"Yes, I understand, Charlie," answered Vandover, "and you are just a brick."

Vandover passed the rest of the day in his sitting-room, the suspense of the situation slowly screwing his nerves tenser and tenser. He walked for hours back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent down, his forehead drawn into a frown of anxiety and exasperation, or he stood for a long time at the window looking out into the street with eyes that saw nothing. At supper that night he found that his appetite had left him; the very thought of food revolted him. He returned to his room between seven and eight o'clock, his body and mind completely fagged, feeling a crying need of some diversion, some escape from the thoughts that had been hounding him all day.

He made up his mind to read a little before going to bed, and all at once remembered a book that he had once begun a long time ago but had never finished: the story of two men who had bought a wrecked opium ship for fifty thousand dollars and had afterward discovered that she contained only a few tins of the drug. He had never read on to find how that story turned out. Suddenly he found himself repeating, "Twenty-five thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars—where will I find twenty-five thousand dollars?" He wondered if he would go to jail if he failed to pay. His interest in the book was gone in a moment, and he took up another of his favourite novels, the story of a boy at the time of Christ, a Jewish boy unjustly condemned to the galleys, liberated afterward, and devoting his life to the overthrow of his enemy, whom at last he overcame and humbled, fouling him in a chariot race, all but killing him.

He sat down in the huge leather chair, and, drawing it up to the piano lamp and cocking his feet upon the table, began to read. In a few moments the same numbness stole into his head like a rising fog, a queer, tense feeling, growing at the back of his forehead and at the base of his skull, a dulness, a strange stupefying sensation as of some torpid, murky atmosphere. He looked about him quickly; all the objects in the range of his vision—the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch, the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon it—seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy whirl. The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a loathing of life, terrible beyond words.

Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his arms. Over and over again he exclaimed, "Oh, what is the matter with me?" The strangeness of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him. He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason, and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.

Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away. He became a little calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the sideboard he decided that he would go to bed. He was sure that he would be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of order; it would not do for him to read late at night. He realized all at once that his mind and body alike were exhausted.

He passed a miserable night, dozing and waking at alternate hours until three o'clock, when he found it impossible to get to sleep; hour after hour he lay flat on his back staring open-eyed into the darkness, listening to the ticking of the clock, the mysterious footsteps that creaked the floors overhead, and the persistent drip of a water faucet. Outside in the street he heard at long intervals the rattling of wheels as the early milk wagons came and went; a dog began to bark, three gruff notes repeated monotonously at exact intervals; all at once there was a long muffled roll and an abrupt clacking noise; it ceased, then broke out again sharply, paused once more, then recommenced, settling to a prolonged minor hum; the cable was starting up; it was almost morning, the window of his room began to show a brighter blur in the darkness, while very far off he could hear the steady puffing of a locomotive. As the first cable-car trundled by the house he dropped off to sleep for the last time, being waked again toward nine o'clock by the sound of some one shovelling coal outside under his window, the shovel clinking and rasping upon the stone sidewalk.

He felt a little refreshed, but as he entered the dining-room for his late breakfast the smell of food repulsed him; his appetite was gone; it was impossible for him to eat. Toward eleven o'clock that same morning he was pottering idly about his sitting-room, winding his clock and shaking down the ashes in the tiled flamboyant stove; his mind was still busy going over for the hundredth time all the possibilities of Hiram Wade's suit, and he was just wondering whether something in the way of a compromise might not be arranged, when with the suddenness of a blow between the eyes the numbness in his head returned, together with the same unreasoning fear, the same depression of spirits, the same fearful sinking of the heart. What! it was coming back again, this strange attack, coming back even when his attention was not concentrated, even when there was no unusual exertion of his brain!

Then the torment began. This time the crisis did not pass off; from now on it persisted continually. Vandover began to feel strange. At first the room looked unfamiliar to him, then his own daily life no longer seemed recognizable, and, finally, all of a sudden, it was the whole world, all the existing order of things, that appeared to draw off like a refluent tide, leaving him alone, abandoned, cast upon some fearful, mysterious shore.

Nothing seemed worth while; all the thousand little trivial things that made up the course of his life and in which he found diversion and amusement palled upon him. A fearful melancholia settled over him, a despair, an abhorrence of living that could not be uttered. This only was during the day. It was that night that Vandover went down into the pit.

He went to bed early, his brain in a whirl, his frame worn out as if from long physical exertion. He was just dropping into a grateful sleep when his whole body twitched suddenly with a shock and a recoil of all his nerves; in an instant he was broad awake, panting and exhausted as if from a long run. Once more he settled himself upon the pillow, and once more the same leap, the same sharp spasm of his nerves caught him back to consciousness with the suddenness of a relaxed spring. At last sleep was out of the question; his drowsiness of the early part of the evening passed away, and he lay back, his hands clasped behind his head, staring up into the darkness, his thoughts galloping incessantly through his brain, suffering without pain as he had never imagined a human being could suffer though racked with torture from head to heel.

From time to time a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves, beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his bed screaming. His hands felt light and, as he told himself, "jumpy." All at once he felt a peculiar sensation in them: they seemed to swell, the fingers puffing to an enormous size, the palms bulging, the whole member from the wrist to the nails distended like a glove when one has blown into it to straighten it out. Then he had a feeling that his head was swelling in the same way. He had to rub his hands together, to pass them again and again over his face to rid himself of the fancy.

But the strange numb feeling at the base of the skull did not keep him from thinking—he would have been glad if it had—and now at last when the terror overcame him it was no longer causeless; he knew now what he feared—he feared that he was going mad.

It was the punishment that he had brought upon himself, some fearful nervous disease, the result of his long indulgence of vice, his vile submission to the brute that was to destroy his reason; some collapse of all his faculties, beginning first with that which was highest, most sensitive—his art—spreading onward and downward till he should have reached the last stages of idiocy. It was Nature inexorably exacting. It was the vast fearful engine riding him down beneath its myriad spinning wheels, remorselessly, irresistibly.

The dreadful calamities that he had brought upon himself recoiled upon his head, crushing him to the dust with their weight of anguish and remorse: Ida Wade's suicide, his father's death, his social banishment, the loss of his art, Hiram Wade's lawsuit menacing him with beggary, and now this last, this approaching insanity. It was no longer fire driving out fire; the sense of all these disasters seemed to come back upon him at once, as keen, as bitter as when they had first befallen. He had told himself that he did not believe in a hell. Could there be a worse hell than this?

But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind, resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped hands above him, crying out, "Oh, help me! Why don't you help me? You can if you only will!" Who was it to whom he had cried with such unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious "You," this strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild last hope that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a force outside of itself—the force that can save it in its time of peril.

Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an answer, waited for the miracle. In the tortured exalted state of his nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands remained clasped above his head. It was his last hope: if this failed him there was nothing left. Still he waited; he felt that he should know when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of peace, of quiet joy. Still he waited—there was nothing, nothing but the vast silence, the unbroken blackness of the night, a night that was to last forever. There was no answer, nothing but the deaf silence, the blind darkness. But in a moment he felt that the very silence, the very lack of answer, was answer in itself; there was nothing for him. Even that vast mysterious power to which he had cried could not help him now, could not help him, could not stay the inexorable law of nature, could not reverse that vast terrible engine with its myriad spinning wheels that was riding him down relentlessly, grinding him into the dust. And afterward? After the engine had done its work, when that strange other time should come, that other life, what then? No, not even then, nothing but outer darkness then and the gnashing of teeth, nothing but the deaf silence, nothing but the blind darkness, nothing but the unbroken blackness of an eternal night.

It was the end of everything! With a muffled cry, "Oh, I can't stand this!" Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the sitting-room. By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist. For nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of the desk where he kept his father's revolver. At last his hand closed upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny mice. A vague feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment: he had no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his night-gown. He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords securely about his waist and neck.

