ight, plays his faro fairly, and is not
particular about the women with whom he goes. He started life in
the Western country at an early age. His natural talents, both in
literature and in general adaptability to all conditions of life,
were early exhibited, but his _alma mater_ was the bar-room, and
the faculty of that college its bartenders and gamblers and general
habitues.

He seldom has social engagements outside of certain disreputable
establishments, where a genial personality or an over-burdened
pocketbook gives _entree_, and the rules of conventionality have
never even been whispered. His love affairs, confined to this class
of women, have seldom lasted more than a week or ten days. His editors
know him as a brilliant genius, irresponsible, unreliable, but at
times inestimably valuable. He cares little for personal appearance
beyond a certain degree of neatness. He is quick on the trigger, and
in a time of over-heated argument can go some distance with his fists;
in fact, his whole career is best described as "happy-go-lucky."

He realizes fully his ability to do almost anything fairly well, and
some things especially well, but he has never tried to accomplish
anything beyond the earning of a comfortable living. Twenty-five or
thirty dollars a week was all he needed. With that he could buy his
liquor, treat his women, sometimes play a little faro, sit up all
night and sleep all day, and in general lead the life of good-natured
vagabondage which has always pleased him and which he had chosen as a
career.

The objection of safer and saner friends to this form of livelihood
was always met by him with a slap on the back and a laugh. "Don't you
worry about me, partner; if I'm going to hell I'm going there with
bells on," was always his rejoinder; and yet, when called upon to
cover some great big news story, or report some vital event, he
settled down to his work with a steely determination and a grim joy
that resulted in work which classified him as a genius. Any great
mental effort of this character, any unusual achievement along these
lines, would be immediately followed by a protracted debauch that
would upset him physically and mentally for weeks at a time, but he
always recovered and landed on his feet, and with the same laugh and
smile again went at his work.

If there have been opportunities to meet decent women of good social
standing, he has always thrown them aside with the declaration that
they bore