g had to go on, had to run its course, even death would not
help him. Let it go on, it was only the better part of him that was
suffering; in a little while this better part would be dead, leaving
only the brute. It would die a natural death without any intervention
from him. Was there any need of suicide? Suicide! Great God! his whole
life had been one long suicide.

* * * * *

That same morning Charlie Geary had eaten a very thick underdone steak
for breakfast after enjoying a fine long sleep of eight hours. Toward
eight o'clock he went downtown. He did not take a car; he preferred to
walk; it helped his digestion and it gave him exercise. At night he
walked home as well; that gave him an appetite; besides, with the ten
cents that he saved in this way, he bought himself a nice cigar that he
smoked in the evening to help digest his supper. He was very careful of
his health. Ah, you bet, one had to look out for one's health.

At the office that morning he had a long talk with Beale, Jr., as to
Hiram Wade's suit. The great firm of Beale & Storey, into whose office
Geary had been received, made a specialty of damage suits, and
especially those suits that were brought against a certain great
monopoly which it was claimed was ruining the city and the state; such a
case involving nearly a quarter of a million of dollars was now
occupying the attention of the heads of the firm and, indeed, of the
whole office. Hiram Wade's suit was assigned to the assistants. Beale,
Jr., was one of these, and Charlie Geary had managed to push himself
into the position of his confidential clerk. But Beale, Jr., himself
took little interest in the Wade suit; the suit against the great
monopoly was coming to a head; it was a battle of giants; the whole
office found itself embroiled, and little by little Beale, Jr., allowed
himself to be drawn into the struggle. The management of the Wade case
was given over to Geary's hands.

When he had first heard of his assignment to the case Geary had been
unwilling to act against his old chum, but it was the first legal affair
of any great importance with which he had been connected, and he was
soon devoured with an inordinate ambition to distinguish himself in the
eyes of the firm, to get a "lift," to take a long step forward toward
the end of his desires, which was to become one of the firm itself. He
knew he could make a brilliant success of the case. Geary was at this