nt, and your
naturally quick temper, if you break down a few more cells in that
martyred brain of yours, you'll end in an asylum--possibly one reserved
for the _criminal_ insane."

A dull colour stained the pasty whiteness of Quest's face. For several
minutes he stood there, his fingers working and picking at each other,
his pale, prominent eyes glaring.

"That's a big indictment, doctor," he said at last.

"Thank God you think it so," returned the doctor. "If you will stand by
your better self for one week--for only one week--after leaving
Mulqueen's, I'll stand by you for life, my boy. Come! You were a good
sport once. And that little sister of yours is worth it. Come,
Stuyvesant; is it a bargain?"

He stepped forward and held out his large, firm, reassuring hand. The
young fellow took it limply.

"Done with you, doctor," he said without conviction; "it's hell for
mine, I suppose, if I don't make my face behave. You're right; I'm the
goat; and if I don't quit butting I'll sure end by slapping some sissy
citizen with an axe."

He gave the doctor's hand a perfunctory shake with his thin, damp
fingers; dropped it, turned to go, halted, retraced his steps.

"Will it give me the willies if I kiss a cocktail good-bye before I
start for that fresh guy, Mulqueen?"

"Start _now_, I tell you! Haven't I your word?"

"Yes--but on the way to buy transportation can't I offer myself one
last----"

"_Can't_ you be a good sport, Stuyve?"

The youth hesitated, scowled.

"Oh, very well," he said carelessly, turned and went out.

As he walked along in the slush he said to himself: "I guess it's up
the river for mine.... By God, it's a shame, for I'm feeling pretty
good, too, and that's no idle quip!... Old Squills handed out a line of
talk all right-o!... He landed it, too.... I ought to find something to
do."

As he walked, a faint glow stimulated his enervated intelligence; ideas,
projects long abandoned, desires forgotten, even a far echo from the old
ambition stirring in its slumber, quickened his slow pulses. The ghost
of what he might have been, nay, what he _could_ have made himself, rose
wavering in his path. Other ghosts, long laid, floated beside him,
accompanying him--the ghosts of dead opportunities, dead ideals, lofty
inspirations long, long strangled.

"A job," he muttered; "that's the wholesome dope for Willy. There isn't
a newspaper or magazine in town where I can't get next if I speak easy.
I can del