of light stabbed the darkness. As he applied the tiny, wavering flame
to the wick of a lamp that stood on the cheap, old-fashioned bureau, the
man's hand shook until the chimney rattled against the wire standards of
the burner. Turning quickly from the lighted lamp, the man sprang again
to the window to jerk down the tattered, old shade. Facing about, he
stood with his back to the wall, searching the room with wide, fearful
eyes. His fists were clenched. His chest rose and fell heavily with his
labored breathing. His face worked with emotion. With trembling limbs
and twitching muscles, he crouched like some desperate creature at bay.

But, save for the wretched man himself, there was in that shabby,
dingy-papered, dirty-carpeted, poorly furnished apartment no living
thing.

Suddenly, the man laughed;--and it was the reckless, despairing laughter
of a soul that feels itself slipping over the brink of an abyss.

With hurried step and outstretched hands, he crossed the room to snatch
a bottle of whisky from its place beside the lamp on the bureau. With
trembling eagerness, he poured a water tumbler half-full of the red
liquor. As one dying of thirst, he drank. Drawing a deep breath, and
shaking his head with a wry smile, he spoke in hoarse confidence to the
image of himself in the dingy mirror: "They nearly had me, that time."
Again, he poured, and drank.

The whisky steadied him for the moment, and with bottle and glass still
in hand, he regarded himself in the mirror with critical interest.

Had he stood erect, with the vigor that should have been his by right of
his years, the man would have measured just short of six feet; but his