nterested you? There 's another! He has spirit, as I had
once--'il fait de la philosophie', as I do--and you will see, monsieur,
it will finish him. In this world what you want is to have no spirit.
Spirit ruins you."

Shelton looked sideways at the little man with his sardonic, yellow,
half-dead face, and the incongruity of the word "spirit" in his mouth
struck him so sharply that he smiled a smile with more pity in it than
any burst of tears.

"Shall we 'sit down?" he said, offering a cigarette.

"Merci, monsieur, it is always a pleasure to smoke a good cigarette. You
remember, that old actor who gave you a Jeremiad? Well, he's dead. I
was the only one at his bedside; 'un vrai drole'. He was another who had
spirit. And you will see, monsieur, that young man in whom you take an
interest, he'll die in a hospital, or in some hole or other, or even on
the highroad; having closed his eyes once too often some cold night; and
all because he has something in him which will not accept things as they
are, believing always that they should be better. 'Il n'y a riens de
plus tragique'!"

"According to you, then," said Shelton--and the conversation seemed to
him of a sudden to have taken too personal a turn--"rebellion of any
sort is fatal."

"Ah!" replied the little man, with the eagerness of one whose ideal it
is to sit under the awning of a cafe, and talk life upside down, "you
pose me a great problem there! If one makes rebellion; it is always
probable that one will do no good to any one and harm one's self. The
law of the majority arranges that. But I would draw your attention
to this"--and he paused; as if it were a real discovery to blow smoke
through his nose--"if you rebel it is in all likelihood because you are
forced by your nature to rebel; this is one of the most certain things
in life. In any case, it is necessary to avoid falling between two
stools--which is unpardonable," he ended with complacence.

Shelton thought he had never seen a man who looked more completely as if
he had fallen between two stools, and he had inspiration enough to feel
that the little barber's intellectual rebellion and the action logically
required by it had no more than a bowing acquaintanceship.

"By nature," went on the little man, "I am an optimist; it is in
consequence of this that I now make pessimism. I have always had ideals;
seeing myself cut off from them for ever, I must complain; to complain,
monsieur, is very sweet!"