He sat down beside Barton, and, as the other looked at him half a dozen times tentatively, he presently spoke to him. "You've had a bad time of it, haven't you?" "Terrible," said Barton frankly. "They say I'm convalescent now. I don't know. Look at me. What would you say?" Harber shook his head. Barton laughed bitterly. "Yes, I'm pretty bad," he agreed readily. And then, as he talked that day and the two following, he told Harber a good many things. "I tell you, Harber," he said, "we'll do anything for money. Here I am--and I knew damned well it was killing me, too. And yet I stuck it out six months after I'd any earthly business to--just for a few extra hundreds." "Where were you? What were you doing?" asked Harber. "Trading-post up a river in the Straits Settlements," said Barton. "A crazy business from the beginning--and yet I made money. Made it lots faster than I could have back home. Back there you're hedged about with too many rules. And competition's too keen. You go into some big corporation office at seventy-five a month, maybe, and unless you have luck you're years getting near anything worth having. And you've got to play politics, bootlick your boss--all that. So I got out. "Went to California first, and got a place in an exporting firm in San Francisco. They sent me to Sydney and then to Fiji. After I'd been out for a while and got the hang of things, I cut loose from them. "Then I got this last chance, and it looked mighty good--and I expect I've done for myself by it. Five years or a little better. That's how long I've lasted. Back home I'd have been good for thirty-five. A short life and a merry one, they say. Merry. Good God!" He shook his head ironically. "The root of all evil," he resumed after a little. "Well, but you've got to have it--can't get along without it in _this_ world. You've done well, you say?" Harber nodded. "Well, so should I have, if the cursed fever had let me alone. In another year or so I'd have been raking in the coin. And now here I am--busted--done--;--_fini_, as the French say. I burned the candle at both ends--and got just what was coming to me, I suppose. But how _could_ I let go, just when everything was coming my way?" "I know," said Harber. "But unless you can use it----" "You're right there. Not much in it for me now. Still, the medicos say a cold winter back home will.... I don't know. Sometimes I don't think I'll last to.... "Where's the use, you ask, Harber? You ask me right now, and I can't tell you. But if you'd asked me before I got like this, I could have told you quick enough. With some men, I suppose, it's just an acquisitive nature. With me, that didn't cut any figure. With me, it was a girl. I wanted to make the most I could for her in the shortest time. A girl ... well...." Harber nodded. "I understand. I came out for precisely the same reason myself," he remarked.