"My dollars certainly weren't," observed Ned. "How did he ever defend your suit for an accounting?" I asked. "Heedlessness on my side, a crooked judge on his. Stop spying on my neighbor's flirtations and look here." I turned and got a shock. The handbag lay open on the desk, surrounded by a respectable-sized fortune in bank-notes. "Pretty much all that the Honorable Ely has left me," he added. "Is it enough to go on with, Ned?" I asked. He smiled at me. "Plenty for my time. You forget." For the moment I had forgotten. "But what on earth are you going to do with all that ready cash?" "Carry out a brilliant idea. I conceived it after you had handed down your verdict. Went around to the bank and quietly drew out the lot. I've planned a wild and original orgy. A riot of dissipation in giving. Think of the fun one can have with that much tangible money. Already to-day I've struck one man dumb and reduced another to mental decay, by the simple medium of a thousand-dollar bill. Miracles! Declare a vacation, Chris, and come with me on my secret and jubilant bat, and we'll work wonders." "And after?" I asked. "Oh, after! Well, there'll be no further reason for the 'permanent possibility of sensation' on my part. That's your precious science's best definition of life, I believe. It doesn't appeal to one as alluring when the sensation promises to become--well, increasingly unpleasant." There was no mistaking his meaning. "I can't have that, my son," I protested. "No? That's a purely professional prejudice of yours. Look at it from my point of view. Am I to wait to be strangled by invisible hands, rather than make an easy and graceful exit? Suicide! The word has no meaning for a man in my condition. If you'll tell me there's a chance, one mere, remote human chance--" He paused, turning to me with what was almost appeal in his glance. How I longed to lie to him! But Ned Worth was the kind that you can't lie to. I looked at him standing there so strong and fine, with all the mirthful zest of living in his veins, sentenced beyond hope, and I thought of those terrible lines of another man under doom: "I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day." We medical men learn to throw a protective film over our feelings, like the veil over the eagle's eye. We have to. But I give you my word, I could not trust my voice to answer him. "You see," he said; "you can't." His hand fell on my arm. "I'm sorry, Chris," he said in that winning voice of his; "I shouldn't plague you for something that you can't give me." "I can tell you this, anyway," said I: "that it's something less than courage to give up until the time comes. You didn't give your life. You haven't the right to take it; anyway, not until its last usefulness is over." He made a movement of impatience.