ught a second-hand
revolver and a hundred cartridges. His ambition, he confided to me, was
to become "a dead shot," and the marvel of it is that he did not
succeed.

Of course, there followed the usual discovery and consequent trouble,
the usual repentance and reformation, the usual determination to start a
new life.

Poor fellow, he lived "starting a new life." Every New Year's Day he
would start a new life--on his birthday--on other people's birthdays. I
fancy that, later on, when he came to know their importance, he extended
the principle to quarter days. "Tidying up, and starting afresh," he
always called it.

[Illustration: "A DEAD SHOT."]

I think as a young man he was better than most of us. But he lacked that
great gift which is the distinguishing feature of the English-speaking
race all the world over, the gift of hypocrisy. He seemed incapable of
doing the slightest thing without getting found out; a grave misfortune
for a man to suffer from, this.

Dear simple-hearted fellow, it never occurred to him that he was as
other men--with, perhaps, a dash of straightforwardness added; he
regarded himself as a monster of depravity. One evening I found him in
his chambers engaged upon his Sisyphean labour of "tidying up." A heap
of letters, photographs, and bills lay before him. He was tearing them
up and throwing them into the fire.

I came towards him, but he stopped me. "Don't come near me," he cried,
"don't touch me. I'm not fit to shake hands with a decent man."

It was the sort of speech to make one feel hot and uncomfortable. I did
not know what to answer, and murmured something about his being no worse
than the average.

"Don't talk like that," he answered excitedly; "you say that to comfort
me, I know; but I don't like to hear it. If I thought other men were
like me I should be ashamed of being a man. I've been a blackguard, old
fellow, but, please God, it's not too late. To-morrow morning I begin a
new life."

He finished his work of destruction, and then rang the bell, and sent
his man downstairs for a bottle of champagne.

"My last drink," he said, as we clicked glasses. "Here's to the old life
out, and the new life in."

He took a sip and flung the glass with the remainder into the fire. He
was always a little theatrical, especially when most in earnest.

For a long while after that I saw nothing of him. Then, one evening,
sitting down to supper at a restaurant, I noticed him opposite to me