
+purses to win; so it was to be depended upon that he would put up a
+fierce battle. He had everything to win by it--money and glory and
+career; and Tom King was the grizzled old chopping-block that guarded
+the highway to fame and fortune. And he had nothing to win except thirty
+quid, to pay to the landlord and the tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus
+ruminated, there came to his stolid vision the form of Youth, glorious
+Youth, rising exultant and invincible, supple of muscle and silken of
+skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and torn and
+that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth was the Nemesis. It
+destroyed the old uns and recked not that, in so doing, it destroyed
+itself. It enlarged its arteries and smashed its knuckles, and was in
+turn destroyed by Youth. For Youth was ever youthful. It was only Age
+that grew old.
+
+At Castlereagh Street he turned to the left, and three blocks along came
+to the Gayety. A crowd of young larrikins hanging outside the door made
+respectful way for him, and he heard one say to another: "That's 'im!
+That's Tom King!"
+
+Inside, on the way to his dressing-room, he encountered the secretary, a
+keen-eyed, shrewd-faced young man, who shook his hand.
+
+"How are you feelin', Tom?" he asked.
+
+"Fit as a fiddle," King answered, though he knew that he lied, and
+that if he had a quid, he would give it right there for a good piece of
+steak.
+
+When he emerged from the dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and came
+down the aisle to the squared ring in the centre of the hall, a burst
+of greeting and applause went up from the waiting crowd. He acknowledged
+salutations right and left, though few of the faces did he know. Most
+of them were the faces of kiddies unborn when he was winning his first
+laurels in the squared ring. He leaped lightly to the raised platform
+and ducked through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a
+folding stool. Jack Ball, the referee, came over and shook his hand.
+Ball was a broken-down pugilist who for over ten years had not entered
+the ring as a principal. King was glad that he had him for referee. They
+were both old uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the
+rules, he knew Ball could be depended upon to pass it by.
+
+Aspiring young heavyweights, one after another, were climbing into the
+ring and being presented to the audience by the referee. Also, he issued
+their challenges for them.
+
+"Young Pronto," Bill announced, "from North Sydney, challenges the
+winner for fifty pounds side bet."
+
+The audience applauded, and applauded again as Sandel himself sprang
+through the ropes and sat down in his corner. Tom King looked across
+the ring at him curiously, for in a few minutes they would be locked
+together in merciless combat, each trying with all the force of him
+to knock the other into unconsciousness. But little could he see, for
+Sandel, like himself, had trousers and sweater on over his ring costume.
+His face was strongly handsome, crowned with a curly mop of yellow hair,
+while his thick, muscular neck hinted at bodily magnificence.
+
+Young Pronto went to one corner and then the other, shaking hands with
+the principals and dropping down out of the ring. The challenges
+went on. Ever Youth climbed through the ropes--Youth unknown, but
+insatiable--crying out to mankind that with strength and skill it would
+match issues with the winner. A few years before, in his own heyday
+of invincibleness, Tom King would have been amused and bored by these
+preliminaries. But now he sat fascinated, unable to shake the vision
+of Youth from his eyes. Always were these youngsters rising up in the
+boxing game, springing through the ropes and shouting their defiance;
+and always were the old uns going down before them. They climbed to
+success over the bodies of the old uns. And ever they came, more and
+more youngsters--Youth unquenchable and irresistible--and ever they put
+the old uns away, themselves becoming old uns and travelling the same
+downward path, while behind them, ever pressing on them, was Youth
+eternal--the new babies, grown lusty and dragging their elders down,
+with behind them more babies to the end of time--Youth that must have
+its will and that will never die.
+
+King glanced over to the press box and nodded to Morgan, of the
+Sportsman, and Corbett, of the Referee. Then he held out his hands,
+while Sid Sullivan and Charley Bates, his seconds, slipped on his gloves
+and laced them tight, closely watched by one of Sandel's seconds, who
+first examined critically the tapes on King's knuckles. A second of his
+own was in Sandel's corner, performing a like office. Sandel's trousers
+were pulled off, and, as he stood up, his sweater was skinned off over
+his head. And Tom King, looking, saw Youth incarnate, deep-chested,
+heavy-thewed, with muscles that slipped and slid like live things under
+the white satin skin. The whole body was a-crawl with life, and Tom King
+knew that it was a life that had never oozed its freshness out through
+the aching pores during the long fights wherein Youth paid its toll and
+departed not quite so young as when it entered.
+
+The two men advanced to meet each other, and, as the gong sounded and
+the seconds clattered out of the ring with the folding stools, they
+shook hands and instantly took their fighting attitudes. And instantly,
+like a mechanism of steel and springs balanced on a hair trigger, Sandel
+was in and out and in again, landing a left to the eyes, a right to the
+ribs, ducking a counter, dancing lightly away and dancing menacingly
+back again. He was swift and clever. It was a dazzling exhibition. The
+house yelled its approbation. But King was not dazzled. He had fought
+too many fights and too many youngsters. He knew the blows for what they
+were--too quick and too deft to be dangerous. Evidently Sandel was going
+to rush things from the start. It was to be expected. It was the way
+of Youth, expending its splendour and excellence in wild insurgence and
+furious onslaught, overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory
+of strength and desire.
+
+Sandel was in and out, here, there, and everywhere, light-footed and
+eager-hearted, a living wonder of white flesh and stinging muscle that
+wove itself into a dazzling fabric of attack, slipping and leaping like
+a flying shuttle from action to action through a thousand actions, all
+of them centred upon the destruction of Tom King, who stood between him
+and fortune. And Tom King patiently endured. He knew his business, and
+he knew Youth now that Youth was no longer his. There was nothing to do
+till the other lost some of his steam, was his thought, and he grinned
+to himself as he deliberately ducked so as to receive a heavy blow on
+the top of his head. It was a wicked thing to do, yet eminently fair
+according to the rules of the boxing game. A man was supposed to take
+care of his own knuckles, and, if he insisted on hitting an opponent on
+the top of the head, he did so at his own peril. King could have ducked
+lower and let the blow whiz harmlessly past, but he remembered his own
+early fights and how he smashed his first knuckle on the head of the
+Welsh Terror. He was but playing the game. That duck had accounted for
+one of Sandel's knuckles. Not that Sandel would mind it now. He would go
+on, superbly regardless, hitting as hard as ever throughout the fight.
+But later on, when the long ring battles had begun to tell, he would
+regret that knuckle and look back and remember how he smashed it on Tom
+King's head.
+
+The first round was all Sandel's, and he had the house yelling with the
+rapidity of his whirlwind rushes. He overwhelmed King with avalanches of
+punches, and King did nothing. He never struck once, contenting
+himself with covering up, blocking and ducking and clinching to avoid
+punishment. He occasionally feinted, shook his head when the weight of
+a punch landed, and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing or
+wasting an ounce of strength. Sandel must foam the froth of Youth away
+before discreet Age could dare to retaliate. All King's movements were
+slow and methodical, and his heavy-lidded, slow-moving eyes gave him the
+appearance of being half asleep or dazed. Yet they were eyes that saw
+everything, that had been trained to see everything through all his
+twenty years and odd in the ring. They were eyes that did not blink
+or waver before an impending blow, but that coolly saw and measured
+distance.
+
+Seated in his corner for the minute's rest at the end of the round, he
+lay back with outstretched legs, his arms resting on the right angle of
+the ropes, his chest and abdomen heaving frankly and deeply as he gulped
+down the air driven by the towels of his seconds. He listened with
+closed eyes to the voices of the house, "Why don't yeh fight, Tom?" many
+were crying. "Yeh ain't afraid of 'im, are yeh?"
+
+"Muscle-bound," he heard a man on a front seat comment. "He can't move
+quicker. Two to one on Sandel, in quids."
+
+The gong struck and the two men advanced from their corners. Sandel came
+forward fully three-quarters of the distance, eager to begin again; but
+King was content to advance the shorter distance. It was in line with
+his policy of economy. He had not been well trained, and he had not had
+enough to eat, and every step counted. Besides, he had already walked
+two miles to the ringside. It was a repetition of the first round, with
+Sandel attacking like a whirlwind and with the audience indignantly
+demanding why King did not fight. Beyond feinting and several slowly
+delivered and ineffectual blows he did nothing save block and stall
+and clinch. Sandel wanted to make the pace fast, while King, out of his
+wisdom, refused to accommodate him. He grinned with a certain wistful
+pathos in his ring-battered countenance, and went on cherishing his
+strength with the jealousy of which only Age is capable. Sandel was
+Youth, and he threw his strength away with the munificent abandon of
+Youth. To King belonged the ring generalship, the wisdom bred of long,
+aching fights. He watched with cool eyes and head, moving slowly
+and waiting for Sandel's froth to foam away. To the majority of the
+onlookers it seemed as though King was hopelessly outclassed, and they
+voiced their opinion in offers of three to one on Sandel. But there were
+wise ones, a few, who knew King of old time, and who covered what they
+considered easy money.
+
+The third round began as usual, one-sided, with Sandel doing all the
+leading, and delivering all the punishment. A half-minute had passed
+when Sandel, over-confident, left an opening. King's eyes and right arm
+flashed in the same instant. It was his first real blow--a hook, with
+the twisted arch of the arm to make it rigid, and with all the weight
+of the half-pivoted body behind it. It was like a sleepy-seeming lion
+suddenly thrusting out a lightning paw. Sandel, caught on the side of
+the jaw, was felled like a bullock. The audience gasped and murmured
+awe-stricken applause. The man was not muscle-bound, after all, and he
+could drive a blow like a trip-hammer.
+
+Sandel was shaken. He rolled over and attempted to rise, but the sharp
+yells from his seconds to take the count restrained him. He knelt on
+one knee, ready to rise, and waited, while the referee stood over him,
+counting the seconds loudly in his ear. At the ninth he rose in fighting
+attitude, and Tom King, facing him, knew regret that the blow had
+not been an inch nearer the point of the jaw. That would have been a
+knock-out, and he could have carried the thirty quid home to the missus
+and the kiddies.
+
+The round continued to the end of its three minutes, Sandel for the
+first time respectful of his opponent and King slow of movement and
+sleepy-eyed as ever. As the round neared its close, King, warned of the
+fact by sight of the seconds crouching outside ready for the spring in
+through the ropes, worked the fight around to his own corner. And when
+the gong struck, he sat down immediately on the waiting stool, while
+Sandel had to walk all the way across the diagonal of the square to his
+own corner. It was a little thing, but it was the sum of little things
+that counted. Sandel was compelled to walk that many more steps, to give
+up that much energy, and to lose a part of the precious minute of rest.
+At the beginning of every round King loafed slowly out from his corner,
+forcing his opponent to advance the greater distance. The end of every
+round found the fight manoeuvred by King into his own corner so that he
+could immediately sit down.
+
+Two more rounds went by, in which King was parsimonious of effort and
+Sandel prodigal. The latter's attempt to force a fast pace made King
+uncomfortable, for a fair percentage of the multitudinous blows showered
+upon him went home. Yet King persisted in his dogged slowness, despite
+the crying of the young hot-heads for him to go in and fight. Again,
+in the sixth round, Sandel was careless, again Tom King's fearful right
+flashed out to the jaw, and again Sandel took the nine seconds count.
+
+By the seventh round Sandel's pink of condition was gone, and he settled
+down to what he knew was to be the hardest fight in his experience. Tom
+King was an old un, but a better old un than he had ever encountered--an
+old un who never lost his head, who was remarkably able at defence,
+whose blows had the impact of a knotted club, and who had a knockout in
+either hand. Nevertheless, Tom King dared not hit often. He never
+forgot his battered knuckles, and knew that every hit must count if the
+knuckles were to last out the fight. As he sat in his corner, glancing
+across at his opponent, the thought came to him that the sum of
+his wisdom and Sandel's youth would constitute a world's champion
+heavyweight. But that was the trouble. Sandel would never become a world
+champion. He lacked the wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was
+to buy it with Youth; and when wisdom was his, Youth would have been
+spent in buying it.
+
+King took every advantage he knew. He never missed an opportunity to
+clinch, and in effecting most of the clinches his shoulder drove stiffly
+into the other's ribs. In the philosophy of the ring a shoulder was as
+good as a punch so far as damage was concerned, and a great deal better
+so far as concerned expenditure of effort. Also, in the clinches
+King rested his weight on his opponent, and was loath to let go. This
+compelled the interference of the referee, who tore them apart, always
+assisted by Sandel, who had not yet learned to rest. He could not
+refrain from using those glorious flying arms and writhing muscles of
+his, and when the other rushed into a clinch, striking shoulder against
+ribs, and with head resting under Sandel's left arm, Sandel almost
+invariably swung his right behind his own back and into the projecting
+face. It was a clever stroke, much admired by the audience, but it was
+not dangerous, and was, therefore, just that much wasted strength. But
+Sandel was tireless and unaware of limitations, and King grinned and
+doggedly endured.
+
+Sandel developed a fierce right to the body, which made it appear that
+King was taking an enormous amount of punishment, and it was only the
+old ringsters who appreciated the deft touch of King's left glove to the
+other's biceps just before the impact of the blow. It was true, the blow
+landed each time; but each time it was robbed of its power by that touch
+on the biceps. In the ninth round, three times inside a minute, King's
+right hooked its twisted arch to the jaw; and three times Sandel's body,
+heavy as it was, was levelled to the mat. Each time he took the nine
+seconds allowed him and rose to his feet, shaken and jarred, but still
+strong. He had lost much of his speed, and he wasted less effort. He was
+fighting grimly; but he continued to draw upon his chief asset, which
+was Youth. King's chief asset was experience. As his vitality had dimmed
+and his vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom
+born of the long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength. Not
+alone had he learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had
+learned how to seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away. Again
+and again, by feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle
+Sandel into leaping back, ducking, or countering. King rested, but he
+never permitted Sandel to rest. It was the strategy of Age.
+
+Early in the tenth round King began stopping the other's rushes with
+straight lefts to the face, and Sandel, grown wary, responded by drawing
+the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook
+to the side of the head. It was too high up to be vitally effective; but
+when first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black
+veil of unconsciousness across his mind. For the instant, or for the
+slighest fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased. In the one moment he
+saw his opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background
+of white, watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent
+and the background of faces. It was as if he had slept for a time and
+just opened his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was
+so microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall.
+The audience saw him totter and his knees give, and then saw him recover
+and tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder.
+
+Several times Sandel repeated the blow, keeping King partially dazed,
+and then the latter worked out his defence, which was also a counter.
+Feinting with his left he took a half-step backward, at the same time
+upper cutting with the whole strength of his right. So accurately was
+it timed that it landed squarely on Sandel's face in the full, downward
+sweep of the duck, and Sandel lifted in the air and curled backward,
+striking the mat on his head and shoulders. Twice King achieved this,
+then turned loose and hammered his opponent to the ropes. He gave Sandel
+no chance to rest or to set himself, but smashed blow in upon blow till
+the house rose to its feet and the air was filled with an unbroken roar
+of applause. But Sandel's strength and endurance were superb, and he
+continued to stay on his feet. A knock-out seemed certain, and a captain
+of police, appalled at the dreadful punishment, arose by the ringside
+to stop the fight. The gong struck for the end of the round and Sandel
+staggered to his corner, protesting to the captain that he was sound
+and strong. To prove it, he threw two back-air-springs, and the police
+captain gave in.
+
+Tom King, leaning back in his corner and breathing hard, was
+disappointed. If the fight had been stopped, the referee, perforce,
+would have rendered him the decision and the purse would have been his.
+Unlike Sandel, he was not fighting for glory or career, but for thirty
+quid. And now Sandel would recuperate in the minute of rest.
+
+Youth will be served--this saying flashed into King's mind, and he
+remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put
+away Stowsher Bill. The toff who had bought him a drink after the fight
+and patted him on the shoulder had used those words. Youth will be
+served! The toff was right. And on that night in the long ago he had
+been Youth. To-night Youth sat in the opposite corner. As for himself,
+he had been fighting for half an hour now, and he was an old man. Had
+he fought like Sandel, he would not have lasted fifteen minutes. But the
+point was that he did not recuperate. Those upstanding arteries and
+that sorely tried heart would not enable him to gather strength in the
+intervals between the rounds. And he had not had sufficient strength in
+him to begin with. His legs were heavy under him and beginning to cramp.
+He should not have walked those two miles to the fight. And there was
+the steak which he had got up longing for that morning. A great and
+terrible hatred rose up in him for the butchers who had refused him
+credit. It was hard for an old man to go into a fight without enough
+to eat. And a piece of steak was such a little thing, a few pennies at
+best; yet it meant thirty quid to him.
+
+With the gong that opened the eleventh round, Sandel rushed, making a
+show of freshness which he did not really possess. King knew it for what
+it was--a bluff as old as the game itself. He clinched to save himself,
+then, going free, allowed Sandel to get set. This was what King desired.
+He feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward
+hook, then made the half-step backward, delivered the upper cut full to
+the face and crumpled Sandel over to the mat. After that he never
+let him rest, receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more,
+smashing Sandel to the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of
+blows into him, tearing away from his clinches or punching him out of
+attempted clinches, and ever when Sandel would have fallen, catching him
+with one uplifting hand and with the other immediately smashing him into
+the ropes where he could not fall.
+
+The house by this time had gone mad, and it was his house, nearly every
+voice yelling: "Go it, Tom!" "Get 'im! Get 'im!" "You've got 'im, Tom!
+You've got 'im!" It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a
+ringside audience paid to see.
+
+And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now
+expended it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him. It
+was his one chance--now or not at all. His strength was waning fast, and
+his hope was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have
+beaten his opponent down for the count. And as he continued to strike
+and force, coolly estimating the weight of his blows and the quality of
+the damage wrought, he realized how hard a man Sandel was to knock out.
+Stamina and endurance were his to an extreme degree, and they were the
+virgin stamina and endurance of Youth. Sandel was certainly a coming
+man. He had it in him. Only out of such rugged fibre were successful
+fighters fashioned.
+
+Sandel was reeling and staggering, but Tom King's legs were cramping
+and his knuckles going back on him. Yet he steeled himself to strike the
+fierce blows, every one of which brought anguish to his tortured hands.
+Though now he was receiving practically no punishment, he was weakening
+as rapidly as the other. His blows went home, but there was no longer
+the weight behind them, and each blow was the result of a severe effort
+of will. His legs were like lead, and they dragged visibly under
+him; while Sandel's backers, cheered by this symptom, began calling
+encouragement to their man.
+
+King was spurred to a burst of effort. He delivered two blows in
+succession--a left, a trifle too high, to the solar plexus, and a right
+cross to the jaw. They were not heavy blows, yet so weak and dazed was
+Sandel that he went down and lay quivering. The referee stood over him,
+shouting the count of the fatal seconds in his ear. If before the tenth
+second was called, he did not rise, the fight was lost. The house stood
+in hushed silence. King rested on trembling legs. A mortal dizziness was
+upon him, and before his eyes the sea of faces sagged and swayed, while
+to his ears, as from a remote distance, came the count of the referee.
+Yet he looked upon the fight as his. It was impossible that a man so
+punished could rise.
+
+Only Youth could rise, and Sandel rose. At the fourth second he rolled
+over on his face and groped blindly for the ropes. By the seventh second
+he had dragged himself to his knee, where he rested, his head rolling
+groggily on his shoulders. As the referee cried "Nine!" Sandel stood
+upright, in proper stalling position, his left arm wrapped about his
+face, his right wrapped about his stomach. Thus were his vital points
+guarded, while he lurched forward toward King in the hope of effecting a
+clinch and gaining more time.
+
+At the instant Sandel arose, King was at him, but the two blows he
+delivered were muffled on the stalled arms. The next moment Sandel was
+in the clinch and holding on desperately while the referee strove to
+drag the two men apart. King helped to force himself free. He knew the
+rapidity with which Youth recovered, and he knew that Sandel was his if
+he could prevent that recovery. One stiff punch would do it. Sandel
+was his, indubitably his. He had out-generalled him, out-fought him,
+out-pointed him. Sandel reeled out of the clinch, balanced on the hair
+line between defeat or survival. One good blow would topple him over
+and down and out. And Tom King, in a flash of bitterness, remembered
+the piece of steak and wished that he had it then behind that necessary
+punch he must deliver. He nerved himself for the blow, but it was
+not heavy enough nor swift enough. Sandel swayed, but did not fall,
+staggering back to the ropes and holding on. King staggered after him,
+and, with a pang like that of dissolution, delivered another blow.
+But his body had deserted him. All that was left of him was a fighting
+intelligence that was dimmed and clouded from exhaustion. The blow that
+was aimed for the jaw struck no higher than the shoulder. He had willed
+the blow higher, but the tired muscles had not been able to obey. And,
+from the impact of the blow, Tom King himself reeled back and nearly
+fell. Once again he strove. This time his punch missed altogether, and,
+from absolute weakness, he fell against Sandel and clinched, holding on
+to him to save himself from sinking to the floor.
+
+King did not attempt to free himself. He had shot his bolt. He was
+gone. And Youth had been served. Even in the clinch he could feel Sandel
+growing stronger against him. When the referee thrust them apart, there,
+before his eyes, he saw Youth recuperate. From instant to instant Sandel
+grew stronger. His punches, weak and futile at first, became stiff and
+accurate. Tom King's bleared eyes saw the gloved fist driving at his
+jaw, and he willed to guard it by interposing his arm. He saw the
+danger, willed the act; but the arm was too heavy. It seemed burdened
+with a hundredweight of lead. It would not lift itself, and he strove to
+lift it with his soul. Then the gloved fist landed home. He experienced
+a sharp snap that was like an electric spark, and, simultaneously, the
+veil of blackness enveloped him.
+
+When he opened his eyes again he was in his corner, and he heard the
+yelling of the audience like the roar of the surf at Bondi Beach. A wet
+sponge was being pressed against the base of his brain, and Sid Sullivan
+was blowing cold water in a refreshing spray over his face and chest.
+His gloves had already been removed, and Sandel, bending over him, was
+shaking his hand. He bore no ill-will toward the man who had put him
+out and he returned the grip with a heartiness that made his battered
+knuckles protest. Then Sandel stepped to the centre of the ring and
+the audience hushed its pandemonium to hear him accept young Pronto's
+challenge and offer to increase the side bet to one hundred pounds. King
+looked on apathetically while his seconds mopped the streaming water
+from him, dried his face, and prepared him to leave the ring. He felt
+hungry. It was not the ordinary, gnawing kind, but a great faintness,
+a palpitation at the pit of the stomach that communicated itself to all
+his body. He remembered back into the fight to the moment when he had
+Sandel swaying and tottering on the hair-line balance of defeat. Ah,
+that piece of steak would have done it! He had lacked just that for
+the decisive blow, and he had lost. It was all because of the piece of
+steak.
+
+His seconds were half-supporting him as they helped him through the
+ropes. He tore free from them, ducked through the ropes unaided, and
+leaped heavily to the floor, following on their heels as they forced a
+passage for him down the crowded centre aisle. Leaving the dressing-room
+for the street, in the entrance to the hall, some young fellow spoke to
+him.
+
+"W'y didn't yuh go in an' get 'im when yuh 'ad 'im?" the young fellow
+asked.
+
+"Aw, go to hell!" said Tom King, and passed down the steps to the
+sidewalk.
+
+The doors of the public-house at the corner were swinging wide, and
+he saw the lights and the smiling barmaids, heard the many voices
+discussing the fight and the prosperous chink of money on the bar.
+Somebody called to him to have a drink. He hesitated perceptibly, then
+refused and went on his way.
+
+He had not a copper in his pocket, and the two-mile walk home seemed
+very long. He was certainly getting old. Crossing the Domain, he sat
+down suddenly on a bench, unnerved by the thought of the missus sitting
+up for him, waiting to learn the outcome of the fight. That was harder
+than any knockout, and it seemed almost impossible to face.
+
+He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him
+that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week
+before he could grip a pick handle or a shovel. The hunger palpitation
+at the pit of the stomach was sickening. His wretchedness overwhelmed
+him, and into his eyes came an unwonted moisture. He covered his face
+with his hands, and, as he cried, he remembered Stowsher Bill and how
+he had served him that night in the long ago. Poor old Stowsher Bill!
+He could understand now why Bill had cried in the dressing-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's When God Laughs and Other Stories, by Jack London
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN GOD LAUGHS AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2545.txt or 2545.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/4/2545/
+
+Produced by Les Bowler
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/2545.zip b/2545.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2b17ac7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2545.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7efdcd6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #2545 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2545)
diff --git a/old/gdlgh10.txt b/old/gdlgh10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fdaead1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/gdlgh10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5888 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eText of When God Laughs and Other Stories
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Title:  When God Laughs and Other Stories
+
+Author:  Jack London
+
+March, 2001  [Etext #2545]
+
+CONTENTS
+
+WHEN GOD LAUGHS
+THE APOSTATE
+A WICKED WOMAN
+JUST MEAT
+CREATED HE THEM
+THE CHINAGO
+MAKE WESTING
+SEMPER IDEM
+A NOSE FOR THE KING
+THE "FRANCIS SPAIGHT"
+A CURIOUS FRAGMENT
+A PIECE OF STEAK
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext When God Laughs et al by Jack London
+******This file should be named gdlgh10.txt or gdlgh10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gdlgh11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gdlgh10a.txt
+
+
+This etext was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset from
+the 1911 Mills and Boon edition.
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any
+of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text
+files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
+manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly
+from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an
+assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few
+more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we
+don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.  (CMU = Carnegie-
+Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
+if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
+it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email.
+
+******
+
+To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser
+to view http://promo.net/pg.  This site lists Etexts by
+author and by title, and includes information about how
+to get involved with Project Gutenberg.  You could also
+download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here.  This
+is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com,
+for a more complete list of our various sites.
+
+To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any
+Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror
+sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed
+at http://promo.net/pg).
+
+Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better.
+
+Example FTP session:
+
+ftp metalab.unc.edu
+login: anonymous
+password: your@login
+cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
+cd etext90 through etext99 etext00 and etext01
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
+GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
+
+***
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure
+in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand.
+
+
+
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset from
+the 1911 Mills and Boon edition.
+
+
+
+
+
+WHEN GOD LAUGHS, AND OTHER STORIES
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+WHEN GOD LAUGHS
+THE APOSTATE
+A WICKED WOMAN
+JUST MEAT
+CREATED HE THEM
+THE CHINAGO
+MAKE WESTING
+SEMPER IDEM
+A NOSE FOR THE KING
+THE "FRANCIS SPAIGHT"
+A CURIOUS FRAGMENT
+A PIECE OF STEAK
+
+
+
+WHEN GOD LAUGHS   (with compliments to Harry Cowell)
+
+     "The gods, the gods are stronger; time
+      Falls down before them, all men's knees
+      Bow, all men's prayers and sorrows climb
+      Like incense toward them; yea, for these
+          Are gods, Felise."
+
+Carquinez had relaxed finally.  He stole a glance at the rattling windows,
+looked upward at the beamed roof, and listened for a moment to the savage
+roar of the south-easter as it caught the bungalow in its bellowing jaws.
+Then he held his glass between him and the fire and laughed for joy through
+the golden wine.
+
+"It is beautiful," he said.  "It is sweetly sweet.  It is a woman's wine,
+and it was made for gray-robed saints to drink."
+
+"We grow it on our own warm hills," I said, with pardonable California
+pride.  "You rode up yesterday through the vines from which it was made."
+
+It was worth while to get Carquinez to loosen up.  Nor was he ever really
+himself until he felt the mellow warmth of the vine singing in his blood.
+He was an artist, it is true, always an artist; but somehow, sober, the
+high pitch and lilt went out of his thought-processes and he was prone to
+be as deadly dull as a British Sunday--not dull as other men are dull, but
+dull when measured by the sprightly wight that Monte Carquinez was when he
+was really himself.
+
+From all this it must not be inferred that Carquinez, who is my dear friend
+and dearer comrade, was a sot.  Far from it.  He rarely erred.  As I have
+said, he was an artist.  He knew when he had enough, and enough, with him,
+was equilibrium--the equilibrium that is yours and mine when we are sober.
+
+His was a wise and instinctive temperateness that savoured of the Greek.
+Yet he was far from Greek.  "I am Aztec, I am Inca, I am Spaniard," I have
+heard him say.  And in truth he looked it, a compound of strange and
+ancient races, what with his swarthy skin and the asymmetry and
+primitiveness of his features.  His eyes, under massively arched brows,
+were wide apart and black with the blackness that is barbaric, while before
+them was perpetually falling down a great black mop of hair through which
+he gazed like a roguish satyr from a thicket.  He invariably wore a soft
+flannel shirt under his velvet-corduroy jacket, and his necktie was red.
+This latter stood for the red flag (he had once lived with the socialists
+of Paris), and it symbolized the blood and brotherhood of man.  Also, he
+had never been known to wear anything on his head save a leather-banded
+sombrero.  It was even rumoured that he had been born with this particular
+piece of headgear.  And in my experience it was provocative of nothing
+short of sheer delight to see that Mexican sombrero hailing a cab in
+Piccadilly or storm-tossed in the crush for the New York Elevated.
+
+As I have said, Carquinez was made quick by wine--"as the clay was made
+quick when God breathed the breath of life into it," was his way of saying
+it.  I confess that he was blasphemously intimate with God; and I must add
+that there was no blasphemy in him.  He was at all times honest, and,
+because he was compounded of paradoxes, greatly misunderstood by those who
+did not know him.  He could be as elementally raw at times as a screaming
+savage; and at other times as delicate as a maid, as subtle as a Spaniard.
+And--well, was he not Aztec? Inca? Spaniard?
+
+And now I must ask pardon for the space I have given him.  (He is my
+friend, and I love him.)  The house was shaking to the storm, as he drew
+closer to the fire and laughed at it through his wine.  He looked at me,
+and by the added lustre of his eye, and by the alertness of it, I knew that
+at last he was pitched in his proper key.
+
+"And so you think you've won out against the gods?" he demanded.
+
+"Why the gods?"
+
+"Whose will but theirs has put satiety upon man?" he cried.
+
+"And whence the will in me to escape satiety?" I asked triumphantly.
+
+"Again the gods," he laughed.  "It is their game we play.  They deal and
+shuffle all the cards . . . and take the stakes.  Think not that you have
+escaped by fleeing from the mad cities.  You with your vine-clad hills,
+your sunsets and your sunrises, your homely fare and simple round of
+living!
+
+"I've watched you ever since I came.  You have not won.  You have
+surrendered.  You have made terms with the enemy.  You have made confession
+that you are tired.  You have flown the white flag of fatigue.  You have
+nailed up a notice to the effect that life is ebbing down in you.  You have
+run away from life.  You have played a trick, shabby trick.  You have
+balked at the game.  You refuse to play.  You have thrown your cards under
+the table and run away to hide, here amongst your hills."
+
+He tossed his straight hair back from his flashing eyes, and scarcely
+interrupted to roll a long, brown, Mexican cigarette.
+
+"But the gods know.  It is an old trick.  All the generations of man have
+tried it . . . and lost.  The gods know how to deal with such as you.  To
+pursue is to possess, and to possess is to be sated.  And so you, in your
+wisdom, have refused any longer to pursue.  You have elected surcease.
+Very well.  You will become sated with surcease.  You say you have escaped
+satiety!  You have merely bartered it for senility.  And senility is
+another name for satiety.  It is satiety's masquerade.  Bah!"
+
+"But look at me!" I cried.
+
+Carquinez was ever a demon for haling ones soul out and making rags and
+tatters of it.
+
+He looked me witheringly up and down.
+
+"You see no signs," I challenged.
+
+"Decay is insidious," he retorted.  "You are rotten ripe."
+
+I laughed and forgave him for his very deviltry.  But he refused to be
+forgiven.
+
+"Do I not know?" he asked.  "The gods always win.  I have watched men play
+for years what seemed a winning game.  In the end they lost."
+
+"Don't you ever make mistakes?" I asked.
+
+He blew many meditative rings of smoke before replying.
+
+"Yes, I was nearly fooled, once.  Let me tell you.  There was Marvin Fiske.
+You remember him?  And his Dantesque face and poet's soul, singing his
+chant of the flesh, the very priest of Love?  And there was Ethel Baird,
+whom also you must remember."
+
+"A warm saint," I said.
+
+"That is she!  Holy as Love, and sweeter!  Just a woman, made for love; and
+yet--how shall I say?--drenched through with holiness as your own air here
+is with the perfume of flowers.  Well, they married.  They played a hand
+with the gods--"
+
+"And they won, they gloriously won!" I broke in.
+
+Carquinez looked at me pityingly, and his voice was like a funeral bell.
+
+"They lost.  They supremely, colossally lost."
+
+"But the world believes otherwise," I ventured coldly.
+
+"The world conjectures.  The world sees only the face of things.  But I
+know.  Has it ever entered your mind to wonder why she took the veil,
+buried herself in that dolorous convent of the living dead?"
+
+"Because she loved him so, and when he died . . ."
+
+Speech was frozen on my lips by Carquinez's sneer.
+
+"A pat answer," he said, "machine-made like a piece of cotton-drill.  The
+world's judgment!  And much the world knows about it.  Like you, she fled
+from life.  She was beaten.  She flung out the white flag of fatigue.  And
+no beleaguered city ever flew that flag in such bitterness and tears.
+
+"Now I shall tell you the whole tale, and you must believe me, for I know.
+They had pondered the problem of satiety.  They loved Love.  They knew to
+the uttermost farthing the value of Love.  They loved him so well that they
+were fain to keep him always, warm and a-thrill in their hearts.  They
+welcomed his coming; they feared to have him depart.
+
+"Love was desire, they held, a delicious pain.  He was ever seeking
+easement, and when he found that for which he sought, he died.  Love denied
+was Love alive; Love granted was Love deceased.  Do you follow me?  They
+saw it was not the way of life to be hungry for what it has.  To eat and
+still be hungry--man has never accomplished that feat.  The problem of
+satiety.  That is it.  To have and to keep the sharp famine-edge of
+appetite at the groaning board.  This was their problem, for they loved
+Love.  Often did they discuss it, with all Love's sweet ardours brimming in
+their eyes; his ruddy blood spraying their cheeks; his voice playing in and
+out with their voices, now hiding as a tremolo in their throats, and again
+shading a tone with that ineffable tenderness which he alone can utter.
+
+"How do I know all this?  I saw--much.  More I learned from her diary.
+This I found in it, from Fiona Macleod:  'For, truly, that wandering voice,
+that twilight-whisper, that breath so dewy-sweet, that flame-winged lute-
+player whom none sees but for a moment, in a rainbow-shimmer of joy, or a
+sudden lightning-flare of passion, this exquisite mystery we call Amor,
+comes, to some rapt visionaries at least, not with a song upon the lips
+that all may hear, or with blithe viol of public music, but as one wrought
+by ecstasy, dumbly eloquent with desire.'
