Ed is a person who has been in the world nearly fifty years; he has had some very unusual acquaintances and experiences. It is never safe to predict just what Ed will know and what he will not know. One afternoon, after I had known Ed for about a year, I was attempting to argue some scientific point with a friend who was lunching with me, and Ed, who was waiting on us and listening, remarked: “I beg your pardon, sir, but it wasn't in _The Descent of Man_ that Darwin said that; it was in _The Origin of Species_.” And yet, if you deduce from that remark that Ed knows a great deal about modern science, you will be mistaken; as likely as not he could quote pages of Marcus Aurelius to you, and at the same time he might pronounce “Euripides” as if the last two syllables were one, riming with “hides”; his reading, like his life, has been elective. “He doesn't recall you,” I repeated. “And that's ingratitude,” said Ed, “if he only knew it. I saved the old man's life once.” And Ed limped over to the table and resumed his seat opposite me. He has a bullet under one kneecap, and at times it makes him very lame. He would never tell me how it came there; to this day I do not know. “From what did you save his life?” I asked. “From a man,” said Ed moodily. “From a man who had a notion to bean him one night. And to this day I ask myself: 'Did I do right, or did I do wrong?'” “Tell me about it,” I insisted, “Drink up,” said Ed, manipulating the Scotch bottle and the siphon of seltzer. “This is one of the last highballs you'll ever have, unless you sneak around and take it on the sly. I don't know that I should have another one myself; it settles in this damned knee of mine if I get a little too much.” “Tell me when, where and how you knew Old Man Singleton,” I demanded again. “This knee of mine,” went on Ed, disregarding me, “is a hell of a handicap. We were talking about prohibition--what's prohibition going to do to me? Hey? It puts me out of a job in a barroom like this the first thing. And what else can I do? With this game leg, you can see me going on the stage as a Russian dancer, can't you? Or digging trenches to lay gas pipes in, or carrying a Hod? Huh? And I can't even get a job in a swell restaurant uptown; they don't want any gamelegged waiters sticking around, falling over the chairs. This was about the only kind of a joint and the only kind of a job I was fit for, this chop-house thing down here, and it's going to close in two weeks. What then? Be somebody's housemaid? I can't see it. I don't wish anybody any bad luck, but I hope the guy that put over this prohibition thing gets stiff in all his joints and lives forever.”