When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more to the proper pitch of resolution. It was five minutes to two, and he made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour. He spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter. At first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea, fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell. He was about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his father's death made that impossible. He finally concluded to sit upon the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring somehow to die there. For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot. Then he wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and pressing the spot with his fingers. All at once he heard the little clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour. It was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the revolver, waiting for the clock to strike. An idea came to him, and he looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top of the low bookcase. It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then, was to be the date of his death—Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the morning, so it would read upon his gravestone. For an instant the awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there. All at once the clock struck two, and at the very last instant a strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him. He drew up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why, and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth. He drew the trigger.

He heard no sound of a report; he felt no shock, but a great feebleness ran throughout his limbs, a relaxing and weakening of all his muscles; his eyes were open and he saw everything small and seemingly very far off as through the reversed end of an opera-glass. Suddenly he fainted.

When Vandover came to himself again it was early morning. The room was full of daylight, but the gas was still burning. Little by little the fearful things of the night came back to him; he realized that he had shot himself, and he waited for the end, not daring to move, his eyes closed, his hand still gripping the scratched butt of the revolver in his lap. For a long time he lay back in the chair, motionless, his consciousness slowly returning like an incoming tide. At length he started to his feet with an expression of scorn and incredulity; he was as sound as ever, there was neither scratch nor scar upon him; he had not shot himself after all.

Curiously, he looked at the revolver, throwing open the breech—the cylinder was empty; he had forgotten to load it. "What a fool!" he exclaimed, laughing scornfully, and still laughing he walked to the centre of the room under the chandelier and turned out the gas.

But when he turned about, facing the day once more, facing that day and the next and the next throughout all the course of his life, the sense of his misery returned upon him in its full strength and he raised his clenched fist to his eyes, shutting out the light. Ah, no, he could not endure it—the horror of life overpassed the horror of death; he could not go on living. A new thought had come to him. Wretched as he was, he saw that in time his anguish of conscience, even his dread of losing his reason, would pass from him; he would become used to them; yes, even become used to the dread of insanity, and then he would return once more to vice, return once more into the power of the brute, the perverse and evil monster that was knitted to him now irrevocably, part for part, fibre for fibre. He saw clearly that nothing could save him, he had had his answer that night, there was to be no miracle. Was it not right, then, that he should destroy himself? Was it not even his duty? The better part of him seemed to demand the act; should he not comply while there yet was any better part left? In a little while the brute was to take all.

On the shelves above his washstand Vandover found the cartridges in a green pasteboard box, and loaded all the chambers of the revolver, carefully. He closed the breech; but as he was about to draw back the hammer all his courage, all his resolution, crumbled in an instant like a tower of sand. He did not dare to shoot himself—he was afraid. The night before he had been brave enough; how was it now that he could not call up the same courage, the same determination? When he thought over the wreck, the wretched failure of his life, the dreadful prospect of the future years, his anguish and his terror were as keen as ever. But now there was a shrinking of his every nerve from the thought of suicide, the instinctive animal fear of death, stronger than himself. His suffering had to go on, had to run its course, even death would not help him. Let it go on, it was only the better part of him that was suffering; in a little while this better part would be dead, leaving only the brute. It would die a natural death without any intervention from him. Was there any need of suicide? Suicide! Great God! his whole life had been one long suicide.

* * * * *

That same morning Charlie Geary had eaten a very thick underdone steak for breakfast after enjoying a fine long sleep of eight hours. Toward eight o'clock he went downtown. He did not take a car; he preferred to walk; it helped his digestion and it gave him exercise. At night he walked home as well; that gave him an appetite; besides, with the ten cents that he saved in this way, he bought himself a nice cigar that he smoked in the evening to help digest his supper. He was very careful of his health. Ah, you bet, one had to look out for one's health.

At the office that morning he had a long talk with Beale, Jr., as to Hiram Wade's suit. The great firm of Beale & Storey, into whose office Geary had been received, made a specialty of damage suits, and especially those suits that were brought against a certain great monopoly which it was claimed was ruining the city and the state; such a case involving nearly a quarter of a million of dollars was now occupying the attention of the heads of the firm and, indeed, of the whole office. Hiram Wade's suit was assigned to the assistants. Beale, Jr., was one of these, and Charlie Geary had managed to push himself into the position of his confidential clerk. But Beale, Jr., himself took little interest in the Wade suit; the suit against the great monopoly was coming to a head; it was a battle of giants; the whole office found itself embroiled, and little by little Beale, Jr., allowed himself to be drawn into the struggle. The management of the Wade case was given over to Geary's hands.

When he had first heard of his assignment to the case Geary had been unwilling to act against his old chum, but it was the first legal affair of any great importance with which he had been connected, and he was soon devoured with an inordinate ambition to distinguish himself in the eyes of the firm, to get a "lift," to take a long step forward toward the end of his desires, which was to become one of the firm itself. He knew he could make a brilliant success of the case. Geary was at this time nearly twenty-eight, keen, energetic, immensely clever; and the case against Vandover was strong. No one knew better than he himself how intimate Vandover had been with Ida Wade; Vandover had told him much of the details of their acquaintance. Besides this, a letter which Ida had written to Vandover the day before her suicide had been found, torn in three pieces, thrust between the leaves of one of the books that she used to study at the normal school. It directly implicated Vandover—it was evidence that could not be gainsaid. Geary had resolved to push the case against his old chum. Vandover ought to see that with Geary it was a matter of business; he, Geary, was only an instrument of the law; if Geary did not take the case some other lawyer would. At any rate, whether Van would see it in this light or not, Geary was determined to take the case; it was too good an opportunity to let slip; he was going to make his way in the law or he would know the reason why. Every man for himself, that was what he said. It might be damned selfish, but it was human nature; if he had to sacrifice Van, so much the worse. It was evident that his old college chum was going to the dogs anyway, but come whatever would, he, Geary, was going to be a success. Ah, you bet, he would make his way and he would make his money.

Ever since he had come into his little patrimony Geary had been making offers to Vandover for his block in the Mission. Geary would offer only eight thousand dollars, but Brunt steadily advised Vandover against listening to such a figure, assuring him that the property was valued at twelve thousand six hundred. Vandover had often wondered at Geary's persistence in the matter, and had often asked him what he could possibly want of the block. But Geary was very vague in his replies, generally telling Vandover that there was money in the investment if one could and would give the proper attention to pushing it. He told Vandover that he—Vandover—was no business man, which was the lamentable truth, and would much prefer to live upon the interest of his bonds rather than to be continually annoyed by defective plumbing, complaints, and repairs. The truth of the matter was that Geary knew that a certain immense boot and shoe concern was after the same piece of property. The houses themselves were nothing to the boot and shoe people; they wanted the land in order to build their manufactory upon it. A siding of the railroad ran down the alley just back of the property, a fact that hurt the lot for residence purposes, but that was indispensable for the boot and shoe people. Geary knew that the heads of the manufactory were determined to buy the lot, and he was sure that if properly handled by clever brokers they could be induced to offer at least one third more than its appraised valuation. It was a chance for a fine speculation, and it was torture to Geary to think that Vandover, or in fact any one besides himself, was going to profit by it.

The afternoon of the day upon which Hiram Wade had brought suit for twenty-five thousand dollars, while Geary was pottering about his swivel office chair with an oil can trying to find out where it creaked, a brilliant idea had suddenly occurred to him, a stroke of genius, a veritable inspiration. Why could he not make the Wade suit a machine with which to force Vandover into the sale of the property?