+
+"How to keep the flame-winged lute-player with his dumb eloquence of
+desire?  To feast him was to lose him.  Their love for each other was a
+great love.  Their granaries were overflowing with plenitude; yet they
+wanted to keep the sharp famine-edge of their love undulled.
+
+"Nor were they lean little fledglings theorizing on the threshold of Love.
+They were robust and realized souls.  They had loved before, with others,
+in the days before they met; and in those days they had throttled Love with
+caresses, and killed him with kisses, and buried him in the pit of satiety.
+
+"They were not cold wraiths, this man and woman.  They were warm human.
+They had no Saxon soberness in their blood.  The colour of it was sunset-
+red.  They glowed with it.  Temperamentally theirs was the French joy in
+the flesh.  They were idealists, but their idealism was Gallic.  It was not
+tempered by the chill and sombre fluid that for the English serves as
+blood.  There was no stoicism about them.  They were Americans, descended
+out of the English, and yet the refraining and self-denying of the English
+spirit-groping were not theirs.
+
+"They were all this that I have said, and they were made for joy, only they
+achieved a concept.  A curse on concepts!  They played with logic, and this
+was their logic.--But first let me tell you of a talk we had one night.  It
+was of Gautier's Madeline de Maupin.  You remember the maid?  She kissed
+once, and once only, and kisses she would have no more.  Not that she found
+kisses were not sweet, but that she feared with repetition they would cloy.
+Satiety again!  She tried to play without stakes against the gods.  Now
+this is contrary to a rule of the game the gods themselves have made.  Only
+the rules are not posted over the table.  Mortals must play in order to
+learn the rules.
+
+"Well, to the logic.  The man and the woman argued thus:  Why kiss once
+only?  If to kiss once were wise, was it not wiser to kiss not at all?
+Thus could they keep Love alive.  Fasting, he would knock forever at their
+hearts.
+
+"Perhaps it was out of their heredity that they achieved this unholy
+concept.  The breed will out and sometimes most fantastically.  Thus in
+them did cursed Albion array herself a scheming wanton, a bold, cold-
+calculating, and artful hussy.  After all, I do not know.  But this I know:
+it was out of their inordinate desire for joy that they forewent joy.
+
+"As he said (I read it long afterward in one of his letters to her):  'To
+hold you in my arms, close, and yet not close.  To yearn for you, and never
+to have you, and so always to have you.'  And she:  'For you to be always
+just beyond my reach.  To be ever attaining you, and yet never attaining
+you, and for this to last forever, always fresh and new, and always with
+the first flush upon us.
+
+"That is not the way they said it.  On my lips their love-philosophy is
+mangled.  And who am I to delve into their soul-stuff?  I am a frog, on the
+dank edge of a great darkness, gazing goggle-eyed at the mystery and wonder
+of their flaming souls.
+
+"And they were right, as far as they went.  Everything is good . . . as
+long as it is unpossessed.  Satiety and possession are Death's horses; they
+run in span.
+
+     "'And time could only tutor us to eke
+       Our rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow.'
+
+"They got that from a sonnet of Alfred Austin's.  It was called 'Love's
+Wisdom.'  It was the one kiss of Madeline de Maupin.  How did it run?
+
+     "'Kiss we and part; no further can we go;
+       And better death than we from high to low
+   Should dwindle, or decline from strong to weak.'
+
+"But they were wiser.  They would not kiss and part.  They would not kiss
+at all, and thus they planned to stay at Love's topmost peak.  They
+married.  You were in England at the time.  And never was there such a
+marriage.  They kept their secret to themselves.  I did not know, then.
+Their rapture's warmth did not cool.  Their love burned with increasing
+brightness.  Never was there anything like it.  The time passed, the
+months, the years, and ever the flame-winged lute-player grew more
+resplendent.
+
+"Everybody marvelled.  They became the wonderful lovers, and they were
+greatly envied.  Sometimes women pitied her because she was childless; it
+is the form the envy of such creatures takes.
+
+"And I did not know their secret.  I pondered and I marvelled.  As first I
+had expected, subconsciously I imagine, the passing of their love.  Then I
+became aware that it was Time that passed and Love that remained.  Then I
+became curious.  What was their secret?  What were the magic fetters with
+which they bound Love to them?  How did they hold the graceless elf?  What
+elixir of eternal love had they drunk together as had Tristram and Iseult
+of old time?  And whose hand had brewed the fairy drink?
+
+"As I say, I was curious, and I watched them.  They were love-mad.  They
+lived in an unending revel of Love.  They made a pomp and ceremonial of it.
+They saturated themselves in the art and poetry of Love.  No, they were not
+neurotics.  They were sane and healthy, and they were artists.  But they
+had accomplished the impossible.  They had achieved deathless desire.
+
+"And I?  I saw much of them and their everlasting miracle of Love.  I
+puzzled and wondered, and then one day--"
+
+Carquinez broke off abruptly and asked, "Have you ever read, 'Love's
+Waiting Time'?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Page wrote it--Curtis Hidden Page, I think.  Well, it was that bit of
+verse that gave me the clue.  One day, in the window-seat near the big
+piano--you remember how she could play?  She used to laugh, sometimes, and
+doubt whether it was for them I came, or for the music.  She called me a
+'music-sot' once, a 'sound-debauchee.'  What a voice he had!  When he sang
+I believed in immortality, my regard for the gods grew almost patronizing
+and I devised ways and means whereby I surely could outwit them and their
+tricks.
+
+"It was a spectacle for God, that man and woman, years married, and singing
+love-songs with a freshness virginal as new-born Love himself, with a
+ripeness and wealth of ardour that young lovers can never know.  Young
+lovers were pale and anaemic beside that long-married pair.  To see them,
+all fire and flame and tenderness, at a trembling distance, lavishing
+caresses of eye and voice with every action, through every silence--their
+love driving them toward each other, and they withholding like fluttering
+moths, each to the other a candle-flame, and revolving each about the other
+in the mad gyrations of an amazing orbit-flight!  It seemed, in obedience
+to some great law of physics, more potent than gravitation and more subtle,
+that they must corporeally melt each into each there before my very eyes.
+Small wonder they were called the wonderful lovers.
+
+"I have wandered.  Now to the clue.  One day in the window-seat I found a
+book of verse.  It opened of itself, betraying long habit, to 'Love's
+Waiting Time.'  The page was thumbed and limp with overhandling, and there
+I read:--
+
+     "'So sweet it is to stand but just apart,
+       To know each other better, and to keep
+       The soft, delicious sense of two that touch . . .
+
+       O love, not yet! . . .  Sweet, let us keep our love
+       Wrapped round with sacred mystery awhile,
+       Waiting the secret of the coming years,
+       That come not yet, not yet . . . sometime . . .
+                    not yet . . .
+
+       Oh, yet a little while our love may grow!
+       When it has blossomed it will haply die.
+       Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep,
+       Bedded in dead denial yet some while . . .
+       Oh, yet a little while, a little while.'
+
+"I folded the book on my thumb and sat there silent and without moving for
+a long time.  I was stunned by the clearness of vision the verse had
+imparted to me.  It was illumination.  It was like a bolt of God's
+lightning in the Pit.  They would keep Love, the fickle sprite, the
+forerunner of young life--young life that is imperative to be born!
+
+"I conned the lines over in my mind--'Not yet, sometime'--'O Love, not
+yet'--'Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep.'  And I laughed aloud,
+ha, ha!  I saw with white vision their blameless souls.  They were
+children.  They did not understand.  They played with Nature's fire and
+bedded with a naked sword.  They laughed at the gods.  They would stop the
+cosmic sap.  They had invented a system, and brought it to the gaming-table
+of life, and expected to win out.  'Beware!' I cried.  'The gods are behind
+the table.  They make new rules for every system that is devised.  You have
+no chance to win.'
+
+"But I did not so cry to them.  I waited.  They would learn that their
+system was worthless and throw it away.  They would be content with
+whatever happiness the gods gave them and not strive to wrest more away.
+
+"I watched.  I said nothing.  The months continued to come and go, and
+still the famine-edge of their love grew the sharper.  Never did they dull
+it with a permitted love-clasp.  They ground and whetted it on self-denial,
+and sharper and sharper it grew.  This went on until even I doubted.  Did
+the gods sleep?  I wondered.  Or were they dead?  I laughed to myself.  The
+man and the woman had made a miracle.  They had outwitted God.  They had
+shamed the flesh, and blackened the face of the good Earth Mother.  They
+had played with her fire and not been burned.  They were immune.  They were
+themselves gods, knowing good from evil and tasting not.  'Was this the way
+gods came to be?' I asked myself.  'I am a frog,' I said.  'But for my mud-
+lidded eyes I should have been blinded by the brightness of this wonder I
+have witnessed.  I have puffed myself up with my wisdom and passed judgment
+upon gods.'
+
+"Yet even in this, my latest wisdom, I was wrong.  They were not gods.
+They were man and woman--soft clay that sighed and thrilled, shot through
+with desire, thumbed with strange weaknesses which the gods have not."
+
+Carquinez broke from his narrative to roll another cigarette and to laugh
+harshly.  It was not a pretty laugh; it was like the mockery of a devil,
+and it rose over and rode the roar of the storm that came muffled to our
+ears from the crashing outside world.
+
+"I am a frog," he said apologetically.  "How were they to understand?  They
+were artists, not biologists.  They knew the clay of the studio, but they
+did not know the clay of which they themselves were made.  But this I will
+say--they played high.  Never was there such a game before, and I doubt me
+if there will ever be such a game again.
+
+"Never was lovers' ecstasy like theirs.  They had not killed Love with
+kisses.  They had quickened him with denial.  And by denial they drove him
+on till he was all aburst with desire.  And the flame-winged lute-player
+fanned them with his warm wings till they were all but swooning.  It was
+the very delirium of Love, and it continued undiminished and increasing
+through the weeks and months.
+
+"They longed and yearned, with all the fond pangs and sweet delicious
+agonies, with an intensity never felt by lovers before nor since.
+
+"And then one day the drowsy gods ceased nodding.  They aroused and looked
+at the man and woman who had made a mock of them.  And the man and woman
+looked into each other's eyes one morning and knew that something was gone.
+It was the flame-winged one.  He had fled, silently, in the night, from
+their anchorites' board.
+
+"They looked into each other's eyes and knew that they did not care.
+Desire was dead.  Do you understand?  Desire was dead.  And they had never
+kissed.  Not once had they kissed.  Love was gone.  They would never yearn
+and burn again.  For them there was nothing left--no more tremblings and
+flutterings and delicious anguishes, no more throbbing and pulsing, and
+sighing and song.  Desire was dead.  It had died in the night, on a couch
+cold and unattended; nor had they witnessed its passing.  They learned it
+for the first time in each other's eyes.
+
+"The gods may not be kind, but they are often merciful.  They had twirled
+the little ivory ball and swept the stakes from the table.  All that
+remained was the man and woman gazing into each other's cold eyes.  And
+then he died.  That was the mercy.  Within the week Marvin Fiske was dead--
+you remember the accident.  And in her diary, written at this time, I long
+afterward read Mitchell Kennerly's:--
+
+     "'There was not a single hour
+       We might have kissed and did not kiss.'"
+
+"Oh, the irony of it!" I cried out.
+
+And Carquinez, in the firelight a veritable Mephistopheles in velvet
+jacket, fixed me with his black eyes.
+
+"And they won, you said?  The world's judgment!  I have told you, and I
+know.  They won as you are winning, here in your hills."
+
+"But you," I demanded hotly; "you with your orgies of sound and sense, with
+your mad cities and madder frolics--bethink you that you win?"
+
+He shook his head slowly.  "Because you with your sober bucolic regime,
+lose, is no reason that I should win.  We never win.  Sometimes we think we
+win.  That is a little pleasantry of the gods."
+
+
+
+THE APOSTATE
+
+     "Now I wake me up to work;
+      I pray the Lord I may not shirk.
+      If I should die before the night,
+      I pray the Lord my work's all right.
+                                    Amen."
+
+"If you don't git up, Johnny, I won't give you a bite to eat!"
+
+The threat had no effect on the boy.  He clung stubbornly to sleep,
+fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream.  The boy's
+hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at
+the air.  These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed
+practised familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the
+shoulder.
+
+"Lemme 'lone!"
+
+It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly
+rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died
+away and sank down into an inarticulate whine.  It was a bestial cry, as of
+a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.
+
+But she did not mind.  She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had
+grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life.  She got
+a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy, ceasing
+his punching, clung to them desperately.  In a huddle, at the foot of the
+bed, he still remained covered.  Then she tried dragging the bedding to the
+floor.  The boy opposed her.  She braced herself.  Hers was the superior
+weight, and the boy and bedding gave, the former instinctively following
+the latter in order to shelter against the chill of the room that bit into
+his body.
+
+As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-first
+to the floor.  But consciousness fluttered up in him.  He righted himself
+and for a moment perilously balanced.  Then he struck the floor on his
+feet.  On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook him.
+Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness.  At
+the same time his eyes opened.  She released him.  He was awake.
+
+"All right," he mumbled.
+
+She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.
+
+"You'll be docked," she warned back to him.
+
+He did not mind the darkness.  When he had got into his clothes, he went
+out into the kitchen.  His tread was very heavy for so thin and light a
+boy.  His legs dragged with their own weight, which seemed unreasonable
+because they were such skinny legs.  He drew a broken-bottomed chair to the
+table.
+
+"Johnny," his mother called sharply.
+
+He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word, went to the sink.
+It was a greasy, filthy sink.  A smell came up from the outlet.  He took no
+notice of it.  That a sink should smell was to him part of the natural
+order, just as it was a part of the natural order that the soap should be
+grimy with dish-water and hard to lather.  Nor did he try very hard to make
+it lather.  Several splashes of the cold water from the running faucet
+completed the function.  He did not wash his teeth.  For that matter he had
+never seen a toothbrush, nor did he know that there existed beings in the
+world who were guilty of so great a foolishness as tooth washing.
+
+"You might wash yourself wunst a day without bein' told," his mother
+complained.
+
+She was holding a broken lid on the pot as she poured two cups of coffee.
+He made no remark, for this was a standing quarrel between them, and the
+one thing upon which his mother was hard as adamant.  "Wunst" a day it was
+compulsory that he should wash his face.  He dried himself on a greasy
+towel, damp and dirty and ragged, that left his face covered with shreds of
+lint.
+
+"I wish we didn't live so far away," she said, as he sat down.  "I try to
+do the best I can.  You know that.  But a dollar on the rent is such a
+savin', an' we've more room here.  You know that."
+
+He scarcely followed her.  He had heard it all before, many times.  The
+range of her thought was limited, and she was ever harking back to the
+hardship worked upon them by living so far from the mills.
+
+"A dollar means more grub," he remarked sententiously.  "I'd sooner do the
+walkin' an' git the grub."
+
+He ate hurriedly, half chewing the bread and washing the unmasticated
+chunks down with coffee.  The hot and muddy liquid went by the name of
+coffee.  Johnny thought it was coffee--and excellent coffee.  That was one
+of the few of life's illusions that remained to him.  He had never drunk
+real coffee in his life.
+
+In addition to the bread, there was a small piece of cold pork.  His mother
+refilled his cup with coffee.  As he was finishing the bread, he began to
+watch if more was forthcoming.  She intercepted his questioning glance.
+
+"Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny," was her comment.  "You've had your share.
+Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you."
+
+He did not answer the rebuke.  He was not much of a talker.  Also, he
+ceased his hungry glancing for more.  He was uncomplaining, with a patience
+that was as terrible as the school in which it had been learned.  He
+finished his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and started
+to rise.
+
+"Wait a second," she said hastily.  "I guess the loaf kin stand you another
+slice--a thin un."
+
+There was legerdemain in her actions.  With all the seeming of cutting a
+slice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice back in the bread box
+and conveyed to him one of her own two slices.  She believed she had
+deceived him, but he had noted her sleight-of-hand.  Nevertheless, he took
+the bread shamelessly.  He had a philosophy that his mother, because of her
+chronic sickliness, was not much of an eater anyway.
+
+She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached over and emptied her
+coffee cup into his.
+
+"Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning," she explained.
+
+A distant whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of them to their
+feet.  She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf.  The hands stood at
+half-past five.  The rest of the factory world was just arousing from
+sleep.  She drew a shawl about her shoulders, and on her head put a dingy
+hat, shapeless and ancient.
+
+"We've got to run," she said, turning the wick of the lamp and blowing down
+the chimney.
+
+They groped their way out and down the stairs.  It was clear and cold, and
+Johnny shivered at the first contact with the outside air.  The stars had
+not yet begun to pale in the sky, and the city lay in blackness.  Both
+Johnny and his mother shuffled their feet as they walked.  There was no
+ambition in the leg muscles to swing the feet clear of the ground.
+
+After fifteen silent minutes, his mother turned off to the right.
+
+"Don't be late," was her final warning from out of the dark that was
+swallowing her up.
+
+He made no response, steadily keeping on his way.  In the factory quarter,
+doors were opening everywhere, and he was soon one of a multitude that
+pressed onward through the dark.  As he entered the factory gate the
+whistle blew again.  He glanced at the east.  Across a ragged sky-line of
+housetops a pale light was beginning to creep.  This much he saw of the day
+as he turned his back upon it and joined his work gang.
+
+He took his place in one of many long rows of machines.  Before him, above
+a bin filled with small bobbins, were large bobbins revolving rapidly.
+Upon these he wound the jute-twine of the small bobbins.  The work was
+simple.  All that was required was celerity.  The small bobbins were
+emptied so rapidly, and there were so many large bobbins that did the
+emptying, that there were no idle moments.
+
+He worked mechanically.  When a small bobbin ran out, he used his left hand
+for a brake, stopping the large bobbin and at the same time, with thumb and
+forefinger, catching the flying end of twine.  Also, at the same time, with
+his right hand, he caught up the loose twine-end of a small bobbin.  These
+various acts with both hands were performed simultaneously and swiftly.
+Then there would come a flash of his hands as he looped the weaver's knot
+and released the bobbin.  There was nothing difficult about weaver's knots.
+He once boasted he could tie them in his sleep.  And for that matter, he
+sometimes did, toiling centuries long in a single night at tying an endless
+succession of weaver's knots.
+
+Some of the boys shirked, wasting time and machinery by not replacing the
+small bobbins when they ran out.  And there was an overseer to prevent
+this.  He caught Johnny's neighbour at the trick, and boxed his ears.
+
+"Look at Johnny there--why ain't you like him?" the overseer wrathfully
+demanded.
+
+Johnny's bobbins were running full blast, but he did not thrill at the
+indirect praise.  There had been a time . . . but that was long ago, very
+long ago.  His apathetic face was expressionless as he listened to himself
+being held up as a shining example.  He was the perfect worker.  He knew
+that.  He had been told so, often.  It was a commonplace, and besides it
+didn't seem to mean anything to him any more.  From the perfect worker he
+had evolved into the perfect machine.  When his work went wrong, it was
+with him as with the machine, due to faulty material.  It would have been
+as possible for a perfect nail-die to cut imperfect nails as for him to
+make a mistake.
+
+And small wonder.  There had never been a time when he had not been in
+intimate relationship with machines.  Machinery had almost been bred into
+him, and at any rate he had been brought up on it.  Twelve years before,
+there had been a small flutter of excitement in the loom room of this very
+mill.  Johnny's mother had fainted.  They stretched her out on the floor in
+the midst of the shrieking machines.  A couple of elderly women were called
+from their looms.  The foreman assisted.  And in a few minutes there was
+one more soul in the loom room than had entered by the doors.  It was
+Johnny, born with the pounding, crashing roar of the looms in his ears,
+drawing with his first breath the warm, moist air that was thick with
+flying lint.  He had coughed that first day in order to rid his lungs of
+the lint; and for the same reason he had coughed ever since.
+
+The boy alongside of Johnny whimpered and sniffed.  The boy's face was
+convulsed with hatred for the overseer who kept a threatening eye on him
+from a distance; but every bobbin was running full.  The boy yelled
+terrible oaths into the whirling bobbins before him; but the sound did not
+carry half a dozen feet, the roaring of the room holding it in and
+containing it like a wall.
+
+Of all this Johnny took no notice.  He had a way of accepting things.
+Besides, things grow monotonous by repetition, and this particular
+happening he had witnessed many times.  It seemed to him as useless to
+oppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine.  Machines were made
+to go in certain ways and to perform certain tasks.  It was the same with
+the overseer.
+
+But at eleven o'clock there was excitement in the room.  In an apparently
+occult way the excitement instantly permeated everywhere.  The one-legged
+boy who worked on the other side of Johnny bobbed swiftly across the floor
+to a bin truck that stood empty.  Into this he dived out of sight, crutch
+and all.  The superintendent of the mill was coming along, accompanied by a
+young man.  He was well dressed and wore a starched shirt--a gentleman, in
+Johnny's classification of men, and also, "the Inspector."
+
+He looked sharply at the boys as he passed along.  Sometimes he stopped and
+asked questions.  When he did so, he was compelled to shout at the top of
+his lungs, at which moments his face was ludicrously contorted with the
+strain of making himself heard.  His quick eye noted the empty machine
+alongside of Johnny's, but he said nothing.  Johnny also caught his eye,
+and he stopped abruptly.  He caught Johnny by the arm to draw him back a
+step from the machine; but with an exclamation of surprise he released the
+arm.
+
+"Pretty skinny," the superintendent laughed anxiously.
+
+"Pipe stems," was the answer.  "Look at those legs.  The boy's got the
+rickets--incipient, but he's got them.  If epilepsy doesn't get him in the
+end, it will be because tuberculosis gets him first."
+
+Johnny listened, but did not understand.  Furthermore he was not interested
+in future ills.  There was an immediate and more serious ill that
+threatened him in the form of the inspector.
+
+"Now, my boy, I want you to tell me the truth," the inspector said, or
+shouted, bending close to the boy's ear to make him hear.  "How old are
+you?"
+
+"Fourteen," Johnny lied, and he lied with the full force of his lungs.  So
+loudly did he lie that it started him off in a dry, hacking cough that
+lifted the lint which had been settling in his lungs all morning.
+
+"Looks sixteen at least," said the superintendent.
+
+"Or sixty," snapped the inspector.
+
+"He's always looked that way."
+
+"How long?" asked the inspector, quickly.
+
+"For years.  Never gets a bit older."
+
+"Or younger, I dare say.  I suppose he's worked here all those years?"
+
+"Off and on--but that was before the new law was passed," the
+superintendent hastened to add.
+
+"Machine idle?" the inspector asked, pointing at the unoccupied machine
+beside Johnny's, in which the part-filled bobbins were flying like mad.
+
+"Looks that way."  The superintendent motioned the overseer to him and
+shouted in his ear and pointed at the machine.  "Machine's idle," he
+reported back to the inspector.
+
+They passed on, and Johnny returned to his work, relieved in that the ill
+had been averted.  But the one-legged boy was not so fortunate.  The sharp-
+eyed inspector haled him out at arms length from the bin truck.  His lips
+were quivering, and his face had all the expression of one upon whom was
+fallen profound and irremediable disaster.  The overseer looked astounded,
+as though for the first time he had laid eyes on the boy, while the
+superintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure.
+
+"I know him," the inspector said.  "He's twelve years old.  I've had him
+discharged from three factories inside the year.  This makes the fourth."
+
+He turned to the one-legged boy.  "You promised me, word and honour, that
+you'd go to school."
+
+The one-legged boy burst into tears.  "Please, Mr. Inspector, two babies
+died on us, and we're awful poor."
+
+"What makes you cough that way?" the inspector demanded, as though charging
+him with crime.
+
+And as in denial of guilt, the one-legged boy replied:  "It ain't nothin'.
+I jes' caught a cold last week, Mr. Inspector, that's all."
+
+In the end the one-legged boy went out of the room with the inspector, the
+latter accompanied by the anxious and protesting superintendent.  After
+that monotony settled down again.  The long morning and the longer
+afternoon wore away and the whistle blew for quitting time.  Darkness had
+already fallen when Johnny passed out through the factory gate.  In the
+interval the sun had made a golden ladder of the sky, flooded the world
+with its gracious warmth, and dropped down and disappeared in the west
+behind a ragged sky-line of housetops.
+
+Supper was the family meal of the day--the one meal at which Johnny
+encountered his younger brothers and sisters.  It partook of the nature of
+an encounter, to him, for he was very old, while they were distressingly
+young.  He had no patience with their excessive and amazing juvenility.  He
+did not understand it.  His own childhood was too far behind him.  He was
+like an old and irritable man, annoyed by the turbulence of their young
+spirits that was to him arrant silliness.  He glowered silently over his
+food, finding compensation in the thought that they would soon have to go
+to work.  That would take the edge off of them and make them sedate and
+dignified--like him.  Thus it was, after the fashion of the human, that
+Johnny made of himself a yardstick with which to measure the universe.
+
+During the meal, his mother explained in various ways and with infinite
+repetition that she was trying to do the best she could; so that it was
+with relief, the scant meal ended, that Johnny shoved back his chair and
+arose.  He debated for a moment between bed and the front door, and finally
+went out the latter.  He did not go far.  He sat down on the stoop, his
+knees drawn up and his narrow shoulders drooping forward, his elbows on his
+knees and the palms of his hands supporting his chin.
+
+As he sat there, he did no thinking.  He was just resting.  So far as his
+mind was concerned, it was asleep.  His brothers and sisters came out, and
+with other children played noisily about him.  An electric globe at the
+corner lighted their frolics.  He was peevish and irritable, that they
+knew; but the spirit of adventure lured them into teasing him.  They joined
+hands before him, and, keeping time with their bodies, chanted in his face
+weird and uncomplimentary doggerel.  At first he snarled curses at them--
+curses he had learned from the lips of various foremen.  Finding this
+futile, and remembering his dignity, he relapsed into dogged silence.
+
+His brother Will, next to him in age, having just passed his tenth
+birthday, was the ringleader.  Johnny did not possess particularly kindly
+feelings toward him.  His life had early been embittered by continual
+giving over and giving way to Will.  He had a definite feeling that Will
+was greatly in his debt and was ungrateful about it.  In his own playtime,
+far back in the dim past, he had been robbed of a large part of that
+playtime by being compelled to take care of Will.  Will was a baby then,
+and then, as now, their mother had spent her days in the mills.  To Johnny
+had fallen the part of little father and little mother as well.
+
+Will seemed to show the benefit of the giving over and the giving way.  He
+was well-built, fairly rugged, as tall as his elder brother and even
+heavier.  It was as though the life-blood of the one had been diverted into
+the other's veins.  And in spirits it was the same.  Johnny was jaded, worn
+out, without resilience, while his younger brother seemed bursting and
+spilling over with exuberance.
+
+The mocking chant rose louder and louder.  Will leaned closer as he danced,
+thrusting out his tongue.  Johnny's left arm shot out and caught the other
+around the neck.  At the same time he rapped his bony fist to the other's
+nose.  It was a pathetically bony fist, but that it was sharp to hurt was
+evidenced by the squeal of pain it produced.  The other children were
+uttering frightened cries, while Johnny's sister, Jennie, had dashed into
+the house.
+
+He thrust Will from him, kicked him savagely on the shins, then reached for
+him and slammed him face downward in the dirt.  Nor did he release him till
+the face had been rubbed into the dirt several times.  Then the mother
+arrived, an anaemic whirlwind of solicitude and maternal wrath.
+
+"Why can't he leave me alone?" was Johnny's reply to her upbraiding.
+"Can't he see I'm tired?"
+
+"I'm as big as you," Will raged in her arms, his face a mass of tears,
+dirt, and blood.  "I'm as big as you now, an' I'm goin' to git bigger.
+Then I'll lick you--see if I don't."
+
+"You ought to be to work, seein' how big you are," Johnny snarled.  "That's
+what's the matter with you.  You ought to be to work.  An' it's up to your
+ma to put you to work."
+
+"But he's too young," she protested.  "He's only a little boy."
+
+"I was younger'n him when I started to work."
+
+Johnny's mouth was open, further to express the sense of unfairness that he
+felt, but the mouth closed with a snap.  He turned gloomily on his heel and
+stalked into the house and to bed.  The door of his room was open to let in
+warmth from the kitchen.  As he undressed in the semi-darkness he could
+hear his mother talking with a neighbour woman who had dropped in.  His
+mother was crying, and her speech was punctuated with spiritless sniffles.
+
+"I can't make out what's gittin' into Johnny," he could hear her say.  "He
+didn't used to be this way.  He was a patient little angel.
+
+"An' he is a good boy," she hastened to defend.  "He's worked faithful, an'
+he did go to work too young.  But it wasn't my fault.  I do the best I can,
+I'm sure."
+
+Prolonged sniffling from the kitchen, and Johnny murmured to himself as his
+eyelids closed down, "You betcher life I've worked faithful."
+
+The next morning he was torn bodily by his mother from the grip of sleep.
+Then came the meagre breakfast, the tramp through the dark, and the pale
+glimpse of day across the housetops as he turned his back on it and went in
+through the factory gate.  It was another day, of all the days, and all the
+days were alike.
+
+And yet there had been variety in his life--at the times he changed from
+one job to another, or was taken sick.  When he was six, he was little
+mother and father to Will and the other children still younger.  At seven
+he went into the mills--winding bobbins.  When he was eight, he got work in
+another mill.  His new job was marvellously easy.  All he had to do was to
+sit down with a little stick in his hand and guide a stream of cloth that
+flowed past him.  This stream of cloth came out of the maw of a machine,
+passed over a hot roller, and went on its way elsewhere.  But he sat always
+in one place, beyond the reach of daylight, a gas-jet flaring over him,
+himself part of the mechanism.
+
+He was very happy at that job, in spite of the moist heat, for he was still
+young and in possession of dreams and illusions.  And wonderful dreams he
+dreamed as he watched the steaming cloth streaming endlessly by.  But there
+was no exercise about the work, no call upon his mind, and he dreamed less
+and less, while his mind grew torpid and drowsy.  Nevertheless, he earned
+two dollars a week, and two dollars represented the difference between
+acute starvation and chronic underfeeding.
+
+But when he was nine, he lost his job.  Measles was the cause of it.  After
+he recovered, he got work in a glass factory.  The pay was better, and the
+work demanded skill.  It was piecework, and the more skilful he was, the
+bigger wages he earned.  Here was incentive.  And under this incentive he
+developed into a remarkable worker.
+
+It was simple work, the tying of glass stoppers into small bottles.  At his
+waist he carried a bundle of twine.  He held the bottles between his knees
+so that he might work with both hands.  Thus, in a sitting position and
+bending over his own knees, his narrow shoulders grew humped and his chest
+was contracted for ten hours each day.  This was not good for the lungs,
+but he tied three hundred dozen bottles a day.
+
+The superintendent was very proud of him, and brought visitors to look at
+him.  In ten hours three hundred dozen bottles passed through his hands.
+This meant that he had attained machine-like perfection.  All waste
+movements were eliminated.  Every motion of his thin arms, every movement
+of a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate.  He worked at high
+tension, and the result was that he grew nervous.  At night his muscles
+twitched in his sleep, and in the daytime he could not relax and rest.  He
+remained keyed up and his muscles continued to twitch.  Also he grew sallow
+and his lint-cough grew worse.  Then pneumonia laid hold of the feeble
+lungs within the contracted chest, and he lost his job in the glass-works.
+
+Now he had returned to the jute mills where he had first begun with winding
+bobbins.  But promotion was waiting for him.  He was a good worker.  He
+would next go on the starcher, and later he would go into the loom room.
+There was nothing after that except increased efficiency.
+
+The machinery ran faster than when he had first gone to work, and his mind
+ran slower.  He no longer dreamed at all, though his earlier years had been
+full of dreaming.  Once he had been in love.  It was when he first began
+guiding the cloth over the hot roller, and it was with the daughter of the
+superintendent.  She was much older than he, a young woman, and he had seen
+her at a distance only a paltry half-dozen times.  But that made no
+difference.  On the surface of the cloth stream that poured past him, he
+pictured radiant futures wherein he performed prodigies of toil, invented
+miraculous machines, won to the mastership of the mills, and in the end
+took her in his arms and kissed her soberly on the brow.
+
+But that was all in the long ago, before he had grown too old and tired to
+love.  Also, she had married and gone away, and his mind had gone to sleep.
+Yet it had been a wonderful experience, and he used often to look back upon
+it as other men and women look back upon the time they believed in fairies.
+He had never believed in fairies nor Santa Claus; but he had believed
+implicitly in the smiling future his imagination had wrought into the
+steaming cloth stream.
+
+He had become a man very early in life.  At seven, when he drew his first
+wages, began his adolescence.  A certain feeling of independence crept up
+in him, and the relationship between him and his mother changed.  Somehow,
+as an earner and breadwinner, doing his own work in the world, he was more
+like an equal with her.  Manhood, full-blown manhood, had come when he was
+eleven, at which time he had gone to work on the night shift for six
+months.  No child works on the night shift and remains a child.
+
+There had been several great events in his life.  One of these had been
+when his mother bought some California prunes.  Two others had been the two
+times when she cooked custard.  Those had been events.  He remembered them
+kindly.  And at that time his mother had told him of a blissful dish she
+would sometime make--"floating island," she had called it, "better than
+custard."  For years he had looked forward to the day when he would sit
+down to the table with floating island before him, until at last he had
+relegated the idea of it to the limbo of unattainable ideals.
+
+Once he found a silver quarter lying on the sidewalk.  That, also, was a
+great event in his life, withal a tragic one.  He knew his duty on the
+instant the silver flashed on his eyes, before even he had picked it up.
+At home, as usual, there was not enough to eat, and home he should have
+taken it as he did his wages every Saturday night.  Right conduct in this
+case was obvious; but he never had any spending of his money, and he was
+suffering from candy hunger.  He was ravenous for the sweets that only on
+red-letter days he had ever tasted in his life.
+
+He did not attempt to deceive himself.  He knew it was sin, and
+deliberately he sinned when he went on a fifteen-cent candy debauch.  Ten
+cents he saved for a future orgy; but not being accustomed to the carrying
+of money, he lost the ten cents.  This occurred at the time when he was
+suffering all the torments of conscience, and it was to him an act of
+divine retribution.  He had a frightened sense of the closeness of an awful
+and wrathful God.  God had seen, and God had been swift to punish, denying
+him even the full wages of sin.
+
+In memory he always looked back upon that as the one great criminal deed of
+his life, and at the recollection his conscience always awoke and gave him
+another twinge.  It was the one skeleton in his closet.  Also, being so
+made, and circumstanced, he looked back upon the deed with regret.  He was
+dissatisfied with the manner in which he had spent the quarter.  He could
+have invested it better, and, out of his later knowledge of the quickness
+of God, he would have beaten God out by spending the whole quarter at one
+fell swoop.  In retrospect he spent the quarter a thousand times, and each
+time to better advantage.
