r. He
borrows a few hundred dollars from me. "One more night," he says with a
bitter grin, "and the hog goes back to wallow in the mire. They've got
you going too-- Oh, Lord, it's a great game! Ha! ha!"

He goes off unsteadily; then from out of the luminous mists there
appears the Jam-wagon. In a pained way he looks at me. "Here, chuck it,
old man," he says; "come home to my cabin and straighten up."

"All right," I answer; "just one drink more."

One more means still one more. Poor old Jam-wagon! It's the blind
leading the blind.

Mosher haunts me with his gleaming bald head and his rat-like eyes. He
is living with the little ninety-five-pound woman, the one with the mop
of hair.

Oh, it is a hades of a life I am steeped in! I drink and I drink. It
seems to me I am always drinking. Rarely do I eat. I am one of half a
dozen spectacular "live ones." All the camp is talking of us, but it
seems to me I lead the bunch in the race to ruin. I wonder what Berna
thinks of it all. Was there ever such a sensitive creature? Where did
she get that obstinate pride? Child of misfortune! She minded me of a
delicate china cup that gets mixed in with the coarse crockery of a hash
joint.

Remonstrantly the Prodigal speeds to town.

"Are you crazy?" he cries. "I don't mind you making an ass of yourself,
but lushing around all that coin the way you're doing--it's wicked; it
makes me sick. Come home at once."

"I won't," I say. "What if I am crazy? Isn't it my money? I've never
sown my wild oats yet. I'm trying to catch up, that's all. When the
money's done I'll quit. I'm having the time of my life. Don't come
spoiling it with your precepts. What a lot of fun I've missed by being
good. Come along; 'listen to the last word of human philosophy--have a
drink.'"

He goes away shaking his head. There's no fear of him ever breaking
loose. He, with his smile of sunshine, would make misfortune pay. He is
a rolling stone that gathers no moss, but manages to glue itself to
greenbacks at every turn.

* * * * *

I am in a box at the Palace Grand. The place is packed with rowdy men
and ribald women. I am at the zenith of my shame. Right and left I am
buying wine. Like vultures at a feast they bunch into the box. Like
carrion flies they buzz around me. That is what I feel myself to
be--carrion.

How I loathe myself! but I think of Berna, and the thought goads me to
fresh excesses. I will go on till flesh an