you soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the minds
of my friends. Hasty I may have been, but not insincere. Perhaps you will
excuse me if I refer to an unpleasant subject, but I can make my meaning
clearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history."

The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if
he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had
something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they
heard a dead soul speaking through living lips.

"After my disgrace," pursued the young man in the same quietly
explanatory tone, "the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume,
as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the
looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and
complete as best he can. Now you know that in order to find any pleasure
in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride
in it. Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with
a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every
time his eye glances it over. Do I make my meaning clear? I felt like
that beaten crew in last week's regatta, which, when it saw itself
hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the
race, but just pulled ashore and went home.

"Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made a
big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn't have
the heart to go on any further, and I recollect well how I teased my
father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took
his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page. Then I was comforted and
took heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that the
teacher gave me the prize.