get, you left Joe Garland in
the lurch that time. You threw him down, hard; and yet I remember the
first day you came to school--we boarded, you were only a day scholar--you
had to be initiated. Three times under in the swimming tank--you
remember, it was the regular dose every new boy got. And you held back.
You denied that you _could_ swim. You were frightened, hysterical--"

"Yes, I know," Percival Ford said slowly. "I was frightened. And it was
a lie, for I could swim . . . And I was frightened."

"And you remember who fought for you? who lied for you harder than you
could lie, and swore he knew you couldn't swim? Who jumped into the tank
and pulled you out after the first under and was nearly drowned for it by
the other boys, who had discovered by that time that you _could_ swim?"

"Of course I know," the other rejoined coldly. "But a generous act as a
boy does not excuse a lifetime of wrong living."

"He has never done wrong to you?--personally and directly, I mean?"

"No," was Percival Ford's answer. "That is what makes my position
impregnable. I have no personal spite against him. He is bad, that is
all. His life is bad--"

"Which is another way of saying that he does not agree with you in the
way life should be lived," the doctor interrupted.

"Have it that way. It is immaterial. He is an idler--"

"With reason," was the interruption, "considering the jobs out of which
you have knocked him."

"He is immoral--"

"Oh, hold on now, Ford. Don't go harping on that. You are pure New
England stock. Joe Garland is half Kanaka. Your blood is thin. His is
warm. Life is one thing to you, another thing to him. He laughs and
sings and dances through life, genial, unselfish, childlike, everybody's
friend. You go through life like a perambulating prayer-wheel, a friend
of nobody but the righteous, and the righteous are those who agree with
you as to what is right. And after all, who shall say? You live like an
anchorite. Joe Garland lives like a good fellow. Who has extracted the
most from life? We are paid to live, you know. When the wages are too
meagre we throw up the job, which is the cause, believe me, of all
rational suicide. Joe Garland would starve to death on the wages you get
from life. You see, he is made differently. So would you starve on his
wages, which are singing, and love--"

"Lust, if you will pardon me," was the interruption.

Dr. Kennedy smiled.

"Love, to you