you fancied he had become a
drunkard as a cowardly escape from pain,--that he had been disappointed
before he had begun life. Nearly an hour I stood quietly watching
him,--then, having known him for some time, I touched his arm.

"Abel," I said,--"Abel Steadman?"

He started, reddened in his old womanish fashion, and, when he
recognized me at last, stood cringing, holding his frowzy hat in both
hands with a subservient humility pitiful to see. His manhood had
slipped from him so utterly, that his harmless vanity had left but the
dregs of self-disgust.

"Come, man," I said, "be cheery at seeing an old friend. Give an account
of yourself."

I forced him with me to the hotel, and ordered wine, seeing that he
needed a stimulant. He had come unwillingly, almost angrily, and now sat
on the edge of a chair, his hat held in both hands between his knees.

"That's no good,"--pushing the wine feebly away. "I only take it when I
cannot breathe without."

After a long time, however, the poor creature seemed to waken into a
faint likeness of his old self, and told me his story in a forlorn,
disjointed way. After I heard it, I thought, cruelly enough, that he had
had sufficient of his poor portion of life, and all that remained for
him was to die as weakly as he had lived. I tried to rouse him by asking
for his poems and essays.

"No good came of any of them yet. When I get my rights, I'll publish. It
won't be long to wait now."

"You mean"----

"That she's living yet? Yes, I do,--ninety-eight last spring."

The wreck before me was so miserable that I could not laugh.

"And meanwhile, Abel?"

"I've tried to shift as I could,--sometimes as day-laborer, or running
on railroads as brakeman; and I got once into a photographist's wagon to
help prepare the plates. Was no use going into anything regularly, you
know, when my luck might come any day. I kept my eye on that Shepler
land, though,"--something like life coming into his lack-lustre eye.
"She's mismanaging the bottom fields terribly these late years. All in
oats. But they'll bring in good returns some day, when they're properly
worked. There's surface indications of oil along the creek, too."

"About your studies, Steadman?"

"I've read a bit here and there. I mean to go in training when I get my
rights. Good God! the man I ought to be!"--suddenly putting his hand to
his head.

This feeble outcry was the only sign of manhood that he gave. It was
gone in a moment,