"Your fight was easy to mine. But I'll skip it--you know what the fight's like. It's enough to say that I found the world would not receive me as my old self. I changed my name; I grew a beard; I began to wear glasses; I dyed my red hair brown; I smothered down my spirit. I became John Rogers. "A friend of mine in a Chicago real estate office, in which I once worked for a couple of weeks as a clerk, sent me an envelope and a sheet of paper of the firm. On the paper I wrote a letter of recommendation from the firm. I had told my story to the Mayor of Avenue A--it was because he knew I would sympathise with you that he brought you to me--and he helped me. I got my first job. "Think of that, Aldrich!" He held a trembling fist in David's face, and laughed harshly. "I had to become a disguise, I had to lie, I had to commit forgery, to get a chance to be honest! Oh, isn't this a sweet world we're living in! "And ever since, my life has been one great lie! A lie for honesty! But the lie has done for me what truth could not do. I'm respected in a small way. I'm successful in a small way. But, man, how that smallness chafes me! How I am shackled! I should be respected, be successful, in a large way. I'm cleverer than most of the men in my line. I have brains. I see big business opportunities. But I dare not take them. I must always be pulling back at the reins. If I let myself out, I should become prominent. Men would begin to ask, 'Who is that fellow Rogers?' and pretty soon some one would be sure to find out. And down I'd go! I must keep myself so small that I'll not be noticed--that's my only safety!" He paused. David could say nothing. "And always the lie that saved me is threatening to destroy me," Rogers went on, in a lower voice. "God, how I've worked to get to this poor place! How I want to live peacefully, honestly! But some day someone will find out I'm an ex-convict. A breath, and this poor house of cards I've worked so hard to build and protect will go flat! And I cannot begin all over again. I cannot! I haven't the strength. This is going to happen--I feel it! And how I fear it! How I've feared it for ten long years! Man, man, how I fear it!" He dropped exhausted into a chair, and almost at once a cough began to shake him by the shoulders. "And this disease"--a hand pressed itself upon his chest--"it's another prison gift!" he gasped, bitterly. There was not a word in David. He reached out and gathered one of Rogers's thin hands in both of his; gathered it in the clasp of his soul. The cough ceased its shaking and Rogers looked up. He gazed at the tears, at the quivering brothership, in David's face. Thus he sat, silent, gripping David's hands; then, slowly, his own tears started. "Man, dear," he whispered brokenly, "I think I'm going to be glad you found me out!" CHAPTER VII HOPE AND DEJECTION