His first idea had been to push the case so vigorously that Vandover would surely lose it. But on second thought this course did not seem to promise any satisfactory results. Geary knew very well that though Hiram Wade had sued for twenty-five thousand dollars he could not recover more than five thousand, if as much as that. Geary did not know the exact state of Vandover's affairs, but he did not think that his chum would sell any property in order to make the payment of damages. It was much more likely that he would raise the five thousand, or whatever it might be, by placing a second mortgage on some of his property. This, however, was presuming that Wade would get judgment for about five thousand dollars. But suppose that Vandover thought that Wade could actually recover twenty-five thousand! Suppose that Geary himself should see Vandover and induce him to believe such a story, and to settle the affair out of court! Vandover was as ignorant of law as he was of business. Geary might frighten him into a sale. Yet this plan seemed very impracticable. In the first place, it would be unprofessional for Geary to have an interview with Vandover under such circumstances, the story was almost too monstrous even for Vandover's credibility, and besides, Geary would not pay, could not pay twenty-five thousand for the property. This last was a serious tangle. In order to get Vandover to sell, Geary would have to represent the damage suit as involving a larger sum of money than Geary was willing to give for the block, even a far larger sum than that which the boot and shoe manufacturers could be induced to pay for it. It seemed to be a deadlock. Geary began to see that the whole idea was out of the question. Yet the desire of it came back upon him again and again. He dwelt upon it constantly, smelling out the chance for a "deal" somewhere in the tangle with the instinct of the keen man of business. At last he seemed to have straightened it out. The idea of a compromise came into his mind. What if Vandover and Hiram Wade could be made to compromise upon eight thousand dollars! Geary would be willing to pay Vandover eight thousand for the block. That was his original offer. Wade, though he had sued for twenty-five thousand, could easily be made to see that eight thousand was as much as he could reasonably expect, and Geary knew the boot and shoe manufacturers would pay fifteen thousand for the lot, perhaps more.

But in order to carry out the delicate and complicated affair it was absolutely necessary to keep Vandover from seeing a lawyer. Geary knew that any lawyer would fight the proposition of a compromise at eight thousand dollars: five thousand was as much as Wade could possibly get in court, and if judgment for such amount was rendered, Vandover's counsel would advise him to raise the sum by mortgaging some property instead of selling the block.

Yet as soon as Geary arrived at a solution of the problem, as soon as the "deal" began to seem feasible, he commenced to hesitate. It was not so much that the affair was crooked, that his role in it was, to say the least, unprofessional, as it was the fact that Vandover was his old college chum and that, to put the matter into plain words, Geary was swindling his best friend out of a piece of property valued at twelve thousand six hundred dollars, and preventing him from reselling the same piece at a very advanced figure. Again and again he wished that it was some other than Vandover; he told himself that in such case he would put the screw on without the least compunction. All through one night Geary was on the rack torn between his friendship for his chum and his devouring, inordinate ambition to make his way and to make his pile. In the end Vandover was sacrificed—the opportunity was too good—Geary could not resist the chance for a "deal." Ah, you bet, just think of it, after all, not only would Vandover believe that Geary was doing him a great service, but the office would be delighted with him for winning his first case, they would get a heavy fee from Wade, and he would nearly double his money invested in the block in the Mission. As soon as he had made up his mind to put the "deal" through, he had seen Vandover at his rooms early in the morning and had induced him to promise not to engage any other counsel and in general keep very quiet about the whole business.

The day after, he and Beale, Jr., had an appointment with Hiram Wade, but toward noon Beale, Jr., disappeared, leaving word for Geary that he had gone to court with his father to hear the closing arguments in the great suit against the monopoly, the last struggle in the tremendous legal battle that had embroiled the whole office; Geary was to use his own judgment in the Wade case. Geary laboured with Hiram Wade all that afternoon. The old fellow mistrusted him on account of his youth and his inexperience, was unwilling to arrive at any definite conclusion without the sanction of Geary's older associate, and for a long time would listen to nothing less than ten thousand dollars, crying out that his gray hairs had been dishonoured, and striking his palm upon his forehead. Nothing could move him. He, also, had his ambitions; it was his dream to own the carpet-cleaning establishment in which he now had but a three-fourths interest. Summer was coming, the time of year when people were going into the country, leaving their carpets to be cleaned in their absence. If he could obtain complete ownership of his business within the month he fancied that he saw an opportunity to make more money than he had done before at any previous season.

"Why, I tell you, Mister Geary," he exclaimed indignantly, wagging his head, "it would seem like selling my daughter's honour if we should compromise at any less figure. I am a father. I—I have my feelings, haven't I?"

"Well, now, it isn't like that at all, Mr. Wade," answered Geary, making awkward gestures with both his hands. "It isn't what we ought to get out of him. Could any sum of money, could millions compensate you for Miss Ida's death? I guess not. It's what we can get. If this thing comes into court we won't get but five thousand out of him; I'll tell you that right now. He could raise that by a mortgage, easy; but if we compromise we can squeeze him for eight thousand. You see, the fact that we can act directly with him instead of through counsel makes it easier for us. Of course, as I tell you, it isn't just the legal thing to do, but I'm willing to do it for you because I think you've been wronged and outraged."

Wade struck his hand to his head. "I tell you, he's brought dishonour upon my gray hairs," he exclaimed.

"Exactly, of course, I understand how you feel," replied Geary, "but now about this eight thousand? I tell you what I'll do." He had resolved to stake everything upon one last hazard. "See here, Mr. Wade, there's a difference, of course, between eight thousand dollars and ten thousand, but the use of money is worth something, isn't it? And money down, cold hard cash, is worth something, isn't it? Well, now, suppose you got that eight thousand dollars money down within three days?"

Hiram Wade still demurred a little longer for the sake of his own self-respect and his dishonoured hairs, but in the end it was agreed that if the money was paid over to him in full before the end of the following week he would be content and would agree to the compromise. Eight thousand dollars would still be enough to buy out his partner's interest, and even then he would have a little left over with which to improve a certain steaming apparatus. If the amount was paid in full within a week he could get control of the cleaning-works in time to catch all of the summer trade.

Geary had calculated that this last argument would have its weight; the great difficulty now was to get Vandover to sell at such a low figure and upon such short notice. He almost despaired of his success in this quarter; however, it all depended upon Vandover now.

Early in the forenoon of the next day Geary pounded on the door of Vandover's sitting-room, pushing it open without waiting for an answer. Vandover was lying in his shirt-sleeves on the corduroy divan under the huge rug of sombre colours that hung against the wall, and he did not get up as Geary came in; in fact, he hardly stirred.

"Hello!" cried Geary, closing the door with his heel. "Didn't expect to find you up so early. I've been up since half-past six; had breakfast at seven, fine cutlet, and then got down to the office at twenty minutes of eight. How's that for rustling, hey?"

"Yes?" said Vandover, dully.

"But, say," exclaimed Geary, "what's all the matter with you? You look all frazzled out, all pale around the wattles. Ah, you've been hitting up a pace again. You're a bird, Van, there's no use talking! All night racket this trip?".

"I suppose so," answered Vandover, never moving.

"But you do look gone-in this morning, sure," continued Geary, seating himself on the edge of the table and pushing back his hat. "Never saw you looking so bad; you ought to be more careful, Van; there'll be a smash some time. Ah, you bet a man ought to look out for his health. I walk downtown every morning, and three times a week I take a cold shower as soon as I get up. Ah, I tell you, that braces a fellow up; you ought to try it; it's better than a dozen cocktails. You keep on getting thin like you have for the past few days and I'll have to be calling you Skinny Seldom-fed again, like we used to. Now, tell the truth, what time did you get to bed last night? Did you go to bed at all?"

"No," replied Vandover with a long breath, looking vaguely at the pipe-rack on the opposite wall.

"I thought as much," answered Geary. "Well, that's like you." He paused a moment, and then went on, nervously gesturing with both his hands simultaneously. "Well, I've had a long talk with Wade. I tell you, Van, that old boy is as stubborn as a mule. You see, he knows he's got a case. I couldn't talk him out of that. I'll tell you how it is," continued Geary, preparing to spring another mine; "he's found a letter Ida wrote you the day before she killed herself." He paused to watch the effect upon Vandover. Vandover waited for him to go on, but seeing that he did not and that he expected him to say something, nodded his head once and answered:

"I see."

"Don't you know, that letter that she wrote to you telling you how it was, how she was fixed?" repeated Geary, puzzled and irritated at Vandover's indifference.

"I know."

