Guy Wetmore Carryl

“ Continue, my good Jules.”
“Sometimes,” said Vicot, moistening his lips, “the thought of that time must come back even to you. Sometimes even you, with all your callousness, must contrast what you might have been with what you are. Sometimes a face, among all those we meet, must recall to you the days when better things were possible. But if you have never been thrust back thus upon your own youth, and grown sick at thought of it, I have! There’s nothing more awful.” ”

“ Following his old habit, Vicot had thrust his hands into his pockets.
“That suits me,” he answered. “But please to remember this. I’ve been cleaning and loading your weapons for you so long that I know their uses as well as yourself. I’m able to turn them effectively against you, and I’ll do it if need be. I would be resigning the little hold I have upon security, perhaps; but I’d not be doing it uselessly. Some men fling themselves into the sea, simply to be rid of life: others save the life of another by quietly slipping off a log that won’t keep two afloat. ”

“ If it pleases you to imagine that the alteration is in the nature of a great moral awakening, by all means consider it so. To my way of thinking, it’s more like one of the transient panics of a Louis XI., praying to the little images in his cap, and ready, the next moment, to resume his misdoing at the point where he left off. Only one thing is made clear by what you’ve said, and that is that you’re no longer fit for the kind of work I’ve thus far found for you. From to-day we part company. ”