lemen behind him and so had to do as he did,
because his friends might not have understood. He laughed at the days
when he had thought of the priesthood, blushed when he ran across any of
those tender and exquisite old verses he had written in his youth,
and became addicted to absinthe and other less peculiar drinks, and to
gaming a little to escape a madness of ennui.

As the years went by he avoided, with more and more scorn, that part of
the world which he denominated Philistine, and consorted only with the
fellows who flocked about Jim O'Malley's saloon. He was pleased with
solitude, or with these convivial wits, and with not very much else
beside. Jim O'Malley was a sort of Irish poem, set to inspiring measure.
He was, in fact, a Hibernian Maecenas, who knew better than to put
bad whiskey before a man of talent, or tell a trite tale in the presence
of a wit. The recountal of his disquisitions on politics and other
current matters had enabled no less than three men to acquire national
reputations; and a number of wretches, having gone the way of men who
talk of art for art's sake, and dying in foreign lands, or hospitals,
or asylums, having no one else to be homesick for, had been homesick for
Jim O'Malley, and wept for the sound of his voice and the grasp of his
hearty hand.

When Tim O'Connor turned his back upon most of the things he was born
to and took up with the life which he consistently lived till the
unspeakable end, he was unable to get rid of certain peculiarities. For
example, in spite of all his debauchery, he continued to look like the
Beloved Apostle. Notwithstanding abject friendships he wrote limpid and
noble English. Purity seemed to dog his heels, no matter how violently
he attempted to escape from her. He was never so drunk that he was
not an exquisite, and even his creditors, who had become inured to his
deceptions, confessed it was a privilege to meet so perfect a gentleman.
The creature who held him in bondage, body and soul, actually came to
love him for his gentleness, and for some quality which baffled her,
and made her ache with a strange longing which she could not define.
Not that she ever defined anything, poor little beast! She had skin the
color of pale gold, and yellow eyes with brown lights in them, and great
plaits of straw-colored hair. About her lips was a fatal and sensuous
smile, which, when it got hold of a man's imagination, would not let it
go, but held to it, and mocked i