But I--I----"

He stared at me sternly.

"But I've done worse things," he said solemnly, "than some poor fellows
that have been strung up by the neck and choked to death!"

I laughed, a little nervously. "Tell me your story, if you like," I
said, "and let me decide just how black you are. But I haven't a great
deal of apprehension. We're all of us poor miserable sinners, as far as
that's concerned. I could tell you things about myself----"

Banaotovich was not listening to me at all. He had fallen suddenly into
a fit of black brooding. After a minute or two, he looked up and asked
sharply:

"Do you remember Wolansky?"

Wolansky was the Greek professor who had threatened to vote against
Banaotovich when he was finishing his course at the Gymnasium.

"Of course," said I. "And I remember well how he abused you that last
year. If there ever was a cantankerous old scoundrel, Wolansky was just
that identical individual!"

"Maybe," he said absently; then after another pause:

"Do you remember that Wolansky died suddenly, just a little while before
the end of the school year?"

I nodded. "I imagine that was a great piece of good luck for you," I
said.

"Yes," said Banaotovich. "If he had lived, I should never have had my
diploma. As it was, I finished with honors. If Wolansky hadn't died when
he did, I'd have been ruined. Don't forget that--ruined!"

I was puzzled at his insistence. "Yes, you would have been seriously
handicapped," I agreed. "Ruined is the word, perhaps."

Banaotovich's face was purple with wine and some strange kind of
suffering. "Do you remember another thing?" he said thickly. "Do you
remember an old Hindoo who had a dark little hole away back of the shops
and the beer depot and the livery stables between the Old Market and the
river?"

"The old fellow that had love charms and told fortunes and helped people
to health and wealth and happiness?" I said in a tone of slightly forced
cheerfulness. It was hard to be cheerful with those somber eyes boring
into you. "Yes, I remember him, all right. I wanted to go and see him
once, when I was about fifteen or sixteen, but Father told me that
meddling with the black art had sent more people to hell than it had
helped. And Father was so terribly earnest about it that he frightened
me. I never went. As a matter of fact it was only a passing fancy, and I
soon forgot all about him."

"That Hindoo," said my old school-fellow thoughtfully, "knew things