I knew that he was doomed. I had a pocket edition of Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven" on my desk. It was one of my favorite things. Michael looked at it. I said that Thompson was an Irish poet.
"I read a lot, whenever I get a chance," he said, "newspapers and magazines."
I read a little from "The Hound":
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after....
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the moulded years—
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap....
I told Michael something of the writer's way of living. And I gave him the book.
"Can you spare it?" he asked. I said I was always "sparing" books, dropping them everywhere, because they were too heavy to tote.
"I guess when the gang sees me with these here," said Michael, "they'll be thinking that I'm turning queer."
As I opened the door to let him out, I saw Mylius acting as if he were just passing by on the way upstairs to his office. He had been listening at the keyhole. Michael went on out. Mylius said, "I was scared he was going to assassinate you in there."
"He isn't a criminal," I said. "He's just an old college friend down on his luck." Mylius was interested and wanted to talk some more, but I was seized by such a loathsome feeling for the big white reptile, I turned my back and shut my door.
I never saw Michael again. Just before I left for Europe the following year I received a pathetic scrawl informing me that he had been caught in a hold-up and sentenced to prison for nine years....