ure of whimsical force and
impatience; "it's my last chance for an explanation. Don't, for God's
sake, cut it short at this point. You might know--you might _know_, that
I'm not a bad fellow at heart. But you will never see the best side of
me--there's fate in it. I never wanted to seem specially contrite but I
must set myself jumping like a jack-in-the box for your infernally cold
amusement! I had an explanation at my tongue's end. D--n it! I don't
remember a word of it."

"I don't think it is necessary," I said.

"Oh, no!" he continued in a deeply aggrieved, almost a whining tone;
"nothing's necessary that would set me out in a little better shape!
Anything will do for these grovelling Wallencampers, but just as soon as
it comes to me, all the extenuating circumstances of my life--that I was
left so early orphaned, sisterless, brotherless, my nearest of kin a
wicked, carousing old uncle; taken to see the world here, and to see the
world there; homeless, if ever one was homeless; never trained to any
correct way of thinking, or settled manner of life, but just to spend my
money and aim at enjoying myself--they all amount to nothing in my case.

"Well, I used to come to Wallencamp just for that same purpose--to have a
good time; it was such a jolly wild place to let the Old Nick loose in;
and now it seems that's to be taken for a man's natural level, and the
best that he's capable of! Then I met you. You would voluntarily give up
ease and luxury, for a time, for the sake of an abstract idea--whether
misguided or not, I will not say, the fact remains the same--and I swear
it was a new revelation to me. It was strange and perverse, and it was
deuced taking! Then I tried to get you to include _me_ among the objects
of your mission, to accept _me_ as a candidate for temporal leniency and
final salvation, and you wouldn't. It is only the happy, ragged,
unconscious heathen that are looked out for in this world; the real ones
don't get any sympathy."

The fisherman paused.

"I should be glad to give you the first lesson in the code of salvation,"
I said--"that the fate of souls is not left to human hands."

"Oh, I've heard that formula somewhere before!" exclaimed the fisherman,
impatiently, with a little sneer in his laugh. "Why don't you tell me
that God will help me? Perhaps you will even remember me in your prayers,
some time."

At those last words an unbearable pang of self-conviction and remorse
shot through my h