"He is better dead," said the stranger, softly.
"And the Society you speak of, what is it?"
"The S. D. W. S. P."
"The S. D. W. S. P.?"
"Yes, the Society for Doing Without Some People."
They were in Holborn, but turned up Southampton Row for quiet.
"You have told me," said the stranger, now speaking rapidly, "that at times you have felt tempted to take your life, that life for which you will one day have to account. Suicide is the coward's refuge. You are miserable? When a young man knows that, he is happy. Misery is but preparing for an old age of delightful reminiscence. You say that London has no work for you, that the functions to which you looked forward are everywhere discharged by another. That need not drive you to despair. If it proves that someone should die, does it necessarily follow that the someone is you?"
"But is not the other's life as sacred as mine?"
"That is his concern."
"Then you would have me—"