+
+There was one other memory of the past, dim and faded, but stamped into his
+soul everlasting by the savage feet of his father.  It was more like a
+nightmare than a remembered vision of a concrete thing--more like the race-
+memory of man that makes him fall in his sleep and that goes back to his
+arboreal ancestry.
+
+This particular memory never came to Johnny in broad daylight when he was
+wide awake.  It came at night, in bed, at the moment that his consciousness
+was sinking down and losing itself in sleep.  It always aroused him to
+frightened wakefulness, and for the moment, in the first sickening start,
+it seemed to him that he lay crosswise on the foot of the bed.  In the bed
+were the vague forms of his father and mother.  He never saw what his
+father looked like.  He had but one impression of his father, and that was
+that he had savage and pitiless feet.
+
+His earlier memories lingered with him, but he had no late memories.  All
+days were alike.  Yesterday or last year were the same as a thousand years-
+-or a minute.  Nothing ever happened.  There were no events to mark the
+march of time.  Time did not march.  It stood always still.  It was only
+the whirling machines that moved, and they moved nowhere--in spite of the
+fact that they moved faster.
+
+
+
+When he was fourteen, he went to work on the starcher.  It was a colossal
+event.  Something had at last happened that could be remembered beyond a
+night's sleep or a week's pay-day.  It marked an era.  It was a machine
+Olympiad, a thing to date from.  "When I went to work on the starcher," or,
+"after," or "before I went to work on the starcher," were sentences often
+on his lips.
+
+He celebrated his sixteenth birthday by going into the loom room and taking
+a loom.  Here was an incentive again, for it was piece-work.  And he
+excelled, because the clay of him had been moulded by the mills into the
+perfect machine.  At the end of three months he was running two looms, and,
+later, three and four.
+
+At the end of his second year at the looms he was turning out more yards
+than any other weaver, and more than twice as much as some of the less
+skilful ones.  And at home things began to prosper as he approached the
+full stature of his earning power.  Not, however, that his increased
+earnings were in excess of need.  The children were growing up.  They ate
+more.  And they were going to school, and school-books cost money.  And
+somehow, the faster he worked, the faster climbed the prices of things.
+Even the rent went up, though the house had fallen from bad to worse
+disrepair.
+
+He had grown taller; but with his increased height he seemed leaner than
+ever.  Also, he was more nervous.  With the nervousness increased his
+peevishness and irritability.  The children had learned by many bitter
+lessons to fight shy of him.  His mother respected him for his earning
+power, but somehow her respect was tinctured with fear.
+
+There was no joyousness in life for him.  The procession of the days he
+never saw.  The nights he slept away in twitching unconsciousness.  The
+rest of the time he worked, and his consciousness was machine
+consciousness.  Outside this his mind was a blank.  He had no ideals, and
+but one illusion; namely, that he drank excellent coffee.  He was a work-
+beast.  He had no mental life whatever; yet deep down in the crypts of his
+mind, unknown to him, were being weighed and sifted every hour of his toil,
+every movement of his hands, every twitch of his muscles, and preparations
+were making for a future course of action that would amaze him and all his
+little world.
+
+It was in the late spring that he came home from work one night aware of
+unusual tiredness.  There was a keen expectancy in the air as he sat down
+to the table, but he did not notice.  He went through the meal in moody
+silence, mechanically eating what was before him.  The children um'd and
+ah'd and made smacking noises with their mouths.  But he was deaf to them.
+
+"D'ye know what you're eatin'?" his mother demanded at last, desperately.
+
+He looked vacantly at the dish before him, and vacantly at her.
+
+"Floatin' island," she announced triumphantly.
+
+"Oh," he said.
+
+"Floating island!" the children chorussed loudly.
+
+"Oh," he said.  And after two or three mouthfuls, he added, "I guess I
+ain't hungry to-night."
+
+He dropped the spoon, shoved back his chair, and arose wearily from the
+table.
+
+"An' I guess I'll go to bed."
+
+His feet dragged more heavily than usual as he crossed the kitchen floor.
+Undressing was a Titan's task, a monstrous futility, and he wept weakly as
+he crawled into bed, one shoe still on.  He was aware of a rising, swelling
+something inside his head that made his brain thick and fuzzy.  His lean
+fingers felt as big as his wrist, while in the ends of them was a
+remoteness of sensation vague and fuzzy like his brain.  The small of his
+back ached intolerably.  All his bones ached.  He ached everywhere.  And in
+his head began the shrieking, pounding, crashing, roaring of a million
+looms.  All space was filled with flying shuttles.  They darted in and out,
+intricately, amongst the stars.  He worked a thousand looms himself, and
+ever they speeded up, faster and faster, and his brain unwound, faster and
+faster, and became the thread that fed the thousand flying shuttles.
+
+He did not go to work next morning.  He was too busy weaving colossally on
+the thousand looms that ran inside his head.  His mother went to work, but
+first she sent for the doctor.  It was a severe attack of la grippe, he
+said.  Jennie served as nurse and carried out his instructions.
+
+It was a very severe attack, and it was a week before Johnny dressed and
+tottered feebly across the floor.  Another week, the doctor said, and he
+would be fit to return to work.  The foreman of the loom room visited him
+on Sunday afternoon, the first day of his convalescence.  The best weaver
+in the room, the foreman told his mother.  His job would be held for him.
+He could come back to work a week from Monday.
+
+"Why don't you thank 'im, Johnny?" his mother asked anxiously.
+
+"He's ben that sick he ain't himself yet," she explained apologetically to
+the visitor.
+
+Johnny sat hunched up and gazing steadfastly at the floor.  He sat in the
+same position long after the foreman had gone.  It was warm outdoors, and
+he sat on the stoop in the afternoon.  Sometimes his lips moved.  He seemed
+lost in endless calculations.
+
+Next morning, after the day grew warm, he took his seat on the stoop.  He
+had pencil and paper this time with which to continue his calculations, and
+he calculated painfully and amazingly.
+
+"What comes after millions?" he asked at noon, when Will came home from
+school.  "An' how d'ye work 'em?"
+
+That afternoon finished his task.  Each day, but without paper and pencil,
+he returned to the stoop.  He was greatly absorbed in the one tree that
+grew across the street.  He studied it for hours at a time, and was
+unusually interested when the wind swayed its branches and fluttered its
+leaves.  Throughout the week he seemed lost in a great communion with
+himself.  On Sunday, sitting on the stoop, he laughed aloud, several times,
+to the perturbation of his mother, who had not heard him laugh for years.
+
+Next morning, in the early darkness, she came to his bed to rouse him.  He
+had had his fill of sleep all the week, and awoke easily.  He made no
+struggle, nor did he attempt to hold on to the bedding when she stripped it
+from him.  He lay quietly, and spoke quietly.
+
+"It ain't no use, ma."
+
+"You'll be late," she said, under the impression that he was still stupid
+with sleep.
+
+"I'm awake, ma, an' I tell you it ain't no use.  You might as well lemme
+alone.  I ain't goin' to git up."
+
+"But you'll lose your job!" she cried.
+
+"I ain't goin' to git up," he repeated in a strange, passionless voice.
+
+She did not go to work herself that morning.  This was sickness beyond any
+sickness she had ever known.  Fever and delirium she could understand; but
+this was insanity.  She pulled the bedding up over him and sent Jennie for
+the doctor.
+
+When that person arrived, Johnny was sleeping gently, and gently he awoke
+and allowed his pulse to be taken.
+
+"Nothing the matter with him," the doctor reported.  "Badly debilitated,
+that's all.  Not much meat on his bones."
+
+"He's always been that way," his mother volunteered.
+
+"Now go 'way, ma, an' let me finish my snooze."
+
+Johnny spoke sweetly and placidly, and sweetly and placidly he rolled over
+on his side and went to sleep.
+
+At ten o'clock he awoke and dressed himself.  He walked out into the
+kitchen, where he found his mother with a frightened expression on her
+face.
+
+"I'm goin' away, ma," he announced, "an' I jes' want to say good-bye."
+
+She threw her apron over her head and sat down suddenly and wept.  He
+waited patiently.
+
+"I might a-known it," she was sobbing.
+
+"Where?" she finally asked, removing the apron from her head and gazing up
+at him with a stricken face in which there was little curiosity.
+
+"I don't know--anywhere."
+
+As he spoke, the tree across the street appeared with dazzling brightness
+on his inner vision.  It seemed to lurk just under his eyelids, and he
+could see it whenever he wished.
+
+"An' your job?" she quavered.
+
+"I ain't never goin' to work again."
+
+"My God, Johnny!" she wailed, "don't say that!"
+
+What he had said was blasphemy to her.  As a mother who hears her child
+deny God, was Johnny's mother shocked by his words.
+
+"What's got into you, anyway?" she demanded, with a lame attempt at
+imperativeness.
+
+"Figures," he answered.  "Jes' figures.  I've ben doin' a lot of figurin'
+this week, an' it's most surprisin'."
+
+"I don't see what that's got to do with it," she sniffled.
+
+Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother was aware of a distinct shock at
+the persistent absence of his peevishness and irritability.
+
+"I'll show you," he said.  "I'm plum' tired out.  What makes me tired?
+Moves.  I've ben movin' ever since I was born.  I'm tired of movin', an' I
+ain't goin' to move any more.  Remember when I worked in the glass-house?
+I used to do three hundred dozen a day.  Now I reckon I made about ten
+different moves to each bottle.  That's thirty-six thousan' moves a day.
+Ten days, three hundred an' sixty thousan' moves.  One month, one million
+an' eighty thousan' moves.  Chuck out the eighty thousan'"--he spoke with
+the complacent beneficence of a philanthropist--"chuck out the eighty
+thousan', that leaves a million moves a month--twelve million moves a year.
+
+"At the looms I'm movin' twic'st as much.  That makes twenty-five million
+moves a year, an' it seems to me I've ben a movin' that way 'most a million
+years.
+
+"Now this week I ain't moved at all.  I ain't made one move in hours an'
+hours.  I tell you it was swell, jes' settin' there, hours an' hours, an'
+doin' nothin'.  I ain't never ben happy before.  I never had any time.
+I've ben movin' all the time.  That ain't no way to be happy.  An' I ain't
+going to do it any more.  I'm jes' goin' to set, an' set, an' rest, an'
+rest, and then rest some more."
+
+"But what's goin' to come of Will an' the children?" she asked
+despairingly.
+
+"That's it, 'Will an' the children,'" he repeated.
+
+But there was no bitterness in his voice.  He had long known his mother's
+ambition for the younger boy, but the thought of it no longer rankled.
+Nothing mattered any more.  Not even that.
+
+"I know, ma, what you've ben plannin' for Will--keepin' him in school to
+make a book-keeper out of him.  But it ain't no use, I've quit.  He's got
+to go to work."
+
+"An' after I have brung you up the way I have," she wept, starting to cover
+her head with the apron and changing her mind.
+
+"You never brung me up," he answered with sad kindliness.  "I brung myself
+up, ma, an' I brung up Will.  He's bigger'n me, an' heavier, an' taller.
+When I was a kid, I reckon I didn't git enough to eat.  When he come along
+an' was a kid, I was workin' an' earnin' grub for him too.  But that's done
+with.  Will can go to work, same as me, or he can go to hell, I don't care
+which.  I'm tired.  I'm goin' now.  Ain't you goin' to say goodbye?"
+
+She made no reply.  The apron had gone over her head again, and she was
+crying.  He paused a moment in the doorway.
+
+"I'm sure I done the best I knew how," she was sobbing.
+
+He passed out of the house and down the street.  A wan delight came into
+his face at the sight of the lone tree.  "Jes' ain't goin' to do nothin',"
+he said to himself, half aloud, in a crooning tone.  He glanced wistfully
+up at the sky, but the bright sun dazzled and blinded him.
+
+It was a long walk he took, and he did not walk fast.  It took him past the
+jute-mill.  The muffled roar of the loom room came to his ears, and he
+smiled.  It was a gentle, placid smile.  He hated no one, not even the
+pounding, shrieking machines.  There was no bitterness in him, nothing but
+an inordinate hunger for rest.
+
+The houses and factories thinned out and the open spaces increased as he
+approached the country.  At last the city was behind him, and he was
+walking down a leafy lane beside the railroad track.  He did not walk like
+a man.  He did not look like a man.  He was a travesty of the human.  It
+was a twisted and stunted and nameless piece of life that shambled like a
+sickly ape, arms loose-hanging, stoop-shouldered, narrow-chested, grotesque
+and terrible.
+
+He passed by a small railroad station and lay down in the grass under a
+tree.  All afternoon he lay there.  Sometimes he dozed, with muscles that
+twitched in his sleep.  When awake, he lay without movement, watching the
+birds or looking up at the sky through the branches of the tree above him.
+Once or twice he laughed aloud, but without relevance to anything he had
+seen or felt.
+
+After twilight had gone, in the first darkness of the night, a freight
+train rumbled into the station.  When the engine was switching cars on to
+the side-track, Johnny crept along the side of the train.  He pulled open
+the side-door of an empty box-car and awkwardly and laboriously climbed in.
+He closed the door.  The engine whistled.  Johnny was lying down, and in
+the darkness he smiled.
+
+
+
+A WICKED WOMAN
+
+It was because she had broken with Billy that Loretta had come visiting to
+Santa Clara.  Billy could not understand.  His sister had reported that he
+had walked the floor and cried all night.  Loretta had not slept all night
+either, while she had wept most of the night.  Daisy knew this, because it
+was in her arms that the weeping had been done.  And Daisy's husband,
+Captain Kitt, knew, too.  The tears of Loretta, and the comforting by
+Daisy, had lost him some sleep.
+
+Now Captain Kitt did not like to lose sleep.  Neither did he want Loretta
+to marry Billy--nor anybody else.  It was Captain Kitt's belief that Daisy
+needed the help of her younger sister in the household.  But he did not say
+this aloud.  Instead, he always insisted that Loretta was too young to
+think of marriage.  So it was Captain Kitt's idea that Loretta should be
+packed off on a visit to Mrs. Hemingway.  There wouldn't be any Billy
+there.
+
+Before Loretta had been at Santa Clara a week, she was convinced that
+Captain Kitt's idea was a good one.  In the first place, though Billy
+wouldn't believe it, she did not want to marry Billy.  And in the second
+place, though Captain Kitt wouldn't believe it, she did not want to leave
+Daisy.  By the time Loretta had been at Santa Clara two weeks, she was
+absolutely certain that she did not want to marry Billy.  But she was not
+so sure about not wanting to leave Daisy.  Not that she loved Daisy less,
+but that she--had doubts.
+
+The day of Loretta's arrival, a nebulous plan began shaping itself in Mrs.
+Hemingway's brain.  The second day she remarked to Jack Hemingway, her
+husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young thing that were it not for
+her sweet guilelessness she would be positively stupid.  In proof of which,
+Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that made him chuckle.  By
+the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable form.  Then it
+was that she composed a letter.  On the envelope she wrote: "Mr. Edward
+Bashford, Athenian Club, San Francisco."
+
+"Dear Ned," the letter began.  She had once been violently loved by him for
+three weeks in her pre-marital days.  But she had covenanted herself to
+Jack Hemingway, who had prior claims, and her heart as well; and Ned
+Bashford had philosophically not broken his heart over it.  He merely added
+the experience to a large fund of similarly collected data out of which he
+manufactured philosophy.  Artistically and temperamentally he was a Greek--
+a tired Greek.  He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in token that he,
+too, had passed through the long sickness that follows upon the ardent
+search for truth; that he too had emerged, too experienced, too shrewd, too
+profound, ever again to be afflicted by the madness of youths in their love
+of truth.  "'To worship appearance,'" he often quoted; "'to believe in
+forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance!'"  This
+particular excerpt he always concluded with, "'Those Greeks were
+superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY!'"
+
+He was a fairly young Greek, jaded and worn.  Women were faithless and
+unveracious, he held--at such times that he had relapses and descended to
+pessimism from his wonted high philosophical calm.  He did not believe in
+the truth of women; but, faithful to his German master, he did not strip
+from them the airy gauzes that veiled their untruth.  He was content to
+accept them as appearances and to make the best of it.  He was superficial-
+-OUT OF PROFUNDITY.
+
+"Jack says to be sure to say to you, 'good swimming,'" Mrs. Hemingway wrote
+in her letter; "and also 'to bring your fishing duds along.'"  Mrs.
+Hemingway wrote other things in the letter.  She told him that at last she
+was prepared to exhibit to him an absolutely true, unsullied, and innocent
+woman.  "A more guileless, immaculate bud of womanhood never blushed on the
+planet," was one of the several ways in which she phrased the inducement.
+And to her husband she said triumphantly, "If I don't marry Ned off this
+time--" leaving unstated the terrible alternative that she lacked either
+vocabulary to express or imagination to conceive.
+
+Contrary to all her forebodings, Loretta found that she was not unhappy at
+Santa Clara.  Truly, Billy wrote to her every day, but his letters were
+less distressing than his presence.  Also, the ordeal of being away from
+Daisy was not so severe as she had expected.  For the first time in her
+life she was not lost in eclipse in the blaze of Daisy's brilliant and
+mature personality.  Under such favourable circumstances Loretta came
+rapidly to the front, while Mrs. Hemingway modestly and shamelessly
+retreated into the background.
+
+Loretta began to discover that she was not a pale orb shining by
+reflection.  Quite unconsciously she became a small centre of things.  When
+she was at the piano, there was some one to turn the pages for her and to
+express preferences for certain songs.  When she dropped her handkerchief,
+there was some one to pick it up.  And there was some one to accompany her
+in ramblings and flower gatherings.  Also, she learned to cast flies in
+still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to entangle silk lines
+and gut-leaders with the shrubbery.
+
+Jack Hemingway did not care to teach beginners, and fished much by himself,
+or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford ample time in which to consider
+Loretta as an appearance.  As such, she was all that his philosophy
+demanded.  Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and out of his
+profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the duplicity his
+philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths.  She had the grace
+of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of fine china, in all
+of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the Life Force
+palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw--in whom he believed.
+
+Loretta burgeoned.  She swiftly developed personality.  She discovered a
+will of her own and wishes of her own that were not everlastingly entwined
+with the will and the wishes of Daisy.  She was petted by Jack Hemingway,
+spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned Bashford.  They
+encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while she developed the
+pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty and delicate women.
+Her environment acted as a soporific upon her ancient desire always to live
+with Daisy.  This desire no longer prodded her as in the days of her
+companionship with Billy.  The more she saw of Billy, the more certain she
+had been that she could not live away from Daisy.  The more she saw of Ned
+Bashford, the more she forgot her pressing need of Daisy.
+
+Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting.  He confused superficiality with
+profundity, and entangled appearance with reality until he accounted them
+one.  Loretta was different from other women.  There was no masquerade
+about her.  She was real.  He said as much to Mrs. Hemingway, and more, who
+agreed with him and at the same time caught her husband's eyelid drooping
+down for the moment in an unmistakable wink.
+
+It was at this time that Loretta received a letter from Billy that was
+somewhat different from his others.  In the main, like all his letters, it
+was pathological.  It was a long recital of symptoms and sufferings, his
+nervousness, his sleeplessness, and the state of his heart.  Then followed
+reproaches, such as he had never made before.  They were sharp enough to
+make her weep, and true enough to put tragedy into her face.  This tragedy
+she carried down to the breakfast table.  It made Jack and Mrs. Hemingway
+speculative, and it worried Ned.  They glanced to him for explanation, but
+he shook his head.
+
+"I'll find out to-night," Mrs. Hemingway said to her husband.
+
+But Ned caught Loretta in the afternoon in the big living-room.  She tried
+to turn away.  He caught her hands, and she faced him with wet lashes and
+trembling lips.  He looked at her, silently and kindly.  The lashes grew
+wetter.
+
+"There, there, don't cry, little one," he said soothingly.
+
+He put his arm protectingly around her shoulder.  And to his shoulder, like
+a tired child, she turned her face.  He thrilled in ways unusual for a
+Greek who has recovered from the long sickness.
+
+"Oh, Ned," she sobbed on his shoulder, "if you only knew how wicked I am!"
+
+He smiled indulgently, and breathed in a great breath freighted with the
+fragrance of her hair.  He thought of his world-experience of women, and
+drew another long breath.  There seemed to emanate from her the perfect
+sweetness of a child--"the aura of a white soul," was the way he phrased it
+to himself.
+
+Then he noticed that her sobs were increasing.
+
+"What's the matter, little one?" he asked pettingly and almost paternally.
+"Has Jack been bullying you?  Or has your dearly beloved sister failed to
+write?"
+
+She did not answer, and he felt that he really must kiss her hair, that he
+could not be responsible if the situation continued much longer.
+
+"Tell me," he said gently, "and we'll see what I can do."
+
+"I can't.  You will despise me.--Oh, Ned, I am so ashamed!"
+
+He laughed incredulously, and lightly touched her hair with his lips--so
+lightly that she did not know.
+
+"Dear little one, let us forget all about it, whatever it is.  I want to
+tell you how I love--"
+
+She uttered a sharp cry that was all delight, and then moaned--
+
+"Too late!"
+
+"Too late?" he echoed in surprise.
+
+"Oh, why did I?  Why did I?" she was moaning.
+
+He was aware of a swift chill at his heart.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I . . . he . . . Billy.
+
+"I am such a wicked woman, Ned.  I know you will never speak to me again."
+
+"This--er--this Billy," he began haltingly.  "He is your brother?"
+
+"No . . .  he . . .  I didn't know.  I was so young.  I could not help it.
+Oh, I shall go mad!  I shall go mad!"
+
+It was then that Loretta felt his shoulder and the encircling arm become
+limp.  He drew away from her gently, and gently he deposited her in a big
+chair, where she buried her face and sobbed afresh.  He twisted his
+moustache fiercely, then drew up another chair and sat down.
+
+"I--I do not understand," he said.
+
+"I am so unhappy," she wailed.
+
+"Why unhappy?"
+
+"Because . . . he . . . he wants me to marry him."
+
+His face cleared on the instant, and he placed a hand soothingly on hers.
+
+"That should not make any girl unhappy," he remarked sagely.  "Because you
+don't love him is no reason--of course, you don't love him?"
+
+Loretta shook her head and shoulders in a vigorous negative.
+
+"What?"
+
+Bashford wanted to make sure.
+
+"No," she asserted explosively.  "I don't love Billy!  I don't want to love
+Billy!"
+
+"Because you don't love him," Bashford resumed with confidence, "is no
+reason that you should be unhappy just because he has proposed to you."
+
+She sobbed again, and from the midst of her sobs she cried--
+
+"That's the trouble.  I wish I did love him.  Oh, I wish I were dead!"
+
+"Now, my dear child, you are worrying yourself over trifles."  His other
+hand crossed over after its mate and rested on hers.  "Women do it every
+day.  Because you have changed your mind or did not know your mind, because
+you have--to use an unnecessarily harsh word--jilted a man--"
+
+"Jilted!"  She had raised her head and was looking at him with tear-dimmed
+eyes.  "Oh, Ned, if that were all!"
+
+"All?" he asked in a hollow voice, while his hands slowly retreated from
+hers.  He was about to speak further, then remained silent.
+
+"But I don't want to marry him," Loretta broke forth protestingly.
+
+"Then I shouldn't," he counselled.
+
+"But I ought to marry him."
+
+"OUGHT to marry him?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"That is a strong word."
+
+"I know it is," she acquiesced, while she strove to control her trembling
+lips.  Then she spoke more calmly.  "I am a wicked woman, a terribly wicked
+woman.  No one knows how wicked I am--except Billy."
+
+There was a pause.  Ned Bashford's face was grave, and he looked queerly at
+Loretta.
+
+"He--Billy knows?" he asked finally.
+
+A reluctant nod and flaming cheeks was the reply.
+
+He debated with himself for a while, seeming, like a diver, to be preparing
+himself for the plunge.
+
+"Tell me about it."  He spoke very firmly.  "You must tell me all of it."
+
+"And will you--ever--forgive me?" she asked in a faint, small voice.
+
+He hesitated, drew a long breath, and made the plunge.
+
+"Yes," he said desperately.  "I'll forgive you.  Go ahead."
+
+"There was no one to tell me," she began.  "We were with each other so
+much.  I did not know anything of the world--then."
+
+She paused to meditate.  Bashford was biting his lip impatiently.
+
+"If I had only known--"
+
+She paused again.
+
+"Yes, go on," he urged.
+
+"We were together almost every evening."
+
+"Billy?" he demanded, with a savageness that startled her.
+
+"Yes, of course, Billy.  We were with each other so much . . .  If I had
+only known . . .  There was no one to tell me . . . I was so young--"
+
+Her lips parted as though to speak further, and she regarded him anxiously.
+
+"The scoundrel!"
+
+With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his feet, no longer a tired Greek,
+but a violently angry young man.
+
+"Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a good man," Loretta defended, with a
+firmness that surprised Bashford.
+
+"I suppose you'll be telling me next that it was all your fault," he said
+sarcastically.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"What?" he shouted.
+
+"It was all my fault," she said steadily.  "I should never have let him.  I
+was to blame."
+
+Bashford ceased from his pacing up and down, and when he spoke, his voice
+was resigned.
+
+"All right," he said.  "I don't blame you in the least, Loretta.  And you
+have been very honest.  But Billy is right, and you are wrong.  You must
+get married."
+
+"To Billy?" she asked, in a dim, far-away voice.
+
+"Yes, to Billy.  I'll see to it.  Where does he live?  I'll make him."
+
+"But I don't want to marry Billy!" she cried out in alarm.  "Oh, Ned, you
+won't do that?"
+
+"I shall," he answered sternly.  "You must.  And Billy must.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+Loretta buried her face in the cushioned chair back, and broke into a
+passionate storm of sobs.
+
+All that Bashford could make out at first, as he listened, was:  "But I
+don't want to leave Daisy!  I don't want to leave Daisy!"
+
+He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped curiously to listen.
+
+"How was I to know?--Boo--hoo," Loretta was crying.  "He didn't tell me.
+Nobody else ever kissed me.  I never dreamed a kiss could be so terrible .
+. . until, boo-hoo . . . until he wrote to me.  I only got the letter this
+morning."
+
+His face brightened. It seemed as though light was dawning on him.
+
+"Is that what you're crying about?"
+
+"N--no."
+
+His heart sank.
+
+"Then what are you crying about?" he asked in a hopeless voice.
+
+"Because you said I had to marry Billy.  And I don't want to marry Billy.
+I don't want to leave Daisy.  I don't know what I want.  I wish I were
+dead."
+
+He nerved himself for another effort.
+
+"Now look here, Loretta, be sensible.  What is this about kisses.  You
+haven't told me everything?"
+
+"I--I don't want to tell you everything."
+
+She looked at him beseechingly in the silence that fell.
+
+"Must I?" she quavered finally.
+
+"You must," he said imperatively.  "You must tell me everything."
+
+"Well, then . . . must I?"
+
+"You must."
+
+"He . . . I . . . we . . ." she began flounderingly.  Then blurted out, "I
+let him, and he kissed me."
+
+"Go on," Bashford commanded desperately.
+
+"That's all," she answered.
+
+"All?"  There was a vast incredulity in his voice.
+
+"All?"  In her voice was an interrogation no less vast.
+
+"I mean--er--nothing worse?"  He was overwhelmingly aware of his own
+awkwardness.
+
+"Worse?"  She was frankly puzzled.  "As though there could be!  Billy said-
+-"
+
+"When did he say it?" Bashford demanded abruptly.
+
+"In his letter I got this morning.  Billy said that my . . . our . . . our
+kisses were terrible if we didn't get married."
+
+Bashford's head was swimming.
+
+"What else did Billy say?" he asked.
+
+"He said that when a woman allowed a man to kiss her, she always married
+him--that it was terrible if she didn't.  It was the custom, he said; and I
+say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I don't like it.  I know I'm terrible,"
+she added defiantly, "but I can't help it."
+
+Bashford absent-mindedly brought out a cigarette.
+
+"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, as he struck a match.
+
+Then he came to himself.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he cried, flinging away match and cigarette.  "I don't
+want to smoke.  I didn't mean that at all.  What I mean is--"
+
+He bent over Loretta, caught her hands in his, then sat on the arm of the
+chair and softly put one arm around her.
+
+"Loretta, I am a fool.  I mean it.  And I mean something more.  I want you
+to be my wife."
+
+He waited anxiously in the pause that followed.
+
+"You might answer me," he urged.
+
+"I will . . . if--"
+
+"Yes, go on.  If what?"
+
+"If I don't have to marry Billy."
+
+"You can't marry both of us," he almost shouted.
+
+"And it isn't the custom . . . what. . . what Billy said?"
+
+"No, it isn't the custom.  Now, Loretta, will you marry me?"
+
+"Don't be angry with me," she pouted demurely.
+
+He gathered her into his arms and kissed her.
+
+"I wish it were the custom," she said in a faint voice, from the midst of
+the embrace, "because then I'd have to marry you, Ned dear . . . wouldn't
+I?"
+
+
+
+JUST MEAT
+
+He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down the intersecting street,
+but saw nothing save the oases of light shed by the street lamps at the
+successive crossings.  Then he strolled back the way he had come.  He was a
+shadow of a man, sliding noiselessly and without undue movement through the
+semi-darkness.  Also he was very alert, like a wild animal in the jungle,
+keenly perceptive and receptive.  The movement of another in the darkness
+about him would need to have been more shadowy than he to have escaped him.
+
+In addition to the running advertisement of the state of affairs carried to
+him by his senses, he had a subtler perception, a FEEL, of the atmosphere
+around him.  He knew that the house in front of which he paused for a
+moment, contained children.  Yet by no willed effort of perception did he
+have this knowledge.  For that matter, he was not even aware that he knew,
+so occult was the impression.  Yet, did a moment arise in which action, in
+relation to that house, were imperative, he would have acted on the
+assumption that it contained children.  He was not aware of all that he
+knew about the neighbourhood.
+
+In the same way, he knew not how, he knew that no danger threatened in the
+footfalls that came up the cross street.  Before he saw the walker, he knew
+him for a belated pedestrian hurrying home.  The walker came into view at
+the crossing and disappeared on up the street.  The man that watched, noted
+a light that flared up in the window of a house on the corner, and as it
+died down he knew it for an expiring match.  This was conscious
+identification of familiar phenomena, and through his mind flitted the
+thought, "Wanted to know what time."  In another house one room was
+lighted.  The light burned dimly and steadily, and he had the feel that it
+was a sick-room.
+
+He was especially interested in a house across the street in the middle of
+the block.  To this house he paid most attention.  No matter what way he
+looked, nor what way he walked, his looks and his steps always returned to
+it.  Except for an open window above the porch, there was nothing unusual
+about the house.  Nothing came in nor out.  Nothing happened.  There were
+no lighted windows, nor had lights appeared and disappeared in any of the
+windows.  Yet it was the central point of his consideration.  He rallied to
+it each time after a divination of the state of the neighbourhood.
+
+Despite his feel of things, he was not confident.  He was supremely
+conscious of the precariousness of his situation.  Though unperturbed by
+the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive
+and ready to be startled as any timorous deer.  He was aware of the
+possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the darkness--
+intelligences similar to his own in movement, perception, and divination.
+
+Far down the street he caught a glimpse of something that moved.  And he
+knew it was no late home-goer, but menace and danger.  He whistled twice to
+the house across the street, then faded away shadow-like to the corner and
+around the corner.  Here he paused and looked about him carefully.
+Reassured, he peered back around the corner and studied the object that
+moved and that was coming nearer.  He had divined aright.  It was a
+policeman.
+
+The man went down the cross street to the next corner, from the shelter of
+which he watched the corner he had just left.  He saw the policeman pass
+by, going straight on up the street.  He paralleled the policeman's course,
+and from the next corner again watched him go by; then he returned the way
+he had come.  He whistled once to the house across the street, and after a
+time whistled once again.  There was reassurance in the whistle, just as
+there had been warning in the previous double whistle.
+
+He saw a dark bulk outline itself on the roof of the porch and slowly
+descend a pillar.  Then it came down the steps, passed through the small
+iron gate, and went down the sidewalk, taking on the form of a man.  He
+that watched kept on his own side of the street and moved on abreast to the
+corner, where he crossed over and joined the other.  He was quite small
+alongside the man he accosted.
+
+"How'd you make out, Matt?" he asked.
+
+The other grunted indistinctly, and walked on in silence a few steps.
+
+"I reckon I landed the goods," he said.
+
+Jim chuckled in the darkness, and waited for further information.  The
+blocks passed by under their feet, and he grew impatient.
+
+"Well, how about them goods?" he asked.  "What kind of a haul did you make,
+anyway?"
+
+"I was too busy to figger it out, but it's fat.  I can tell you that much,
+Jim, it's fat.  I don't dast to think how fat it is.  Wait till we get to
+the room."
+
+Jim looked at him keenly under the street lamp of the next crossing, and
+saw that his face was a trifle grim and that he carried his left arm
+peculiarly.
+
+"What's the matter with your arm?" he demanded.
+
+"The little cuss bit me.  Hope I don't get hydrophoby.  Folks gets
+hydrophoby from manbite sometimes, don't they?"
+
+"Gave you fight, eh?" Jim asked encouragingly.
+
+The other grunted.
+
+"You're harder'n hell to get information from," Jim burst out irritably.
+"Tell us about it.  You ain't goin' to lose money just a-tellin' a guy."
+
+"I guess I choked him some," came the answer.  Then, by way of explanation,
+"He woke up on me."
+
+"You did it neat.  I never heard a sound."
+
+"Jim," the other said with seriousness, "it's a hangin' matter.  I fixed
+'m.  I had to.  He woke up on me.  You an' me's got to do some layin' low
+for a spell."
+
+Jim gave a low whistle of comprehension.
+
+"Did you hear me whistle?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Sure.  I was all done.  I was just comin' out."
+
+"It was a bull.  But he wasn't on a little bit.  Went right by an' kept a-
+paddin' the hoof out a sight.  Then I come back an' gave you the whistle.
+What made you take so long after that?"
+
+"I was waitin' to make sure," Matt explained.  "I was mighty glad when I
+heard you whistle again.  It's hard work waitin'.  I just sat there an'
+thought an' thought . . . oh, all kinds' of things.  It's remarkable what a
+fellow'll think about.  And then there was a darn cat that kept movin'
+around the house all' botherin' me with its noises."
+
+"An' it's fat!" Jim exclaimed irrelevantly and with joy.
+
+"I'm sure tellin' you, Jim, it's fat.  I'm plum' anxious for another look
+at 'em."
+
+Unconsciously the two men quickened their pace.  Yet they did not relax
+from their caution.  Twice they changed their course in order to avoid
+policemen, and they made very sure that they were not observed when they
+dived into the dark hallway of a cheap rooming house down town.
