“When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze After their life sailed by, and hold their breath, Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze Thenceforth their incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death?” “‘When Work and Will awake too late,’” repeated Kent. “But is it too late in your case? Surely not, since you’re here, and at your task.” “But think of the waste, man! Yet, here I am, as you say, and still able to fight. All by virtue of a woman’s laugh; the laugh of a woman without virtue. It was at the Moulin de la Galette—perhaps you know the dance hall on the slope of Montmartre—and she was one of the dancers, the wreck of what had once been beauty and, one must suppose, innocence. Probably she thought me too much absinthe-soaked to hear or understand, as I sat half asleep at my table. At all events she answered, full-voiced, her companion’s question, ‘Who is the drunken foreigner?’ by saying, ‘He _was_ an artist. The studios talked of him five years ago. Look at him now! That is what life does to us, _mon ami_. I’m the woman of it: that’s the man of it.’ I staggered up, made her a bow and a promise, and left her laughing. Last month I redeemed the promise; sent her the first thousand dollars I made by my own work, and declared my debt discharged.” A heavy cloud of smoke issued from Kent’s mouth, followed by this observation: “That formula about the inability to lift one’s self by one’s own boot-straps fails to apply in the spiritual world.” “Right! You can pull yourself out of the ditch that way; but afterward comes the long hillside. Life has seemed all tilted on edge, at times, and pretty slippery, with little enough to cling to.” “Work,” suggested Kent briefly. “Wisdom lurks behind your screen. Work is the answer.” “Good or bad, it’s the only thing. Which kind is yours?” “Presently you shall sit in judgment. Meantime, suppose you account for yourself.” Chester Kent stretched himself luxuriously. “A distinguished secretary of state has remarked that all the news worth telling on any subject can be transmitted by wire for twenty-five cents. The short and simple annals of the poor in my case can be recorded within that limit. ‘Postgraduate science. Agricultural Department job. Lectures. Invention. Judiciary Department expert. Signed, Chester Kent.’ Ten words—count them—ten.” “Interesting, but unsatisfying,” retorted his friend. “Can’t you expand a bit? I suppose you haven’t any dark secret in your life?” “No secret, dark or light,” sighed the other. “The newspapers won’t let me have.” “Eh? Won’t let you? Am I to infer that you’ve become a famous person? Pardon the ignorance of expatriation. Have you discovered a new disease, or formulated a new theory of life, or become a golf champion, or a senator, or a freak aviator, or invented perpetual motion? Do you possess titles, honors, and ribboned decorations? Ought I to bat my brow against the floor in addressing you? What are you, anyway?”