Banaotovich ordered two bottles of the heavy native wine. I drank sparingly of it, because it goes to my head. But Banaotovich swallowed two or three glassfuls in hasty succession, and his cheeks grew flushed. There was a pause. Suddenly he leaned across the table toward me and spoke in a hoarse, excited whisper. "Modersohn," he said anxiously, "I want to make a confession to you--a terrible confession. It may turn you against me completely. Maybe you don't want to hear it. If you don't, say so, and I'll go home. But it seems as if I've got to tell somebody about it. It seems as if I've got to find somebody who understands me and can excuse me, or it will kill me. Shall I tell you? Shall I?" I was startled. I was reasonably sure that Banaotovich was no criminal, since he had lived half a century in his native city, undisturbed and from all he had told me solvent and respected. I had always known that he was a queer fish, a brooding, solitary sort of person, and I settled myself to listen to some harmless bit of psychopathy which meant nothing except to the unfortunate subject. "My dear fellow," I said, no doubt a little patronizingly, "I am sure you haven't anything to confess that will make you out an outrageous rascal, but if it will do you any good to tell me your troubles, I am ready to listen to them." "Thank you," said Banaotovich in a trembling voice. "I've done nothing that they can put me behind the bars for. But I--I----" He stared at me sternly. "But I've done worse things," he said solemnly, "than some poor fellows that have been strung up by the neck and choked to death!" I laughed, a little nervously. "Tell me your story, if you like," I said, "and let me decide just how black you are. But I haven't a great deal of apprehension. We're all of us poor miserable sinners, as far as that's concerned. I could tell you things about myself----" Banaotovich was not listening to me at all. He had fallen suddenly into a fit of black brooding. After a minute or two, he looked up and asked sharply: "Do you remember Wolansky?" Wolansky was the Greek professor who had threatened to vote against Banaotovich when he was finishing his course at the Gymnasium. "Of course," said I. "And I remember well how he abused you that last year. If there ever was a cantankerous old scoundrel, Wolansky was just that identical individual!" "Maybe," he said absently; then after another pause: "Do you remember that Wolansky died suddenly, just a little while before the end of the school year?" I nodded. "I imagine that was a great piece of good luck for you," I said. "Yes," said Banaotovich. "If he had lived, I should never have had my diploma. As it was, I finished with honors. If Wolansky hadn't died when he did, I'd have been ruined. Don't forget that--ruined!" I was puzzled at his insistence. "Yes, you would have been seriously handicapped," I agreed. "Ruined is the word, perhaps."