aintances, for he joined a club,
the membership of which was decidedly mixed, and not all of the best
kind of associates for Winn.

His aunt, a shallow though well-meaning woman, devoted to church work,
gossip, and her pet poodle, considering Winn an unfortunate addition to
her cares, held but scant influence over him. She furnished him a home
to sleep and eat in without cost, urged him to attend church with her,
cautioned him against evil associates; but beyond that she could not and
did not go. So Winn drifted. He saved a little money, realizing that he
must, or be forever helpless and dependent; he learned the slang of the
town and its ways, and forgot for a time the wholesome lessons of his
early life. He also grew more mercurial, and, worse than that, he grew
cynical.

On all sides, and go where he would, the arrogance of wealth seemed to
hedge him about and force upon him the realization that he was but a
poorly paid bookkeeper, and not likely to become aught else. And then a
worse mishap befell him--he met and became attached to Jack Nickerson.

There is in every club, and in every walk in life, wherever a young
man's feet may stray, some one it were better he never met--a
Mephistopheles in male garb, whose wit and ways of pleasure-taking are
alluring, whose manners are perfect, whose pockets are well filled; and
alas, whose morals are a matter of convenience.

That Winn, honest and wholesome-minded country-born fellow that he was,
should be attracted by this product of fast city life is not strange. It
is the attraction that allures the moth toward the flame, the good
toward evil. Follow Nickerson in that course, Winn would not and did
not; he merely admired him for his wit, felt half tempted to emulate his
vices, absorbed his scepticism--for Jack Nickerson in addition to his
vices was a cynic of the most implacable sort. With him all religion was
hypocrisy, all virtue a folly, and all truth a farce. He had income
sufficient to live well upon, gambled for a pastime, was at the race
tracks whenever chance offered, was cheek by jowl with the sporting
fraternity, a man about town and hail fellow well met with all.

Per contra, he was generous to a fault, laughed most when he uttered his
sharpest sneers, was polished and refined in his tastes and a gentleman
always.

One distinguished novelist has deified such a man, and made him a hero
of her numerous tales.

To Winn he appealed more as a fascinating, world