"No; but it isn't altogether Colorado's fault. The Boston medicine man said change of climate, plenty of outdoor indolence, nutritious food at stated intervals. I have all any one could ask of the first, and as little of either of the others as may be." "But you do good work, Lansdale. I've always believed you could make it win, in time. Hasn't the time come yet?" "No. What I can do easiest would bring bread and meat, if I could sell it; but a literary hack-writer has no business in Colorado--or anywhere else outside of the literary centres. In Boston I could always find an odd job of reviewing, or space-writing, or something that would serve to keep body and soul together; but here they won't have me even in the newspapers." "Overcrowded, I suppose, like everything else in this cursed country." "That's the alleged reason; but the fact is that I'm not a journalist. Your thoroughbred newspaper man has more or less contempt for a fellow who can't or won't write journalese." They had attained to the dessert, and the waiter was opening a modest bottle of claret for them. Jeffard turned his wineglass down. "What! Is that the way you flout a man's hospitality?" demanded Lansdale, in mock displeasure. "No; I don't mean to do that. But I'm drunken with feasting now, and if I put wine into me I shall pawn the coat off my back before midnight for a stake to play with." Lansdale smiled. "I'll see that you don't have to. Turn up your glass." But Jeffard was obstinate, and sat munching raisins while Lansdale sipped his wine. When the waiter brought the cigars he came out of his reverie to say, "You want to live, don't you, Lansdale?" The potential man of letters took time to think about it. "I suppose I do; else I shouldn't be starving to death in Denver," he admitted finally. "And there is nothing but the lack of a little ready money that keeps you from giving the Boston doctor's prescription a fair trial. If I had the money I believe I'd change places with you; that is, I'd give you the money in exchange for your good chance of being able to shuffle off mortality without the help of extraneous means. I think I've had enough of it." "Do you? That proves how little a man has learned when he thinks he has arrived. Now pull yourself together, and tell me what you really would do if you became suddenly rich." "How rich?" "Oh, make it a comfortable figure; say eight or ten thousand a month for an income."