"But isn't that of ancient date?" DeGolyer asked.
"Here, now, young fellow, don't try to saw me!" And then he broke off with this execration: "Oh, this miserable world—this infernal pot where men are boiled!" He rolled his eyes like a choking ox, and after a short silence, asked: "Young fellow, do you know what I'd do if I were of your age?"
"If you were of my temperament as well as of my age I don't think you'd do much of anything."
"Yes, I would; I would confer a degree of high favor on myself. I would cut my throat, sir."
"Pardon me, but is it too late at your time of life?"
"Yes, for my nerve is diseased and I am a coward, an infamous, doddering old coward, sir. Good God! to live for years in darkness, bumping against the sharp corners of conscience. I have never told Henry, but I don't mind telling you that at times I am almost mad. For years I have sought to read myself out of it, but to an unsettled mind a book is a sly poison—the greatest of books are but the records of trouble. Don't you say a word to Henry. He thinks that my mind is as sound as a new acorn, but it isn't."
"I won't—but, by the way, he is young; why don't you advise him to kill himself?"
The old fellow flounced off the sofa and stood bulging his eyes at DeGolyer.
"Don't you ever say such a thing as that again!" he snorted. "Why, confound your hide! would you have that boy dead?"
DeGolyer threw down his pen. "No, I would have him live forever in his thoughtless and beautiful paradise; I would not pull him down to the thoughtful man's hell of self-communion."