t," George Winsor said excitedly, taking his pipe out
of his mouth and gesticulating with it. "Just because a lumberjack is a
beast is no reason that a college man is all right because he's less of
a beast. I tell you I get sick of my own thoughts, and I get sick of the
college when I hear about some things that are done. I keep straight,
and I don't know why I do, I despise about half the fellows that chase
around with rats, and sometimes I envy them like hell. Well, what's the
sense in me keeping straight? What's the sense in anybody keeping
straight? Fellows that don't seem to get along just as well as those
that do. What do you think, Mel? You've been reading Havelock Ellis and
a lot of ducks like that."

Burbank tossed a cigarette butt into the fire and gazed into the flames
for a minute before speaking, his homely face serious and troubled. "I
don't know what to think," he replied slowly. "Ellis tells about some
things that make you fairly sick. So does Forel. The human race can be
awfully rotten. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I'm all mixed up.
Sometimes life just doesn't seem worth living to me, what with the filth
and the slums and the greed and everything. I've been taking a course
in sociology, and some of the things that Prof Davis has been telling us
make you wonder why the world goes on at all. Some poet has a line
somewhere about man's inhumanity to man, and I find myself thinking
about that all the time. The world's rotten as hell, and I don't see how
anything can be done about it. I don't think sometimes that it's worth
living in. I can understand why people commit suicide." He spoke softly,
gazing into the fire.

Hugh had given him rapt attention. Suddenly he spoke up, forgetting his
resolve not to say anything more after Ferguson had called him
"innocent." "I think you're wrong, Mel," he said positively. "I was
reading a book the other day called 'Lavengro.' It's all about Gipsies.
Well, this fellow Lavengro was all busted up and depressed; he's just
about made up his mind to commit suicide when he meets a friend of his,
a Gipsy. He tells the Gipsy that he's going to bump himself off, that he
doesn't see anything in life to live for. Then the Gipsy answers him.
Gee, it hit me square in the eye, and I memorized it on the spot. I
think I can say it. He says: 'There's night and day, brother, both sweet
things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's
likewise a wind on the heath.