"Well, he's got it, anyhow," pursued Geary, "and of course that tells against you. Well, I had a long talk with him yesterday afternoon and I got him to compromise. Of course, you know in suits like this one a party sues for a great deal more than he expects to get. At first you know he said twenty-five thousand; that figure was decided upon at the first interview he had with us. Of course, he could never get judgment for that much. But he hung out at ten thousand; said it would be selling his daughter if he took any less. Now I knew you couldn't raise that much on any property you have, especially in these hard times—" Geary paused for the fraction of an instant; he had thrown out the last remark as a feeler, to see what Vandover would say; but his chum said nothing, staring vaguely at the opposite wall, merely making a faint sign to show that he understood, closing his eyes and bending his head. "And so," continued the other, "I jewed him down, and what do you suppose? Well, sir, from twenty-five thousand I brought him right down to, say, eight thousand. I could see that he had some scheme that he wants to go into right away, and that he wants ready money, right on the nail, you know, to carry it through. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that. I waltzed him right over when I began to speak of ready money, cash down. As soon as he'd squeal I'd spring cold cash on him, money down, and he's hit gravel like an ostrich. Well," he went on deliberately after a pause, getting up from the table and standing before Vandover, his hands in his pockets, "well, I think that's the best I can do for you, Van. It's a good deal better than I expected, but I've done the best I could for you, and I would advise you to see him on the proposition."

"All right," said Vandover. "Go ahead."

Geary was perplexed. "Well, you think that's a good thing, don't you? You think I've done my best for you? You see it as I do, don't you?"

Vandover withdrew his eyes from the other wall, glancing under heavy eyelids at Geary, and with a slight movement of his head and shoulders replied:

"Of course."

"Have you got the money?" asked Geary eagerly; then, irritated at his indiscretion, hastened to interrupt himself. "You see, he hasn't put his proposition into writing yet, but it's like this: if you can pay him eight thousand dollars in cash before the end of next week he'll sign a document to the effect that he is satisfied."

"I've got no money," said Vandover quietly.

"I was afraid you wouldn't have," said Geary, "but you can raise it somewhere. You had better close with the old man as soon as you can, Van, while he's in the mood for it; you'll make a clear two thousand by it. You can see that as well as I can. Now, where can you—how is your property fixed? Let's see! Here's the statement you made to me the other day," continued Geary, drawing his shorthand notes from his portfolio. "How about this piece on California Street, the one that you have rented, the homestead, you know?"

"Yes, there's that," answered Vandover, changing the position of his head upon his clasped hands.

"But that's pretty well papered up already," returned Geary, consulting his notes. "You couldn't very well raise another mortgage on that.'"

"I'd forgotten," answered Vandover. "There's the block in the Mission. He can have that."

Geary began to tremble with excitement. It looked as though he might be able to make the deal after all. But the next instant he grew suspicious. Vandover's indifference puzzled him. Might he not have some game of his own? The idea of playing off his cleverness against that of an opponent strung his nerves in an instant; the notion of an impending struggle was almost an inspiration, and his innate desire of getting the better of a competitor, even though it was his closest friend, aroused his wits and sharpened his faculties like a stimulant. He had no hesitancy in sacrificing his chum. It was business now; friendship ceased to be a factor in the affair. Ah, Van was going to be foxy; he'd show him that he could be foxy, too.

"He can have it?" echoed Geary. "You don't mean to sign it over to him bodily?"

"Oh, I suppose it could be mortgaged," answered Vandover.

"Yes, that's the idea," returned Geary. "You want me to figure that out for you? I can just as well as not. Well, now, let's see," he went on, settling himself at the desk, and figuring upon a sheet of Vandover's stamped letter-paper. "The banks will never give you more than two thirds of the appraised value; that's as much as we can expect; that would come to—well, let's see—that would come to six thousand on that piece; then you could mortgage something else to make up the difference."

"Wouldn't it be more than six thousand?" asked Vandover with a little show of interest. "I think that block has been appraised at something over twelve thousand."

"Ah, yes," returned Geary, putting his chin in the air, "that was your agent's valuation five years ago; but you know property out there, in fact, property all over the city, what they call inside property, has been going right down for the last ten years. That's what I've always been telling you. You couldn't possibly get more than nine thousand for that block to-day. You see the railroad there hurts it."

"I suppose so," replied Vandover. "I've heard the governor say as much in his time."

"Of course," exclaimed Geary, delighted at this unexpected turn.

"Well, then, he can have my bonds," said Vandover. "I've got eighty-nine hundred in bonds; he can have those. Let him have anything he wants."

"Oh, don't touch your bonds," answered Geary. "Hang on to those. Bonds are always good—U.S. bonds. You don't want to sell those, Van. You see, the homestead is already mortgaged. And, besides, you know, too, that the banks are asking an awful big per cent. for mortgages on real estate; it's seven and a half nowadays. Don't sell your bonds. I'll tell you why: U.S. bonds are always good; they never depreciate, but it's different with realty, especially in this city just now. It's been depreciating ever since your father's time, and it's going to go right on depreciating. If you want to sell anything, sell your realty before it gets any lower. Now you don't want to sell your home, do you? You don't like that idea. You've lived there so long, and then what would you do with the furniture; besides, the rent of that," he glanced again at his notes, "is bringing you in a good hundred and twenty-five a month. If you've got to sell at all, why not sell your Mission block?"

"All right," said Vandover, as if wearied by Geary's clamour, "I'll sign it over to him."

"No, that's not the idea at all," Geary insisted. "He wants the ready money; he don't want depreciated real estate. You'll have to find a purchaser in the next week if you possibly can in such a short time, and make over the money to Wade. But if you can't sell in that time you will have to dig up ten thousand instead of eight. It's a hard position for you, Van; it's just a chance, you know, but I thought I would give you the benefit of that chance. If you want to give me a power of attorney I'll try and sell it for you."

"I guess Brunt would do that," replied Vandover.

"Yes," retorted Geary, watchful as a lynx, "but they would charge you a big commission. Of course I wouldn't think of asking you anything more than the actual costs. I am afraid that they would try to sell it at auction, too, if they knew you had to realize on it in so short a time, and it would go for a mere song then; you know how it is."

"I thought," inquired Vandover, "that you wanted that property."

"Yes," replied Geary, hesitating, "I—I did want to buy it of you once; well, for that matter I do now. But you know how it is with me."

"I might as well sell it to you as to any one else," returned Vandover.

"Well, now, it's like this, Van," said Geary. "I know that block is worth nine thousand dollars; I won't deceive you. But I can only give you eight thousand for it. That's all the money I've got. But I'm not going to take advantage of your position to jew you down. I want the block, I'll admit that, but I'm not going to have you sacrifice it for me, or for any one else. I think you can get nine thousand for it. I know you could if we had a little more time, and I'm not sure but what I could find a purchaser for you within the next week that would give you nine thousand."

"Oh, I don't care, Charlie; I'm sick of everything; eight thousand, nine thousand, anything you like; take it at your own figure."

Geary began to tremble once more, and this time his excitement was so great that he hardly dared to trust himself to speak; his breath grew short, his hands in his pockets twitched nervously, and curled themselves into fists, his heart seemed to him to beat high in his throat; he hesitated long, pretending to deliberate as he steadied himself.

Vandover remained silent, his hands still clasped back of his head, staring at the opposite wall with eyes that saw nothing. The little clock began to strike ten.

"I don't know, Van," said Geary; "I don't like to do this, and yet I would like to help you out of this muss. You see, if I should ever benefit by the property you would feel as though I had taken advantage of you at this time and worked a flim-flam on you!"

"Oh, I'll look out for that," returned Vandover.

"No, no, I don't feel quite right about it," answered Geary, wagging his head and shutting his eyes. "Better see what we can do at a forced sale."

"Why, don't you see you would be doing me a favour?" said Vandover wearily. "I ask you to buy the block. I don't care what your figure is!"

Once more Geary hesitated, for the last time going over the whole deal in his mind from beginning to end, testing it, looking for weak points. It was almost perfect. Suppose the boot and shoe people did not buy the lot? He could resell it elsewhere, even below its appraised value and yet make money by the transaction; the lot was cheap at ten thousand; it might bring twelve; even as an ordinary, legitimate speculation it was to be desired at such a figure. Suppose the boot and shoe people backed out entirely, suppose even he could not find another purchaser for the property, why, then, he could hold on to it; the income from the rents was fully 10 per cent. of the price he would have paid for it.

