He began reviewing incidents of carouses he had been on with business men of his acquaintance, of a policeman knocked into a street and of himself, quiet and ably climbing upon tables to make speeches and to shout the innermost secrets of his heart to drunken hangers-on in Chicago barrooms. Normally he had not been a good mixer. He had been one to keep himself to himself. But on these carouses he let himself go, and got a reputation for daring audacity by slapping men on the back and singing songs with them. A glowing cordiality had pervaded him and for a time he had really believed there was such a thing as high flying vice that glistens in the sun. Now stumbling past lighted saloons, wandering unknown in a city’s streets, he knew better. All vice was unclean, unhealthy. He remembered a hotel in which he had once slept, a hotel that admitted questionable couples. Its halls had become dingy; its windows remained unopened; dirt gathered in the corners; the attendants shuffled as they walked, and leered into the faces of creeping couples; the curtains at the windows were torn and discoloured; strange snarling oaths, screams, and cries jarred the tense nerves; peace and cleanliness had fled the place; men hurried through the halls with hats drawn down over their faces; sunlight and fresh air and cheerful, whistling bellboys were locked out. He thought of the weary, restless walks taken by the young men from farms and country towns in the streets of the cities; young men believers in the golden vice. Hands beckoned to them from doorways, and women of the town laughed at their awkwardness. In Chicago he had walked in that way. He also had been seeking, seeking the romantic, impossible mistress that lurked at the bottom of men’s tales of the submerged world. He wanted his golden girl. He was like the naïve German lad in the South Water Street warehouses who had once said to him--he was a frugal soul--“I would like to find a nice-looking girl who is quiet and modest and who will be my mistress and not charge anything.” Sam had not found his golden girl, and now he knew she did not exist. He had not seen the places called by the preachers the palaces of sin, and now he knew there were no such places. He wondered why youth could not be made to understand that sin is foul and that immorality reeks of vulgarity. Why could not they be told plainly that there are no housecleaning days in the tenderloin?