ge. Unmindful of the
chill, he found a bench, brushed the snow from a corner and sat there
for a long time, seeing nothing, unobservant of his surroundings, and
thinking of all that somehow seemed left irrevocably behind. It was as
if it had been ages ago! It had been ages ago since happiness had fled.
There was not a laugh left in all the sad world that had abruptly grown
old, and savorless. A vagrant, aged, dirty, ragged, accosted him,
begging alms, and without looking up, Jimmy thrust a hand into his
pocket and took therefrom a dollar note. The beggar mumbled thanks,
stamped his feet, turned away, and then came back and said, "Hope you're
not down on your luck. I wish you luck, sir!"

"Luck? Oh, no. It's all right. I'm not down on my luck. Only--'They're
hanging Danny Deever in the morning!'"

The vagrant shuffled away, shaking his head. He did not in the least
appreciate the sorry quip. All that he knew was that sometimes
well-dressed men who came and thus sat in the parks, were sometimes
found in the same place by a policeman--and usually such men had holes,
self-inflicted, in their heads. But long before he had passed from sight
Jimmy had reverted to the thought that to-morrow was the end. To see her
just once more, and after that--nothing to look forward to, nothing to
hope for, nothing to dream about. Strangely enough it is the men whose
laugh is readiest, whose mental sufferings and depressions are greatest.
Often the laugh is but a forced cloak for grief. Well, to-morrow he
would laugh! Be Bill Jones for the last time! Make a decent finish of
the dream! Leave with this girl he had so loved a kindly recollection
of a strange adventure as he made his exit from her life! There should
be neither sighs, sentiment, nor repining.

Despite the fact that he had slept so little on the previous night, he
moved restlessly about his room all that evening, standing before his
window now and then to look out over the lights that flared and
glittered from electric signs, hearing absently the hoarse whistles of
ships out in the harbors, and the clamor of street cars that surged up
and down the arteries of the city and went heedlessly on with its
existence. Jimmy wondered, as the street life of the night waned and the
lights went out, if there were others out there in the darkness as
unhappy as was he. His new employment that had so elated him with its
promise of golden opportunity sometimes came to his mind, but now he
felt