"Well, Van," he said at last, making a slow, awkward gesture with his left hand, all the fingers extended, "well, I'll take you up—but I don't feel as though I should—" He suddenly interrupted himself with a burst of sincerity, exclaiming: "Sure, old man, if I had nine thousand I'd give it to you for the block, that's straight goods." He felt that he was conscientious in saying this. It was true he would have given nine thousand if he had had it. For that matter he might have given ten or twelve.

"Can't we settle the whole matter to-day?" said Vandover. "Right here—now. I'm sick of it, sick of everything. Let's get it done with."

Geary nearly bounded from his seat. He had been wondering how he might accomplish this very thing. "All right," he said briskly, "no reason in waiting." He had seen to it that he should be prepared to close the sale the moment that Vandover was willing. Long ago, when he had first had the idea of buying the block, he had spent a day in the offices of the county recorder, the tax collector, and the assessor, assuring himself of the validity of the title, and only two days ago he had gone over the matter again in order to be sure that no encumbrances had been added to the block in the meanwhile. He found nothing; the title was clear.

"Isn't this rather rushing the thing through?" he asked. "Maybe you might regret it afterward. Don't you want to take two or three days to think it over?"

"No."

"Sure now?" persisted Geary.

"But I've got to sell before three days," answered Vandover. "Otherwise he'll want ten thousand."

"That's a fact," admitted the other. "Well," he went on, "if your mind's made up, why—we can go right ahead. As I say, there's no reason for waiting; better take up Wade while he's in the mood for it. You see, he hasn't signed any proposition as yet, and he might go back on us." Vandover drew a long breath and got up slowly, heavily, from the couch, saying:

"What's the odds to me what I sell for? I don't get the money."

"Well, what do you say if we go right down to a notary's office and put this thing right through," Geary suggested.

"Come on, then."

"Have you got your abstract here, the abstract of the block?" Vandover nodded. "Better bring it along, then," said Geary.

The office of the notary adjoined those of the firm of Beale & Storey; in fact, he was in a sense an attache of the great firm and transacted a great deal of legal business for them. Vandover and Geary fell upon him in an idle moment. A man had come to regulate the water filter, which took the place of an ice cooler in a corner of one of the anterooms, and while he was engaged at his work the notary stood at his back, abusing him and exclaiming at the ineffectiveness of the contrivance. The notary was a middle-aged man with a swollen, purple face; he had a toothpick behind each ear and wore an office coat of gray linen, ripped at the shoulders.

Then the transfer was made. It was all settled in less than half an hour, unceremoniously, almost hastily. For the sake of form Geary signed a check for eight thousand dollars which Vandover in his turn made over to Hiram Wade. The notary filled out a deed of grant, bargain, and sale, pasting on his certificate of acknowledgment as soon as Vandover and Geary had signed. Geary took the abstract, thrusting it into his breast-pocket. As far as Vandover was concerned, the sale was complete, but he had neither his properly nor its equivalent in money.

"Well," declared Geary at length, "I guess that's all there is to be done. I'll get a release from old man Wade and send it to you to-morrow or next day. Now, let's go down to the Imperial and have a drink on it." They went out, but the notary returned to the anteroom, turning the spigot of the filter to right and left, frowning at it suspiciously, refusing to be satisfied.



Chapter Sixteen

That particular room in the Lick House was well toward the rear of the building, on one of the upper floors, and from its window, one looked out upon a vast reach of roofs that rose little by little to meet the abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill. It was a sordid and grimy wilderness, topped with a gray maze of wires and pierced with thousands of chimney stacks. Many of the roofs were covered with tin long since blackened by rust and soot. Here and there could be seen clothes hung out to dry. Occasionally upon the flanking walls of some of the larger buildings was displayed an enormous painted sign, a violent contrast of intense black and staring white amidst the sooty brown and gray, advertising some tobacco, some newspaper, or some department store. Not far in the distance two tall smokestacks of blackened tin rose high in the air, above the roof of a steam laundry, one very large like the stack of a Cunarder, the other slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one, rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other one, the tall and slender pipe, threw off a series of little white puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher sunshine, only to be followed by another flight. They came three at a time, the pipe tossing them out with a sharp gay sound like a note of laughter interrupted by a cough.

But the interior of the room presented the usual dreary aspect of the hotel bedroom—cheerless, lamentable.

The walls were whitewashed and bare of pictures or ornaments, and the floor was covered with a dull red carpet. The furniture was a "set," all the pieces having a family resemblance. On entering, one saw the bed standing against the right-hand wall, a huge double bed with the name of the hotel in the corners of its spread and pillowcases. In the exact middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and upon it a pitcher of ice-water. The blank, white monotony of one side of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone. Precisely opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels. On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red. Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a clean smell of new soap in the air.

But the room was bare of any personality. Of the hundreds who had lived there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon its air or appearance. Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still remained upon the top shelf of the closet.

This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house on Sutter Street. He had lived here now for something over a year.

It had all commenced with the seizure of his furniture by the proprietors of the apartment house. Almost before he knew it he owed for six months' room and board; when the extras were added to this bill it swelled to nearly a thousand dollars. At first he would not believe it; it was not possible that so large a bill could accumulate without his knowledge. He declared there was a mistake, tossing back the bill to the clerk who had presented it, and shaking his head incredulously. This other became angry, offered to show the books of the house. The manager was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures, dates, and extracts from the entries. Vandover was confused by their noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a scene.

But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture. What a misery!

In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely bric-a-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of vertu which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing pleasure. Everything went—the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian bas-reliefs and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments. For the first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some barren, uncongenial soil. His new room in the hotel filled him with horror, and for a long time he used it only as a place where he could sleep and wash. For a long time even his pliable character refused to fit itself to such surroundings, refused to be content between four enormous white walls, a stuccoed ceiling, and a dark red carpet. He passed most of his time elsewhere, reading the papers at the Mechanics Library in the morning, and in the afternoon sitting about the hotel office and parlours until it was time to take his usual little four o'clock stroll on Kearney and Market streets. He had long since become a familiar figure on this promenade. Even the women and girls of Flossie's type had ceased to be interested in this tall, thin young man with the tired, heavy eyes and blue-white face. One day, however, a curious incident did for a moment invest Vandover with a sudden dramatic interest. It was just after he had moved down to the Lick House, about a month after he had sold the block in the Mission. Vandover was standing at Lotta's fountain at the corner of Kearney and Market streets, interested in watching a policeman and two boys reharnessing a horse after its tumble. All at once he fell over flat into the street, jostling one of the flower venders and nearly upsetting him. He struck the ground with a sodden shock, his arms doubled under him, his hat rolling away into the mud. Bewildered, he picked himself up; very few had seen him fall, but a little crowd gathered for all that. One asked if the man was drunk, and Vandover, terrified lest the policeman should call the patrol wagon, hurried off to a basement barber shop near by, where he brushed his clothes, still bewildered, confused, wondering how it had happened.

The fearful nervous crisis which Vandover had undergone had passed off slowly. Little by little, bit by bit, he had got himself in hand again. However, the queer numbness in his head remained, and as soon as he concentrated his attention on any certain line of thought, as soon as he had read for any length of time, especially if late at night, the numbness increased. Somewhere back of his eyes a strange blurring mist would seem to rise; he would find it impossible to keep his mind fixed upon any subject; the words of a printed page would little by little lose their meaning. At first this had been a source of infinite terror to him. He fancied it to be the symptoms of some approaching mental collapse, but, as the weeks went by and nothing unusual occurred, he became used to it, and refused to let it worry him. If it made his head feel queer to read, the remedy was easy enough—he simply would not read; and though he had been a great reader, and at one time had been used to spend many delightful afternoons lost in the pages of a novel, he now gave it all up with an easy indifference.

