man's on the rank." I was not partial to Dr. Smiles' "Self Help." A "shine" moreover, cost 5 cents, and 5 cents meant a glass of beer and a meal at a free lunch counter--our invariable lunch at that time.
Artist Palmer knew Boyde as a bad lot, and told me that Boyde was lying about me behind my back everywhere, saying that he was supporting me, paying for my illness, and while borrowing money in my name, explaining that I spent all he gave me in dissipation! His method was to present a forged cheque to some good-natured friend after banking hours, obtain the money, and spend it on himself. A tale of woe, with crocodile tears, saved him from subsequent arrest. No one ever prosecuted him.
All this I kept to myself, though I watched Boyde more and more closely. I knew his studio appointments and made him hand over what he earned. I did also an idiotic thing: I went down and warned the pastor's daughter about him. Palmer's words and my own feeling persuaded me to this fatal action. She was a beautiful girl. I received from her the same kind of treatment that I had shown to the man who first warned me. Boyde, of course, soon knew about it. We had a scene. I saw for the first time anger in his face, black hatred too. He never forgave me my stupid indiscretion.... The way he explained my action to the girl herself was characteristic of him, but I only learned later how he managed it. In a voluntary confession he wrote a few weeks afterwards, a confession he judged might convince me he was genuinely repentant, and at the same time save him from a grave impending fate, he described it--honestly: "I told her," he said, "she was to pay no attention to your warnings, because you wanted me to marry one of your sisters."
The way I lost Boyde temporarily comes a little later in his story, but may be told here because it marked the close of a definite little chapter in his career with me.
It was the first week in December. I came home--from the doctor's house--at two in the morning. The
gas was burning, but the room was not too well lit by the
