I had of late been having an uncomfortable thought which was beginning to worry me. The idea of doing away with myself had suggested itself to me from time to time. I do not mean that I ever thought I should really do it; for when I reflected seriously, I knew I should not. In the first place, I was afraid; and in the next place, I never gave up the belief that I should some day achieve success. When I analyzed my feelings I found that the true name for my unhappiness was egotism. But the idea would come up to me and now began to pester me. I had a pistol which I could never bring myself to pawn, though nearly everything else was pledged. I put the pistol away; but this did not help matters; it looked like cowardice. So that evening I had taken the pistol out and put it into my pocket when I went into the street. If I could only catch some burglar breaking into a bank, or some ruffian beating a woman, or some scoundrel committing any crime, it would attract attention, and I might get work. I often used to think thus, but nothing ever happened, and I knew nothing would happen that evening when I walked out of the gambling house. So presently the pistol began to be in my way, and my mind went to working again on the ease with which I could go to my office and lock myself in. Still I kept on, and presently I found myself near the river, a black stream that I had often thought of as the Styx. It was as black and silent now, as it slipped on in the darkness, as the River of Death.