men with the same weakness, you say, turn to drink.  I suppose so, poor devils.  Oh, Lucy, I wish I were in the Grand Canyon to-night!  I wish you and I were together in Frank’s camp at the foot of Bright Angel.  It is sunset and the Canyon is full of unspeakable wonder.  Even the thought of it rests me and makes me strong. . . .  Those stars mean that I’ve torn into a million pieces a hundred-dollar bill I won in Sixth Avenue to-night.”

Enoch turned many pages and then paused.

“March 28.—­There is a chance, Lucy, that I may be appointed secretary to the reform Mayor of New York.  I would be very glad to give up the practice of law.  Beyond my gift for pleading and a retentive memory, I have no real talents for a successful legal career.  You look at me with those thoughtful, tender gray eyes of yours.  Ah, Lucy, you are so much wiser than I, wise with the brooding, mystical wisdom of the Canyon in the starlight.  You have intimated to me several times that law was not my end.  You are right, as usual.  Law has its face forever turned backward.  It is searching always for precedent rather than justice.  A man who is going into politics should be ever facing the future.  He should use the past only in helping him to avoid mistakes in going forward.  And, perhaps I am wrong.  I am willing to admit that my unfortunate boyhood may have made me over inclined to brood, but it seems to me very difficult to stick to the law, make money, and be morally honest, in the best sense.  If I clear Bill Jones, who is, as I know, ethically as guilty as Satan, though legally within his rights, can I face you as a man who is steel true and blade straight?  I hope I get that appointment!  I was tired to-night, Lucy, but this little talk with you has rested me, as usual.”

“March 29.—­I have the appointment, Lucy.  This is the beginning of my political career—­the beginning of the end of Minetta Lane.  You have a heavy task before you, dear, to keep me, eyes to the goal, running the race like a thoroughbred.  Some day, Lucy, we’ll go back to the Canyon, chins up, work done, gentlemen unafraid!”

Enoch turned more pages, covering a year or so of the diary.

“March 30.—­I’ve been in the City Hall two years today.  Lucy, the only chance on earth I’ll ever have to clean out the rookeries of New York would be to be a Tammany Police Commissioner.  And Tammany would certainly send its best gunman after a Police Commissioner who didn’t dote on rookeries.  Lucy, can’t city governments be clean?  Is human nature normally and habitually corrupt when it comes to governing a city?  The Mayor and all his appointees are simply wading through the vast quagmire of the common citizen’s indifference, fought every step by the vile creatures who batten on the administration of the city’s affairs.  Do you suppose that if the schools laid tremendous stress on clean citizenship and began in the kindergarten to teach children how to govern in the most practical way, it would help?  I believe it would.  I’m going to tuck that thought in the back of my head and some day I may have opportunity to use it.  I wish I could do something for the poor boys of New York.  I wish the Grand Canyon were over in Jersey!”