ed, the jaw thrust
itself forward.

"Dead, huh?" he grunted, and stared about him, with a slow, twisting
movement of the head. "Well--I might just as well be, as buried alive
in a jay-dump at the tail-end of all creation!" Once again the Powers
of Darkness swooped down and wrestled with and for him; and knowing
what I knew, sick at heart, I trembled for him.

"What am _I_ doing here, anyhow?" he snarled with his lips drawn back
from his teeth. "Piddling with bugs--_Me!_ Patching up their dinky
little wings and stretching out their dam' little legs and feelers--me
being what I am, and they being what they are! Say, I've got to quit
this, once for all I've got to quit it. I'm not a _man_ any more. I'm
a dead one, a he-granny cutting silo for lady-worms and drynursing
their interesting little babies. My God! _Me!_" And he threw his hands
above his head with a gesture of rage and despair.

"Hanging on here like a boob--no wonder they think I'm dead! If I
could just make a getaway and pull off one more good job and land
enough--"

"You couldn't keep it, if you did land it--your sort can't. You know
how it went before--the women and the sharks got it. There'd be always
that same incentive to pull off just one more to keep you going--until
you'd pulled yourself behind bars, and stayed there. And there's the
drug-danger, too. If you escaped so far, it was because so far you had
the strength to let drugs alone. But the drugs get you, sooner or
later, do they not? Have you not told me over and over again that
'nearly all dips are dopes'? That first the dope gets you--and then
the law? No. You can't pull off anything that won't pull you into
hell. We have gone over this thing often enough, haven't we?"

"No, we haven't. And I haven't had a chance to pull off
anything--except leaves for bugs. _Me!_ I want to get my hand in once
more, I tell you! I want to pull off a stunt that'll make the whole
bunch of bulls sit up and bellow for fair--and I can do it, easy as
easy. Think I've croaked, do they? And they can all snooze on their
peg-posts, now I'm a stiff? Well, by cripes, I just want half of a
half of a chance, and I'll show 'em Slippy McGee's good and plenty
alive!"

"Come out into the garden, my son, and feel that you are good and
plenty alive. Come out into the free air. Hold on tight, a little
while longer!"

I laid my hand upon his shoulder compellingly, and although he glared
at me, and ground his teeth, and lifted