an gazing from a club window on Fifth Avenue and saying something to
his companion with a look of utter disgust. Probably, thought Amory,
what he said was: "My God! Aren't people horrible!"

Never before in his life had Amory considered poor people. He thought
cynically how completely he was lacking in all human sympathy. O. Henry
had found in these people romance, pathos, love, hate--Amory saw only
coarseness, physical filth, and stupidity. He made no self-accusations:
never any more did he reproach himself for feelings that were
natural and sincere. He accepted all his reactions as a part of him,
unchangeable, unmoral. This problem of poverty transformed, magnified,
attached to some grander, more dignified attitude might some day even be
his problem; at present it roused only his profound distaste.

He walked over to Fifth Avenue, dodging the blind, black menace of
umbrellas, and standing in front of Delmonico's hailed an auto-bus.
Buttoning his coat closely around him he climbed to the roof, where he
rode in solitary state through the thin, persistent rain, stung
into alertness by the cool moisture perpetually reborn on his cheek.
Somewhere in his mind a conversation began, rather resumed its place
in his attention. It was composed not of two voices, but of one, which
acted alike as questioner and answerer:

Question.--Well--what's the situation?

Answer.--That I have about twenty-four dollars to my name.

Q.--You have the Lake Geneva estate.

A.--But I intend to keep it.

Q.--Can you live?

A.--I can't imagine not being able to. People make money in books and
I've found that I can always do the things that people do in books.
Really they are the only things I can do.

Q.--Be definite.

A.--I don't know what I'll do--nor have I much curiosity. To-morrow I'm
going to leave New York for good. It's a bad town unless you're on top
of it.

Q.--Do you want a lot of money?

A.--No. I am merely afraid of being poor.

Q.--Very afraid?

A.--Just passively afraid.

Q.--Where are you drifting?

A.--Don't ask _me!_

Q.--Don't you care?

A.--Rather. I don't want to commit moral suicide.

Q.--Have you no interests left?

A.--None. I've no more virtue to lose. Just as a cooling pot gives
off heat, so all through youth and adolescence we give off calories of
virtue. That's what's called ingenuousness.

Q.--An interesting idea.

A.--That's why a "good man going wrong" attracts people. They stand
around a