Sometimes on life's highway we meet a man who reminds us of one of those high-priced pears seen in fruiterers' windows: wholesome, good to look at, without a speck or stain on their smooth, round, rosy skins--until we bite into them. Then, close to their hearts, we uncover a greedy, conscienceless worm, gnawing away in the dark--and consign the whole to the waste-barrel. Dalton, despite his alluring exterior, had been rotten at heart from the time he was sixteen years of age, when he had lied to his father about his school remittances, which the old man had duplicated at once. That none of his associates had discovered this was owing to the fact that no one had probed deeper than the skin of his attractiveness--and with good reason: it was clean, good to look at, bright in color, a most welcome addition to any dinner-table. But when the drop came--and very few fruits can stand being bumped on the sidewalk--the revelation followed all the quicker, simply because bruised fruit rots in a day, as even the least qualified among us can tell. And the bruises showed clearer as time went on. The lines in his once well-rounded, almost boyish face grew deeper and more strongly marked, the eyes shrank far back beneath the brows, the lips became thinner and less mobile, the hair was streaked with gray, and the feet lacked their old-time spring. With these there had come other changes. The smile which had won many a woman was replaced by a self-conscious smirk; the debonair manner which had charmed all who met him was now a mere bravado. His dress, too, showed the strain. While his collar and neckwear were properly looked after, and his face was clean-shaven, other parts of his make-up, especially his shoes and hat, were much the worse for wear. This, then, was the man who, with thoughts intent on his last and most degrading makeshift, was forging his way up Second Avenue, the mantilla--the veriest film of old Salamanca lace--pressed into a small wad and stuffed in his inside pocket. And now, while we follow him on his way up-town, it may be just as well for us to note that up to this precise moment our devil-may-care, still rather handsome Mr. Dalton, with the drooping eyelids and cold, hard lips, had entirely failed to grasp the idea that, in so far as public and private morals were concerned, he had in the last thirty minutes fallen to the level of a common sneak-thief.