nding in the doorway.

For the moment Geary did not recognize the gaunt, shambling figure with
the long hair and dirty beard, the greenish hat, and the streaked and
spotted coat, but when he did it was with a feeling of anger and
exasperation.

"Look here!" he cried, "don't you think you'd better knock before you
come in?"

Vandover raised a hand slowly as if in deprecation, and answered slowly
and with a feeble, tremulous voice, the voice of an old man: "I did
knock, Mister Geary; I didn't mean no offence." He sat down on the edge
of the nearest chair, looking vaguely and stupidly about on the floor,
moving his head instead of his eyes, repeating under his breath from
time to time, "No offence--no, sir--no offence!"

"Shut that door!" commanded Geary. Vandover obeyed. He wore no vest, and
the old cutaway coat, fastened by the single remaining button, exposed
his shirt to view, abominably filthy, bulging at the waist like a
blouse. The "blue pants," held up by a strap, were all foul with mud and
grease and paint, and there hung about him a certain odour, that
peculiar smell of poverty and of degradation, the smell of stale clothes
and of unwashed bodies.

"Well?" said Geary abruptly.

Vandover put the tips of his fingers to his lips and rolled his eyes
about the room, avoiding Geary's glance; then he dropped them to the
floor again, looking at the pattern in the carpet.

"Well," repeated Geary, irritated, "you know I haven't got all the time
in the world." All at once Vandover began to cry, very softly, snuffling
with his nose, his chin twitching, the tears running through his thin,
sparse beard.

"Ah, get on to yourself!" shouted Geary, now thoroughly disgusted. "Quit
that! Be a man, will you? Stop that! do you hear?" Vandover obeyed,
catching his breath and slowly wiping his eyes with the side of his
hand.

"I'm no good!" he said at length, wagging his head and blinking through
his tears. "I'm--I'm done for and I ain't got no money; yet, of course,
you see I don't mean no offence. What I want, you see, is to be a man
and not give in and not let the wolf get me, and then I'll go back to
Paris. Everything goes round here, very slow, and seems far off; that's
why I can't get along, and I'm that hungry that sometimes I twitch all
over. I'm down. I ain't got another cent of money and I lost my job at
the paint-shop. There's where I drew down twenty dollars a week painting
landscapes on safes, you know, and then