tion.

"See here, Krebs," I said, "I didn't come here to bother you about these
matters, to tire you. I mustn't stay. I'll call in again to see how you
are--from time to time."

"But you're not tiring me," he protested, stretching forth a thin,
detaining hand. "I don't want to rot, I want to live and think as long
as I can. To tell you the truth, Paret, I've been wishing to talk to
you--I'm glad you came in."

"You've been wishing to talk to me?" I said.

"Yes, but I didn't expect you'd come in. I hope you won't mind my saying
so, under the circumstances, but I've always rather liked you, admired
you, even back in the Cambridge days. After that I used to blame you
for going out and taking what you wanted, and I had to live a good many
years before I began to see that it's better for a man to take what he
wants than to take nothing at all. I took what I wanted, every man worth
his salt does. There's your great banker friend in New York whom I used
to think was the arch-fiend. He took what he wanted, and he took a
good deal, but it happened to be good for him. And by piling up his
corporations, Ossa on Pelion, he is paving the way for a logical
economic evolution. How can a man in our time find out what he does want
unless he takes something and gives it a trial?"

"Until he begins to feel that it disagrees with him," I said. "But
then," I added involuntarily, "then it may be too late to try something
else, and he may not know what to try." This remark of mine might have
surprised me had it not been for the feeling--now grown definite--that
Krebs had something to give me, something to pass on to me, of all men.
Indeed, he had hinted as much, when he acknowledged a wish to talk to
me. "What seems so strange," I said, as I looked at him lying back on
his pillows, "is your faith that we shall be able to bring order out of
all this chaos--your belief in Democracy."

"Democracy's an adventure," he replied, "the great adventure of mankind.
I think the trouble in many minds lies in the fact that they persist in
regarding it as something to be made safe. All that can be done is
to try to make it as safe as possible. But no adventure is safe--life
itself is an adventure, and neither is that safe. It's a hazard, as you
and I have found out. The moment we try to make life safe we lose all
there is in it worth while."

I thought a moment.

"Yes, that's so," I agreed. On the table beside the bed in company with
two or three