"You take a very frivolous view of life," I observed, as I ordered some poached eggs and beer.
"It's all right. I shan't come here again," he answered.
"But I thought you were enjoying yourself?"
He drummed on the table with his fingers and smiled round the room.
"So I am," he said. "If you'd ever been as poor as a rat, you'd know what it feels like to have money to burn!" His black eyes suddenly shone with anger, and his fingers ceased their idle drumming. "If you'd ever had your birth flung in your teeth——"
"Don't you ever forget anything, Raney?" I asked in his sudden, fierce pause.
"Nothing, old man. Not a line of a book I've ever read nor the letter of a word a man's ever said to me. I—I've been taken on my merits here to-night. I don't want to forget anything. After all, if you forget what it's like to go through one or two circles of Hell, you haven't much pity for the souls that are still suffering there."
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"Follow my destiny," he answered, with his black eyes gazing into the distance.