"The game is up."
The tall, lean man made no immediate reply, he merely gazed steadily into the face of his friend. He had always suspected that it would come to this some day. He really wondered that Morrison had not done it long ago. If any man had a right to dispose of his life it was surely Morrison. He had endured more than most human beings. His case was absolutely hopeless.
"Is there no way out of it?"
Morrison shook his head. He wanted to say something, but his voice failed him. He stepped to the dresser near the window, looked into the mirror and arranged his faded, threadbare tie. It was pitiful to see how shabbily he was dressed. He no longer set the fashion as in his days of success, years ago in Boston.
"Would money help you?" and the tall, lean visitor fumbled in his pockets. Although fairly well dressed, he was hard up most of the time and only ventured to broach the subject as he just happened to have a few dollars to spare that day.
"No, what good would the little do that you could give me?" and he continued to adjust matters and tuck things away in his trunk.
"There, you are right again, not much. But I won forty dollars on the track; I sometimes go out there," he added as a sort of excuse, "as it is impossible to live on literature alone. I could spare ten."
"Can you really spare them? I won't be able to return them, you know. I would like to have them. I suppose you will refuse to let me buy a revolver with them. I have all sorts of poisons," he pointed to some little bottles, "but I would prefer not to use them, it wouldn't be esthetical, and then I want to go away to some place where nobody knows me. I don't want to be identified."
The literary man slowly pulled a small roll out of his pocket. He thought of his wife and children who needed the money. It was really foolish to have made that offer. Well, it was probably the last service he could render his friend. Morrison was serious about his departure, there was no doubt about that. "Here!"
"Thanks," Morrison answered, though he did not take the money right away. He looked about absentmindedly, as in a dream. This was friendship indeed. He had not believed that anybody could so completely enter another man's state of mind. Not a word of opposition. This was glorious! They had known each other for more than seventeen years. They had often drifted apart and, somehow, had always met again. They had never been very intimate, they had merely respected each other for the work they had accomplished, each in his profession; although they differed largely in ideas. Morrison was a sculptor, and almost an ancient Greek in his feelings for the beauty of lines. The tall, lean man, on the other hand, was a strange mixture of a visionary and brutal realist. They both were cynics, however, that found life rather futile. With the literary man this was merely a theoretical view point, while Morrison was really embittered with life. The incidents of this afternoon had surprised him. He was deeply moved and felt as if he should give utterance to his emotions. He remembered that his attitude towards his friend had been rather arrogant at times. He now felt sorry for it, but somehow could not form his sentiments and thoughts into coherent sentences.