+
+Not until they had gained their own room on the top floor, did they scratch
+a match.  While Jim lighted a lamp, Matt locked the door and threw the
+bolts into place.  As he turned, he noticed that his partner was waiting
+expectantly.  Matt smiled to himself at the other's eagerness.
+
+"Them search-lights is all right," he said, drawing forth a small pocket
+electric lamp and examining it.  "But we got to get a new battery.  It's
+runnin' pretty weak.  I thought once or twice it'd leave me in the dark.
+Funny arrangements in that house.  I near got lost.  His room was on the
+left, an' that fooled me some."
+
+"I told you it was on the left," Jim interrupted.
+
+"You told me it was on the right," Matt went on.  "I guess I know what you
+told me, an' there's the map you drew."
+
+Fumbling in his vest pocket, he drew out a folded slip of paper.  As he
+unfolded it, Jim bent over and looked.
+
+"I did make a mistake," he confessed.
+
+"You sure did.  It got me guessin' some for a while."
+
+"But it don't matter now," Jim cried.  "Let's see what you got."
+
+"It does matter," Matt retorted.  "It matters a lot . . . to me.  I've got
+to run all the risk.  I put my head in the trap while you stay on the
+street.  You got to get on to yourself an' be more careful.  All right,
+I'll show you."
+
+He dipped loosely into his trousers pocket and brought out a handful of
+small diamonds.  He spilled them out in a blazing stream on the greasy
+table.  Jim let out a great oath.
+
+"That's nothing," Matt said with triumphant complacence.  "I ain't begun
+yet."
+
+From one pocket after another he continued bringing forth the spoil.  There
+were many diamonds wrapped in chamois skin that were larger than those in
+the first handful.  From one pocket he brought out a handful of very small
+cut gems.
+
+"Sun dust," he remarked, as he spilled them on the table in a space by
+themselves.
+
+Jim examined them.
+
+"Just the same, they retail for a couple of dollars each," he said.  "Is
+that all?"
+
+"Ain't it enough?" the other demanded in an aggrieved tone.
+
+"Sure it is," Jim answered with unqualified approval.  "Better'n I
+expected.  I wouldn't take a cent less than ten thousan' for the bunch."
+
+"Ten thousan'," Matt sneered.  "They're worth twic't that, an' I don't know
+anything about joolery, either.  Look at that big boy!"
+
+He picked it out from the sparkling heap and held it near to the lamp with
+the air of an expert, weighing and judging.
+
+"Worth a thousan' all by its lonely," was Jim's quicker judgment.
+
+"A thousan' your grandmother," was Matt's scornful rejoinder.  "You
+couldn't buy it for three."
+
+"Wake me up!  I'm dreamin'!" The sparkle of the gems was in Jim's eyes, and
+he began sorting out the larger diamonds and examining them.  "We're rich
+men, Matt--we'll be regular swells."
+
+"It'll take years to get rid of 'em," was Matt's more practical thought.
+
+"But think how we'll live!  Nothin' to do but spend the money an' go on
+gettin' rid of em."
+
+Matt's eyes were beginning to sparkle, though sombrely, as his phlegmatic
+nature woke up.
+
+"I told you I didn't dast think how fat it was," he murmured in a low
+voice.
+
+"What a killin'!  What a killin'!" was the other's more ecstatic utterance.
+
+"I almost forgot," Matt said, thrusting his hand into his inside coat
+pocket.
+
+A string of large pearls emerged from wrappings of tissue paper and chamois
+skin.  Jim scarcely glanced at them.
+
+"They're worth money," he said, and returned to the diamonds.
+
+A silence fell on the two men.  Jim played with the gems, running them
+through his fingers, sorting them into piles, and spreading them out flat
+and wide.  He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable, high-strung,
+and anaemic--a typical child of the gutter, with unbeautiful twisted
+features, small-eyed, with face and mouth perpetually and feverishly
+hungry, brutish in a cat-like way, stamped to the core with degeneracy.
+
+Matt did not finger the diamonds.  He sat with chin on hands and elbows on
+table, blinking heavily at the blazing array.  He was in every way a
+contrast to the other.  No city had bred him.  He was heavy-muscled and
+hairy, gorilla-like in strength and aspect.  For him there was no unseen
+world.  His eyes were full and wide apart, and there seemed in them a
+certain bold brotherliness.  They inspired confidence.  But a closer
+inspection would have shown that his eyes were just a trifle too full, just
+a shade too wide apart.  He exceeded, spilled over the limits of normality,
+and his features told lies about the man beneath.
+
+"The bunch is worth fifty thousan'," Jim remarked suddenly.
+
+"A hundred thousan'," Matt said.
+
+The silence returned and endured a long time, to be broken again by Jim.
+
+"What in hell was he doin' with 'em all at the house?--that's what I want
+to know.  I'd a-thought he'd kept 'em in the safe down at the store."
+
+Matt had just been considering the vision of the throttled man as he had
+last looked upon him in the dim light of the electric lantern; but he did
+not start at the mention of him.
+
+"There's no tellin'," he answered.  "He might a-ben gettin' ready to chuck
+his pardner.  He might a-pulled out in the mornin' for parts unknown, if we
+hadn't happened along.  I guess there's just as many thieves among honest
+men as there is among thieves.  You read about such things in the papers,
+Jim.  Pardners is always knifin' each other."
+
+A queer, nervous look came into the other's eyes.  Matt did not betray that
+he noted it, though he said--
+
+"What was you thinkin' about, Jim?"
+
+Jim was a trifle awkward for the moment.
+
+"Nothin'," he answered.  "Only I was thinkin' just how funny it was--all
+them jools at his house.  What made you ask?"
+
+"Nothin'.  I was just wonderin', that was all."
+
+The silence settled down, broken by an occasional low and nervous giggle on
+the part of Jim.  He was overcome by the spread of gems.  It was not that
+he felt their beauty.  He was unaware that they were beautiful in
+themselves.  But in them his swift imagination visioned the joys of life
+they would buy, and all the desires and appetites of his diseased mind and
+sickly flesh were tickled by the promise they extended.  He builded
+wondrous, orgy-haunted castles out of their brilliant fires, and was
+appalled at what he builded.  Then it was that he giggled.  It was all too
+impossible to be real.  And yet there they blazed on the table before him,
+fanning the flame of the lust of him, and he giggled again.
+
+"I guess we might as well count 'em," Matt said suddenly, tearing himself
+away from his own visions.  "You watch me an' see that it's square, because
+you an' me has got to be on the square, Jim.  Understand?"
+
+Jim did not like this, and betrayed it in his eyes, while Matt did not like
+what he saw in his partner's eyes.
+
+"Understand?" Matt repeated, almost menacingly.
+
+"Ain't we always ben square?" the other replied, on the defensive because
+of the treachery already whispering in him.
+
+"It don't cost nothin', bein' square in hard times," Matt retorted.  "It's
+bein' square in prosperity that counts.  When we ain't got nothin', we
+can't help bein' square.  We're prosperous now, an' we've got to be
+business men--honest business men.  Understand?"
+
+"That's the talk for me," Jim approved, but deep down in the meagre soul of
+him,--and in spite of him,--wanton and lawless thoughts were stirring like
+chained beasts.
+
+Matt stepped to the food shelf behind the two-burner kerosene cooking
+stove.  He emptied the tea from a paper bag, and from a second bag emptied
+some red peppers.  Returning to the table with the bags, he put into them
+the two sizes of small diamonds.  Then he counted the large gems and
+wrapped them in their tissue paper and chamois skin.
+
+"Hundred an' forty-seven good-sized ones," was his inventory; "twenty real
+big ones; two big boys and one whopper; an' a couple of fistfuls of teeny
+ones an' dust."
+
+He looked at Jim.
+
+"Correct," was the response.
+
+He wrote the count out on a slip of memorandum paper, and made a copy of
+it, giving one slip to his partner and retaining the other.
+
+"Just for reference," he said.
+
+Again he had recourse to the food shelf, where he emptied the sugar from a
+large paper bag.  Into this he thrust the diamonds, large and small,
+wrapped it up in a bandanna handkerchief, and stowed it away under his
+pillow.  Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes.
+
+"An' you think they're worth a hundred thousan'?" Jim asked, pausing and
+looking up from the unlacing of his shoe.
+
+"Sure," was the answer.  "I seen a dance-house girl down in Arizona once,
+with some big sparklers on her.  They wasn't real.  She said if they was
+she wouldn't be dancin'.  Said they'd be worth all of fifty thousan', an'
+she didn't have a dozen of 'em all told."
+
+"Who'd work for a livin'?" Jim triumphantly demanded.  "Pick an' shovel
+work!" he sneered.  "Work like a dog all my life, an' save all my wages,
+an' I wouldn't have half as much as we got tonight."
+
+"Dish washin's about your measure, an' you couldn't get more'n twenty a
+month an' board.  Your figgers is 'way off, but your point is well taken.
+Let them that likes it, work.  I rode range for thirty a month when I was
+young an' foolish.  Well, I'm older, an' I ain't ridin' range."
+
+He got into bed on one side.  Jim put out the light and followed him in on
+the other side.
+
+"How's your arm feel?" Jim queried amiably.
+
+Such concern was unusual, and Matt noted it, and replied--
+
+"I guess there's no danger of hydrophoby.  What made you ask?"
+
+Jim felt in himself a guilty stir, and under his breath he cursed the
+other's way of asking disagreeable questions; but aloud he answered--
+
+"Nothin', only you seemed scared of it at first.  What are you goin' to do
+with your share, Matt?"
+
+"Buy a cattle ranch in Arizona an' set down an' pay other men to ride range
+for me.  There's some several I'd like to see askin' a job from me, damn
+them!  An' now you shut your face, Jim.  It'll be some time before I buy
+that ranch.  Just now I'm goin' to sleep."
+
+But Jim lay long awake, nervous and twitching, rolling about restlessly and
+rolling himself wide awake every time he dozed.  The diamonds still blazed
+under his eyelids, and the fire of them hurt.  Matt, in spite of his heavy
+nature, slept lightly, like a wild animal alert in its sleep; and Jim
+noticed, every time he moved, that his partner's body moved sufficiently to
+show that it had received the impression and that it was trembling on the
+verge of awakening.  For that matter, Jim did not know whether or not,
+frequently, the other was awake.  Once, quietly, betokening complete
+consciousness, Matt said to him:  "Aw, go to sleep, Jim.  Don't worry about
+them jools.  They'll keep."  And Jim had thought that at that particular
+moment Matt had been surely asleep.
+
+In the late morning Matt was awake with Jim's first movement, and
+thereafter he awoke and dozed with him until midday, when they got up
+together and began dressing.
+
+"I'm goin' out to get a paper an' some bread," Matt said.  "You boil the
+coffee."
+
+As Jim listened, unconsciously his gaze left Matt's face and roved to the
+pillow, beneath which was the bundle wrapped in the bandanna handkerchief.
+On the instant Matt's face became like a wild beast's.
+
+"Look here, Jim," he snarled.  "You've got to play square.  If you do me
+dirt, I'll fix you.  Understand?  I'd eat you, Jim.  You know that.  I'd
+bite right into your throat an' eat you like that much beefsteak."
+
+His sunburned skin was black with the surge of blood in it, and his
+tobacco-stained teeth were exposed by the snarling lips.  Jim shivered and
+involuntarily cowered.  There was death in the man he looked at.  Only the
+night before that black-faced man had killed another with his hands, and it
+had not hurt his sleep.  And in his own heart Jim was aware of a sneaking
+guilt, of a train of thought that merited all that was threatened.
+
+Matt passed out, leaving him still shivering.  Then a hatred twisted his
+own face, and he softly hurled savage curses at the door.  He remembered
+the jewels, and hastened to the bed, feeling under the pillow for the
+bandanna bundle.  He crushed it with his fingers to make certain that it
+still contained the diamonds.  Assured that Matt had not carried them away,
+he looked toward the kerosene stove with a guilty start.  Then he hurriedly
+lighted it, filled the coffee-pot at the sink, and put it over the flame.
+
+The coffee was boiling when Matt returned, and while the latter cut the
+bread and put a slice of butter on the table, Jim poured out the coffee.
+It was not until he sat down and had taken a few sips of the coffee, that
+Matt pulled out the morning paper from his pocket.
+
+"We was way off," he said.  "I told you I didn't dast figger out how fat it
+was.  Look at that."
+
+He pointed to the head-lines on the first page.
+
+"SWIFT NEMESIS ON BUJANNOFF'S TRACK," they read.  "MURDERED IN HIS SLEEP
+AFTER ROBBING HIS PARTNER."
+
+"There you have it!" Matt cried.  "He robbed his partner--robbed him like a
+dirty thief."
+
+"Half a million of jewels missin'," Jim read aloud.  He put the paper down
+and stared at Matt.
+
+"That's what I told you," the latter said.  "What in hell do we know about
+jools?  Half a million!--an' the best I could figger it was a hundred
+thousan'.  Go on an' read the rest of it."
+
+They read on silently, their heads side by side, the untouched coffee
+growing cold; and ever and anon one or the other burst forth with some
+salient printed fact.
+
+"I'd like to seen Metzner's face when he opened the safe at the store this
+mornin'," Jim gloated.
+
+"He hit the high places right away for Bujannoff's house," Matt explained.
+"Go on an' read."
+
+"Was to have sailed last night at ten on the Sajoda for the South Seas--
+steamship delayed by extra freight--"
+
+"That's why we caught 'm in bed," Matt interrupted.  "It was just luck--
+like pickin' a fifty-to-one winner."
+
+"Sajoda sailed at six this mornin'--"
+
+"He didn't catch her," Matt said.  "I saw his alarm-clock was set at five.
+That'd given 'm plenty of time . . . only I come along an' put the kibosh
+on his time.  Go on."
+
+"Adolph Metzner in despair--the famous Haythorne pearl necklace--
+magnificently assorted pearls--valued by experts at from fifty to seventy
+thousan' dollars."
+
+Jim broke off to swear vilely and solemnly, concluding with, "Those damn
+oyster-eggs worth all that money!"
+
+He licked his lips and added, "They was beauties an' no mistake."
+
+"Big Brazilian gem," he read on.  "Eighty thousan' dollars--many valuable
+gems of the first water--several thousan' small diamonds well worth forty
+thousan'."
+
+"What you don't know about jools is worth knowin'," Matt smiled good-
+humouredly.
+
+"Theory of the sleuths," Jim read.  "Thieves must have known--cleverly kept
+watch on Bujannoff's actions--must have learned his plan and trailed him to
+his house with the fruits of his robbery--"
+
+"Clever--hell!" Matt broke out.  "That's the way reputations is made . . .
+in the noospapers.  How'd we know he was robbin' his pardner?"
+
+"Anyway, we've got the goods," Jim grinned.  "Let's look at 'em again."
+
+He assured himself that the door was locked and bolted, while Matt brought
+out the bundle in the bandanna and opened it on the table.
+
+"Ain't they beauties, though!" Jim exclaimed at sight of the pearls; and
+for a time he had eyes only for them.  "Accordin' to the experts, worth
+from fifty to seventy thousan' dollars."
+
+"An' women like them things," Matt commented.  "An' they'll do everything
+to get 'em--sell themselves, commit murder, anything."
+
+"Just like you an' me."
+
+"Not on your life," Matt retorted.  "I'll commit murder for 'em, but not
+for their own sakes, but for sake of what they'll get me.  That's the
+difference.  Women want the jools for themselves, an' I want the jools for
+the women an' such things they'll get me."
+
+"Lucky that men an' women don't want the same things," Jim remarked.
+
+"That's what makes commerce," Matt agreed; "people wantin' different
+things."
+
+In the middle of the afternoon Jim went out to buy food.  While he was
+gone, Matt cleared the table of the jewels, wrapping them up as before and
+putting them under the pillow.  Then he lighted the kerosene stove and
+started to boil water for coffee.  A few minutes later, Jim returned.
+
+"Most surprising," he remarked.  "Streets, an' stores, an' people just like
+they always was.  Nothin' changed.  An' me walking along through it all a
+millionaire.  Nobody looked at me an' guessed it."
+
+Matt grunted unsympathetically.  He had little comprehension of the lighter
+whims and fancies of his partner's imagination.
+
+"Did you get a porterhouse?" he demanded.
+
+"Sure, an' an inch thick.  It's a peach.  Look at it."
+
+He unwrapped the steak and held it up for the other's inspection.  Then he
+made the coffee and set the table, while Matt fried the steak.
+
+"Don't put on too much of them red peppers," Jim warned.  "I ain't used to
+your Mexican cookin'.  You always season too hot."
+
+Matt grunted a laugh and went on with his cooking.  Jim poured out the
+coffee, but first, into the nicked china cup, he emptied a powder he had
+carried in his vest pocket wrapped in a rice-paper.  He had turned his back
+for the moment on his partner, but he did not dare to glance around at him.
+Matt placed a newspaper on the table, and on the newspaper set the hot
+frying-pan.  He cut the steak in half, and served Jim and himself.
+
+"Eat her while she's hot," he counselled, and with knife and fork set the
+example.
+
+"She's a dandy," was Jim's judgment, after his first mouthful.  "But I tell
+you one thing straight.  I'm never goin' to visit you on that Arizona
+ranch, so you needn't ask me."
+
+"What's the matter now?" Matt asked.
+
+"Hell's the matter," was the answer.  "The Mexican cookin' on your ranch'd
+be too much for me.  If I've got hell a-comin' in the next life, I'm not
+goin' to torment my insides in this one.  Damned peppers!"
+
+He smiled, expelled his breath forcibly to cool his burning mouth, drank
+some coffee, and went on eating the steak.
+
+"What do you think about the next life anyway, Matt?" he asked a little
+later, while secretly he wondered why the other had not yet touched his
+coffee.
+
+"Ain't no next life," Matt answered, pausing from the steak to take his
+first sip of coffee.  "Nor heaven nor hell, nor nothin'.  You get all
+that's comin' right here in this life."
+
+"An' afterward?" Jim queried out of his morbid curiosity, for he knew that
+he looked upon a man that was soon to die.  "An' afterward?" he repeated.
+
+"Did you ever see a man two weeks dead?" the other asked.
+
+Jim shook his head.
+
+"Well, I have.  He was like this beefsteak you an' me is eatin'.  It was
+once steer cavortin' over the landscape.  But now it's just meat.  That's
+all, just meat.  An' that's what you an' me an' all people come to--meat."
+
+Matt gulped down the whole cup of coffee, and refilled the cup.
+
+"Are you scared to die?" he asked.
+
+Jim shook his head.  "What's the use?  I don't die anyway.  I pass on an'
+live again--"
+
+"To go stealin', an' lyin' an' snivellin' through another life, an' go on
+that way forever an' ever an' ever?" Matt sneered.
+
+"Maybe I'll improve," Jim suggested hopefully.  "Maybe stealin' won't be
+necessary in the life to come."
+
+He ceased abruptly, and stared straight before him, a frightened expression
+on his face.
+
+"What's the matter!" Matt demanded.
+
+"Nothin'.  I was just wonderin'"--Jim returned to himself with an effort--
+"about this dyin', that was all."
+
+But he could not shake off the fright that had startled him.  It was as if
+an unseen thing of gloom had passed him by, casting upon him the intangible
+shadow of its presence.  He was aware of a feeling of foreboding.
+Something ominous was about to happen.  Calamity hovered in the air.  He
+gazed fixedly across the table at the other man.  He could not understand.
+Was it that he had blundered and poisoned himself?  No, Matt had the nicked
+cup, and he had certainly put the poison in the nicked cup.
+
+It was all his own imagination, was his next thought.  It had played him
+tricks before.  Fool!  Of course it was.  Of course something was about to
+happen, but it was about to happen to Matt.  Had not Matt drunk the whole
+cup of coffee?
+
+Jim brightened up and finished his steak, sopping bread in the gravy when
+the meat was gone.
+
+"When I was a kid--" he began, but broke off abruptly.
+
+Again the unseen thing of gloom had fluttered, and his being was vibrant
+with premonition of impending misfortune.  He felt a disruptive influence
+at work in the flesh of him, and in all his muscles there was a seeming
+that they were about to begin to twitch.  He sat back suddenly, and as
+suddenly leaned forward with his elbows on the table.  A tremor ran dimly
+through the muscles of his body.  It was like the first rustling of leaves
+before the oncoming of wind.  He clenched his teeth.  It came again, a
+spasmodic tensing of his muscles.  He knew panic at the revolt within his
+being.  His muscles no longer recognized his mastery over them.  Again they
+spasmodically tensed, despite the will of him, for he had willed that they
+should not tense.  This was revolution within himself, this was anarchy;
+and the terror of impotence rushed up in him as his flesh gripped and
+seemed to seize him in a clutch, chills running up and down his back and
+sweat starting on his brow.  He glanced about the room, and all the details
+of it smote him with a strange sense of familiarity.  It was as though he
+had just returned from a long journey.  He looked across the table at his
+partner.  Matt was watching him and smiling.  An expression of horror
+spread over Jim's face.
+
+"My God, Matt!" he screamed.  "You ain't doped me?"
+
+Matt smiled and continued to watch him.  In the paroxysm that followed, Jim
+did not become unconscious.  His muscles tensed and twitched and knotted,
+hurting him and crushing him in their savage grip.  And in the midst of it
+all, it came to him that Matt was acting queerly.  He was travelling the
+same road.  The smile had gone from his face, and there was on it an intent
+expression, as if he were listening to some inner tale of himself and
+trying to divine the message.  Matt got up and walked across the room and
+back again, then sat down.
+
+"You did this, Jim," he said quietly.
+
+"But I didn't think you'd try to fix ME," Jim answered reproachfully.
+
+"Oh, I fixed you all right," Matt said, with teeth close together and
+shivering body.  "What did you give me?"
+
+"Strychnine."
+
+"Same as I gave you," Matt volunteered.  "It's a hell of a mess, ain't it?"
+
+"You're lyin', Matt," Jim pleaded.  "You ain't doped me, have you?"
+
+"I sure did, Jim; an' I didn't overdose you, neither.  I cooked it in as
+neat as you please in your half the porterhouse.--Hold on!  Where're you
+goin'?"
+
+Jim had made a dash for the door, and was throwing back the bolts.  Matt
+sprang in between and shoved him away.
+
+"Drug store," Jim panted.  "Drug store."
+
+"No you don't.  You'll stay right here.  There ain't goin' to be any
+runnin' out an' makin' a poison play on the street--not with all them jools
+reposin' under the pillow.  Savve?  Even if you didn't die, you'd be in the
+hands of the police with a whole lot of explanations comin'.  Emetics is
+the stuff for poison.  I'm just as bad bit as you, an' I'm goin' to take a
+emetic.  That's all they'd give you at a drug store, anyway."
+
+He thrust Jim back into the middle of the room and shot the bolts into
+place.  As he went across the floor to the food shelf, he passed one hand
+over his brow and flung off the beaded sweat.  It spattered audibly on the
+floor.  Jim watched agonizedly as Matt got the mustard-can and a cup and
+ran for the sink.  He stirred a cupful of mustard and water and drank it
+down.  Jim had followed him and was reaching with trembling hands for the
+empty cup.  Again Matt shoved him away.  As he mixed a second cupful, he
+demanded--
+
+"D'you think one cup'll do for me?  You can wait till I'm done."
+
+Jim started to totter toward the door, but Matt checked him.
+
+"If you monkey with that door, I'll twist your neck.  Savve?  You can take
+yours when I'm done.  An' if it saves you, I'll twist your neck, anyway.
+You ain't got no chance, nohow.  I told you many times what you'd get if
+you did me dirt."
+
+"But you did me dirt, too," Jim articulated with an effort.
+
+Matt was drinking the second cupful, and did not answer.  The sweat had got
+into Jim's eyes, and he could scarcely see his way to the table, where he
+got a cup for himself.  But Matt was mixing a third cupful, and, as before,
+thrust him away.
+
+"I told you to wait till I was done," Matt growled.  "Get outa my way."
+
+And Jim supported his twitching body by holding on to the sink, the while
+he yearned toward the yellowish concoction that stood for life.  It was by
+sheer will that he stood and clung to the sink.  His flesh strove to double
+him up and bring him to the floor.  Matt drank the third cupful, and with
+difficulty managed to get to a chair and sit down.  His first paroxysm was
+passing.  The spasms that afflicted him were dying away.  This good effect
+he ascribed to the mustard and water.  He was safe, at any rate.  He wiped
+the sweat from his face, and, in the interval of calm, found room for
+curiosity.  He looked at his partner.
+
+A spasm had shaken the mustard can out of Jim's hands, and the contents
+were spilled upon the floor.  He stooped to scoop some of the mustard into
+the cup, and the succeeding spasm doubled him upon the floor.  Matt smiled.
+
+"Stay with it," he encouraged.  "It's the stuff all right.  It's fixed me
+up."
+
+Jim heard him and turned toward him a stricken face, twisted with suffering
+and pleading.  Spasm now followed spasm till he was in convulsions, rolling
+on the floor and yellowing his face and hair in the mustard.
+
+Matt laughed hoarsely at the sight, but the laugh broke midway.  A tremor
+had run through his body.  A new paroxysm was beginning.  He arose and
+staggered across to the sink, where, with probing forefinger, he vainly
+strove to assist the action of the emetic.  In the end, he clung to the
+sink as Jim had clung, filled with the horror of going down to the floor.
+
+The other's paroxysm had passed, and he sat up, weak and fainting, too weak
+to rise, his forehead dripping, his lips flecked with a foam made yellow by
+the mustard in which he had rolled.  He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles,
+and groans that were like whines came from his throat.
+
+"What are you snifflin' about?" Matt demanded out of his agony.  "All you
+got to do is die.  An' when you die you're dead."
+
+"I . . . ain't . . . snifflin' . . . it's . . . the . . . mustard . . .
+stingin' . . . my . . . eyes," Jim panted with desperate slowness.
+
+It was his last successful attempt at speech.  Thereafter he babbled
+incoherently, pawing the air with shaking arms till a fresh convulsion
+stretched him on the floor.
+
+Matt struggled back to the chair, and, doubled up on it, with his arms
+clasped about his knees, he fought with his disintegrating flesh.  He came
+out of the convulsion cool and weak.  He looked to see how it went with the
+other, and saw him lying motionless.
+
+He tried to soliloquize, to be facetious, to have his last grim laugh at
+life, but his lips made only incoherent sounds.  The thought came to him
+that the emetic had failed, and that nothing remained but the drug store.
+He looked toward the door and drew himself to his feet.  There he saved
+himself from falling by clutching the chair.  Another paroxysm had begun.
+And in the midst of the paroxysm, with his body and all the parts of it
+flying apart and writhing and twisting back again into knots, he clung to
+the chair and shoved it before him across the floor.  The last shreds of
+his will were leaving him when he gained the door.  He turned the key and
+shot back one bolt.  He fumbled for the second bolt, but failed.  Then he
+leaned his weight against the door and slid down gently to the floor.
+
+
+
+CREATED HE THEM
+
+She met him at the door.
+
+"I did not think you would be so early."
+
+"It is half past eight."  He looked at his watch.  "The train leaves at
+9.12."
+
+He was very businesslike, until he saw her lips tremble as she abruptly
+turned and led the way.
+
+"It'll be all right, little woman," he said soothingly.  "Doctor Bodineau's
+the man.  He'll pull him through, you'll see."
+
+They entered the living-room.  His glance quested apprehensively about,
+then turned to her.
+
+"Where's Al?"
+
+She did not answer, but with a sudden impulse came close to him and stood
+motionless.  She was a slender, dark-eyed woman, in whose face was stamped
+the strain and stress of living.  But the fine lines and the haunted look
+in the eyes were not the handiwork of mere worry.  He knew whose handiwork
+it was as he looked upon it, and she knew when she consulted her mirror.
+
+"It's no use, Mary," he said.  He put his hand on her shoulder.  "We've
+tried everything.  It's a wretched business, I know, but what else can we
+do?  You've failed.  Doctor Bodineau's all that's left."
+
+"If I had another chance . . . " she began falteringly.
+
+"We've threshed that all out," he answered harshly.  "You've got to buck
+up, now.  You know what conclusion we arrived at.  You know you haven't the
+ghost of a hope in another chance."
+
+She shook her head.  "I know it.  But it is terrible, the thought of his
+going away to fight it out alone."
+
+"He won't be alone.  There's Doctor Bodineau.  And besides, it's a
+beautiful place."
+
+She remained silent.
+
+"It is the only thing," he said.
+
+"It is the only thing," she repeated mechanically.
+
+He looked at his watch.  "Where's Al?"
+
+"I'll send him."
+
+When the door had closed behind her, he walked over to the window and
+looked out, drumming absently with his knuckles on the pane.
+
+"Hello."
+
+He turned and responded to the greeting of the man who had just entered.
+There was a perceptible drag to the man's feet as he walked across toward
+the window and paused irresolutely halfway.
+
+"I've changed my mind, George," he announced hurriedly and nervously.  "I'm
+not going."
+
+He plucked at his sleeve, shuffled with his feet, dropped his eyes, and
+with a strong effort raised them again to confront the other.
+
+George regarded him silently, his nostrils distending and his lean fingers
+unconsciously crooking like an eagle's talons about to clutch.
+
+In line and feature, there was much of resemblance between the two men; and
+yet, in the strongest resemblances there was a radical difference.  Theirs
+were the same black eyes, but those of the man at the window were sharp and
+straight looking, while those of the man in the middle of the room were
+cloudy and furtive.  He could not face the other's gaze, and continually
+and vainly struggled with himself to do so.  The high cheek bones with the
+hollows beneath were the same, yet the texture of the hollows seemed
+different.  The thin-lipped mouths were from the same mould, but George's
+lips were firm and muscular, while Al's were soft and loose--the lips of an
+ascetic turned voluptuary.  There was also a sag at the corners.  His flesh
+hinted of grossness, especially so in the eagle-like aquiline nose that
+must once have been like the other's, but that had lost the austerity the
+other's still retained.
+
+Al fought for steadiness in the middle of the floor.  The silence bothered
+him.  He had a feeling that he was about to begin swaying back and forth.
+He moistened his lips with his tongue.
+
+"I'm going to stay," he said desperately.
+
+He dropped his eyes and plucked again at his sleeve.
+
+"And you are only twenty-six years old," George said at last.  "You poor,
+feeble old man."
+
+"Don't be so sure of that," Al retorted, with a flash of belligerence.
+
+"Do you remember when we swam that mile and a half across the channel?"
+
+"Well, and what of it?"  A sullen expression was creeping across Al's face.
+
+"And do you remember when we boxed in the barn after school?"
+
+"I could take all you gave me."
+
+"All I gave you!"  George's voice rose momentarily to a higher pitch.  "You
+licked me four afternoons out of five.  You were twice as strong as I--
+three times as strong.  And now I'd be afraid to land on you with a sofa
+cushion; you'd crumple up like a last year's leaf.  You'd die, you poor,
+miserable old man."
+
+"You needn't abuse me just because I've changed my mind," the other
+protested, the hint of a whine in his voice.
+
+His wife entered, and he looked appealingly to her; but the man at the
+window strode suddenly up to him and burst out--
+
+"You don't know your own mind for two successive minutes!  You haven't any
+mind, you spineless, crawling worm!"
+
+"You can't make me angry."  Al smiled with cunning, and glanced
+triumphantly at his wife.  "You can't make me angry," he repeated, as
+though the idea were thoroughly gratifying to him.  "I know your game.
+It's my stomach, I tell you.  I can't help it.  Before God, I can't!  Isn't
+it my stomach, Mary?"
+
+She glanced at George and spoke composedly, though she hid a trembling hand
+in a fold of her skirt.
+
+"Isn't it time?" she asked softly.
+
+Her husband turned upon her savagely.  "I'm not going to go!" he cried.
+"That's just what I've been telling . . . him.  And I tell you again, all
+of you, I'm not going.  You can't bully me."
+
+"Why, Al, dear, you said--" she began.
+
+"Never mind what I said!" he broke out.  "I've said something else right
+now, and you've heard it, and that settles it."
+
+He walked across the room and threw himself with emphasis into a Morris
+chair.  But the other man was swiftly upon him.  The talon-like fingers
+gripped his shoulders, jerked him to his feet, and held him there.
+
+"You've reached the limit, Al, and I want you to understand it.  I've tried
+to treat you like . . . like my brother, but hereafter I shall treat you
+like the thing that you are.  Do you understand?"
+
+The anger in his voice was cold.  The blaze in his eyes was cold.  It was
+vastly more effective than any outburst, and Al cringed under it and under
+the clutching hand that was bruising his shoulder muscles.
+
+"It is only because of me that you have this house, that you have the food
+you eat.  Your position?  Any other man would have been shown the door a
+year ago--two years ago.  I have held you in it.  Your salary has been
+charity.  It has been paid out of my pocket.  Mary . . . her dresses . . .
+that gown she has on is made over; she wears the discarded dresses of her
+sisters, of my wife.  Charity--do you understand?  Your children--they are
+wearing the discarded clothes of my children, of the children of my
+neighbours who think the clothes went to some orphan asylum.  And it is an
+orphan asylum . . . or it soon will be."
+
+He emphasized each point with an unconscious tightening of his grip on the
+shoulder.  Al was squirming with the pain of it.  The sweat was starting
+out on his forehead.
+
+"Now listen well to me," his brother went on.  "In three minutes you will
+tell me that you are going with me.  If you don't, Mary and the children
+will be taken away from you--to-day.  You needn't ever come to the office.
+This house will be closed to you.  And in six months I shall have the
+pleasure of burying you.  You have three minutes to make up your mind."
+
+Al made a strangling movement, and reached up with weak fingers to the
+clutching hand.
+
+"My heart . . . let me go . . . you'll be the death of me," he gasped.
+
+The hand thrust him down forcibly into the Morris chair and released him.
+
+The clock on the mantle ticked loudly.  George glanced at it, and at Mary.
+She was leaning against the table, unable to conceal her trembling.  He
+became unpleasantly aware of the feeling of his brother's fingers on his
+hand.  Quite unconsciously he wiped the back of the hand upon his coat.
+The clock ticked on in the silence.  It seemed to George that the room
+reverberated with his voice.  He could hear himself still speaking.
+
+"I'll go," came from the Morris chair.
+
+It was a weak and shaken voice, and it was a weak and shaken man that
+pulled himself out of the Morris chair.  He started toward the door.
+
+"Where are you going?" George demanded.
+
+"Suit case," came the response.  "Mary'll send the trunk later.  I'll be
+back in a minute."
+
+The door closed after him.  A moment later, struck with sudden suspicion,
+George was opening the door.  He glanced in.  His brother stood at a
+sideboard, in one hand a decanter, in the other hand, bottom up and to his
+lips, a whisky glass.
+
+Across the glass Al saw that he was observed.  It threw him into a panic.
+Hastily he tried to refill the glass and get it to his lips; but glass and
+decanter were sent smashing to the floor.  He snarled.  It was like the
+sound of a wild beast.  But the grip on his shoulder subdued and frightened
+him.  He was being propelled toward the door.
