Twenty-five or
thirty dollars a week was all he needed. With that he could buy his
liquor, treat his women, sometimes play a little faro, sit up all
night and sleep all day, and in general lead the life of good-natured
vagabondage which has always pleased him and which he had chosen as a
career.
The objection of safer and saner friends to this form of livelihood
was always met by him with a slap on the back and a laugh. "Don't you
worry about me, partner; if I'm going to hell I'm going there with
bells on," was always his rejoinder; and yet, when called upon to
cover some great big news story, or report some vital event, he
settled down to his work with a steely determination and a grim joy
that resulted in work which classified him as a genius. Any great
mental effort of this character, any unusual achievement along these
lines, would be immediately followed by a protracted debauch that
would upset him physically and mentally for weeks at a time, but he
always recovered and landed on his feet, and with the same laugh and
smile again went at his work.
If there have been opportunities to meet decent women of good social
standing, he has always thrown them aside with the declaration that
they bore him to death, and there never had entered into his heart a
feeling or idea of real affection until he met LAURA. He fell for a
moment under the spell of her fascination, and then, with cold logic,
he analyzed her, and found out that, while outwardly she had
every sign of girlhood,--ingenuousness, sweetness of character and
possibility of affection,--spiritually and mentally she was nothing
more than a moral wreck.
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