But, besides all this, the attack had left him with nerves all unstrung; even his little afternoon walk on Kearney and Market streets exhausted him; any trifling and sudden noise, the closing of a door, the striking of a clock, would cause him to start from his place with a gasp and a quick catch at the heart. Toward evening this little spasm of nerves would sometimes come upon him even when there was nothing to cause it, and now he could no longer drop off to sleep without first undergoing a whole series of these recoils and starts, that would sometimes bring him violently up to a sitting posture, his breath coming short and quick, his heart galloping, startled at he knew not what.

At first he had intended to see a doctor, but he had put off carrying his intention into effect until he had grown accustomed to the whole matter; otherwise, he was well enough, his appetite was good, and when he finally did get to sleep he would not wake up for a good eight hours.

One evening, however, about three months after the first crisis and just as Vandover was becoming well accustomed to the condition of body and mind in which it had left him, the second attack came on. It was fearful, much worse than on the first occasion, and this time there was no room for doubt. Vandover knew that for the moment he was actually insane.

Ellis had been with Vandover most of that afternoon, the two had been playing cards in Vandover's room until nearly six o'clock. All the afternoon they had been drinking whisky while they played, and by supper-time neither of them had any appetite. Ellis refused to go down, declaring that if he should eat now it would make him sick. Vandover went down alone, but once in the dining-room he found that he could not eat either. However, he knew that it was not the whisky. For two days his appetite had been failing him. The smell of food revolted him, and he left the supper-table, going up to his bare and lamentable room with the feeling that he was about to undergo a long spell of sickness. In the deserted hall, between the elevator and the door of his room, the second crisis came upon him all at once. It was so sudden that it was as if some enemy had leaped upon his back, springing out of the shadow, gripping him from behind, holding him close. Once more the hysteria shook him like a dry leaf. The little nervous starts came so fast that they ran together, mingling to form one long thrill of terror, the blind, unreasoning terror of something unknown; the numbness weighed down upon his brain until consciousness dwindled to a mere point and mercifully dulled the torture of his crisping nerves. It seemed to him that his hands and head were rapidly swelling to enormous size.

All this he had felt before; it was his old enemy, but now with this second attack began a new and even stranger sensation. In his distorted wits he fancied that he was in some manner changing, that he was becoming another man; worse than that, it seemed to him that he was no longer human, that he was sinking, all in a moment, to the level of some dreadful beast.

Later on in that same evening Ellis met young Haight coming out of one of the theatres, and told him a story that Haight did not believe. Ellis was very pale, and he seemed to young Haight to be trying to keep down some tremendous excitement.

"If he was drunk," said Ellis, "it was the strangest drunk I ever saw. He came back into the room on all fours—not on his hands and knees, you understand, but running along the floor upon the palms of his hands and his toes—and he pushed the door of the room open with his head, nuzzling at the crack like any dog. Oh, it was horrible. I don't know what's the matter with Van. You should have seen him; his head was hanging way down, and swinging from side to side as he came along; it shook all his hair over his eyes. He kept rattling his teeth together, and every now and then he would say, way down in his throat so it sounded like growls, 'Wolf—wolf—wolf.' I got hold of him and pulled him up to his feet. It was just as though he was asleep, and when I shook him he came to all at once and began to laugh. 'What's the matter, Van?' says I. 'What are you crawling on the floor that way for?' 'I'm damned if I know,' says he, rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I must have been out of my head. Too much whisky!' Then he says: 'Put me to bed, will you, Bandy? I feel all gone in.' Well, I put him to bed and went out to get some bromide of potassium; he said that made him sleep and kept his nerves steady. Coming back, I met a bell-boy just outside of Van's door, and told him to ask the hotel doctor to come up. You see, I had not opened the door of the room yet, and while I was talking to the bell-boy I could hear the sound of something four-footed going back and forth inside the room. When I got inside there was Van, perfectly naked, going back and forth along the wall, swinging his head very low, grumbling to himself. But he came to again as soon as I shook him, and seemed dreadfully ashamed, and went to bed all right. He got to sleep finally, and I left the doctor with him, to come out and get something for my own nerves."

"What did the doctor say was the matter?" asked young Haight, in horror.

"Lycanthropy-Pathesis. I never heard the name before—some kind of nervous disease. I guess Van had been hitting up a pretty rapid gait, and then I suppose he's had a good deal to worry him, too."

* * * * *

Once more the attack passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner, great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not only were his nerves out of tune, but they were jaded, deadened, slack; they were like harpstrings that had been played upon so long and so violently that now they could no longer vibrate unless swept with a very whirlwind.

As he had foreseen, Vandover had returned again to vice, to the vice that was knitted into him now, fibre for fibre, to the ways of the brute that by degrees was taking entire possession of him. But he no longer found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible nervousness that of late had begun to prey upon him constantly.

But though nothing could amuse him, on the other hand nothing could worry him; in the end the very riot of his nerves ceased even to annoy him. He had arrived at a state of absolute indifference. He had so often rearranged his pliable nature to suit his changing environment that at last he found that he could be content in almost any circumstances. He had no pleasures, no cares, no ambitions, no regrets, no hopes. It was mere passive existence, an inert, plantlike vegetation, the moment's pause before the final decay, the last inevitable rot.

One day after he had been living nearly a year at the Lick House, Adams & Brunt, the real estate agents, sent him word that they had an offer for his property on California Street. It was the homestead. The English gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house, including the furniture.

Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell. "You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover," he said, as he pointed out his own calculations to him; "property has been going down in the city for the last ten years, and it will continue to do so until we can get a competing railroad through. Better sell when you can, and twenty-five thousand is a fair price. Of course, you will have to pay off the mortgage; you won't get but about fifteen thousand out of it, but at the same time you won't have to pay the interest on that mortgage to the banks; that will be so much saved a month; add that to what you could get for your fifteen thousand at, say, 6 per cent., and you would have a monthly income nearly equal to the present rent of the house, and much more certain, too. Suppose your tenant should go out, then where would you be?"

"All right, all right," answered Vandover, nodding his head vaguely. "Go ahead, I don't care." He parted from his old home with as much indifference as he had parted from his block in the Mission.

Vandover signed the deed that made him homeless, and at about the same time the first payment was made. Ten thousand dollars was deposited in one of the banks to his credit, and a check sent to him for the amount. The very next day Vandover drew against it for five hundred dollars.

At one time he had had an ambition to buy back his furniture from the huge apartment house in which he had formerly lived, and with it to make his cheerless bedroom in the Lick House seem more like a home. He felt it almost as a dishonour to have strangers using this furniture, sitting in the great leather chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, staring stupidly at his Renaissance portraits and copies of Assyrian bas-reliefs. Above all, it was torture to think that other hands than his own would tend the famous tiled and flamboyant stove, a stove that had its moods, its caprices, like any living person, a stove that had to be coaxed and humoured, a stove that he alone could understand. He had told himself that if ever again he should have money enough he would bring back this furniture to him. At first its absence had been a matter for the keenest regret and grief. He had been so used to pleasant surroundings that he languished in his new quarters as in a prison. His indulgent, luxurious character continually hungered after subdued, harmonious colours, pictures, ornaments, and soft rugs. His imagination was forever covering the white walls with rough stone-blue paper, and placing screens, divans, and window-seats in different parts of the cold bare room. One morning he had even gone so far as to pin about the walls little placards which he had painted with a twisted roll of the hotel letter-paper dipped into the inkstand. "Pipe-rack Here." "Mona Lisa Here." "Stove Here." "Window-seat Here." He had left them up there ever since, in spite of the chambermaid's protests and Ellis' clumsy satire.

Now, however, he had plenty of money. He would have his furniture back within the week. He came back from the bank, the money in his pocket, and went up to the room directly, with some vague intention of writing to the proprietors of the apartment house at once. But as he shut the door behind him, leaning his back against it and looking about, he suddenly realized that his old-time desire was passed; he had become so used to these surroundings that it now no longer made any difference to him whether or not they were cheerless, lamentable, barren. It was like all his other little ambitions—he had lost the taste for them, nothing made much difference after all. His money had come too late.