+
+"The suit case," he gasped.  "It's there in that room.  Let me get it."
+
+"Where's the key?" his brother asked, when he had brought it.
+
+"It isn't locked."
+
+The next moment the suit case was spread open, and George's hand was
+searching the contents.  From one side it brought out a bottle of whisky,
+from the other side a flask.  He snapped the case to.
+
+"Come on," he said.  "If we miss one car, we miss that train."
+
+He went out into the hallway, leaving Al with his wife.  It was like a
+funeral, George thought, as he waited.
+
+His brother's overcoat caught on the knob of the front door and delayed its
+closing long enough for Mary's first sob to come to their ears.  George's
+lips were very thin and compressed as he went down the steps.  In one hand
+he carried the suit case.  With the other hand he held his brother's arm.
+
+As they neared the corner, he heard the electric car a block away, and
+urged his brother on.  Al was breathing hard.  His feet dragged and
+shuffled, and he held back.
+
+"A hell of a brother YOU are," he panted.
+
+For reply, he received a vicious jerk on his arm.  It reminded him of his
+childhood when he was hurried along by some angry grown-up.  And like a
+child, he had to be helped up the car step.  He sank down on an outside
+seat, panting, sweating, overcome by the exertion.  He followed George's
+eyes as the latter looked him up and down.
+
+"A hell of a brother YOU are," was George's comment when he had finished
+the inspection.
+
+Moisture welled into Al's eyes.
+
+"It's my stomach," he said with self-pity.
+
+"I don't wonder," was the retort.  "Burnt out like the crater of a volcano.
+Fervent heat isn't a circumstance."
+
+Thereafter they did not speak.  When they arrived at the transfer point,
+George came to himself with a start.  He smiled.  With fixed gaze that did
+not see the houses that streamed across his field of vision, he had himself
+been sunk deep in self-pity.  He helped his brother from the car, and
+looked up the intersecting street.  The car they were to take was not in
+sight.
+
+Al's eyes chanced upon the corner grocery and saloon across the way.  At
+once he became restless.  His hands passed beyond his control, and he
+yearned hungrily across the street to the door that swung open even as he
+looked and let in a happy pilgrim.  And in that instant he saw the white-
+jacketed bartender against an array of glittering glass.  Quite
+unconsciously he started to cross the street.
+
+"Hold on."  George's hand was on his arm.
+
+"I want some whisky," he answered.
+
+"You've already had some."
+
+"That was hours ago.  Go on, George, let me have some.  It's the last day.
+Don't shut off on me until we get there--God knows it will be soon enough."
+
+George glanced desperately up the street.  The car was in sight.
+
+"There isn't time for a drink," he said.
+
+"I don't want a drink.  I want a bottle."  Al's voice became wheedling.
+"Go on, George.  It's the last, the very last."
+
+"No."  The denial was as final as George's thin lips could make it.
+
+Al glanced at the approaching car.  He sat down suddenly on the curbstone.
+
+"What's the matter?" his brother asked, with momentary alarm.
+
+"Nothing.  I want some whisky.  It's my stomach."
+
+"Come on now, get up."
+
+George reached for him, but was anticipated, for his brother sprawled flat
+on the pavement, oblivious to the dirt and to the curious glances of the
+passers-by.  The car was clanging its gong at the crossing, a block away.
+
+"You'll miss it," Al grinned from the pavement.  "And it will be your
+fault."
+
+George's fists clenched tightly.
+
+"For two cents I'd give you a thrashing."
+
+"And miss the car," was the triumphant comment from the pavement.
+
+George looked at the car.  It was halfway down the block.  He looked at his
+watch.  He debated a second longer.
+
+"All right," he said.  "I'll get it.  But you get on that car.  If you miss
+it, I'll break the bottle over your head."
+
+He dashed across the street and into the saloon.  The car came in and
+stopped.  There were no passengers to get off.  Al dragged himself up the
+steps and sat down.  He smiled as the conductor rang the bell and the car
+started.  The swinging door of the saloon burst open.  Clutching in his
+hand the suit case and a pint bottle of whisky, George started in pursuit.
+The conductor, his hand on the bell cord, waited to see if it would be
+necessary to stop.  It was not.  George swung lightly aboard, sat down
+beside his brother, and passed him the bottle.
+
+"You might have got a quart," Al said reproachfully.
+
+He extracted the cork with a pocket corkscrew, and elevated the bottle.
+
+"I'm sick . . . my stomach," he explained in apologetic tones to the
+passenger who sat next to him.
+
+In the train they sat in the smoking-car.  George felt that it was
+imperative.  Also, having successfully caught the train, his heart
+softened.  He felt more kindly toward his brother, and accused himself of
+unnecessary harshness.  He strove to atone by talking about their mother,
+and sisters, and the little affairs and interests of the family.  But Al
+was morose, and devoted himself to the bottle.  As the time passed, his
+mouth hung looser and looser, while the rings under his eyes seemed to puff
+out and all his facial muscles to relax.
+
+"It's my stomach," he said, once, when he finished the bottle and dropped
+it under the seat; but the swift hardening of his brother's face did not
+encourage further explanations.
+
+The conveyance that met them at the station had all the dignity and
+luxuriousness of a private carriage.  George's eyes were keen for the ear
+marks of the institution to which they were going, but his apprehensions
+were allayed from moment to moment.  As they entered the wide gateway and
+rolled on through the spacious grounds, he felt sure that the institutional
+side of the place would not jar upon his brother.  It was more like a
+summer hotel, or, better yet, a country club.  And as they swept on through
+the spring sunshine, the songs of birds in his ears, and in his nostrils
+the breath of flowers, George sighed for a week of rest in such a place,
+and before his eyes loomed the arid vista of summer in town and at the
+office.  There was not room in his income for his brother and himself.
+
+"Let us take a walk in the grounds," he suggested, after they had met
+Doctor Bodineau and inspected the quarters assigned to Al.  "The carriage
+leaves for the station in half an hour, and we'll just have time."
+
+"It's beautiful," he remarked a moment later.  Under his feet was the
+velvet grass, the trees arched overhead, and he stood in mottled sunshine.
+"I wish I could stay for a month."
+
+"I'll trade places with you," Al said quickly.
+
+George laughed it off, but he felt a sinking of the heart.
+
+"Look at that oak!" he cried.  "And that woodpecker!  Isn't he a beauty!"
+
+"I don't like it here," he heard his brother mutter.
+
+George's lips tightened in preparation for the struggle, but he said--
+
+"I'm going to send Mary and the children off to the mountains.  She needs
+it, and so do they.  And when you're in shape, I'll send you right on to
+join them.  Then you can take your summer vacation before you come back to
+the office."
+
+"I'm not going to stay in this damned hole, for all you talk about it," Al
+announced abruptly.
+
+"Yes you are, and you're going to get your health and strength back again,
+so that the look of you will put the colour in Mary's cheeks where it used
+to be."
+
+"I'm going back with you."  Al's voice was firm.  "I'm going to take the
+same train back.  It's about time for that carriage, I guess."
+
+"I haven't told you all my plans," George tried to go on, but Al cut him
+off.
+
+"You might as well quit that.  I don't want any of your soapy talking.  You
+treat me like a child.  I'm not a child.  My mind's made up, and I'll show
+you how long it can stay made up.  You needn't talk to me.  I don't care a
+rap for what you're going to say."
+
+A baleful light was in his eyes, and to his brother he seemed for all the
+world like a cornered rat, desperate and ready to fight.  As George looked
+at him he remembered back to their childhood, and it came to him that at
+last was aroused in Al the same old stubborn strain that had enabled him,
+as a child, to stand against all force and persuasion.
+
+George abandoned hope.  He had lost.  This creature was not human.  The
+last fine instinct of the human had fled.  It was a brute, sluggish and
+stolid, impossible to move--just the raw stuff of life, combative,
+rebellious, and indomitable.  And as he contemplated his brother he felt in
+himself the rising up of a similar brute.  He became suddenly aware that
+his fingers were tensing and crooking like a thug's, and he knew the desire
+to kill.  And his reason, turned traitor at last, counselled that he should
+kill, that it was the only thing left for him to do.
+
+He was aroused by a servant calling to him through the trees that the
+carriage was waiting.  He answered.  Then, looking straight before him, he
+discovered his brother.  He had forgotten it was his brother.  It had been
+only a thing the moment before.  He began to talk, and as he talked the way
+became clear to him.  His reason had not turned traitor.  The brute in him
+had merely orientated his reason.
+
+"You are no earthly good, Al, " he said.  "You know that.  You've made
+Mary's life a hell.  You are a curse to your children.  And you have not
+made life exactly a paradise for the rest of us."
+
+"There's no use your talking," Al interjected.  "I'm not going to stay
+here."
+
+"That's what I'm coming to," George continued.  "You don't have to stay
+here."  (Al's face brightened, and he involuntarily made a movement, as
+though about to start toward the carriage.)  "On the other hand, it is not
+necessary that you should return with me.  There is another way."
+
+George's hand went to his hip pocket and appeared with a revolver.  It lay
+along his palm, the butt toward Al, and toward Al he extended it.  At the
+same time, with his head, he indicated the near-by thicket.
+
+"You can't bluff me," Al snarled.
+
+"It is not a bluff, Al.  Look at me.  I mean it.  And if you don't do it
+for yourself, I shall have to do it for you."
+
+They faced each other, the proffered revolver still extended.  Al debated
+for a moment, then his eyes blazed.  With a quick movement he seized the
+revolver.
+
+"My God! I'll do it," he said.  "I'll show you what I've got in me."
+
+George felt suddenly sick.  He turned away.  He did not see his brother
+enter the thicket, but he heard the passage of his body through the leaves
+and branches.
+
+"Good-bye, Al," he called.
+
+"Good-bye," came from the thicket.
+
+George felt the sweat upon his forehead.  He began mopping his face with
+his handkerchief.  He heard, as from a remote distance, the voice of the
+servant again calling to him that the carriage was waiting.  The woodpecker
+dropped down through the mottled sunshine and lighted on the trunk of a
+tree a dozen feet away.  George felt that it was all a dream, and yet
+through it all he felt supreme justification.  It was the right thing to
+do.  It was the only thing.
+
+His whole body gave a spasmodic start, as though the revolver had been
+fired.  It was the voice of Al, close at his back.
+
+"Here's your gun," Al said.  "I'll stay."
+
+The servant appeared among the trees, approaching rapidly and calling
+anxiously.  George put the weapon in his pocket and caught both his
+brother's hands in his own.
+
+"God bless you, old man," he murmured ; "and"--with a final squeeze of the
+hands--"good luck!"
+
+"I'm coming," he called to the servant, and turned and ran through the
+trees toward the carriage.
+
+
+
+THE CHINAGO
+
+   "The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs."
+                                  --Tahitian proverb.
+
+Ah Cho did not understand French.  He sat in the crowded court room, very
+weary and bored, listening to the unceasing, explosive French that now one
+official and now another uttered.  It was just so much gabble to Ah Cho,
+and he marvelled at the stupidity of the Frenchmen who took so long to find
+out the murderer of Chung Ga, and who did not find him at all.  The five
+hundred coolies on the plantation knew that Ah San had done the killing,
+and here was Ah San not even arrested.  It was true that all the coolies
+had agreed secretly not to testify against one another; but then, it was so
+simple, the Frenchmen should have been able to discover that Ah San was the
+man.  They were very stupid, these Frenchmen.
+
+Ah Cho had done nothing of which to be afraid.  He had had no hand in the
+killing.  It was true he had been present at it, and Schemmer, the overseer
+on the plantation, had rushed into the barracks immediately afterward and
+caught him there, along with four or five others; but what of that?  Chung
+Ga had been stabbed only twice.  It stood to reason that five or six men
+could not inflict two stab wounds.  At the most, if a man had struck but
+once, only two men could have done it.
+
+So it was that Ah Cho reasoned, when he, along with his four companions,
+had lied and blocked and obfuscated in their statements to the court
+concerning what had taken place.  They had heard the sounds of the killing,
+and, like Schemmer, they had run to the spot.  They had got there before
+Schemmer--that was all.  True, Schemmer had testified that, attracted by
+the sound of quarrelling as he chanced to pass by, he had stood for at
+least five minutes outside; that then, when he entered, he found the
+prisoners already inside; and that they had not entered just before,
+because he had been standing by the one door to the barracks.  But what of
+that?  Ah Cho and his four fellow-prisoners had testified that Schemmer was
+mistaken.  In the end they would be let go.  They were all confident of
+that.  Five men could not have their heads cut off for two stab wounds.
+Besides, no foreign devil had seen the killing.  But these Frenchmen were
+so stupid.  In China, as Ah Cho well knew, the magistrate would order all
+of them to the torture and learn the truth.  The truth was very easy to
+learn under torture.  But these Frenchmen did not torture--bigger fools
+they!  Therefore they would never find out who killed Chung Ga.
+
+But Ah Cho did not understand everything.  The English Company that owned
+the plantation had imported into Tahiti, at great expense, the five hundred
+coolies.  The stockholders were clamouring for dividends, and the Company
+had not yet paid any; wherefore the Company did not want its costly
+contract labourers to start the practice of killing one another.  Also,
+there were the French, eager and willing to impose upon the Chinagos the
+virtues and excellences of French law.  There was nothing like setting an
+example once in a while; and, besides, of what use was New Caledonia except
+to send men to live out their days in misery and pain in payment of the
+penalty for being frail and human?
+
+Ah Cho did not understand all this.  He sat in the court room and waited
+for the baffled judgment that would set him and his comrades free to go
+back to the plantation and work out the terms of their contracts.  This
+judgment would soon be rendered.  Proceedings were drawing to a close.  He
+could see that.  There was no more testifying, no more gabble of tongues.
+The French devils were tired, too, and evidently waiting for the judgment.
+And as he waited he remembered back in his life to the time when he had
+signed the contract and set sail in the ship for Tahiti.  Times had been
+hard in his sea-coast village, and when he indentured himself to labour for
+five years in the South Seas at fifty cents Mexican a day, he had thought
+himself fortunate.  There were men in his village who toiled a whole year
+for ten dollars Mexican, and there were women who made nets all the year
+round for five dollars, while in the houses of shopkeepers there were
+maidservants who received four dollars for a year of service.  And here he
+was to receive fifty cents a day; for one day, only one day, he was to
+receive that princely sum!  What if the work were hard?  At the end of the
+five years he would return home--that was in the contract--and he would
+never have to work again.  He would be a rich man for life, with a house of
+his own, a wife, and children growing up to venerate him.  Yes, and back of
+the house he would have a small garden, a place of meditation and repose,
+with goldfish in a tiny lakelet, and wind bells tinkling in the several
+trees, and there would be a high wall all around so that his meditation and
+repose should be undisturbed.
+
+Well, he had worked out three of those five years.  He was already a
+wealthy man (in his own country) through his earnings, and only two years
+more intervened between the cotton plantation on Tahiti and the meditation
+and repose that awaited him.  But just now he was losing money because of
+the unfortunate accident of being present at the killing of Chung Ga.  He
+had lain three weeks in prison, and for each day of those three weeks he
+had lost fifty cents.  But now judgment would soon be given, and he would
+go back to work.
+
+Ah Cho was twenty-two years old.  He was happy and good-natured, and it was
+easy for him to smile.  While his body was slim in the Asiatic way, his
+face was rotund.  It was round, like the moon, and it irradiated a gentle
+complacence and a sweet kindliness of spirit that was unusual among his
+countrymen.  Nor did his looks belie him.  He never caused trouble, never
+took part in wrangling.  He did not gamble.  His soul was not harsh enough
+for the soul that must belong to a gambler.  He was content with little
+things and simple pleasures.  The hush and quiet in the cool of the day
+after the blazing toil in the cotton field was to him an infinite
+satisfaction.  He could sit for hours gazing at a solitary flower and
+philosophizing about the mysteries and riddles of being.  A blue heron on a
+tiny crescent of sandy beach, a silvery splatter of flying fish, or a
+sunset of pearl and rose across the lagoon, could entrance him to all
+forgetfulness of the procession of wearisome days and of the heavy lash of
+Schemmer.
+
+Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute.  But he earned his
+salary.  He got the last particle of strength out of the five hundred
+slaves; for slaves they were until their term of years was up.  Schemmer
+worked hard to extract the strength from those five hundred sweating bodies
+and to transmute it into bales of fluffy cotton ready for export.  His
+dominant, iron-clad, primeval brutishness was what enabled him to effect
+the transmutation.  Also, he was assisted by a thick leather belt, three
+inches wide and a yard in length, with which he always rode and which, on
+occasion, could come down on the naked back of a stooping coolie with a
+report like a pistol-shot.  These reports were frequent when Schemmer rode
+down the furrowed field.
+
+Once, at the beginning of the first year of contract labour, he had killed
+a coolie with a single blow of his fist.  He had not exactly crushed the
+man's head like an egg-shell, but the blow had been sufficient to addle
+what was inside, and, after being sick for a week, the man had died.  But
+the Chinese had not complained to the French devils that ruled over Tahiti.
+It was their own look out.  Schemmer was their problem.  They must avoid
+his wrath as they avoided the venom of the centipedes that lurked in the
+grass or crept into the sleeping quarters on rainy nights.  The Chinagos--
+such they were called by the indolent, brown-skinned island folk--saw to it
+that they did not displease Schemmer too greatly.  This was equivalent to
+rendering up to him a full measure of efficient toil.  That blow of
+Schemmer's fist had been worth thousands of dollars to the Company, and no
+trouble ever came of it to Schemmer.
+
+The French, with no instinct for colonization, futile in their childish
+playgame of developing the resources of the island, were only too glad to
+see the English Company succeed.  What matter of Schemmer and his
+redoubtable fist?  The Chinago that died?  Well, he was only a Chinago.
+Besides, he died of sunstroke, as the doctor's certificate attested.  True,
+in all the history of Tahiti no one had ever died of sunstroke.  But it was
+that, precisely that, which made the death of this Chinago unique.  The
+doctor said as much in his report.  He was very candid.  Dividends must be
+paid, or else one more failure would be added to the long history of
+failure in Tahiti.
+
+There was no understanding these white devils.  Ah Cho pondered their
+inscrutableness as he sat in the court room waiting the judgment.  There
+was no telling what went on at the back of their minds.  He had seen a few
+of the white devils.  They were all alike--the officers and sailors on the
+ship, the French officials, the several white men on the plantation,
+including Schemmer.  Their minds all moved in mysterious ways there was no
+getting at.  They grew angry without apparent cause, and their anger was
+always dangerous.  They were like wild beasts at such times.  They worried
+about little things, and on occasion could out-toil even a Chinago.  They
+were not temperate as Chinagos were temperate; they were gluttons, eating
+prodigiously and drinking more prodigiously.  A Chinago never knew when an
+act would please them or arouse a storm of wrath.  A Chinago could never
+tell.  What pleased one time, the very next time might provoke an outburst
+of anger.  There was a curtain behind the eyes of the white devils that
+screened the backs of their minds from the Chinago's gaze.  And then, on
+top of it all, was that terrible efficiency of the white devils, that
+ability to do things, to make things go, to work results, to bend to their
+wills all creeping, crawling things, and the powers of the very elements
+themselves.  Yes, the white men were strange and wonderful, and they were
+devils.  Look at Schemmer.
+
+Ah Cho wondered why the judgment was so long in forming.  Not a man on
+trial had laid hand on Chung Ga.  Ah San alone had killed him.  Ah San had
+done it, bending Chung Ga's head back with one hand by a grip of his queue,
+and with the other hand, from behind, reaching over and driving the knife
+into his body.  Twice had he driven it in.  There in the court room, with
+closed eyes, Ah Cho saw the killing acted over again--the squabble, the
+vile words bandied back and forth, the filth and insult flung upon
+venerable ancestors, the curses laid upon unbegotten generations, the leap
+of Ah San, the grip on the queue of Chung Ga, the knife that sank twice
+into his flesh, the bursting open of the door, the irruption of Schemmer,
+the dash for the door, the escape of Ah San, the flying belt of Schemmer
+that drove the rest into the corner, and the firing of the revolver as a
+signal that brought help to Schemmer.  Ah Cho shivered as he lived it over.
+One blow of the belt had bruised his cheek, taking off some of the skin.
+Schemmer had pointed to the bruises when, on the witness-stand, he had
+identified Ah Cho.  It was only just now that the marks had become no
+longer visible.  That had been a blow.  Half an inch nearer the centre and
+it would have taken out his eye.  Then Ah Cho forgot the whole happening in
+a vision he caught of the garden of meditation and repose that would be his
+when he returned to his own land.
+
+He sat with impassive face, while the magistrate rendered the judgment.
+Likewise were the faces of his four companions impassive.  And they
+remained impassive when the interpreter explained that the five of them had
+been found guilty of the murder of Chung Ga, and that Ah Chow should have
+his head cut off, Ah Cho serve twenty years in prison in New Caledonia,
+Wong Li twelve years, and Ah Tong ten years.  There was no use in getting
+excited about it.  Even Ah Chow remained expressionless as a mummy, though
+it was his head that was to be cut off.  The magistrate added a few words,
+and the interpreter explained that Ah Chow's face having been most severely
+bruised by Schemmer's strap had made his identification so positive that,
+since one man must die, he might as well be that man.  Also, the fact that
+Ah Cho's face likewise had been severely bruised, conclusively proving his
+presence at the murder and his undoubted participation, had merited him the
+twenty years of penal servitude.  And down to the ten years of Ah Tong, the
+proportioned reason for each sentence was explained.  Let the Chinagos take
+the lesson to heart, the Court said finally, for they must learn that the
+law would be fulfilled in Tahiti though the heavens fell.
+
+The five Chinagos were taken back to jail.  They were not shocked nor
+grieved.  The sentences being unexpected was quite what they were
+accustomed to in their dealings with the white devils.  From them a Chinago
+rarely expected more than the unexpected.  The heavy punishment for a crime
+they had not committed was no stranger than the countless strange things
+that white devils did.  In the weeks that followed, Ah Cho often
+contemplated Ah Chow with mild curiosity.  His head was to be cut off by
+the guillotine that was being erected on the plantation.  For him there
+would be no declining years, no gardens of tranquillity.  Ah Cho
+philosophized and speculated about life and death.  As for himself, he was
+not perturbed.  Twenty years were merely twenty years.  By that much was
+his garden removed from him--that was all. He was young, and the patience
+of Asia was in his bones.  He could wait those twenty years, and by that
+time the heats of his blood would be assuaged and he would be better fitted
+for that garden of calm delight.  He thought of a name for it; he would
+call it The Garden of the Morning Calm.  He was made happy all day by the
+thought, and he was inspired to devise a moral maxim on the virtue of
+patience, which maxim proved a great comfort, especially to Wong Li and Ah
+Tong.  Ah Chow, however, did not care for the maxim.  His head was to be
+separated from his body in so short a time that he had no need for patience
+to wait for that event.  He smoked well, ate well, slept well, and did not
+worry about the slow passage of time.
+
+Cruchot was a gendarme.  He had seen twenty years of service in the
+colonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those twenty
+years had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind.  He was as slow-witted
+and stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France.  He knew
+discipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant of
+gendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish obedience
+which he rendered.  In point of fact, the sergeant bulked bigger in his
+mind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces had their say.  God
+was usually very remote, while the sergeant was ordinarily very close at
+hand.
+
+Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the jailer
+commanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person of Ah
+Chow.  Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner the night
+before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war.  His hand was
+shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were aching so dreadfully
+that he did not read over the order.  It was only a Chinago's life he was
+signing away, anyway.  So he did not notice that he had omitted the final
+letter in Ah Chow's name.  The order read "Ah Cho," and, when Cruchot
+presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the person of Ah Cho.
+Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a wagon, behind two
+mules, and drove away.
+
+Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine.  He sat beside the gendarme and
+beamed.  He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules headed
+south toward Atimaono.  Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to be brought
+back.  Schemmer wanted him to work.  Very well, he would work well.
+Schemmer would never have cause to complain.  It was a hot day.  There had
+been a stoppage of the trades.  The mules sweated, Cruchot sweated, and Ah
+Cho sweated.  But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with the least concern.
+He had toiled three years under that sun on the plantation.  He beamed and
+beamed with such genial good nature that even Cruchot's heavy mind was
+stirred to wonderment.
+
+"You are very funny," he said at last.
+
+Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently.  Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot
+spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all
+foreign devils, Ah Cho understood.
+
+"You laugh too much," Cruchot chided.  "One's heart should be full of tears
+on a day like this."
+
+"I am glad to get out of the jail."
+
+"Is that all?"  The gendarme shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Is it not enough?" was the retort.
+
+"Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?"
+
+Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said--
+
+"Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for Schemmer.
+Are you not taking me to Atimaono?"
+
+Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively.  "Well, well," he said
+finally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, "so you don't know?"
+
+"Know what?"  Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm.  "Won't Schemmer
+let me work for him any more?"
+
+"Not after to-day."  Cruchot laughed heartily.  It was a good joke.  "You
+see, you won't be able to work after to-day.  A man with his head off can't
+work, eh?"  He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled.
+
+Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile.  Then he
+spoke:  "Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?"
+
+Cruchot grinned as he nodded.
+
+"It is a mistake," said Ah Cho, gravely.  "I am not the Chinago that is to
+have his head cut off.  I am Ah Cho.  The honourable judge has determined
+that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia."
+
+The gendarme laughed.  It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to
+cheat the guillotine.  The mules trotted through a coconut grove and for
+half a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again.
+
+"I tell you I am not Ah Chow.  The honourable judge did not say that my
+head was to go off."
+
+"Don't be afraid," said Cruchot, with the philanthropic intention of making
+it easier for his prisoner.  "It is not difficult to die that way."  He
+snapped his fingers.  "It is quick--like that.  It is not like hanging on
+the end of a rope and kicking and making faces for five minutes.  It is
+like killing a chicken with a hatchet.  You cut its head off, that is all.
+And it is the same with a man.  Pouf!--it is over.  It doesn't hurt.  You
+don't even think it hurts.  You don't think.  Your head is gone, so you
+cannot think.  It is very good.  That is the way I want to die--quick, ah,
+quick.  You are lucky to die that way.  You might get the leprosy and fall
+to pieces slowly, a finger at a time, and now and again a thumb, also the
+toes.  I knew a man who was burned by hot water.  It took him two days to
+die.  You could hear him yelling a kilometre away.  But you?  Ah! so easy!
+Chck!--the knife cuts your neck like that.  It is finished.  The knife may
+even tickle.  Who can say?  Nobody who died that way ever came back to
+say."
+
+He considered this last an excruciating joke, and permitted himself to be
+convulsed with laughter for half a minute.  Part of his mirth was assumed,
+but he considered it his humane duty to cheer up the Chinago.
+
+"But I tell you I am Ah Cho," the other persisted.  "I don't want my head
+cut off."
+
+Cruchot scowled.  The Chinago was carrying the foolishness too far.
+
+"I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began.
+
+"That will do," the gendarme interrupted.  He puffed up his cheeks and
+strove to appear fierce.
+
+"I tell you I am not--" Ah Cho began again.
+
+"Shut up!" bawled Cruchot.
+
+After that they rode along in silence.  It was twenty miles from Papeete to
+Atimaono, and over half the distance was covered by the time the Chinago
+again ventured into speech.
+
+"I saw you in the court room, when the honourable judge sought after our
+guilt," he began.  "Very good.  And do you remember that Ah Chow, whose
+head is to be cut off--do you remember that he--Ah Chow--was a tall man?
+Look at me."
+
+He stood up suddenly, and Cruchot saw that he was a short man.  And just as
+suddenly Cruchot caught a glimpse of a memory picture of Ah Chow, and in
+that picture Ah Chow was tall.  To the gendarme all Chinagos looked alike.
+One face was like another.  But between tallness and shortness he could
+differentiate, and he knew that he had the wrong man beside him on the
+seat.  He pulled up the mules abruptly, so that the pole shot ahead of
+them, elevating their collars.
+
+"You see, it was a mistake," said Ah Cho, smiling pleasantly.
+
+But Cruchot was thinking.  Already he regretted that he had stopped the
+wagon.  He was unaware of the error of the Chief Justice, and he had no way
+of working it out; but he did know that he had been given this Chinago to
+take to Atimaono and that it was his duty to take him to Atimaono.  What if
+he was the wrong man and they cut his head off?  It was only a Chinago when
+all was said, and what was a Chinago, anyway?  Besides, it might not be a
+mistake.  He did not know what went on in the minds of his superiors.  They
+knew their business best.  Who was he to do their thinking for them?  Once,
+in the long ago, he had attempted to think for them, and the sergeant had
+said:  "Cruchot, you are a fool?  The quicker you know that, the better you
+will get on.  You are not to think; you are to obey and leave thinking to
+your betters."  He smarted under the recollection.  Also, if he turned back
+to Papeete, he would delay the execution at Atimaono, and if he were wrong
+in turning back, he would get a reprimand from the sergeant who was waiting
+for the prisoner.  And, furthermore, he would get a reprimand at Papeete as
+well.
+
+He touched the mules with the whip and drove on.  He looked at his watch.
+He would be half an hour late as it was, and the sergeant was bound to be
+angry.  He put the mules into a faster trot.  The more Ah Cho persisted in
+explaining the mistake, the more stubborn Cruchot became.  The knowledge
+that he had the wrong man did not make his temper better.  The knowledge
+that it was through no mistake of his confirmed him in the belief that the
+wrong he was doing was the right.  And, rather than incur the displeasure
+of the sergeant, he would willingly have assisted a dozen wrong Chinagos to
+their doom.
+
+As for Ah Cho, after the gendarme had struck him over the head with the
+butt of the whip and commanded him in a loud voice to shut up, there
+remained nothing for him to do but to shut up.  The long ride continued in
+silence.  Ah Cho pondered the strange ways of the foreign devils.  There
+was no explaining them.  What they were doing with him was of a piece with
+everything they did.  First they found guilty five innocent men, and next
+they cut off the head of the man that even they, in their benighted
+ignorance, had deemed meritorious of no more than twenty years'
+imprisonment.  And there was nothing he could do.  He could only sit idly
+and take what these lords of life measured out to him.  Once, he got in a
+panic, and the sweat upon his body turned cold; but he fought his way out
+of it.  He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate by remembering and
+repeating certain passages from the "Yin Chih Wen" ("The Tract of the Quiet
+Way"); but, instead, he kept seeing his dream-garden of meditation and
+repose.  This bothered him, until he abandoned himself to the dream and sat
+in his garden listening to the tinkling of the windbells in the several
+trees.  And lo! sitting thus, in the dream, he was able to remember and
+repeat the passages from "The Tract of the Quiet Way."
+
+So the time passed nicely until Atimaono was reached and the mules trotted
+up to the foot of the scaffold, in the shade of which stood the impatient
+sergeant.  Ah Cho was hurried up the ladder of the scaffold.  Beneath him
+on one side he saw assembled all the coolies of the plantation.  Schemmer
+had decided that the event would be a good object-lesson, and so he called
+in the coolies from the fields and compelled them to be present.  As they
+caught sight of Ah Cho they gabbled among themselves in low voices.  They
+saw the mistake; but they kept it to themselves.  The inexplicable white
+devils had doubtlessly changed their minds.  Instead of taking the life of
+one innocent man, they were taking the life of another innocent man.  Ah
+Chow or Ah Cho--what did it matter which?  They could never understand the
+white dogs any more than could the white dogs understand them.  Ah Cho was
+going to have his head cut off, but they, when their two remaining years of
+servitude were up, were going back to China.
+
+Schemmer had made the guillotine himself.  He was a handy man, and though
+he had never seen a guillotine, the French officials had explained the
+principle to him.  It was on his suggestion that they had ordered the
+execution to take place at Atimaono instead of at Papeete.  The scene of
+the crime, Schemmer had argued, was the best possible place for the
+punishment, and, in addition, it would have a salutary influence upon the
+half-thousand Chinagos on the plantation.  Schemmer had also volunteered to
+act as executioner, and in that capacity he was now on the scaffold,
+experimenting with the instrument he had made.  A banana tree, of the size
+and consistency of a man's neck, lay under the guillotine.  Ah Cho watched
+with fascinated eyes.  The German, turning a small crank, hoisted the blade
+to the top of the little derrick he had rigged.  A jerk on a stout piece of
+cord loosed the blade and it dropped with a flash, neatly severing the
+banana trunk.
+
+"How does it work?"  The sergeant, coming out on top the scaffold, had
+asked the question.
+
+"Beautifully," was Schemmer's exultant answer.  "Let me show you."
+
+Again he turned the crank that hoisted the blade, jerked the cord, and sent
+the blade crashing down on the soft tree.  But this time it went no more
+than two-thirds of the way through.
+
+The sergeant scowled.  "That will not serve," he said.
+
+Schemmer wiped the sweat from his forehead.  "What it needs is more
+weight," he announced.  Walking up to the edge of the scaffold, he called
+his orders to the blacksmith for a twenty-five-pound piece of iron.  As he
+stooped over to attach the iron to the broad top of the blade, Ah Cho
+glanced at the sergeant and saw his opportunity.
+
+"The honourable judge said that Ah Chow was to have his head cut off," he
+began.
+
+The sergeant nodded impatiently.  He was thinking of the fifteen-mile ride
+before him that afternoon, to the windward side of the island, and of
+Berthe, the pretty half-caste daughter of Lafiere, the pearl-trader, who
+was waiting for him at the end of it.
+
+"Well, I am not Ah Chow.  I am Ah Cho.  The honourable jailer has made a
+mistake.  Ah Chow is a tall man, and you see I am short."
+
+The sergeant looked at him hastily and saw the mistake.  "Schemmer!" he
+called, imperatively.  "Come here."
+
+The German grunted, but remained bent over his task till the chunk of iron
+was lashed to his satisfaction.  "Is your Chinago ready?" he demanded.
+
+"Look at him," was the answer.  "Is he the Chinago?"
+
+Schemmer was surprised.  He swore tersely for a few seconds, and looked
+regretfully across at the thing he had made with his own hands and which he
+was eager to see work.  "Look here," he said finally, "we can't postpone
+this affair.  I've lost three hours' work already out of those five hundred
+Chinagos.  I can't afford to lose it all over again for the right man.
+Let's put the performance through just the same.  It is only a Chinago."
+
+The sergeant remembered the long ride before him, and the pearl-trader's
+daughter, and debated with himself.
+
+"They will blame it on Cruchot--if it is discovered," the German urged.
+"But there's little chance of its being discovered.  Ah Chow won't give it
+away, at any rate."
+
+"The blame won't lie with Cruchot, anyway," the sergeant said.  "It must
+have been the jailer's mistake."
+
+"Then let's go on with it.  They can't blame us.  Who can tell one Chinago
+from another?  We can say that we merely carried out instructions with the
+Chinago that was turned over to us.  Besides, I really can't take all those
+coolies a second time away from their labour."
