However, he shuffled his craft out into mid-stream somehow, being indifferent to the manner; and then he poised his sculls, letting the boat drift down with the tide which was running to sea. Even now he could hardly take himself with that seriousness that the nature of his intention would seem to demand. “Did ever man,” he said aloud, “meet the devil half-way with such a sense of humour?” “You have none,” said a creaking voice in the bows. He twisted his head about--scarcely marvelling at the response. “So you have taken me at my word?” he said. “You think I am the devil--eh?” “You flatter yourself. A monarch to condescend to the practical executive! I take you for one of his imps.” “Well, sir--I don’t despair of you. I gave the waterman a _douceur_, and slipped in as you pushed off.” “So, you are not the devil?” “No; only one of his imps--an attorney.” “Then I am lost indeed.” “H’m!--May I have a little bout at reasoning with you--before you--eh?” “Before I--eh?--just so, my friend. Now, balance the _pros_ and _cons_, I pray. Here am I, going to damnation, and thinking myself equipped with all decent loneliness for the journey. I turn my head, and find----” “Counsel, waiting to argue the case for you. Congratulate yourself. Heaven is----” “No, no. State your case, without blasphemy.” “Very well (take care of that barge).--I revert to my original postulate. You said--‘Did ever man meet the devil half-way with such a sense of humour?’--and I answered: ‘You have none.’” “You did--and I throw the word in your teeth. No man, I make bold to say, has more than I.” “Yet you propose killing yourself?” “Yes.” “Why?” “My mission in life was to be foil to the virtuous. ’Tis a costly business, and not to be maintained save with luck. Luck has cold-shouldered me. I have staked and lost my last penny, and so my mission ends; and I jump off the cliff of the world with a light heart.” “And with a poor sense of humour. I repeat it.” “Pardon me. You said with _no_ sense of humour.” “Well--I qualify that.” “That is a concession from a lawyer. Now, has it occurred to you that you have obtruded yourself upon a reckless and desperate man?--that, to a lost soul standing on the brink of Cocytus, it may seem a small matter, and the humouring of a very trifling aggravation, to push a fellow-traveller over into the gulf before he leaps himself?--At this moment it suggests itself to me that no ghostly letter of credit would serve me half so well down there as an attorney _in esse_. The devil needs lawyers to argue his case. Generally they evade him at the last by some technicality. Shall I take you, to prove at least that suicides come not, without exception, of the humourless class?” “I made no such statement. But this I say--that any man who contemplates self-destruction has, for the time being, lost his sense of humour.” “I am in no hurry. Why?”