I drew him out of the hot sun and into a secluded archway, he talking
straight on with a speed and pitiful grandiloquence totally unlike him.
"I've finished all the easy parts--the first ecstasies of pure license--
the long down-hill plunge, with all its mad exhilarations--the wild vanity
of venturing and defying--that bigness of the soul's experiences which
makes even its anguish seem finer than the old bitterness of tame
propriety--they are all behind me, now?-the valley of horrors is before!
You can't understand it, Smith. O you can't understand----"

O couldn't I! And, anyhow, one does not have to put himself through a
whole criminal performance to apprehend its spiritual experiences. I
understood all, and especially what he unwittingly betrayed even now; that
deep thirst for the dramatic element in one's own life, which, when social
conformity fails to supply it, becomes, to an eager soul, sin's cunningest
allurement.

I tried to talk to him. "Gregory, that day the dogs jumped on you--you
remember?--didn't you say if ever you should reach this condition your
fear might save you?"

He stared at me a moment. "Do you"--a ray of humor lighted his eyes--"do
you still believe in spasms of virtue?"

"Thank heaven, yes!" laughed I.

"Good-by," he said, and was gone.

I heard of him twice afterward that day. About noon some one coming into
the office said: "I just now saw Crackedfiddle buying a great lot of