+
+They spoke in French, and Ah Cho, who did not understand a word of it,
+nevertheless knew that they were determining his destiny.  He knew, also,
+that the decision rested with the sergeant, and he hung upon that
+official's lips.
+
+"All right," announced the sergeant.  "Go ahead with it.  He is only a
+Chinago."
+
+"I'm going to try it once more, just to make sure."  Schemmer moved the
+banana trunk forward under the knife, which he had hoisted to the top of
+the derrick.
+
+Ah Cho tried to remember maxims from "The Tract of the Quiet Way."  "Live
+in concord," came to him; but it was not applicable.  He was not going to
+live.  He was about to die.  No, that would not do.  "Forgive malice"--yes,
+but there was no malice to forgive.  Schemmer and the rest were doing this
+thing without malice.  It was to them merely a piece of work that had to be
+done, just as clearing the jungle, ditching the water, and planting cotton
+were pieces of work that had to be done.  Schemmer jerked the cord, and Ah
+Cho forgot "The Tract of the Quiet Way."  The knife shot down with a thud,
+making a clean slice of the tree.
+
+"Beautiful!" exclaimed the sergeant, pausing in the act of lighting a
+cigarette.  "Beautiful, my friend."
+
+Schemmer was pleased at the praise.
+
+"Come on, Ah Chow," he said, in the Tahitian tongue.
+
+"But I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began.
+
+"Shut up!" was the answer.  "If you open your mouth again, I'll break your
+head."
+
+The overseer threatened him with a clenched fist, and he remained silent.
+What was the good of protesting?  Those foreign devils always had their
+way.  He allowed himself to be lashed to the vertical board that was the
+size of his body.  Schemmer drew the buckles tight--so tight that the
+straps cut into his flesh and hurt.  But he did not complain.  The hurt
+would not last long.  He felt the board tilting over in the air toward the
+horizontal, and closed his eyes.  And in that moment he caught a last
+glimpse of his garden of meditation and repose.  It seemed to him that he
+sat in the garden.  A cool wind was blowing, and the bells in the several
+trees were tinkling softly.  Also, birds were making sleepy noises, and
+from beyond the high wall came the subdued sound of village life.
+
+Then he was aware that the board had come to rest, and from muscular
+pressures and tensions he knew that he was lying on his back.  He opened
+his eyes.  Straight above him he saw the suspended knife blazing in the
+sunshine.  He saw the weight which had been added, and noted that one of
+Schemmer's knots had slipped.  Then he heard the sergeant's voice in sharp
+command.  Ah Cho closed his eyes hastily.  He did not want to see that
+knife descend.  But he felt it--for one great fleeting instant.  And in
+that instant he remembered Cruchot and what Cruchot had said.  But Cruchot
+was wrong.  The knife did not tickle.  That much he knew before he ceased
+to know.
+
+
+
+MAKE WESTING
+
+     Whatever you do, make westing! make westing!
+                    --Sailing directions for Cape Horn.
+
+For seven weeks the Mary Rogers had been between 5O degrees south in the
+Atlantic and 5O degrees south in the Pacific, which meant that for seven
+weeks she had been struggling to round Cape Horn.  For seven weeks she had
+been either in dirt, or close to dirt, save once, and then, following upon
+six days of excessive dirt, which she had ridden out under the shelter of
+the redoubtable Terra del Fuego coast, she had almost gone ashore during a
+heavy swell in the dead calm that had suddenly fallen.  For seven weeks she
+had wrestled with the Cape Horn graybeards, and in return been buffeted and
+smashed by them.  She was a wooden ship, and her ceaseless straining had
+opened her seams, so that twice a day the watch took its turn at the pumps.
+
+The Mary Rogers was strained, the crew was strained, and big Dan Cullen,
+master, was likewise strained.  Perhaps he was strained most of all, for
+upon him rested the responsibility of that titanic struggle.  He slept most
+of the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept.  He haunted the deck at
+night, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the sunburn of thirty years
+of sea and hairy as an orang-outang.  He, in turn, was haunted by one
+thought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn:  Whatever you do, make
+westing! make westing!  It was an obsession.  He thought of nothing else,
+except, at times, to blaspheme God for sending such bitter weather.
+
+Make westing!  He hugged the Horn, and a dozen times lay hove to with the
+iron Cape bearing east-by-north, or north-north-east, a score of miles
+away.  And each time the eternal west wind smote him back and he made
+easting.  He fought gale after gale, south to 64 degrees, inside the
+antarctic drift-ice, and pledged his immortal soul to the Powers of
+Darkness for a bit of westing, for a slant to take him around.  And he made
+easting.  In despair, he had tried to make the passage through the Straits
+of Le Maire.  Halfway through, the wind hauled to the north'ard of north-
+west, the glass dropped to 28.88, and he turned and ran before a gale of
+cyclonic fury, missing, by a hair's-breadth, piling up the Mary Rogers on
+the black-toothed rocks.  Twice he had made west to the Diego Ramirez
+Rocks, one of the times saved between two snow-squalls by sighting the
+gravestones of ships a quarter of a mile dead ahead.
+
+Blow!  Captain Dan Cullen instanced all his thirty years at sea to prove
+that never had it blown so before.  The Mary Rogers was hove to at the time
+he gave the evidence, and, to clinch it, inside half an hour the Mary
+Rogers was hove down to the hatches.  Her new maintopsail and brand new
+spencer were blown away like tissue paper; and five sails, furled and fast
+under double gaskets, were blown loose and stripped from the yards.  And
+before morning the Mary Rogers was hove down twice again, and holes were
+knocked in her bulwarks to ease her decks from the weight of ocean that
+pressed her down.
+
+On an average of once a week Captain Dan Cullen caught glimpses of the sun.
+Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes afterward a
+new gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail, and all was
+buried in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall.  For a fortnight, once,
+Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a chronometer sight.  Rarely
+did he know his position within half of a degree, except when in sight of
+land; for sun and stars remained hidden behind the sky, and it was so
+gloomy that even at the best the horizons were poor for accurate
+observations.  A gray gloom shrouded the world.  The clouds were gray; the
+great driving seas were leaden gray; the smoking crests were a gray
+churning; even the occasional albatrosses were gray, while the snow-
+flurries were not white, but gray, under the sombre pall of the heavens.
+
+Life on board the Mary Rogers was gray--gray and gloomy.  The faces of the
+sailors were blue-gray; they were afflicted with sea-cuts and sea-boils,
+and suffered exquisitely.  They were shadows of men.  For seven weeks, in
+the forecastle or on deck, they had not known what it was to be dry.  They
+had forgotten what it was to sleep out a watch, and all watches it was,
+"All hands on deck!"  They caught snatches of agonized sleep, and they
+slept in their oilskins ready for the everlasting call.  So weak and worn
+were they that it took both watches to do the work of one.  That was why
+both watches were on deck so much of the time.  And no shadow of a man
+could shirk duty.  Nothing less than a broken leg could enable a man to
+knock off work; and there were two such, who had been mauled and pulped by
+the seas that broke aboard.
+
+One other man who was the shadow of a man was George Dorety.  He was the
+only passenger on board, a friend of the firm, and he had elected to make
+the voyage for his health.  But seven weeks of Cape Horn had not bettered
+his health.  He gasped and panted in his bunk through the long, heaving
+nights; and when on deck he was so bundled up for warmth that he resembled
+a peripatetic old-clothes shop.  At midday, eating at the cabin table in a
+gloom so deep that the swinging sea-lamps burned always, he looked as blue-
+gray as the sickest, saddest man for'ard.  Nor did gazing across the table
+at Captain Dan Cullen have any cheering effect upon him.  Captain Cullen
+chewed and scowled and kept silent.  The scowls were for God, and with
+every chew he reiterated the sole thought of his existence, which was make
+westing.  He was a big, hairy brute, and the sight of him was not
+stimulating to the other's appetite.  He looked upon George Dorety as a
+Jonah, and told him so, once each meal, savagely transferring the scowl
+from God to the passenger and back again.
+
+Nor did the mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite.  Joshua Higgins
+by name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper by capacity,
+he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and selfish and
+cowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen, and a bully
+over the sailors, who knew that behind the mate was Captain Cullen, the
+law-giver and compeller, the driver and the destroyer, the incarnation of a
+dozen bucko mates.  In that wild weather at the southern end of the earth,
+Joshua Higgins ceased washing.  His grimy face usually robbed George Dorety
+of what little appetite he managed to accumulate.  Ordinarily this
+lavatorial dereliction would have caught Captain Cullen's eye and
+vocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with making westing, to
+the exclusion of all other things not contributory thereto.  Whether the
+mate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing upon westing.  Later on, when
+5O degrees south in the Pacific had been reached, Joshua Higgins would wash
+his face very abruptly.  In the meantime, at the cabin table, where gray
+twilight alternated with lamplight while the lamps were being filled,
+George Dorety sat between the two men, one a tiger and the other a hyena,
+and wondered why God had made them.  The second mate, Matthew Turner, was a
+true sailor and a man, but George Dorety did not have the solace of his
+company, for he ate by himself, solitary, when they had finished.
+
+On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life and
+headlong movement.  On deck he found the Mary Rogers running off before a
+howling south-easter.  Nothing was set but the lower topsails and the
+foresail.  It was all she could stand, yet she was making fourteen knots,
+as Mr. Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on deck.  And it was all
+westing.  She was going around the Horn at last . . . if the wind held.
+Mr. Turner looked happy.  The end of the struggle was in sight.  But
+Captain Cullen did not look happy.  He scowled at Dorety in passing.
+Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased with that wind.
+He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed in his secret soul
+that if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would promptly efface it and
+send a snorter from the west.  So he walked softly before God, smothering
+his joy down under scowls and muttered curses, and, so, fooling God, for
+God was the only thing in the universe of which Dan Cullen was afraid.
+
+All Saturday and Saturday night the Mary Rogers raced her westing.
+Persistently she logged her fourteen knots, so that by Sunday morning she
+had covered three hundred and fifty miles.  If the wind held, she would
+make around.  If it failed, and the snorter came from anywhere between
+south-west and north, back the Mary Rogers would be hurled and be no better
+off than she had been seven weeks before.  And on Sunday morning the wind
+was failing.  The big sea was going down and running smooth.  Both watches
+were on deck setting sail after sail as fast as the ship could stand it.
+And now Captain Cullen went around brazenly before God, smoking a big
+cigar, smiling jubilantly, as if the failing wind delighted him, while down
+underneath he was raging against God for taking the life out of the blessed
+wind.  Make westing!  So he would, if God would only leave him alone.
+Secretly, he pledged himself anew to the Powers of Darkness, if they would
+let him make westing.  He pledged himself so easily because he did not
+believe in the Powers of Darkness.  He really believed only in God, though
+he did not know it.  And in his inverted theology God was really the Prince
+of Darkness.  Captain Cullen was a devil-worshipper, but he called the
+devil by another name, that was all.
+
+At midday, after calling eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals on.
+The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks.  Not alone were they
+nimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining down and
+limbering their stiff bodies.  George Dorety stood aft, near Captain
+Cullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the grateful warmth
+as he watched the scene.  Swiftly and abruptly the incident occurred.
+There was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of "Man overboard!"  Somebody threw
+a life-buoy over the side, and at the same instant the second mate's voice
+came aft, ringing and peremptory--
+
+"Hard down your helm!"
+
+The man at the wheel never moved a spoke.  He knew better, for Captain Dan
+Cullen was standing alongside of him.  He wanted to move a spoke, to move
+all the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comrade
+drowning in the sea.  He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain Dan
+Cullen gave no sign.
+
+"Down!  Hard down!" the second mate roared, as he sprang aft.
+
+But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw Dan
+Cullen by the wheel.  And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said
+nothing.  Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor.  He had
+caught the life-buoy and was clinging to it.  Nobody spoke.  Nobody moved.
+The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-stricken
+faces.  And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing.  A long, silent
+minute passed.
+
+"Who was it?" Captain Cullen demanded.
+
+"Mops, sir," eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.
+
+Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough.  It
+was a large wave, but it was no graybeard.  A small boat could live easily
+in such a sea, and in such a sea the Mary Rogers could easily come to.  But
+she could not come to and make westing at the same time.
+
+For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real drama
+of life and death--a sordid little drama in which the scales balanced an
+unknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude.  At first he
+had watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan Cullen, hairy and
+black, vested with power of life and death, smoking a cigar.
+
+Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute.  Then he removed the
+cigar from his mouth.  He glanced aloft at the spars of the Mary Rogers,
+and overside at the sea.
+
+"Sheet home the royals!" he cried.
+
+Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food served
+before them.  On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, on
+the other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena.  Nobody spoke.  On deck the men
+were sheeting home the skysails.  George Dorety could hear their cries,
+while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and well,
+clinging to a life-buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean.  He glanced at
+Captain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the man was eating
+his food with relish, almost bolting it.
+
+"Captain Cullen," Dorety said, "you are in command of this ship, and it is
+not proper for me to comment now upon what you do.  But I wish to say one
+thing.  There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one."
+
+Captain Cullen did not even scowl.  In his voice was regret as he said--
+
+"It was blowing a living gale.  It was impossible to save the man."
+
+"He fell from the royal-yard," Dorety cried hotly.  "You were setting the
+royals at the time.  Fifteen minutes afterward you were setting the
+skysails."
+
+"It was a living gale, wasn't it, Mr. Higgin?" Captain Cullen said, turning
+to the mate.
+
+"If you'd brought her to, it'd have taken the sticks out of her," was the
+mate's answer.  "You did the proper thing, Captain Cullen.  The man hadn't
+a ghost of a show."
+
+George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal's end no one spoke.  After
+that, Dorety had his meals served in his state-room.  Captain Cullen
+scowled at him no longer, though no speech was exchanged between them,
+while the Mary Rogers sped north toward warmer latitudes.  At the end of
+the week, Dan Cullen cornered Dorety on deck.
+
+"What are you going to do when we get to 'Frisco?" he demanded bluntly.
+
+"I am going to swear out a warrant for your arrest," Dorety answered
+quietly.  "I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see you
+hanged for it."
+
+"You're almighty sure of yourself," Captain Cullen sneered, turning on his
+heel.
+
+A second week passed, and one morning found George Dorety standing in the
+coach-house companionway at the for'ard end of the long poop, taking his
+first gaze around the deck.  The Mary Rogers was reaching full-and-by, in a
+stiff breeze.  Every sail was set and drawing, including the staysails.
+Captain Cullen strolled for'ard along the poop.  He strolled carelessly,
+glancing at the passenger out of the corner of his eye.  Dorety was looking
+the other way, standing with head and shoulders outside the companionway,
+and only the back of his head was to be seen.  Captain Cullen, with swift
+eye, embraced the mainstaysail-block and the head and estimated the
+distance.  He glanced about him.  Nobody was looking.  Aft, Joshua Higgins,
+pacing up and down, had just turned his back and was going the other way.
+Captain Cullen bent over suddenly and cast the staysail-sheet off from its
+pin.  The heavy block hurtled through the air, smashing Dorety's head like
+an egg-shell and hurtling on and back and forth as the staysail whipped and
+slatted in the wind.  Joshua Higgins turned around to see what had carried
+away, and met the full blast of the vilest portion of Captain Cullen's
+profanity.
+
+"I made the sheet fast myself," whimpered the mate in the first lull, "with
+an extra turn to make sure.  I remember it distinctly."
+
+"Made fast?" the Captain snarled back, for the benefit of the watch as it
+struggled to capture the flying sail before it tore to ribbons.  "You
+couldn't make your grandmother fast, you useless hell's scullion.  If you
+made that sheet fast with an extra turn, why in hell didn't it stay fast?
+That's what I want to know.  Why in hell didn't it stay fast?"
+
+The mate whined inarticulately.
+
+"Oh, shut up!" was the final word of Captain Cullen.
+
+Half an hour later he was as surprised as any when the body of George
+Dorety was found inside the companionway on the floor.  In the afternoon,
+alone in his room, he doctored up the log.
+
+"Ordinary seaman, Karl Brun," he wrote, "lost overboard from foreroyal-yard
+in a gale of wind.  Was running at the time, and for the safety of the ship
+did not dare come up to the wind.  Nor could a boat have lived in the sea
+that was running."
+
+On another page, he wrote
+
+"Had often warned Mr. Dorety about the danger he ran because of his
+carelessness on deck.  I told him, once, that some day he would get his
+head knocked off by a block.  A carelessly fastened mainstaysail sheet was
+the cause of the accident, which was deeply to be regretted because Mr.
+Dorety was a favourite with all of us."
+
+Captain Dan Cullen read over his literary effort with admiration, blotted
+the page, and closed the log.  He lighted a cigar and stared before him.
+He felt the Mary Rogers lift, and heel, and surge along, and knew that she
+was making nine knots.  A smile of satisfaction slowly dawned on his black
+and hairy face.  Well, anyway, he had made his westing and fooled God.
+
+
+
+SEMPER IDEM
+
+Doctor Bicknell was in a remarkably gracious mood.  Through a minor
+accident, a slight bit of carelessness, that was all, a man who might have
+pulled through had died the preceding night.  Though it had been only a
+sailorman, one of the innumerable unwashed, the steward of the receiving
+hospital had been on the anxious seat all the morning.  It was not that the
+man had died that gave him discomfort, he knew the Doctor too well for
+that, but his distress lay in the fact that the operation had been done so
+well.  One of the most delicate in surgery, it had been as successful as it
+was clever and audacious.  All had then depended upon the treatment, the
+nurses, the steward.  And the man had died.  Nothing much, a bit of
+carelessness, yet enough to bring the professional wrath of Doctor Bicknell
+about his ears and to perturb the working of the staff and nurses for
+twenty-four hours to come.
+
+But, as already stated, the Doctor was in a remarkably gracious mood.  When
+informed by the steward, in fear and trembling, of the man's unexpected
+take-off, his lips did not so much as form one syllable of censure; nay,
+they were so pursed that snatches of rag-time floated softly from them, to
+be broken only by a pleasant query after the health of the other's eldest-
+born.  The steward, deeming it impossible that he could have caught the
+gist of the case, repeated it.
+
+"Yes, yes," Doctor Bicknell said impatiently; "I understand.  But how about
+Semper Idem?  Is he ready to leave?"
+
+"Yes.  They're helping him dress now," the steward answered, passing on to
+the round of his duties, content that peace still reigned within the
+iodine-saturated walls.
+
+It was Semper Idem's recovery which had so fully compensated Doctor
+Bicknell for the loss of the sailorman.  Lives were to him as nothing, the
+unpleasant but inevitable incidents of the profession, but cases, ah, cases
+were everything.  People who knew him were prone to brand him a butcher,
+but his colleagues were at one in the belief that a bolder and yet a more
+capable man never stood over the table.  He was not an imaginative man.  He
+did not possess, and hence had no tolerance for, emotion.  His nature was
+accurate, precise, scientific.  Men were to him no more than pawns, without
+individuality or personal value.  But as cases it was different.  The more
+broken a man was, the more precarious his grip on life, the greater his
+significance in the eyes of Doctor Bicknell.  He would as readily forsake a
+poet laureate suffering from a common accident for a nameless, mangled
+vagrant who defied every law of life by refusing to die, as would a child
+forsake a Punch and Judy for a circus.
+
+So it had been in the case of Semper Idem.  The mystery of the man had not
+appealed to him, nor had his silence and the veiled romance which the
+yellow reporters had so sensationally and so fruitlessly exploited in
+divers Sunday editions.  But Semper Idem's throat had been cut.  That was
+the point.  That was where his interest had centred.  Cut from ear to ear,
+and not one surgeon in a thousand to give a snap of the fingers for his
+chance of recovery.  But, thanks to the swift municipal ambulance service
+and to Doctor Bicknell, he had been dragged back into the world he had
+sought to leave.  The Doctor's co-workers had shaken their heads when the
+case was brought in.  Impossible, they said.  Throat, windpipe, jugular,
+all but actually severed, and the loss of blood frightful.  As it was such
+a foregone conclusion, Doctor Bicknell had employed methods and done things
+which made them, even in their professional capacities, shudder.  And lo!
+the man had recovered.
+
+So, on this morning that Semper Idem was to leave the hospital, hale and
+hearty, Doctor Bicknell's geniality was in nowise disturbed by the
+steward's report, and he proceeded cheerfully to bring order out of the
+chaos of a child's body which had been ground and crunched beneath the
+wheels of an electric car.
+
+As many will remember, the case of Semper Idem aroused a vast deal of
+unseemly yet highly natural curiosity.  He had been found in a slum
+lodging, with throat cut as aforementioned, and blood dripping down upon
+the inmates of the room below and disturbing their festivities.  He had
+evidently done the deed standing, with head bowed forward that he might
+gaze his last upon a photograph which stood on the table propped against a
+candlestick.  It was this attitude which had made it possible for Doctor
+Bicknell to save him.  So terrific had been the sweep of the razor that had
+he had his head thrown back, as he should have done to have accomplished
+the act properly, with his neck stretched and the elastic vascular walls
+distended, he would have of a certainty well-nigh decapitated himself.
+
+At the hospital, during all the time he travelled the repugnant road back
+to life, not a word had left his lips.  Nor could anything be learned of
+him by the sleuths detailed by the chief of police.  Nobody knew him, nor
+had ever seen or heard of him before.  He was strictly, uniquely, of the
+present.  His clothes and surroundings were those of the lowest labourer,
+his hands the hands of a gentleman.  But not a shred of writing was
+discovered, nothing, save in one particular, which would serve to indicate
+his past or his position in life.
+
+And that one particular was the photograph.  If it were at all a likeness,
+the woman who gazed frankly out upon the onlooker from the card-mount must
+have been a striking creature indeed.  It was an amateur production, for
+the detectives were baffled in that no professional photographer's
+signature or studio was appended.  Across a corner of the mount, in
+delicate feminine tracery, was written:  "Semper idem; semper fidelis."
+And she looked it.  As many recollect, it was a face one could never
+forget.  Clever half-tones, remarkably like, were published in all the
+leading papers at the time; but such procedure gave rise to nothing but the
+uncontrollable public curiosity and interminable copy to the space-writers.
+
+For want of a better name, the rescued suicide was known to the hospital
+attendants, and to the world, as Semper Idem.  And Semper Idem he remained.
+Reporters, detectives, and nurses gave him up in despair.  Not one word
+could he be persuaded to utter; yet the flitting conscious light of his
+eyes showed that his ears heard and his brain grasped every question put to
+him.
+
+But this mystery and romance played no part in Doctor Bicknell's interest
+when he paused in the office to have a parting word with his patient.  He,
+the Doctor, had performed a prodigy in the matter of this man, done what
+was virtually unprecedented in the annals of surgery.  He did not care who
+or what the man was, and it was highly improbable that he should ever see
+him again; but, like the artist gazing upon a finished creation, he wished
+to look for the last time upon the work of his hand and brain.
+
+Semper Idem still remained mute.  He seemed anxious to be gone.  Not a word
+could the Doctor extract from him, and little the Doctor cared.  He
+examined the throat of the convalescent carefully, idling over the hideous
+scar with the lingering, half-caressing fondness of a parent.  It was not a
+particularly pleasing sight.  An angry line circled the throat--for all the
+world as though the man had just escaped the hangman's noose--and,
+disappearing below the ear on either side, had the appearance of completing
+the fiery periphery at the nape of the neck.
+
+Maintaining his dogged silence, yielding to the other's examination in much
+the manner of a leashed lion, Semper Idem betrayed only his desire to drop
+from out of the public eye.
+
+"Well, I'll not keep you," Doctor Bicknell finally said, laying a hand on
+the man's shoulder and stealing a last glance at his own handiwork.  "But
+let me give you a bit of advice.  Next time you try it on, hold your chin
+up, so.  Don't snuggle it down and butcher yourself like a cow.  Neatness
+and despatch, you know.  Neatness and despatch."
+
+Semper Idem's eyes flashed in token that he heard, and a moment later the
+hospital door swung to on his heel.
+
+It was a busy day for Doctor Bicknell, and the afternoon was well along
+when he lighted a cigar preparatory to leaving the table upon which it
+seemed the sufferers almost clamoured to be laid.  But the last one, an old
+rag-picker with a broken shoulder-blade, had been disposed of, and the
+first fragrant smoke wreaths had begun to curl about his head, when the
+gong of a hurrying ambulance came through the open window from the street,
+followed by the inevitable entry of the stretcher with its ghastly freight.
+
+"Lay it on the table," the Doctor directed, turning for a moment to place
+his cigar in safety.  "What is it?"
+
+"Suicide--throat cut," responded one of the stretcher bearers.  "Down on
+Morgan Alley.  Little hope, I think, sir.  He's 'most gone."
+
+"Eh?  Well, I'll give him a look, anyway."  He leaned over the man at the
+moment when the quick made its last faint flutter and succumbed.
+
+"It's Semper Idem come back again," the steward said.
+
+"Ay," replied Doctor Bicknell, "and gone again.  No bungling this time.
+Properly done, upon my life, sir, properly done.  Took my advice to the
+letter.  I'm not required here.  Take it along to the morgue."
+
+Doctor Bicknell secured his cigar and relighted it.  "That," he said
+between the puffs, looking at the steward, "that evens up for the one you
+lost last night.  We're quits now."
+
+
+
+A NOSE FOR THE KING
+
+In the morning calm of Korea, when its peace and tranquillity truly merited
+its ancient name, "Cho-sen," there lived a politician by name Yi Chin Ho.
+He was a man of parts, and--who shall say?--perhaps in no wise worse than
+politicians the world over.  But, unlike his brethren in other lands, Yi
+Chin Ho was in jail.  Not that he had inadvertently diverted to himself
+public moneys, but that he had inadvertently diverted too much.  Excess is
+to be deplored in all things, even in grafting, and Yi Chin Ho's excess had
+brought him to most deplorable straits.
+
+Ten thousand strings of cash he owed the Government, and he lay in prison
+under sentence of death.  There was one advantage to the situation--he had
+plenty of time in which to think.  And he thought well.  Then called he the
+jailer to him.
+
+"Most worthy man, you see before you one most wretched," he began.  "Yet
+all will be well with me if you will but let me go free for one short hour
+this night.  And all will be well with you, for I shall see to your
+advancement through the years, and you shall come at length to the
+directorship of all the prisons of Cho-sen."
+
+"How now?" demanded the jailer.  "What foolishness is this?  One short
+hour, and you but waiting for your head to be chopped off!  And I, with an
+aged and much-to-be-respected mother, not to say anything of a wife and
+several children of tender years!  Out upon you for the scoundrel that you
+are!"
+
+"From the Sacred City to the ends of all the Eight Coasts there is no place
+for me to hide," Yi Chin Ho made reply.  "I am a man of wisdom, but of what
+worth my wisdom here in prison?  Were I free, well I know I could seek out
+and obtain the money wherewith to repay the Government.  I know of a nose
+that will save me from all my difficulties."
+
+"A nose!" cried the jailer.
+
+"A nose," said Yi Chin Ho.  "A remarkable nose, if I may say so, a most
+remarkable nose."
+
+The jailer threw up his hands despairingly.  "Ah, what a wag you are, what
+a wag," he laughed.  "To think that that very admirable wit of yours must
+go the way of the chopping-block!"
+
+And so saying, he turned and went away.  But in the end, being a man soft
+of head and heart, when the night was well along he permitted Yi Chin Ho to
+go.
+
+Straight he went to the Governor, catching him alone and arousing him from
+his sleep.
+
+"Yi Chin Ho, or I'm no Governor!" cried the Governor.  "What do you here
+who should be in prison waiting on the chopping-block?"
+
+"I pray Your Excellency to listen to me," said Yi Chin Ho, squatting on his
+hams by the bedside and lighting his pipe from the fire-box.  "A dead man
+is without value.  It is true, I am as a dead man, without value to the
+Government, to Your Excellency, or to myself.  But if, so to say, Your
+Excellency were to give me my freedom--"
+
+"Impossible!" cried the Governor.  "Beside, you are condemned to death."
+
+"Your Excellency well knows that if I can repay the ten thousand strings of
+cash, the Government will pardon me," Yi Chin Ho went on.  "So, as I say,
+if Your Excellency were to give me my freedom for a few days, being a man
+of understanding, I should then repay the Government and be in position to
+be of service to Your Excellency.  I should be in position to be of very
+great service to Your Excellency."
+
+"Have you a plan whereby you hope to obtain this money?" asked the
+Governor.
+
+"I have," said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+"Then come with it to me to-morrow night; I would now sleep," said the
+Governor, taking up his snore where it had been interrupted.
+
+On the following night, having again obtained leave of absence from the
+jailer, Yi Chin Ho presented himself at the Governor's bedside.
+
+"Is it you, Yi Chin Ho?" asked the Governor.  "And have you the plan?"
+
+"It is I, Your Excellency," answered Yi Chin Ho, "and the plan is here."
+
+"Speak," commanded the Governor.
+
+"The plan is here," repeated Yi Chin Ho, "here in my hand."
+
+The Governor sat up and opened his eyes.  Yi Chin Ho proffered in his hand
+a sheet of paper.  The Governor held it to the light.
+
+"Nothing but a nose," said he.
+
+"A bit pinched, so, and so, Your Excellency," said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+"Yes, a bit pinched here and there, as you say," said the Governor.
+
+"Withal it is an exceeding corpulent nose, thus, and so, all in one place,
+at the end," proceeded Yi Chin Ho.  "Your Excellency would seek far and
+wide and many a day for that nose and find it not!"
+
+"An unusual nose," admitted the Governor.
+
+"There is a wart upon it," said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+"A most unusual nose," said the Governor.  "Never have I seen the like.
+But what do you with this nose, Yi Chin Ho?"
+
+"I seek it whereby to repay the money to the Government," said Yi Chin Ho.
+"I seek it to be of service to Your Excellency, and I seek it to save my
+own worthless head.  Further, I seek Your Excellency's seal upon this
+picture of the nose."
+
+And the Governor laughed and affixed the seal of State, and Yi Chin Ho
+departed.  For a month and a day he travelled the King's Road which leads
+to the shore of the Eastern Sea; and there, one night, at the gate of the
+largest mansion of a wealthy city he knocked loudly for admittance.
+
+"None other than the master of the house will I see," said he fiercely to
+the frightened servants.  "I travel upon the King's business."
+
+Straightway was he led to an inner room, where the master of the house was
+roused from his sleep and brought blinking before him.
+
+"You are Pak Chung Chang, head man of this city," said Yi Chin Ho in tones
+that were all-accusing.  "I am upon the King's business."
+
+Pak Chung Chang trembled.  Well he knew the King's business was ever a
+terrible business.  His knees smote together, and he near fell to the
+floor.
+
+"The hour is late," he quavered.  "Were it not well to--"
+
+"The King's business never waits!" thundered Yi Chin Ho.  "Come apart with
+me, and swiftly.  I have an affair of moment to discuss with you.
+
+"It is the King's affair," he added with even greater fierceness; so that
+Pak Chung Chang's silver pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers and
+clattered on the floor.
+
+"Know then," said Yi Chin Ho, when they had gone apart, "that the King is
+troubled with an affliction, a very terrible affliction.  In that he failed
+to cure, the Court physician has had nothing else than his head chopped
+off.  From all the Eight Provinces have the physicians come to wait upon
+the King.  Wise consultation have they held, and they have decided that for
+a remedy for the King's affliction nothing else is required than a nose, a
+certain kind of nose, a very peculiar certain kind of nose.
+
+"Then by none other was I summoned than His Excellency the Prime Minister
+himself.  He put a paper into my hand.  Upon this paper was the very
+peculiar kind of nose drawn by the physicians of the Eight Provinces, with
+the seal of State upon it.
+
+"'Go,' said His Excellency the Prime Minister.  'Seek out this nose, for
+the King's affliction is sore.  And wheresoever you find this nose upon the
+face of a man, strike it off forthright and bring it in all haste to the
+Court, for the King must be cured.  Go, and come not back until your search
+is rewarded.'
+
+"And so I departed upon my quest," said Yi Chin Ho.  "I have sought out the
+remotest corners of the kingdom; I have travelled the Eight Highways,
+searched the Eight Provinces, and sailed the seas of the Eight Coasts.  And
+here I am."
+
+With a great flourish he drew a paper from his girdle, unrolled it with
+many snappings and cracklings, and thrust it before the face of Pak Chung
+Chang.  Upon the paper was the picture of the nose.
+
+Pak Chung Chang stared upon it with bulging eyes.
+
+"Never have I beheld such a nose," he began.
+
+"There is a wart upon it," said Yi Chin Ho.
+
+"Never have I beheld--" Pak Chung Chang began again.
+
+"Bring your father before me," Yi Chin Ho interrupted sternly.
+
+"My ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor sleeps," said Pak Chung
+Chang.
+
+"Why dissemble?" demanded Yi Chin Ho.  "You know it is your father's nose.
+Bring him before me that I may strike it off and be gone.  Hurry, lest I
+make bad report of you."
+
+"Mercy!" cried Pak Chung Chang, falling on his knees.  "It is impossible!
+It is impossible!  You cannot strike off my father's nose.  He cannot go
+down without his nose to the grave.  He will become a laughter and a
+byword, and all my days and nights will be filled with woe.  O reflect!
+Report that you have seen no such nose in your travels.  You, too, have a
+father."
+
+Pak Chung Chang clasped Yi Chin Ho's knees and fell to weeping on his
+sandals.
+
+"My heart softens strangely at your tears," said Yi Chin Ho.  "I, too, know
+filial piety and regard.  But--"  He hesitated, then added, as though
+thinking aloud, "It is as much as my head is worth."
+
+"How much is your head worth?" asked Pak Chung Chang in a thin, small
+voice.
+
+"A not remarkable head," said Yi Chin Ho.  "An absurdly unremarkable head;
+but, such is my great foolishness, I value it at nothing less than one
+hundred thousand strings of cash."
+
+"So be it," said Pak Chung Chang, rising to his feet.
+
+"I shall need horses to carry the treasure," said Yi Chin Ho, "and men to
+guard it well as I journey through the mountains.  There are robbers abroad
+in the land."
+
+"There are robbers abroad in the land," said Pak Chung Chang, sadly.  "But
+it shall be as you wish, so long as my ancient and very-much-to-be-
+respected ancestor's nose abide in its appointed place."
+
+"Say nothing to any man of this occurrence," said Yi Chin Ho, "else will
+other and more loyal servants than I be sent to strike off your father's
+nose."
+
+And so Yi Chin Ho departed on his way through the mountains, blithe of
+heart and gay of song as he listened to the jingling bells of his treasure-
+laden ponies.