Why should he spend his five hundred dollars on something that could no longer amuse him? It would be much wiser to spend it all in having a good time somewhere—champagne dinners with Flossie, or betting on the races—he did not know exactly what. It was true that even these alternatives would not amuse him very much—he would fall back upon them as things of habit. For that matter everything was an ennui, and Vandover began to long for some new pleasure, some violent untried excitement.

Since the sale of the block in the Mission he had seen but little of Geary; young Haight had not been his companion since the time when Turner Ravis had broken with him, but little by little he had begun to associate with Ellis and his friend the Dummy. Almost every evening the three were together, sometimes at the theatre, sometimes in the back rooms of the Imperial, sometimes even in the parlours of certain houses, amid the murmur of heavy silks and the rustle of stiffly starched skirts. At times they would be drunk four nights of the week, and on these occasions it was tacitly understood between Ellis and Vandover that they should try to get the Dummy so full that he could talk.

However, Ellis' vice was gambling; he and the Dummy often passed the whole night over their cards, and as Vandover came more and more under Ellis' influence—succumbing to it as weakly as he had succumbed to the influence of Charlie Geary—he began to join these parties. They played Van John at five dollars a corner. Vandover won as often as he lost, but the habit of cards grew upon him steadily.

Toward eleven o'clock the evening of the day upon which he had drawn his five hundred, Vandover went around to the Imperial looking for his two friends. He found Ellis drinking whisky all alone in one of the little rooms, as was his custom; fifteen minutes later the Dummy and Flossie joined them. Flossie had grown stouter since Vandover had first known her, nearly ten years ago. She had a double chin, and puffy, discoloured pockets had come under her eyes. Now her hair was dyed, her cheeks and lips rouged, and her former air of health and good spirits gone. She never laughed. She had smoked so many cigarettes that now her voice hardly rose above a whisper. At one time she had been accustomed to boast that she never drank, and it had been one of her peculiarities for which she was well known. But on this occasion she joined Ellis in his whisky. She had long since departed from her old-time rule of temperance, and nowadays drank nothing else but whisky. She had even become well known for the quantity of whisky she could drink.

For half an hour the four sat around the little table, talking about the new, enormous Sutro Baths that were building at that time. After a while Flossie left them, and the Dummy began to imitate the motions of some one dealing cards, looking at the same time inquiringly into their faces.

"How about that, Bandy?" asked Vandover. "Shall we have a game to-night?"

The man of few words merely nodded his head and drank off the rest of his whisky at a swallow. They all went up to Vandover's room. Vandover got out the cards, the celluloid chips, and a fresh box of cigars. The Dummy held up two fingers of his left hand, shutting them together afterward with his right and making a hissing noise between his teeth. He raised his eyebrows at Vandover. Vandover understood, and, ringing for a bell-boy, ordered up three bottles of soda in siphon bottles.

The game was vingt et un, or, as they called it, Van John. They cut for banker. Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank from him. For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative, continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the others. But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in writing—he understood from watching the movement of their lips. The luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very much. The bell-boy brought up the siphons. The Dummy took off his coat, and the other two followed his example. They were all smoking, and an acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas globe.

But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them. The luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the Dummy. Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken, and he had been forced to buy in. The play resolved itself into two parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy. Long since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned. The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending. The acrid tobacco smoke no longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their heads. They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle of the shuffled cards. Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw off his vest, his collar, and his scarf. For a moment the luck seemed about to settle on him. He was still banking, and twice in succession he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a third of his chips. But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the lead again, winning from both the others. From this time on it was settled. The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and Vandover merely fighting for second place. Ellis held his lead; at one o'clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game. The profound silence of the room seemed to widen about them. After midnight the noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that he was carrying. Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from the sleeping city, the noises in the streets died away. The last electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long minor wail. Occasionally a belated coupe, a nighthawk, rattled over the cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like some kind of halting clock. The room became more and more close, none of them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like castanets. In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on steadily.

Then they began to "plunge," agreeing to play a no limit game and raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted. Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the bank. Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the game was between him and Vandover. Ellis was banking, and at length offered to sell the bank to either one of them. For the first time since the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short, brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.

"How much for the bank?" inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking from one to the other. Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in figures, on his pad, and showed it to him. Vandover looked at what the Dummy had written, and said:

"Fifteen."

"Twenty," scribbled the Dummy, as he watched Vandover's lips form the word.

"Twenty-five," returned Vandover. The Dummy hesitated a moment and then wrote "thirty." Ellis shook his head saying, "I'll keep the bank myself at that."

"Forty dollars!" cried Vandover. The Dummy shook his head, leaning back in his chair. Ellis shoved the pack across the table to Vandover, and Vandover gave him a twenty-dollar bill and two red chips.

On Vandover's very first deal around, the Dummy "stood" on the second card, for twelve chips; Ellis bet twenty-five on his first card, and, as he got the second, turned both of them face up. He had two jacks. "Twenty-five on each of these," he said. "I'll draw to each one." Vandover looked at his own card; it was a ten-spot. All at once he grew reckless, and seized with a sudden folly, resolved to attempt a great coup. "Double up!" he ordered. The Dummy set out twelve more chips, and Ellis another fifty, making his bet an even hundred. Vandover began to deal to Ellis. On the first jack Ellis drew eighteen and stood at that; the first card that fell to the second jack was an ace. "Van John," he remarked quietly. The Dummy drew three cards and stood on nineteen. Vandover turned up his own card and began to deal for himself. He already had a ten; now he drew a seven-spot and king in succession.

"The bank pays," he exclaimed. He paid the Dummy twenty-four chips. He gave Ellis fifty for the eighteen he had drawn on his first jack, and one hundred for the Van John upon the second, since the latter combination called for double the amount wagered; besides this, the bank was lost to him. Including the forty that he had paid for the bank, he had lost in all two hundred and fourteen dollars.

Never in his life had Vandover played so high a game, never before had he won or lost more than fifty dollars at a sitting. But he was content to have it thus. Here at last was the new pleasure for which he had longed, the fresh violent excitement that alone could rouse his jaded nerves, the one thing that could amuse him. However, the failure of his coup had left him without chips; he was out of the game. He decided that he would stop; more than half of his five hundred dollars was gone already. He drank off a glass of soda, the dregs of one of the siphon bottles, and got up yawning, shivering a little and stretching his arms high above. The other two played on steadily. The Dummy began to gain slowly upon Ellis, playing very cautiously, betting only upon face cards, aces, and ten-spots. Twice Ellis offered to sell him the bank, but he refused, fearful lest it should change his luck.

Vandover sat behind the Dummy's chair, watching his game, but at length, worn out, he began to drop off to sleep, waking every now and then with a sudden leap and recoil of all his nerves. An hour later the persistent scratching of a match awoke him. Ellis and the Dummy were still playing, and the Dummy was once more relighting the stump of his cigar. Ellis continued to deal, winning at almost every play; a great pile of chips and money lay at his elbow. For a few minutes Vandover watched the Dummy's game, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. But it was evident that the Dummy had lost his nerve. Ellis' continued winnings had at length demoralized him. At one time he would bet heavily on worthless cards, and at another would throw back nines and tens for no apparent reason. Finally Ellis dealt him a queen, which he kept, betting ten chips. His next card was a seven-spot. He signed to Ellis that he would stand. Ellis drew twenty in three cards. Vandover could not restrain an exclamation of impatience at the Dummy's stupidity. What a fool a man must be to stand on seventeen with only two in the game. All at once he tossed twenty dollars across the table to Ellis, saying, "Give me that in chips. I'm coming in again." Once more he resumed his seat at the table, and Ellis dealt him a hand.

But Vandover's interruption had for an instant taken Ellis' mind from the game. He stirred in his chair and looked about the room, puffing out his cheeks and blowing between his lips.

"Say, this room is close enough to strangle you. Open the window behind you, Van, you're nearest to it." As Vandover raised the curtain he uttered a cry: "Look here! will you?"

