s well with me. I
regret nothing and wish for nothing.'

'A morbid state of mind,' was Biffen's opinion.

'No doubt of that, but I am content to be indebted to morbidness. One
must have a rest from misery somehow. Another kind of man would have
taken to drinking; that has tempted me now and then, I assure you. But
I couldn't afford it. Did you ever feel tempted to drink merely for the
sake of forgetting trouble?'

'Often enough. I have done it. I have deliberately spent a certain
proportion of the money that ought to have gone for food in the cheapest
kind of strong liquor.'

'Ha! that's interesting. But it never got the force of a habit you had
to break?'

'No. Partly, I dare say, because I had the warning of poor Sykes before
my eyes.'

'You never see that poor fellow?'

'Never. He must be dead, I think. He would die either in the hospital or
the workhouse.'

'Well,' said Reardon, musing cheerfully, 'I shall never become a
drunkard; I haven't that diathesis, to use your expression. Doesn't it
strike you that you and I are very respectable persons? We really have
no vices. Put us on a social pedestal, and we should be shining lights
of morality. I sometimes wonder at our inoffensiveness. Why don't we run
amuck against law and order? Why, at the least, don't we become savage
revolutionists, and harangue in Regent's Park of a Sunday?'

'Because we are passive beings, and were meant to enjoy life very
quietly. As we can't enjoy, we just suffer quietly, that's all.
By-the-bye, I want to talk about a difficulty in one of the Fragments of
Euripides. Did you ever go through the Fragments?'

This made a diversion for half an hour. Then Reardon returned to his
former line of thought.

'As I was entering patients yesterday, there came up to the table a
tall, good-looking, very quiet girl, poorly dressed, but as neat as
could be. She gave me her name, then I asked "Occupation?" She said
at once, "I'm unfortunate, sir." I couldn't help looking up at her in
surprise; I had taken it for granted she was a dressmaker or something
of the kind. And, do you know, I never felt so strong an impulse to
shake hands, to show sympathy, and even respect, in some way. I should
have liked to say, "Why, I am unfortunate, too!" such a good, patient
face she had.'

'I distrust such appearances,' said Biffen in his quality of realist.

'Well, so do I, as a rule. But in this case they were convincing. And
there was no need whatever f