+
+There is little more to tell.  Yi Chin Ho prospered through the years.  By
+his efforts the jailer attained at length to the directorship of all the
+prisons of Cho-sen; the Governor ultimately betook himself to the Sacred
+City to be Prime Minister to the King, while Yi Chin Ho became the King's
+boon companion and sat at table with him to the end of a round, fat life.
+But Pak Chung Chang fell into a melancholy, and ever after he shook his
+head sadly, with tears in his eyes, whenever he regarded the expensive nose
+of his ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor.
+
+
+
+THE "FRANCIS SPAIGHT"
+
+(A TRUE TALE RETOLD)
+
+The Francis Spaight was running before it solely under a mizzentopsail,
+when the thing happened.  It was not due to carelessness so much as to the
+lack of discipline of the crew and to the fact that they were indifferent
+seamen at best.  The man at the wheel in particular, a Limerick man, had
+had no experience with salt water beyond that of rafting timber on the
+Shannon between the Quebec vessels and the shore.  He was afraid of the
+huge seas that rose out of the murk astern and bore down upon him, and he
+was more given to cowering away from their threatened impact than he was to
+meeting their blows with the wheel and checking the ship's rush to broach
+to.
+
+It was three in the morning when his unseamanlike conduct precipitated the
+catastrophe.  At sight of a sea far larger than its fellows, he crouched
+down, releasing his hands from the spokes.  The Francis Spaight sheered as
+her stern lifted on the sea, receiving the full fling of the cap on her
+quarter.  The next instant she was in the trough, her lee-rail buried till
+the ocean was level with her hatch-coamings, sea after sea breaking over
+her weather rail and sweeping what remained exposed of the deck with icy
+deluges.
+
+The men were out of hand, helpless and hopeless, stupid in their
+bewilderment and fear, and resolute only in that they would not obey
+orders.  Some wailed, others clung silently in the weather shrouds, and
+still others muttered prayers or shrieked vile imprecations; and neither
+captain nor mate could get them to bear a hand at the pumps or at setting
+patches of sails to bring the vessel up to the wind and sea.  Inside the
+hour the ship was over on her beam ends, the lubberly cowards climbing up
+her side and hanging on in the rigging.  When she went over, the mate was
+caught and drowned in the after-cabin, as were two sailors who had sought
+refuge in the forecastle.
+
+The mate had been the ablest man on board, and the captain was now scarcely
+less helpless than his men.  Beyond cursing them for their worthlessness,
+he did nothing; and it remained for a man named Mahoney, a Belfast man, and
+a boy, O'Brien, of Limerick, to cut away the fore and main masts.  This
+they did at great risk on the perpendicular wall of the wreck, sending the
+mizzentopmast overside along in the general crash.  The Francis Spaight
+righted, and it was well that she was lumber laden, else she would have
+sunk, for she was already water-logged.  The mainmast, still fast by the
+shrouds, beat like a thunderous sledge-hammer against the ship's side,
+every stroke bringing groans from the men.
+
+Day dawned on the savage ocean, and in the cold gray light all that could
+be seen of the Francis Spaight emerging from the sea were the poop, the
+shattered mizzenmast, and a ragged line of bulwarks.  It was midwinter in
+the North Atlantic, and the wretched men were half-dead from cold.  But
+there was no place where they could find rest.  Every sea breached clean
+over the wreck, washing away the salt incrustations from their bodies and
+depositing fresh incrustations.  The cabin under the poop was awash to the
+knees, but here at least was shelter from the chill wind, and here the
+survivors congregated, standing upright, holding on by the cabin
+furnishings, and leaning against one another for support.
+
+In vain Mahoney strove to get the men to take turns in watching aloft from
+the mizzenmast for any chance vessel.  The icy gale was too much for them,
+and they preferred the shelter of the cabin.  O'Brien, the boy, who was
+only fifteen, took turns with Mahoney on the freezing perch.  It was the
+boy, at three in the afternoon, who called down that he had sighted a sail.
+This did bring them from the cabin, and they crowded the poop rail and
+weather mizzen shrouds as they watched the strange ship.  But its course
+did not lie near, and when it disappeared below the skyline, they returned
+shivering to the cabin, not one offering to relieve the watch at the mast
+head.
+
+By the end of the second day, Mahoney and O'Brien gave up their attempt,
+and thereafter the vessel drifted in the gale uncared for and without a
+lookout.  There were thirteen alive, and for seventy-two hours they stood
+knee-deep in the sloshing water on the cabin floor, half-frozen, without
+food, and with but three bottles of wine shared among them.  All food and
+fresh water were below, and there was no getting at such supplies in the
+water-logged condition of the wreck.  As the days went by, no food whatever
+passed their lips.  Fresh water, in small quantities, they were able to
+obtain by holding a cover of a tureen under the saddle of the mizzenmast.
+But the rain fell infrequently, and they were hard put.  When it rained,
+they also soaked their handkerchiefs, squeezing them out into their mouths
+or into their shoes.  As the wind and sea went down, they were even able to
+mop the exposed portions of the deck that were free from brine and so add
+to their water supply.  But food they had none, and no way of getting it,
+though sea-birds flew repeatedly overhead.
+
+In the calm weather that followed the gale, after having remained on their
+feet for ninety-six hours, they were able to find dry planks in the cabin
+on which to lie.  But the long hours of standing in the salt water had
+caused sores to form on their legs.  These sores were extremely painful.
+The slightest contact or scrape caused severe anguish, and in their weak
+condition and crowded situation they were continually hurting one another
+in this manner.  Not a man could move about without being followed by
+volleys of abuse, curses, and groans.  So great was their misery that the
+strong oppressed the weak, shoving them aside from the dry planks to shift
+for themselves in the cold and wet.  The boy, O'Brien, was specially
+maltreated.  Though there were three other boys, it was O'Brien who came in
+for most of the abuse.  There was no explaining it, except on the ground
+that his was a stronger and more dominant spirit than those of the other
+boys, and that he stood up more for his rights, resenting the petty
+injustices that were meted out to all the boys by the men.  Whenever
+O'Brien came near the men in search of a dry place to sleep, or merely
+moved about, he was kicked and cuffed away.  In return, he cursed them for
+their selfish brutishness, and blows and kicks and curses were rained upon
+him.  Miserable as were all of them, he was thus made far more miserable;
+and it was only the flame of life, unusually strong in him, that enabled
+him to endure.
+
+As the days went by and they grew weaker, their peevishness and ill-temper
+increased, which, in turn, increased the ill-treatment and sufferings of
+O'Brien.  By the sixteenth day all hands were far gone with hunger, and
+they stood together in small groups, talking in undertones and occasionally
+glancing at O'Brien.  It was at high noon that the conference came to a
+head.  The captain was the spokesman.  All were collected on the poop.
+
+"Men," the captain began, "we have been a long time without food--two weeks
+and two days it is, though it seems more like two years and two months.  We
+can't hang out much longer.  It is beyond human nature to go on hanging out
+with nothing in our stomachs.  There is a serious question to consider:
+whether it is better for all to die, or for one to die.  We are standing
+with our feet in our graves.  If one of us dies, the rest may live until a
+ship is sighted.  What say you?"
+
+Michael Behane, the man who had been at the wheel when the Francis Spaight
+broached to, called out that it was well.  The others joined in the cry.
+
+"Let it be one of the b'ys!" cried Sullivan, a Tarbert man, glancing at the
+same time significantly at O'Brien.
+
+"It is my opinion," the captain went on, "that it will be a good deed for
+one of us to die for the rest."
+
+"A good deed!  A good deed!" the men interjected.
+
+"And it is my opinion that 'tis best for one of the boys to die.  They have
+no families to support, nor would they be considered so great a loss to
+their friends as those who have wives and children."
+
+"'Tis right."  "Very right."  "Very fit it should be done," the men
+muttered one to another.
+
+But the four boys cried out against the injustice of it.
+
+"Our lives is just as dear to us as the rest iv yez," O'Brien protested.
+"An' our famblies, too.  As for wives an' childer, who is there savin'
+meself to care for me old mother that's a widow, as you know well, Michael
+Behane, that comes from Limerick?  'Tis not fair.  Let the lots be drawn
+between all of us, men and b'ys."
+
+Mahoney was the only man who spoke in favour of the boys, declaring that it
+was the fair thing for all to share alike.  Sullivan and the captain
+insisted on the drawing of lots being confined to the boys.  There were
+high words, in the midst of which Sullivan turned upon O'Brien, snarling--
+
+"'Twould be a good deed to put you out of the way.  You deserve it.
+'Twould be the right way to serve you, an' serve you we will."
+
+He started toward O'Brien, with intent to lay hands on him and proceed at
+once with the killing, while several others likewise shuffled toward him
+and reached for him.  He stumbled backwards to escape them, at the same
+time crying that he would submit to the drawing of the lots among the boys.
+
+The captain prepared four sticks of different lengths and handed them to
+Sullivan.
+
+"You're thinkin' the drawin'll not be fair," the latter sneered to O'Brien.
+"So it's yerself'll do the drawin'."
+
+To this O'Brien agreed.  A handkerchief was tied over his eyes,
+blindfolding him, and he knelt down on the deck with his back to Sullivan.
+
+"Whoever you name for the shortest stick'll die," the captain said.
+
+Sullivan held up one of the sticks.  The rest were concealed in his hand so
+that no one could see whether it was the short stick or not.
+
+"An' whose stick will it be?" Sullivan demanded.
+
+"For little Johnny Sheehan," O'Brien answered.
+
+Sullivan laid the stick aside.  Those who looked could not tell if it were
+the fatal one.  Sullivan held up another stick.
+
+"Whose will it be?"
+
+"For George Burns," was the reply.
+
+The stick was laid with the first one, and a third held up.
+
+"An' whose is this wan?"
+
+"For myself," said O'Brien.
+
+With a quick movement, Sullivan threw the four sticks together.  No one had
+seen.
+
+"'Tis for yourself ye've drawn it," Sullivan announced.
+
+"A good deed," several of the men muttered.
+
+O'Brien was very quiet.  He arose to his feet, took the bandage off, and
+looked around.
+
+"Where is ut?" he demanded.  "The short stick?  The wan for me?"
+
+The captain pointed to the four sticks lying on the deck.
+
+"How do you know the stick was mine?" O'Brien questioned.  "Did you see ut,
+Johnny Sheehan?"
+
+Johnny Sheehan, who was the youngest of the boys, did not answer.
+
+"Did you see ut?" O'Brien next asked Mahoney.
+
+"No, I didn't see ut."
+
+The men were muttering and growling.
+
+"'Twas a fair drawin'," Sullivan said.  "Ye had yer chanct an' ye lost,
+that's all iv ut."
+
+"A fair drawin'," the captain added.  "Didn't I behold it myself?  The
+stick was yours, O'Brien, an' ye may as well get ready.  Where's the cook?
+Gorman, come here.  Fetch the tureen cover, some of ye.  Gorman, do your
+duty like a man."
+
+"But how'll I do it," the cook demanded.  He was a weak-eyed, weak-chinned,
+indecisive man.
+
+"'Tis a damned murder!" O'Brien cried out.
+
+"I'll have none of ut," Mahoney announced.  "Not a bite shall pass me
+lips."
+
+"Then 'tis yer share for better men than yerself," Sullivan sneered.  "Go
+on with yer duty, cook."
+
+"'Tis not me duty, the killin' of b'ys," Gorman protested irresolutely.
+
+"If yez don't make mate for us, we'll be makin' mate of yerself," Behane
+threatened.  "Somebody must die, an' as well you as another."
+
+Johnny Sheehan began to cry.  O'Brien listened anxiously.  His face was
+pale.  His lips trembled, and at times his whole body shook.
+
+"I signed on as cook," Gorman enounced.  "An' cook I wud if galley there
+was.  But I'll not lay me hand to murder.  'Tis not in the articles.  I'm
+the cook--"
+
+"An' cook ye'll be for wan minute more only," Sullivan said grimly, at the
+same moment gripping the cook's head from behind and bending it back till
+the windpipe and jugular were stretched taut.  "Where's yer knife, Mike?
+Pass it along."
+
+At the touch of the steel, Gorman whimpered.
+
+"I'll do ut, if yez'll hold the b'y."
+
+The pitiable condition of the cook seemed in some fashion to nerve up
+O'Brien.
+
+"It's all right, Gorman," he said.  "Go on with ut.  'Tis meself knows yer
+not wantin' to do ut.  It's all right, sir"--this to the captain, who had
+laid a hand heavily on his arm.  "Ye won't have to hold me, sir.  I'll
+stand still."
+
+"Stop yer blitherin', an' go an' get the tureen cover," Behane commanded
+Johnny Sheehan, at the same time dealing him a heavy cuff alongside the
+head.
+
+The boy, who was scarcely more than a child, fetched the cover.  He crawled
+and tottered along the deck, so weak was he from hunger.  The tears still
+ran down his cheeks.  Behane took the cover from him, at the same time
+administering another cuff.
+
+O'Brien took off his coat and bared his right arm.  His under lip still
+trembled, but he held a tight grip on himself.  The captain's penknife was
+opened and passed to Gorman.
+
+"Mahoney, tell me mother what happened to me, if ever ye get back," O'Brien
+requested.
+
+Mahoney nodded.
+
+"'Tis black murder, black an' damned," he said.  "The b'y's flesh'll do
+none iv yez anny good.  Mark me words.  Ye'll not profit by it, none iv
+yez."
+
+"Get ready," the captain ordered.  "You, Sullivan, hold the cover--that's
+it--close up.  Spill nothing.  It's precious stuff."
+
+Gorman made an effort.  The knife was dull.  He was weak.  Besides, his
+hand was shaking so violently that he nearly dropped the knife.  The three
+boys were crouched apart, in a huddle, crying and sobbing.  With the
+exception of Mahoney, the men were gathered about the victim, craning their
+necks to see.
+
+"Be a man, Gorman," the captain cautioned.
+
+The wretched cook was seized with a spasm of resolution, sawing back and
+forth with the blade on O'Brien's wrist.  The veins were severed.  Sullivan
+held the tureen cover close underneath.  The cut veins gaped wide, but no
+ruddy flood gushed forth.  There was no blood at all.  The veins were dry
+and empty.  No one spoke.  The grim and silent figures swayed in unison
+with each heave of the ship.  Every eye was turned fixedly upon that
+inconceivable and monstrous thing, the dry veins of a creature that was
+alive.
+
+"'Tis a warnin'," Mahoney cried.  "Lave the b'y alone.  Mark me words.  His
+death'll do none iv yez anny good."
+
+"Try at the elbow--the left elbow, 'tis nearer the heart," the captain said
+finally, in a dim and husky voice that was unlike his own.
+
+"Give me the knife," O'Brien said roughly, taking it out of the cook's
+hand.  "I can't be lookin' at ye puttin' me to hurt."
+
+Quite coolly he cut the vein at the left elbow, but, like the cook, he
+failed to bring blood.
+
+"This is all iv no use," Sullivan said.  "'Tis better to put him out iv his
+misery by bleedin' him at the throat."
+
+The strain had been too much for the lad.
+
+"Don't be doin' ut," he cried.  "There'll be no blood in me throat.  Give
+me a little time.  'Tis cold an' weak I am.  Be lettin' me lay down an'
+slape a bit.  Then I'll be warm an' the blood'll flow."
+
+"'Tis no use," Sullivan objected.  "As if ye cud be slapin' at a time like
+this.  Ye'll not slape, and ye'll not warm up.  Look at ye now.  You've an
+ague."
+
+"I was sick at Limerick wan night," O'Brien hurried on, "an' the dochtor
+cudn't bleed me.  But after slapin' a few hours an' gettin' warm in bed the
+blood came freely.  It's God's truth I'm tellin' yez.  Don't be murderin'
+me!"
+
+"His veins are open now," the captain said.  "'Tis no use leavin' him in
+his pain.  Do it now an' be done with it."
+
+They started to reach for O'Brien, but he backed away.
+
+"I'll be the death iv yez!" he screamed.  "Take yer hands off iv me,
+Sullivan!  I'll come back!  I'll haunt yez!  Wakin' or slapin', I'll haunt
+yez till you die!"
+
+"'Tis disgraceful!" yelled Behane.  "If the short stick'd ben mine, I'd a-
+let me mates cut the head off iv me an' died happy."
+
+Sullivan leaped in and caught the unhappy lad by the hair.  The rest of the
+men followed, O'Brien kicked and struggled, snarling and snapping at the
+hands that clutched him from every side.  Little Johnny Sheehan broke out
+into wild screaming, but the men took no notice of him.  O'Brien was bent
+backward to the deck, the tureen cover under his neck.  Gorman was shoved
+forward.  Some one had thrust a large sheath-knife into his hand.
+
+"Do yer duty!  Do yer duty!" the men cried.
+
+The cook bent over, but he caught the boy's eyes and faltered.
+
+"If ye don't, I'll kill ye with me own hands," Behane shouted.
+
+From every side a torrent of abuse and threats poured in upon the cook.
+Still he hung back.
+
+"Maybe there'll be more blood in his veins than O'Brien's," Sullivan
+suggested significantly.
+
+Behane caught Gorman by the hair and twisted his head back, while Sullivan
+attempted to take possession of the sheath-knife.  But Gorman clung to it
+desperately.
+
+"Lave go, an' I'll do ut!" he screamed frantically.  "Don't be cuttin' me
+throat!  I'll do the deed!  I'll do the deed!"
+
+"See that you do it, then," the captain threatened him.
+
+Gorman allowed himself to be shoved forward.  He looked at the boy, closed
+his eyes, and muttered a prayer.  Then, without opening his eyes, he did
+the deed that had been appointed him.  O'Brien emitted a shriek that sank
+swiftly to a gurgling sob.  The men held him till his struggles ceased,
+when he was laid upon the deck.  They were eager and impatient, and with
+oaths and threats they urged Gorman to hurry with the preparation of the
+meal.
+
+"Lave ut, you bloody butchers," Mahoney said quietly.  "Lave ut, I tell
+yez.  Ye'll not be needin' anny iv ut now.  'Tis as I said:  ye'll not be
+profitin' by the lad's blood.  Empty ut overside, Behane.  Empty ut
+overside."
+
+Behane, still holding the tureen cover in both his hands, glanced to
+windward.  He walked to the rail and threw the cover and contents into the
+sea.  A full-rigged ship was bearing down upon them a short mile away.  So
+occupied had they been with the deed just committed, that none had had eyes
+for a lookout.  All hands watched her coming on--the brightly coppered
+forefoot parting the water like a golden knife, the headsails flapping
+lazily and emptily at each downward surge, and the towering canvas tiers
+dipping and curtsying with each stately swing of the sea.  No man spoke.
+
+As she hove to, a cable length away, the captain of the Francis Spaight
+bestirred himself and ordered a tarpaulin to be thrown over O'Brien's
+corpse.  A boat was lowered from the stranger's side and began to pull
+toward them.  John Gorman laughed.  He laughed softly at first, but he
+accompanied each stroke of the oars with spasmodically increasing glee.  It
+was this maniacal laughter that greeted the rescue boat as it hauled
+alongside and the first officer clambered on board.
+
+
+
+A CURIOUS FRAGMENT
+
+[The capitalist, or industrial oligarch, Roger Vanderwater, mentioned in
+the narrative, has been identified as the ninth in the line of the
+Vanderwaters that controlled for hundreds of years the cotton factories of
+the South.  This Roger Vanderwater flourished in the last decades of the
+twenty-sixth century after Christ, which was the fifth century of the
+terrible industrial oligarchy that was reared upon the ruins of the early
+Republic.
+
+From internal evidences we are convinced that the narrative which follows
+was not reduced to writing till the twenty-ninth century.  Not only was it
+unlawful to write or print such matter during that period, but the working-
+class was so illiterate that only in rare instances were its members able
+to read and write.  This was the dark reign of the overman, in whose speech
+the great mass of the people were characterized as the "herd animals."  All
+literacy was frowned upon and stamped out.  From the statute-books of the
+times may be instanced that black law that made it a capital offence for
+any man, no matter of what class, to teach even the alphabet to a member of
+the working-class.  Such stringent limitation of education to the ruling
+class was necessary if that class was to continue to rule.
+
+One result of the foregoing was the development of the professional story-
+tellers.  These story-tellers were paid by the oligarchy, and the tales
+they told were legendary, mythical, romantic, and harmless.  But the spirit
+of freedom never quite died out, and agitators, under the guise of story-
+tellers, preached revolt to the slave class.  That the following tale was
+banned by the oligarchs we have proof from the records of the criminal
+police court of Ashbury, wherein, on January 27, 2734, one John Tourney,
+found guilty of telling the tale in a boozing-ken of labourers, was
+sentenced to five years' penal servitude in the borax mines of the Arizona
+Desert.--EDITOR'S NOTE.]
+
+
+Listen, my brothers, and I will tell you a tale of an arm.  It was the arm
+of Tom Dixon, and Tom Dixon was a weaver of the first class in a factory of
+that hell-hound and master, Roger Vanderwater.  This factory was called
+"Hell's Bottom" . . . by the slaves who toiled in it, and I guess they
+ought to know; and it was situated in Kingsbury, at the other end of the
+town from Vanderwater's summer palace.  You do not know where Kingsbury is?
+There are many things, my brothers, that you do not know, and it is sad.
+It is because you do not know that you are slaves.  When I have told you
+this tale, I should like to form a class among you for the learning of
+written and printed speech.  Our masters read and write and possess many
+books, and it is because of that that they are our masters, and live in
+palaces, and do not work.  When the toilers learn to read and write--all of
+them--they will grow strong; then they will use their strength to break
+their bonds, and there will be no more masters and no more slaves.
+
+Kingsbury, my brothers, is in the old State of Alabama.  For three hundred
+years the Vanderwaters have owned Kingsbury and its slave pens and
+factories, and slave pens and factories in many other places and States.
+You have heard of the Vanderwaters--who has not?--but let me tell you
+things you do not know about them.  The first Vanderwater was a slave, even
+as you and I.  Have you got that?  He was a slave, and that was over three
+hundred years ago.  His father was a machinist in the slave pen of
+Alexander Burrell, and his mother was a washerwoman in the same slave pen.
+There is no doubt about this.  I am telling you truth.  It is history.  It
+is printed, every word of it, in the history books of our masters, which
+you cannot read because your masters will not permit you to learn to read.
+You can understand why they will not permit you to learn to read, when
+there are such things in the books.  They know, and they are very wise.  If
+you did read such things, you might be wanting in respect to your masters,
+which would be a dangerous thing . . . to your masters.  But I know, for I
+can read, and I am telling you what I have read with my own eyes in the
+history books of our masters.
+
+The first Vanderwater's name was not Vanderwater; it was Vange--Bill Vange,
+the son of Yergis Vange, the machinist, and Laura Carnly, the washerwoman.
+Young Bill Vange was strong.  He might have remained with the slaves and
+led them to freedom; instead, however, he served the masters and was well
+rewarded.  He began his service, when yet a small child, as a spy in his
+home slave pen.  He is known to have informed on his own father for
+seditious utterance.  This is fact.  I have read it with my own eyes in the
+records.  He was too good a slave for the slave pen.  Alexander Burrell
+took him out, while yet a child, and he was taught to read and write.  He
+was taught many things, and he was entered in the secret service of the
+Government.  Of course, he no longer wore the slave dress, except for
+disguise at such times when he sought to penetrate the secrets and plots of
+the slaves.  It was he, when but eighteen years of age, who brought that
+great hero and comrade, Ralph Jacobus, to trial and execution in the
+electric chair.  Of course, you have all heard the sacred name of Ralph
+Jacobus, but it is news to you that he was brought to his death by the
+first Vanderwater, whose name was Vange.  I know.  I have read it in the
+books.  There are many interesting things like that in the books.
+
+And after Ralph Jacobus died his shameful death, Bill Vange's name began
+the many changes it was to undergo.  He was known as "Sly Vange" far and
+wide.  He rose high in the secret service, and he was rewarded in grand
+ways, but still he was not a member of the master class.  The men were
+willing that he should become so; it was the women of the master class who
+refused to have Sly Vange one of them.  Sly Vange gave good service to the
+masters.  He had been a slave himself, and he knew the ways of the slaves.
+There was no fooling him.  In those days the slaves were braver than now,
+and they were always trying for their freedom.  And Sly Vange was
+everywhere, in all their schemes and plans, bringing their schemes and
+plans to naught and their leaders to the electric chair.  It was in 2255
+that his name was next changed for him.  It was in that year that the Great
+Mutiny took place.  In that region west of the Rocky Mountains, seventeen
+millions of slaves strove bravely to overthrow their masters.  Who knows,
+if Sly Vange had not lived, but that they would have succeeded?  But Sly
+Vange was very much alive.  The masters gave him supreme command of the
+situation.  In eight months of fighting, one million and three hundred and
+fifty thousand slaves were killed.  Vange, Bill Vange, Sly Vange, killed
+them, and he broke the Great Mutiny.  And he was greatly rewarded, and so
+red were his hands with the blood of the slaves that thereafter he was
+called "Bloody Vange."  You see, my brothers, what interesting things are
+to be found in the books when one can read them.  And, take my word for it,
+there are many other things, even more interesting, in the books.  And if
+you will but study with me, in a year's time you can read those books for
+yourselves--ay, in six months some of you will be able to read those books
+for yourselves.
+
+Bloody Vange lived to a ripe old age, and always, to the last, was he
+received in the councils of the masters; but never was he made a master
+himself.  He had first opened his eyes, you see, in a slave pen.  But oh,
+he was well rewarded!  He had a dozen palaces in which to live.  He, who
+was no master, owned thousands of slaves.  He had a great pleasure yacht
+upon the sea that was a floating palace, and he owned a whole island in the
+sea where toiled ten thousand slaves on his coffee plantations.  But in his
+old age he was lonely, for he lived apart, hated by his brothers, the
+slaves, and looked down upon by those he had served and who refused to be
+his brothers.  The masters looked down upon him because he had been born a
+slave.  Enormously wealthy he died; but he died horribly, tormented by his
+conscience, regretting all he had done and the red stain on his name.
+
+But with his children it was different.  They had not been born in the
+slave pen, and by the special ruling of the Chief Oligarch of that time,
+John Morrison, they were elevated to the master class.  And it was then
+that the name of Vange disappears from the page of history.  It becomes
+Vanderwater, and Jason Vange, the son of Bloody Vange, becomes Jason
+Vanderwater, the founder of the Vanderwater line.  But that was three
+hundred years ago, and the Vanderwaters of to-day forget their beginnings
+and imagine that somehow the clay of their bodies is different stuff from
+the clay in your body and mine and in the bodies of all slaves.  And I ask
+you, Why should a slave become the master of another slave?  And why should
+the son of a slave become the master of many slaves?  I leave these
+questions for you to answer for yourselves, but do not forget that in the
+beginning the Vanderwaters were slaves.
+
+And now, my brothers, I come back to the beginning of my tale to tell you
+of Tom Dixon's arm.  Roger Vanderwater's factory in Kingsbury was rightly
+named "Hell's Bottom," but the men who toiled in it were men, as you shall
+see.  Women toiled there, too, and children, little children.  All that
+toiled there had the regular slave rights under the law, but only under the
+law, for they were deprived of many of their rights by the two overseers of
+Hell's Bottom, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster.
+
+It is a long story, but I shall not tell all of it to you.  I shall tell
+only about the arm.  It happened that, according to the law, a portion of
+the starvation wage of the slaves was held back each month and put into a
+fund.  This fund was for the purpose of helping such unfortunate fellow-
+workmen as happened to be injured by accidents or to be overtaken by
+sickness.  As you know with yourselves, these funds are controlled by the
+overseers.  It is the law, and so it was that the fund at Hell's Bottom was
+controlled by the two overseers of accursed memory.
+
+Now, Clancy and Munster took this fund for their own use.  When accidents
+happened to the workmen, their fellows, as was the custom, made grants from
+the fund; but the overseers refused to pay over the grants.  What could the
+slaves do?  They had their rights under the law, but they had no access to
+the law.  Those that complained to the overseers were punished.  You know
+yourselves what form such punishment takes--the fines for faulty work that
+is not faulty; the overcharging of accounts in the Company's store; the
+vile treatment of one's women and children; and the allotment to bad
+machines whereon, work as one will, he starves.
+
+Once, the slaves of Hell's Bottom protested to Vanderwater.  It was the
+time of the year when he spent several months in Kingsbury.  One of the
+slaves could write; it chanced that his mother could write, and she had
+secretly taught him as her mother had secretly taught her.  So this slave
+wrote a round robin, wherein was contained their grievances, and all the
+slaves signed by mark.  And, with proper stamps upon the envelope, the
+round robin was mailed to Roger Vanderwater.  And Roger Vanderwater did
+nothing, save to turn the round robin over to the two overseers.  Clancy
+and Munster were angered.  They turned the guards loose at night on the
+slave pen.  The guards were armed with pick handles.  It is said that next
+day only half of the slaves were able to work in Hell's Bottom.  They were
+well beaten.  The slave who could write was so badly beaten that he lived
+only three months.  But before he died, he wrote once more, to what purpose
+you shall hear.
+
+Four or five weeks afterward, Tom Dixon, a slave, had his arm torn off by a
+belt in Hell's Bottom.  His fellow-workmen, as usual, made a grant to him
+from the fund, and Clancy and Munster, as usual, refused to pay it over
+from the fund.  The slave who could write, and who even then was dying,
+wrote anew a recital of their grievances.  And this document was thrust
+into the hand of the arm that had been torn from Tom Dixon's body.
+
+Now it chanced that Roger Vanderwater was lying ill in his palace at the
+other end of Kingsbury--not the dire illness that strikes down you and me,
+brothers; just a bit of biliousness, mayhap, or no more than a bad headache
+because he had eaten too heartily or drunk too deeply.  But it was enough
+for him, being tender and soft from careful rearing.  Such men, packed in
+cotton wool all their lives, are exceeding tender and soft.  Believe me,
+brothers, Roger Vanderwater felt as badly with his aching head, or THOUGHT
+he felt as badly, as Tom Dixon really felt with his arm torn out by the
+roots.
+
+It happened that Roger Vanderwater was fond of scientific farming, and that
+on his farm, three miles outside of Kingsbury, he had managed to grow a new
+kind of strawberry.  He was very proud of that new strawberry of his, and
+he would have been out to see and pick the first ripe ones, had it not been
+for his illness.  Because of his illness he had ordered the old farm slave
+to bring in personally the first box of the berries.  All this was learned
+from the gossip of a palace scullion, who slept each night in the slave
+pen.  The overseer of the plantation should have brought in the berries,
+but he was on his back with a broken leg from trying to break a colt.  The
+scullion brought the word in the night, and it was known that next day the
+berries would come in.  And the men in the slave pen of Hell's Bottom,
+being men and not cowards, held a council.
+
+The slave who could write, and who was sick and dying from the pick-handle
+beating, said he would carry Tom Dixon's arm; also, he said he must die
+anyway, and that it mattered nothing if he died a little sooner.  So five
+slaves stole from the slave pen that night after the guards had made their
+last rounds.  One of the slaves was the man who could write.  They lay in
+the brush by the roadside until late in the morning, when the old farm
+slave came driving to town with the precious fruit for the master.  What of
+the farm slave being old and rheumatic, and of the slave who could write
+being stiff and injured from his beating, they moved their bodies about
+when they walked, very much in the same fashion.  The slave who could write
+put on the other's clothes, pulled the broad-brimmed hat over his eyes,
+climbed upon the seat of the wagon, and drove on to town.  The old farm
+slave was kept tied all day in the bushes until evening, when the others
+loosed him and went back to the slave pen to take their punishment for
+having broken bounds.
+
+In the meantime, Roger Vanderwater lay waiting for the berries in his
+wonderful bedroom--such wonders and such comforts were there that they
+would have blinded the eyes of you and me who have never seen such things.
+The slave who could write said afterward that it was like a glimpse of
+Paradise!  And why not?  The labour and the lives of ten thousand slaves
+had gone to the making of that bedchamber, while they themselves slept in
+vile lairs like wild beasts.  The slave who could write brought in the
+berries on a silver tray or platter--you see, Roger Vanderwater wanted to
+speak with him in person about the berries.
+
+The slave who could write tottered his dying body across the wonderful room
+and knelt by the couch of Vanderwater, holding out before him the tray.
+Large green leaves covered the top of the tray, and these the body-servant
+alongside whisked away so that Vanderwater could see.  And Roger
+Vanderwater, propped upon his elbow, saw.  He saw the fresh, wonderful
+fruit lying there like precious jewels, and in the midst of it the arm of
+Tom Dixon as it had been torn from his body, well washed, of course, my
+brothers, and very white against the blood-red fruit.  And also he saw,
+clutched in the stiff, dead fingers, the petition of his slaves who toiled
+in Hell's Bottom.
+
+"Take and read," said the slave who could write.  And even as the master
+took the petition, the body-servant, who till then had been motionless with
+surprise, struck with his fist the kneeling slave upon the mouth.  The
+slave was dying anyway, and was very weak, and did not mind.  He made no
+sound, and, having fallen over on his side, he lay there quietly, bleeding
+from the blow on the mouth.  The physician, who had run for the palace
+guards, came back with them, and the slave was dragged upright upon his
+feet.  But as they dragged him up, his hand clutched Tom Dixon's arm from
+where it had fallen on the floor.
+
+"He shall be flung alive to the hounds!" the body-servant was crying in
+great wrath.  "He shall be flung alive to the hounds!"
+
+But Roger Vanderwater, forgetting his headache, still leaning on his elbow,
+commanded silence, and went on reading the petition.  And while he read,
+there was silence, all standing upright, the wrathful body-servant, the
+physician, the palace guards, and in their midst the slave, bleeding at the
+mouth and still holding Tom Dixon's arm.  And when Roger Vanderwater had
+done, he turned upon the slave, saying--
+
+"If in this paper there be one lie, you shall be sorry that you were ever
+born."
+
+And the slave said, "I have been sorry all my life that I was born."
+
+Roger Vanderwater looked at him closely, and the slave said--
+
+"You have done your worst to me.  I am dying now.  In a week I shall be
+dead, so it does not matter if you kill me now."
+
+"What do you with that?" the master asked, pointing to the arm; and the
+slave made answer--
+
+"I take it back to the pen to give it burial.  Tom Dixon was my friend.  We
+worked beside each other at our looms."
+
+There is little more to my tale, brothers.  The slave and the arm were sent
+back in a cart to the pen.  Nor were any of the slaves punished for what
+they had done.  Indeed, Roger Vanderwater made investigation and punished
+the two overseers, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster.  Their freeholds were
+taken from them.  They were branded, each upon the forehead, their right
+hands were cut off, and they were turned loose upon the highway to wander
+and beg until they died.  And the fund was managed rightfully thereafter
+for a time--for a time only, my brothers; for after Roger Vanderwater came
+his son, Albert, who was a cruel master and half mad.