It was morning; the city was flooded by the light of the sun already an hour high. The sky was without a cloud. Over the roofs and amongst the gray maze of telegraph wires swarms of sparrows were chittering hoarsely, and as Vandover raised the window he could hear the newsboys far below in the streets chanting the morning's papers.

"Come on, Van!" exclaimed Ellis impatiently; "we're waiting for you."

That night decided it. From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was as much as he could win or lose at a sitting, but soon this palled upon him; he was obliged to raise the stakes continually in order to arouse in him the interest, the keen tense excitement, that his jaded nerves craved.

The five hundred dollars that he had drawn from the ten thousand, the first payment on his old home, melted away within a week. Only a few years ago Vandover would have stopped to reflect upon the meaning of this, would have resisted the temptation that drew him constantly to the gambling-table, but the idea of resistance never so much as occurred to him. He did not invest his fifteen thousand, but drew upon it continually to satisfy his last new craze. It was not with any hope of winning that he gambled—the desire of money was never strong in him—it was only the love of the excitement of the moment.

Little by little the fifteen thousand in the bank dwindled. It did not all go in cards. Certain habits of extravagance grew upon Vandover, the natural outcome of his persistent gambling, the desire of winning easily being balanced by the impulses to spend quickly. He took a certain hysterical delight in flinging away money with both hands. Now it was the chartering of a yacht for a ten-days' cruise about the bay, or it was a bicycle bought one week and thrown away the next, a fresh suit of clothes each month, gloves worn but once, gold-pieces thrust into Flossie's pockets, suppers given to bouffe actresses—twenty-four-hour acquaintances—a racehorse bought for eight hundred dollars, resold for two hundred and fifty—rings and scarf-pins given away to the women and girls of the Imperial, and a whole world of follies that his poor distorted wits conceived from hour to hour. His judgment was gone, his mind unbalanced. All his life Vandover had been sinking slowly lower and lower; this, however, was the beginning of the last plunge. The process of degeneration, though inevitable, had been gradual as long as he indulged generally in all forms of evil; it was only now when a passion for one particular vice absorbed him that he commenced to rush headlong to his ruin.

The fifteen thousand dollars—the price of his old home—he gambled or flung away in a little less than a year. He never invested it, but ate into it day after day, sometimes to pay his gambling debts, sometimes to indulge an absurd and extravagant whim, sometimes to pay his bill at the Lick House, and sometimes for no reason at all, moved simply by a reckless desire for spending.

On the evening of a certain Thanksgiving day, nine months after he had sold the house, Vandover came in through the ladies' entrance of the Imperial, going slowly down the passageway, looking into the little rooms on his right for Ellis or the Dummy. There had been a great intercollegiate football game that day, and Vandover, remembering that he had once found an interest in such things, had at first determined to see it. But toward eleven o'clock in the morning the rain had begun to fall, and Ellis, who was to have gone with him, declared that he did not care enough about the game to go out to it in the rain. Vandover was disappointed; he fancied that he could have enjoyed the game—as much as he could enjoy anything of late—but he hated to go to places alone. In the end, however, he resolved to go whether Ellis went or not. It was a holiday. Vandover had Ellis and the Dummy to lunch with him at the hotel, where they arranged the menu of a famous Thanksgiving dinner for that evening: they would meet in one of the little rooms of the Imperial and go from there to the restaurant. As they were finishing their lunch Vandover said:

"I got a new kind of liqueur yesterday—has a colour like violets and smells like cologne. You fellows better come up to my room and try it. I've got to go up and change anyway, if I go out to that game." They all went up to Vandover's cheerless room, and Ellis began to argue with Vandover against the folly of going anywhere in the rain.

"You don't want to go to that game, Van. Just look how it's raining. I'll bet there won't be a thousand people there. They'll probably postpone the game anyway. Say, this is queer looking stuff. What do you call it?"

"Creme violette."

The Dummy set down his emptied liqueur glass on the mantelshelf, and nodded approvingly at Vandover; then he scribbled, "Out of sight," on his tablet.

"Tastes like cough syrup and alcohol," growled Ellis, scowling and sipping. "I think a pint of this would make the Dummy talk Dutch. Keep it up, Dummy," he continued, articulating distinctly so that the other could catch the movement of his lips. "Drink some more—make you talk." Vandover was cutting the string around a pasteboard box that had just come from his tailor's; it was a new suit of clothes, rough cheviot, brown with small checks. He dressed slowly and tipped forward the swinging mirror of the bureau to see how the trousers set. Meanwhile Ellis and the Dummy had got out the cards and chips from the drawer of the centre-table and had begun a game.

"Better change your mind, Van," said Ellis without raising his eyes from the cards.

"No, sir," answered Van. "You don't know how it is—you never were a college man. Why, I wouldn't miss a football game for anything. Talk about your horse-racing, talk about your baseball—I tell you there's nothing in the world so exciting as a hot football game." He swung into his long high-coloured waterproof and stood behind Ellis, watching his game for a moment while he tied a couple of long silk streamers to his umbrella handle.

"It's one of the college colours," he explained. "Seems like old times back at Harvard." Ellis snorted with contempt.

"Such kids!" he growled.

"I saw one of the coaches go down the street a little while ago," continued Vandover, still watching Ellis shuffle and deal. "There were about twenty college men on top, and they had a big bulldog all harnessed out in their colours, and they were blowing fish-horns, and I tell you it made me wish I was one of them again." Ellis did not answer; it was probable he did not hear. Both he and the Dummy were settling down for a game that no doubt would last all the afternoon. Vandover made them free of his room, and they often gambled there when he was away. But it invariably made Ellis nervous to have any one stand behind his chair while he was playing; he began to move about uneasily. By and by he looked at his watch. "Better get a move on," he said, "you'll be late."

"Just a minute," answered Vandover, more and more interested in the game. "Go on playing; don't bother about me. Oh, I saw Charlie Geary, too," he continued, "on another coach; there was a party of them. Charlie was with Turner Ravis on the box seat. You remember Turner Ravis, don't you, Bandy? The girl I used to go with."

"There's a girl I never liked," observed Ellis. "She always struck me as being one of these regular snobs."

"Ah, snob is no name for it," assented Vandover. "She thought she was too damned high-toned for me. As soon as I got into that mess about Ida Wade, she threw me over. No, she didn't want to be associated with me any longer. Well, she can go to the devil. Geary's welcome to her."

"I thought Dolly Haight was going to marry her," said Ellis. "What was the matter there?"

"I don't know," returned Vandover; "probably Dolly Haight didn't have enough money to suit her. Guess she wants a man that will make his pile in this town and make his way, too. Ah, you bet!"

Half an hour later he was still behind Ellis' chair. Ellis had become so fidgety that he was losing steadily. Once more he turned to Vandover, speaking over his shoulder, "Come on, come on, Van, go along to your football; you make me nervous standing there." Vandover pushed a ten-dollar gold-piece across the table to the Dummy, who was banking, and said:

"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in."

"I thought you were going to the game?" inquired Ellis.

"Ah, the devil!" answered Vandover. "Too much rain."

They had played without interruption all that afternoon, and for once Vandover had all the luck. When they broke up about five o'clock with the understanding to meet again in the Imperial at seven, he had won nearly a hundred dollars.

When Vandover went out to keep this appointment he found the streets—especially Kearney and Market streets—crowded. It was about half-past six. The football game was over and the college men had returned. They were everywhere, marching about in long files, chain-gang fashion, each file headed by a man beating upon a gong, or parading the sidewalks ten abreast, singing college songs or shouting their slogan. At every moment one heard the college yells answering each other from street corner to street corner, "Rah, rah, rah—Rah, rah, rah!" Vandover found the Imperial crowded with students. The barroom was packed to the doors, every one of the little rooms in the front hall was full, while Flossie and Nannie had a great party of the young fellows in one of the larger rooms in the rear. Among the crowd in the barroom, three members of the winning team—heroes, with bandages about their heads—were breaking training, smoking and drinking for the first time in many long weeks.