mingled in the Rialto. He became my favorite because he was the most elegantly dressed—and close to the handsomest—adolescent I ever met. Above all, he possessed the most genial disposition.
Has the reader ever remarked that just that kind of disposition generally goes hand in hand with deceit and hypocrisy? Later—to my bitterest sorrow—the hero-boy now being described was discovered to be the greatest hypocrite I ever met. In January, 1895, I made his acquaintance. For half-a-year he manifested the greatest affection—all feigned as I later found. When he had wrung me dry, he—entirely unexpectedly—flourished a loaded revolver around my head, and cried: "If you ever speak to me again, or even come into the same room, I will put a bullet through your head!"
This quondam soul-mate had such a craze for acquiring money—generally by foul means—as I have never witnessed in another. He made it a condition of our spending a couple of hours together that I put into his palm a five-dollar bill. But though I could get plenty of other company of his type gratis, I was so fascinated with him that I never gave a second thought to the self-sacrifice that such gifts demanded during my student days. While promenading the streets with him, I would, every other minute, glance into his face, reflecting: "The handsomest and best dressed young fellow of the Rialto is MINE." While we were seated in a theatre together, I would often gaze into his face instead of at the players, reflecting: "New York's Beau Brummel is MY SOUL-MATE." For no soft hair, no rosebud cheeks in a
Note.—See "Recollection" in Part VIII.