+
+Brothers, that slave who carried the arm into the presence of the master
+was my father.  He was a brave man.  And even as his mother secretly taught
+him to read, so did he teach me.  Because he died shortly after from the
+pick-handle beating, Roger Vanderwater took me out of the slave pen and
+tried to make various better things out of me.  I might have become an
+overseer in Hell's Bottom, but I chose to become a story-teller, wandering
+over the land and getting close to my brothers, the slaves, everywhere.
+And I tell you stories like this, secretly, knowing that you will not
+betray me; for if you did, you know as well as I that my tongue will be
+torn out and that I shall tell stories no more.  And my message is,
+brothers, that there is a good time coming, when all will be well in the
+world and there will be neither masters nor slaves.  But first you must
+prepare for that good time by learning to read.  There is power in the
+printed word.  And here am I to teach you to read, and as well there are
+others to see that you get the books when I am gone along upon my way--the
+history books wherein you will learn about your masters, and learn to
+become strong even as they.
+
+[EDITOR'S NOTE.--From "Historical Fragments and Sketches," first published
+in fifty volumes in 4427, and now, after two hundred years, because of its
+accuracy and value, edited and republished by the National Committee on
+Historical Research.]
+
+
+
+A PIECE OF STEAK
+
+With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last
+particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and
+meditative way.  When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the
+feeling that he was distinctly hungry.  Yet he alone had eaten.  The two
+children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in
+sleep they might forget they had gone supperless.  His wife had touched
+nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes.  She
+was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier
+prettiness were not wanting in her face.  The flour for the gravy she had
+borrowed from the neighbour across the hall The last two ha'pennies had
+gone to buy the bread.
+
+He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his
+weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped into
+the side pocket of his coat.  The absence of any tobacco made him aware of
+his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the pipe away.
+His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were burdened by the
+heavy weight of his muscles.  He was a solid-bodied, stolid-looking man,
+and his appearance did not suffer from being overprepossessing.  His rough
+clothes were old and slouchy.  The uppers of his shoes were too weak to
+carry the heavy re-soling that was itself of no recent date.  And his
+cotton shirt, a cheap, two shilling affair, showed a frayed collar and
+ineradicable paint stains.
+
+But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he
+was.  It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in
+long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed and
+emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast.  It was distinctly a
+lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it
+was clean-shaven.  The lips were shapeless and constituted a mouth harsh to
+excess, that was like a gash in his face.  The jaw was aggressive, brutal,
+heavy.  The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost
+expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows.  Sheer animal that he was,
+the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him.  They were sleepy,
+lion-like--the eyes of a fighting animal.  The forehead slanted quickly
+back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a villainous-
+looking head.  A nose twice broken and moulded variously by countless
+blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted to twice
+its size, completed his adornment, while the beard, fresh-shaven as it was,
+sprouted in the skin and gave the face a blue-black stain.
+
+Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or
+lonely place.  And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done
+anything criminal.  Outside of brawls, common to his walk in life, he had
+harmed no one.  Nor had he ever been known to pick a quarrel. He was a
+professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved for his
+professional appearances.  Outside the ring he was slow-going, easy-
+natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too open-handed
+for his own good.  He bore no grudges and had few enemies.  Fighting was a
+business with him.  In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to maim, struck
+to destroy; but there was no animus in it.  It was a plain business
+proposition.  Audiences assembled and paid for the spectacle of men
+knocking each other out.  The winner took the big end of the purse.  When
+Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years before, he knew that
+the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after having been broken in a
+Newcastle bout.  And he had played for that jaw and broken it again in the
+ninth round, not because he bore the Gouger any ill-will, but because that
+was the surest way to put the Gouger out and win the big end of the purse.
+Nor had the Gouger borne him any ill-will for it.  It was the game, and
+both knew the game and played it.
+
+Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely
+silent, staring at his hands.  The veins stood out on the backs of the
+hands, large and swollen; and the knuckles, smashed and battered and
+malformed, testified to the use to which they had been put.  He had never
+heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but well he knew the
+meaning of those big upstanding veins.  His heart had pumped too much blood
+through them at top pressure.  They no longer did the work.  He had
+stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distension had passed
+his endurance.  He tired easily now.  No longer could he do a fast twenty
+rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong, with
+fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and in turn
+beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and fastest of all
+in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its feet and yelling,
+himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers of blows upon showers
+of blows and receiving showers of blows in return, and all the time the
+heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through the adequate veins.  The
+veins, swollen at the time, had always shrunk down again, though each time,
+imperceptibly at first, not quite--remaining just a trifle larger than
+before.  He stared at them and at his battered knuckles, and, for the
+moment, caught a vision of the youthful excellence of those hands before
+the first knuckle had been smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise
+known as the Welsh Terror.
+
+The impression of his hunger came back on him.
+
+"Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!" he muttered aloud, clenching
+his huge fists and spitting out a smothered oath.
+
+"I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's," his wife said half apologetically.
+
+"An' they wouldn't?" he demanded.
+
+"Not a ha'penny.  Burke said--" She faltered.
+
+"G'wan!  Wot'd he say?"
+
+"As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score was
+comfortable big as it was."
+
+Tom King grunted, but did not reply.  He was busy thinking of the bull
+terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks without
+end.  Burke would have given him credit for a thousand steaks--then.  But
+times had changed.  Tom King was getting old; and old men, fighting before
+second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills of any size with the
+tradesmen.
+
+He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and the
+longing had not abated.  He had not had a fair training for this fight.  It
+was a drought year in Australia, times were hard, and even the most
+irregular work was difficult to find.  He had had no sparring partner, and
+his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient.  He had done a few
+days' navvy work when he could get it, and he had run around the Domain in
+the early mornings to get his legs in shape.  But it was hard, training
+without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies that must be fed.  Credit
+with the tradesmen had undergone very slight expansion when he was matched
+with Sandel.  The secretary of the Gayety Club had advanced him three
+pounds--the loser's end of the purse--and beyond that had refused to go.
+Now and again he had managed to borrow a few shillings from old pals, who
+would have lent more only that it was a drought year and they were hard put
+themselves.  No--and there was no use in disguising the fact--his training
+had not been satisfactory.  He should have had better food and no worries.
+Besides, when a man is forty, it is harder to get into condition than when
+he is twenty.
+
+"What time is it, Lizzie?" he asked.
+
+His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back.
+
+"Quarter before eight."
+
+"They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes," he said.  "Only a
+try-out.  Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley,
+an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke.  I don't come on
+for over an hour."
+
+At the end of another silent ten minutes, he rose to his feet.
+
+"Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'."
+
+He reached for his hat and started for the door.  He did not offer to kiss
+her--he never did on going out--but on this night she dared to kiss him,
+throwing her arms around him and compelling him to bend down to her face.
+She looked quite small against the massive bulk of the man.
+
+"Good luck, Tom," she said.  "You gotter do 'im."
+
+"Ay, I gotter do 'im," he repeated.  "That's all there is to it.  I jus'
+gotter do 'im."
+
+He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely
+against him.  Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room.  It was
+all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies.
+And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate and
+cubs--not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind, but in the
+old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.
+
+"I gotter do 'im," he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his
+voice.  "If it's a win, it's thirty quid--an' I can pay all that's owin',
+with a lump o' money left over.  If it's a lose, I get naught--not even a
+penny for me to ride home on the tram.  The secretary's give all that's
+comin' from a loser's end.  Good-bye, old woman.  I'll come straight home
+if it's a win."
+
+"An' I'll be waitin' up," she called to him along the hall.
+
+It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he remembered
+how in his palmy days--he had once been the heavyweight champion of New
+South Wales--he would have ridden in a cab to the fight, and how, most
+likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and ridden with him.
+There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack Johnson--they rode
+about in motor-cars.  And he walked!  And, as any man knew, a hard two
+miles was not the best preliminary to a fight.  He was an old un, and the
+world did not wag well with old uns.  He was good for nothing now except
+navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were against him even in
+that.  He found himself wishing that he had learned a trade.  It would have
+been better in the long run.  But no one had told him, and he knew, deep
+down in his heart, that he would not have listened if they had.  It had
+been so easy.  Big money--sharp, glorious fights--periods of rest and
+loafing in between--a following of eager flatterers, the slaps on the back,
+the shakes of the hand, the toffs glad to buy him a drink for the privilege
+of five minutes' talk--and the glory of it, the yelling houses, the
+whirlwind finish, the referee's "King wins!" and his name in the sporting
+columns next day.
+
+Those had been times!  But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way,
+that it was the old uns he had been putting away.  He was Youth, rising;
+and they were Age, sinking.  No wonder it had been easy--they with their
+swollen veins and battered knuckles and weary in the bones of them from the
+long battles they had already fought.  He remembered the time he put out
+old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round, and how
+old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby.  Perhaps old
+Bill's rent had been overdue.  Perhaps he'd had at home a missus an' a
+couple of kiddies.  And perhaps Bill, that very day of the fight, had had a
+hungering for a piece of steak.  Bill had fought game and taken incredible
+punishment.  He could see now, after he had gone through the mill himself,
+that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger stake, that night twenty years
+ago, than had young Tom King, who had fought for glory and easy money.  No
+wonder Stowsher Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room.
+
+Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with.  It was the iron
+law of the game.  One man might have a hundred hard fights in him, another
+man only twenty; each, according to the make of him and the quality of his
+fibre, had a definite number, and, when he had fought them, he was done.
+Yes, he had had more fights in him than most of them, and he had had far
+more than his share of the hard, gruelling fights--the kind that worked the
+heart and lungs to bursting, that took the elastic out of the arteries and
+made hard knots of muscle out of Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out
+nerve and stamina and made brain and bones weary from excess of effort and
+endurance overwrought.  Yes, he had done better than all of them.  There
+were none of his old fighting partners left.  He was the last of the old
+guard.  He had seen them all finished, and he had had a hand in finishing
+some of them.
+
+They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had
+put them away--laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in the
+dressing-room.  And now he was an old un, and they tried out the youngsters
+on him.  There was that bloke, Sandel.  He had come over from New Zealand
+with a record behind him.  But nobody in Australia knew anything about him,
+so they put him up against old Tom King.  If Sandel made a showing, he
+would be given better men to fight, with bigger purses to win; so it was to
+be depended upon that he would put up a fierce battle.  He had everything
+to win by it--money and glory and career; and Tom King was the grizzled old
+chopping-block that guarded the highway to fame and fortune.  And he had
+nothing to win except thirty quid, to pay to the landlord and the
+tradesmen.  And, as Tom King thus ruminated, there came to his stolid
+vision the form of Youth, glorious Youth, rising exultant and invincible,
+supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that had never
+been tired and torn and that laughed at limitation of effort.  Yes, Youth
+was the Nemesis.  It destroyed the old uns and recked not that, in so
+doing, it destroyed itself.  It enlarged its arteries and smashed its
+knuckles, and was in turn destroyed by Youth.  For Youth was ever youthful.
+It was only Age that grew old.
+
+At Castlereagh Street he turned to the left, and three blocks along came to
+the Gayety.  A crowd of young larrikins hanging outside the door made
+respectful way for him, and he heard one say to another:  "That's 'im!
+That's Tom King!"
+
+Inside, on the way to his dressing-room, he encountered the secretary, a
+keen-eyed, shrewd-faced young man, who shook his hand.
+
+"How are you feelin', Tom?" he asked.
+
+"Fit as a fiddle," King answered, though he knew that he lied, and that if
+he had a quid, he would give it right there for a good piece of steak.
+
+When he emerged from the dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and came
+down the aisle to the squared ring in the centre of the hall, a burst of
+greeting and applause went up from the waiting crowd.  He acknowledged
+salutations right and left, though few of the faces did he know.  Most of
+them were the faces of kiddies unborn when he was winning his first laurels
+in the squared ring.  He leaped lightly to the raised platform and ducked
+through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a folding stool.
+Jack Ball, the referee, came over and shook his hand.  Ball was a broken-
+down pugilist who for over ten years had not entered the ring as a
+principal.  King was glad that he had him for referee.  They were both old
+uns.  If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the rules, he knew
+Ball could be depended upon to pass it by.
+
+Aspiring young heavyweights, one after another, were climbing into the ring
+and being presented to the audience by the referee.  Also, he issued their
+challenges for them.
+
+"Young Pronto," Bill announced, "from North Sydney, challenges the winner
+for fifty pounds side bet."
+
+The audience applauded, and applauded again as Sandel himself sprang
+through the ropes and sat down in his corner.  Tom King looked across the
+ring at him curiously, for in a few minutes they would be locked together
+in merciless combat, each trying with all the force of him to knock the
+other into unconsciousness.  But little could he see, for Sandel, like
+himself, had trousers and sweater on over his ring costume.  His face was
+strongly handsome, crowned with a curly mop of yellow hair, while his
+thick, muscular neck hinted at bodily magnificence.
+
+Young Pronto went to one corner and then the other, shaking hands with the
+principals and dropping down out of the ring.  The challenges went on.
+Ever Youth climbed through the ropes--Youth unknown, but insatiable--crying
+out to mankind that with strength and skill it would match issues with the
+winner.  A few years before, in his own heyday of invincibleness, Tom King
+would have been amused and bored by these preliminaries.  But now he sat
+fascinated, unable to shake the vision of Youth from his eyes.  Always were
+these youngsters rising up in the boxing game, springing through the ropes
+and shouting their defiance; and always were the old uns going down before
+them.  They climbed to success over the bodies of the old uns.  And ever
+they came, more and more youngsters--Youth unquenchable and irresistible--
+and ever they put the old uns away, themselves becoming old uns and
+travelling the same downward path, while behind them, ever pressing on
+them, was Youth eternal--the new babies, grown lusty and dragging their
+elders down, with behind them more babies to the end of time--Youth that
+must have its will and that will never die.
+
+King glanced over to the press box and nodded to Morgan, of the Sportsman,
+and Corbett, of the Referee.  Then he held out his hands, while Sid
+Sullivan and Charley Bates, his seconds, slipped on his gloves and laced
+them tight, closely watched by one of Sandel's seconds, who first examined
+critically the tapes on King's knuckles.  A second of his own was in
+Sandel's corner, performing a like office.  Sandel's trousers were pulled
+off, and, as he stood up, his sweater was skinned off over his head.  And
+Tom King, looking, saw Youth incarnate, deep-chested, heavy-thewed, with
+muscles that slipped and slid like live things under the white satin skin.
+The whole body was a-crawl with life, and Tom King knew that it was a life
+that had never oozed its freshness out through the aching pores during the
+long fights wherein Youth paid its toll and departed not quite so young as
+when it entered.
+
+The two men advanced to meet each other, and, as the gong sounded and the
+seconds clattered out of the ring with the folding stools, they shook hands
+and instantly took their fighting attitudes.  And instantly, like a
+mechanism of steel and springs balanced on a hair trigger, Sandel was in
+and out and in again, landing a left to the eyes, a right to the ribs,
+ducking a counter, dancing lightly away and dancing menacingly back again.
+He was swift and clever.  It was a dazzling exhibition.  The house yelled
+its approbation.  But King was not dazzled.  He had fought too many fights
+and too many youngsters.  He knew the blows for what they were--too quick
+and too deft to be dangerous.  Evidently Sandel was going to rush things
+from the start.  It was to be expected.  It was the way of Youth, expending
+its splendour and excellence in wild insurgence and furious onslaught,
+overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory of strength and
+desire.
+
+Sandel was in and out, here, there, and everywhere, light-footed and eager-
+hearted, a living wonder of white flesh and stinging muscle that wove
+itself into a dazzling fabric of attack, slipping and leaping like a flying
+shuttle from action to action through a thousand actions, all of them
+centred upon the destruction of Tom King, who stood between him and
+fortune.  And Tom King patiently endured.  He knew his business, and he
+knew Youth now that Youth was no longer his.  There was nothing to do till
+the other lost some of his steam, was his thought, and he grinned to
+himself as he deliberately ducked so as to receive a heavy blow on the top
+of his head.  It was a wicked thing to do, yet eminently fair according to
+the rules of the boxing game.  A man was supposed to take care of his own
+knuckles, and, if he insisted on hitting an opponent on the top of the
+head, he did so at his own peril.  King could have ducked lower and let the
+blow whiz harmlessly past, but he remembered his own early fights and how
+he smashed his first knuckle on the head of the Welsh Terror.  He was but
+playing the game.  That duck had accounted for one of Sandel's knuckles.
+Not that Sandel would mind it now.  He would go on, superbly regardless,
+hitting as hard as ever throughout the fight.  But later on, when the long
+ring battles had begun to tell, he would regret that knuckle and look back
+and remember how he smashed it on Tom King's head.
+
+The first round was all Sandel's, and he had the house yelling with the
+rapidity of his whirlwind rushes.  He overwhelmed King with avalanches of
+punches, and King did nothing.  He never struck once, contenting himself
+with covering up, blocking and ducking and clinching to avoid punishment.
+He occasionally feinted, shook his head when the weight of a punch landed,
+and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing or wasting an ounce of
+strength.  Sandel must foam the froth of Youth away before discreet Age
+could dare to retaliate.  All King's movements were slow and methodical,
+and his heavy-lidded, slow-moving eyes gave him the appearance of being
+half asleep or dazed.  Yet they were eyes that saw everything, that had
+been trained to see everything through all his twenty years and odd in the
+ring.  They were eyes that did not blink or waver before an impending blow,
+but that coolly saw and measured distance.
+
+Seated in his corner for the minute's rest at the end of the round, he lay
+back with outstretched legs, his arms resting on the right angle of the
+ropes, his chest and abdomen heaving frankly and deeply as he gulped down
+the air driven by the towels of his seconds.  He listened with closed eyes
+to the voices of the house, "Why don't yeh fight, Tom?" many were crying.
+"Yeh ain't afraid of 'im, are yeh?"
+
+"Muscle-bound," he heard a man on a front seat comment.  "He can't move
+quicker.  Two to one on Sandel, in quids."
+
+The gong struck and the two men advanced from their corners.  Sandel came
+forward fully three-quarters of the distance, eager to begin again; but
+King was content to advance the shorter distance.  It was in line with his
+policy of economy.  He had not been well trained, and he had not had enough
+to eat, and every step counted.  Besides, he had already walked two miles
+to the ringside.  It was a repetition of the first round, with Sandel
+attacking like a whirlwind and with the audience indignantly demanding why
+King did not fight.  Beyond feinting and several slowly delivered and
+ineffectual blows he did nothing save block and stall and clinch.  Sandel
+wanted to make the pace fast, while King, out of his wisdom, refused to
+accommodate him.  He grinned with a certain wistful pathos in his ring-
+battered countenance, and went on cherishing his strength with the jealousy
+of which only Age is capable.  Sandel was Youth, and he threw his strength
+away with the munificent abandon of Youth.  To King belonged the ring
+generalship, the wisdom bred of long, aching fights.  He watched with cool
+eyes and head, moving slowly and waiting for Sandel's froth to foam away.
+To the majority of the onlookers it seemed as though King was hopelessly
+outclassed, and they voiced their opinion in offers of three to one on
+Sandel.  But there were wise ones, a few, who knew King of old time, and
+who covered what they considered easy money.
+
+The third round began as usual, one-sided, with Sandel doing all the
+leading, and delivering all the punishment.  A half-minute had passed when
+Sandel, over-confident, left an opening.  King's eyes and right arm flashed
+in the same instant.  It was his first real blow--a hook, with the twisted
+arch of the arm to make it rigid, and with all the weight of the half-
+pivoted body behind it.  It was like a sleepy-seeming lion suddenly
+thrusting out a lightning paw.  Sandel, caught on the side of the jaw, was
+felled like a bullock.  The audience gasped and murmured awe-stricken
+applause.  The man was not muscle-bound, after all, and he could drive a
+blow like a trip-hammer.
+
+Sandel was shaken.  He rolled over and attempted to rise, but the sharp
+yells from his seconds to take the count restrained him.  He knelt on one
+knee, ready to rise, and waited, while the referee stood over him, counting
+the seconds loudly in his ear.  At the ninth he rose in fighting attitude,
+and Tom King, facing him, knew regret that the blow had not been an inch
+nearer the point of the jaw.  That would have been a knock-out, and he
+could have carried the thirty quid home to the missus and the kiddies.
+
+The round continued to the end of its three minutes, Sandel for the first
+time respectful of his opponent and King slow of movement and sleepy-eyed
+as ever.  As the round neared its close, King, warned of the fact by sight
+of the seconds crouching outside ready for the spring in through the ropes,
+worked the fight around to his own corner.  And when the gong struck, he
+sat down immediately on the waiting stool, while Sandel had to walk all the
+way across the diagonal of the square to his own corner.  It was a little
+thing, but it was the sum of little things that counted.  Sandel was
+compelled to walk that many more steps, to give up that much energy, and to
+lose a part of the precious minute of rest.  At the beginning of every
+round King loafed slowly out from his corner, forcing his opponent to
+advance the greater distance.  The end of every round found the fight
+manoeuvred by King into his own corner so that he could immediately sit
+down.
+
+Two more rounds went by, in which King was parsimonious of effort and
+Sandel prodigal.  The latter's attempt to force a fast pace made King
+uncomfortable, for a fair percentage of the multitudinous blows showered
+upon him went home.  Yet King persisted in his dogged slowness, despite the
+crying of the young hot-heads for him to go in and fight.  Again, in the
+sixth round, Sandel was careless, again Tom King's fearful right flashed
+out to the jaw, and again Sandel took the nine seconds count.
+
+By the seventh round Sandel's pink of condition was gone, and he settled
+down to what he knew was to be the hardest fight in his experience.  Tom
+King was an old un, but a better old un than he had ever encountered--an
+old un who never lost his head, who was remarkably able at defence, whose
+blows had the impact of a knotted club, and who had a knockout in either
+hand.  Nevertheless, Tom King dared not hit often.  He never forgot his
+battered knuckles, and knew that every hit must count if the knuckles were
+to last out the fight.  As he sat in his corner, glancing across at his
+opponent, the thought came to him that the sum of his wisdom and Sandel's
+youth would constitute a world's champion heavyweight.  But that was the
+trouble.  Sandel would never become a world champion.  He lacked the
+wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was to buy it with Youth; and
+when wisdom was his, Youth would have been spent in buying it.
+
+King took every advantage he knew.  He never missed an opportunity to
+clinch, and in effecting most of the clinches his shoulder drove stiffly
+into the other's ribs.  In the philosophy of the ring a shoulder was as
+good as a punch so far as damage was concerned, and a great deal better so
+far as concerned expenditure of effort.  Also, in the clinches King rested
+his weight on his opponent, and was loath to let go.  This compelled the
+interference of the referee, who tore them apart, always assisted by
+Sandel, who had not yet learned to rest.  He could not refrain from using
+those glorious flying arms and writhing muscles of his, and when the other
+rushed into a clinch, striking shoulder against ribs, and with head resting
+under Sandel's left arm, Sandel almost invariably swung his right behind
+his own back and into the projecting face.  It was a clever stroke, much
+admired by the audience, but it was not dangerous, and was, therefore, just
+that much wasted strength.  But Sandel was tireless and unaware of
+limitations, and King grinned and doggedly endured.
+
+Sandel developed a fierce right to the body, which made it appear that King
+was taking an enormous amount of punishment, and it was only the old
+ringsters who appreciated the deft touch of King's left glove to the
+other's biceps just before the impact of the blow.  It was true, the blow
+landed each time; but each time it was robbed of its power by that touch on
+the biceps.  In the ninth round, three times inside a minute, King's right
+hooked its twisted arch to the jaw; and three times Sandel's body, heavy as
+it was, was levelled to the mat.  Each time he took the nine seconds
+allowed him and rose to his feet, shaken and jarred, but still strong.  He
+had lost much of his speed, and he wasted less effort.  He was fighting
+grimly; but he continued to draw upon his chief asset, which was Youth.
+King's chief asset was experience.  As his vitality had dimmed and his
+vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom born of the
+long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength.  Not alone had he
+learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had learned how to
+seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away.  Again and again, by
+feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle Sandel into
+leaping back, ducking, or countering.  King rested, but he never permitted
+Sandel to rest.  It was the strategy of Age.
+
+Early in the tenth round King began stopping the other's rushes with
+straight lefts to the face, and Sandel, grown wary, responded by drawing
+the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook to
+the side of the head.  It was too high up to be vitally effective; but when
+first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black veil of
+unconsciousness across his mind.  For the instant, or for the slighest
+fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased.  In the one moment he saw his
+opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background of white,
+watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent and the
+background of faces.  It was as if he had slept for a time and just opened
+his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was so
+microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall.  The
+audience saw him totter and his knees give, and then saw him recover and
+tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder.
+
+Several times Sandel repeated the blow, keeping King partially dazed, and
+then the latter worked out his defence, which was also a counter.  Feinting
+with his left he took a half-step backward, at the same time upper cutting
+with the whole strength of his right.  So accurately was it timed that it
+landed squarely on Sandel's face in the full, downward sweep of the duck,
+and Sandel lifted in the air and curled backward, striking the mat on his
+head and shoulders.  Twice King achieved this, then turned loose and
+hammered his opponent to the ropes.  He gave Sandel no chance to rest or to
+set himself, but smashed blow in upon blow till the house rose to its feet
+and the air was filled with an unbroken roar of applause.  But Sandel's
+strength and endurance were superb, and he continued to stay on his feet.
+A knock-out seemed certain, and a captain of police, appalled at the
+dreadful punishment, arose by the ringside to stop the fight.  The gong
+struck for the end of the round and Sandel staggered to his corner,
+protesting to the captain that he was sound and strong.  To prove it, he
+threw two back-air-springs, and the police captain gave in.
+
+Tom King, leaning back in his corner and breathing hard, was disappointed.
+If the fight had been stopped, the referee, perforce, would have rendered
+him the decision and the purse would have been his.  Unlike Sandel, he was
+not fighting for glory or career, but for thirty quid.  And now Sandel
+would recuperate in the minute of rest.
+
+Youth will be served--this saying flashed into King's mind, and he
+remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put away
+Stowsher Bill.  The toff who had bought him a drink after the fight and
+patted him on the shoulder had used those words.  Youth will be served!
+The toff was right.  And on that night in the long ago he had been Youth.
+To-night Youth sat in the opposite corner.  As for himself, he had been
+fighting for half an hour now, and he was an old man.  Had he fought like
+Sandel, he would not have lasted fifteen minutes.  But the point was that
+he did not recuperate.  Those upstanding arteries and that sorely tried
+heart would not enable him to gather strength in the intervals between the
+rounds.  And he had not had sufficient strength in him to begin with.  His
+legs were heavy under him and beginning to cramp.  He should not have
+walked those two miles to the fight.  And there was the steak which he had
+got up longing for that morning.  A great and terrible hatred rose up in
+him for the butchers who had refused him credit.  It was hard for an old
+man to go into a fight without enough to eat.  And a piece of steak was
+such a little thing, a few pennies at best; yet it meant thirty quid to
+him.
+
+With the gong that opened the eleventh round, Sandel rushed, making a show
+of freshness which he did not really possess.  King knew it for what it
+was--a bluff as old as the game itself.  He clinched to save himself, then,
+going free, allowed Sandel to get set.  This was what King desired.  He
+feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward hook,
+then made the half-step backward, delivered the upper cut full to the face
+and crumpled Sandel over to the mat.  After that he never let him rest,
+receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more, smashing Sandel to
+the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of blows into him, tearing away
+from his clinches or punching him out of attempted clinches, and ever when
+Sandel would have fallen, catching him with one uplifting hand and with the
+other immediately smashing him into the ropes where he could not fall.
+
+The house by this time had gone mad, and it was his house, nearly every
+voice yelling:  "Go it, Tom!"  "Get 'im!  Get 'im!"  "You've got 'im, Tom!
+You've got 'im!"  It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a
+ringside audience paid to see.
+
+And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now expended
+it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him.  It was his
+one chance--now or not at all.  His strength was waning fast, and his hope
+was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have beaten his
+opponent down for the count.  And as he continued to strike and force,
+coolly estimating the weight of his blows and the quality of the damage
+wrought, he realized how hard a man Sandel was to knock out.  Stamina and
+endurance were his to an extreme degree, and they were the virgin stamina
+and endurance of Youth.  Sandel was certainly a coming man.  He had it in
+him.  Only out of such rugged fibre were successful fighters fashioned.
+
+Sandel was reeling and staggering, but Tom King's legs were cramping and
+his knuckles going back on him.  Yet he steeled himself to strike the
+fierce blows, every one of which brought anguish to his tortured hands.
+Though now he was receiving practically no punishment, he was weakening as
+rapidly as the other.  His blows went home, but there was no longer the
+weight behind them, and each blow was the result of a severe effort of
+will.  His legs were like lead, and they dragged visibly under him; while
+Sandel's backers, cheered by this symptom, began calling encouragement to
+their man.
+
+King was spurred to a burst of effort.  He delivered two blows in
+succession--a left, a trifle too high, to the solar plexus, and a right
+cross to the jaw.  They were not heavy blows, yet so weak and dazed was
+Sandel that he went down and lay quivering.  The referee stood over him,
+shouting the count of the fatal seconds in his ear.  If before the tenth
+second was called, he did not rise, the fight was lost.  The house stood in
+hushed silence.  King rested on trembling legs.  A mortal dizziness was
+upon him, and before his eyes the sea of faces sagged and swayed, while to
+his ears, as from a remote distance, came the count of the referee.  Yet he
+looked upon the fight as his.  It was impossible that a man so punished
+could rise.
+
+Only Youth could rise, and Sandel rose.  At the fourth second he rolled
+over on his face and groped blindly for the ropes.  By the seventh second
+he had dragged himself to his knee, where he rested, his head rolling
+groggily on his shoulders.  As the referee cried "Nine!" Sandel stood
+upright, in proper stalling position, his left arm wrapped about his face,
+his right wrapped about his stomach.  Thus were his vital points guarded,
+while he lurched forward toward King in the hope of effecting a clinch and
+gaining more time.
+
+At the instant Sandel arose, King was at him, but the two blows he
+delivered were muffled on the stalled arms.  The next moment Sandel was in
+the clinch and holding on desperately while the referee strove to drag the
+two men apart.  King helped to force himself free.  He knew the rapidity
+with which Youth recovered, and he knew that Sandel was his if he could
+prevent that recovery.  One stiff punch would do it.  Sandel was his,
+indubitably his.  He had out-generalled him, out-fought him, out-pointed
+him.  Sandel reeled out of the clinch, balanced on the hair line between
+defeat or survival.  One good blow would topple him over and down and out.
+And Tom King, in a flash of bitterness, remembered the piece of steak and
+wished that he had it then behind that necessary punch he must deliver.  He
+nerved himself for the blow, but it was not heavy enough nor swift enough.
+Sandel swayed, but did not fall, staggering back to the ropes and holding
+on.  King staggered after him, and, with a pang like that of dissolution,
+delivered another blow.  But his body had deserted him.  All that was left
+of him was a fighting intelligence that was dimmed and clouded from
+exhaustion.  The blow that was aimed for the jaw struck no higher than the
+shoulder.  He had willed the blow higher, but the tired muscles had not
+been able to obey.  And, from the impact of the blow, Tom King himself
+reeled back and nearly fell.  Once again he strove.  This time his punch
+missed altogether, and, from absolute weakness, he fell against Sandel and
+clinched, holding on to him to save himself from sinking to the floor.
+
+King did not attempt to free himself.  He had shot his bolt.  He was gone.
+And Youth had been served.  Even in the clinch he could feel Sandel growing
+stronger against him.  When the referee thrust them apart, there, before
+his eyes, he saw Youth recuperate.  From instant to instant Sandel grew
+stronger.  His punches, weak and futile at first, became stiff and
+accurate.  Tom King's bleared eyes saw the gloved fist driving at his jaw,
+and he willed to guard it by interposing his arm.  He saw the danger,
+willed the act; but the arm was too heavy.  It seemed burdened with a
+hundredweight of lead.  It would not lift itself, and he strove to lift it
+with his soul.  Then the gloved fist landed home.  He experienced a sharp
+snap that was like an electric spark, and, simultaneously, the veil of
+blackness enveloped him.
+
+When he opened his eyes again he was in his corner, and he heard the
+yelling of the audience like the roar of the surf at Bondi Beach.  A wet
+sponge was being pressed against the base of his brain, and Sid Sullivan
+was blowing cold water in a refreshing spray over his face and chest.  His
+gloves had already been removed, and Sandel, bending over him, was shaking
+his hand.  He bore no ill-will toward the man who had put him out and he
+returned the grip with a heartiness that made his battered knuckles
+protest.  Then Sandel stepped to the centre of the ring and the audience
+hushed its pandemonium to hear him accept young Pronto's challenge and
+offer to increase the side bet to one hundred pounds.  King looked on
+apathetically while his seconds mopped the streaming water from him, dried
+his face, and prepared him to leave the ring.  He felt hungry.  It was not
+the ordinary, gnawing kind, but a great faintness, a palpitation at the pit
+of the stomach that communicated itself to all his body.  He remembered
+back into the fight to the moment when he had Sandel swaying and tottering
+on the hair-line balance of defeat.  Ah, that piece of steak would have
+done it!  He had lacked just that for the decisive blow, and he had lost.
+It was all because of the piece of steak.
+
+His seconds were half-supporting him as they helped him through the ropes.
+He tore free from them, ducked through the ropes unaided, and leaped
+heavily to the floor, following on their heels as they forced a passage for
+him down the crowded centre aisle.  Leaving the dressing-room for the
+street, in the entrance to the hall, some young fellow spoke to him.
+
+"W'y didn't yuh go in an' get 'im when yuh 'ad 'im?" the young fellow
+asked.
+
+"Aw, go to hell!" said Tom King, and passed down the steps to the sidewalk.
+
+The doors of the public-house at the corner were swinging wide, and he saw
+the lights and the smiling barmaids, heard the many voices discussing the
+fight and the prosperous chink of money on the bar.  Somebody called to him
+to have a drink.  He hesitated perceptibly, then refused and went on his
+way.
+
+He had not a copper in his pocket, and the two-mile walk home seemed very
+long.  He was certainly getting old.  Crossing the Domain, he sat down
+suddenly on a bench, unnerved by the thought of the missus sitting up for
+him, waiting to learn the outcome of the fight.  That was harder than any
+knockout, and it seemed almost impossible to face.
+
+He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him
+that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week before
+he could grip a pick handle or a shovel.  The hunger palpitation at the pit
+of the stomach was sickening.  His wretchedness overwhelmed him, and into
+his eyes came an unwonted moisture.  He covered his face with his hands,
+and, as he cried, he remembered Stowsher Bill and how he had served him
+that night in the long ago.  Poor old Stowsher Bill!  He could understand
+now why Bill had cried in the dressing-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext When God Laughs et al by Jack London
+
diff --git a/old/gdlgh10.zip b/old/gdlgh10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae131bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/gdlgh10.zip