“I reckon you done took a little cold, sir.”  Moses closed the windows, drew the curtains, turned on more heat, and made the room a blaze of light.  “It’s a very spacious room, sir, and for them what loves books it’s very aspirin’, but of course in winter-time a room without a woman or a blazin’ fire in it ain’t what it might be.  Don’t you think you’d better take a little something, sir, to het you up inside?”

Laine, bending over General, shook his head.  “No, I don’t.  I want sleep.  I came home early to try and get a little, but—­”

“You ain’t had none to speak of for ’most a week.”  Moses still lingered.  “I wish you’d let General come in my room to-night.  You can’t stand seein’ him suffer, and you’ll be sick yourself if you keep a-waitin’ on him all night.  Can’t I get you a little Scotch, sir, or a hot whiskey punch?  I got the water waitin’.  They say now whiskey ain’t no permanent cure for colds, but it sure do help you think it is.  Experience is better than expoundin’ and—­”

Again Laine shook his head.  “Get me some dry clothes,” he said, then went to the table and looked over the letters laid in a row upon it.  “Have a taxi-cab here by quarter past six and don’t come in again until I ring.  I’m going to lie down.”

A few minutes later, on a rug-covered couch, General on the floor beside him, he was trying to sleep.  He was strangely tired, and for a while his only well-defined feeling was one of impatience at having to go out.  Why must people do so many things they don’t want to do?  He put out his hand and smoothed softly General’s long ears.  Why couldn’t a man be let alone and allowed to live the way he preferred?  Why—­ “Quit it,” he said, half aloud.  “What isn’t Why in life is Wherefore, and guessing isn’t your job.  Go to sleep.”

After a while he opened his eyes and looked around the book-lined walls.  When he first began to invest in books he could only buy one at a time, and now there was no room for more.  He wondered if there was anything he could buy to-day that would give him the thrill his first books had given.  He had almost forgotten what a thrill could mean.  But who cared for books nowadays?  The men and women he knew, with few exceptions, wouldn’t give a twist of their necks to see his, would as soon think of reading them as of talking Dutch at a dinner-party, and very probably they were right.  Knowledge added little to human happiness.  Science and skill could do nothing for General.  Poor General!  Again he smoothed the latter’s head.  For years he had barked his good-bye in the morning, for years watched eagerly his coming, paws on the window-sill as dusk grew on, for years leaped joyously to meet him on his return, but he would do these things no longer.  There was no chance of betterment, and death would be a mercy—­a painless death which could be arranged.  But he had said no, said it angrily when the doctor so suggested, and had tried a new man, who was deceiving him.