A dull colour stained the pasty whiteness of Quest’s face.  For several minutes he stood there, his fingers working and picking at each other, his pale, prominent eyes glaring.

“That’s a big indictment, doctor,” he said at last.

“Thank God you think it so,” returned the doctor.  “If you will stand by your better self for one week—­for only one week—­after leaving Mulqueen’s, I’ll stand by you for life, my boy.  Come!  You were a good sport once.  And that little sister of yours is worth it.  Come, Stuyvesant; is it a bargain?”

He stepped forward and held out his large, firm, reassuring hand.  The young fellow took it limply.

“Done with you, doctor,” he said without conviction; “it’s hell for mine, I suppose, if I don’t make my face behave.  You’re right; I’m the goat; and if I don’t quit butting I’ll sure end by slapping some sissy citizen with an axe.”

He gave the doctor’s hand a perfunctory shake with his thin, damp fingers; dropped it, turned to go, halted, retraced his steps.

“Will it give me the willies if I kiss a cocktail good-bye before I start for that fresh guy, Mulqueen?”

“Start now, I tell you!  Haven’t I your word?”

“Yes—­but on the way to buy transportation can’t I offer myself one last——­”

“Can’t you be a good sport, Stuyve?”

The youth hesitated, scowled.

“Oh, very well,” he said carelessly, turned and went out.

As he walked along in the slush he said to himself:  “I guess it’s up the river for mine....  By God, it’s a shame, for I’m feeling pretty good, too, and that’s no idle quip!...  Old Squills handed out a line of talk all right-o!...  He landed it, too....  I ought to find something to do.”

As he walked, a faint glow stimulated his enervated intelligence; ideas, projects long abandoned, desires forgotten, even a far echo from the old ambition stirring in its slumber, quickened his slow pulses.  The ghost of what he might have been, nay, what he could have made himself, rose wavering in his path.  Other ghosts, long laid, floated beside him, accompanying him—­the ghosts of dead opportunities, dead ideals, lofty inspirations long, long strangled.

“A job,” he muttered; “that’s the wholesome dope for Willy.  There isn’t a newspaper or magazine in town where I can’t get next if I speak easy.  I can deliver the goods, too; it’s like wiping swipes off a bar——­”

In his abstraction he had walked into the Holland House, and he suddenly became conscious that he was confronting a familiarly respectful bartender.

“Oh, hell,” he said, greatly disconcerted, “I want some French vichy, Gus!” He made a wry face, and added:  “Put a dash of tabasco in it, and salt it.”

A thick-lipped, ruddy-cheeked young fellow, celebrated for his knowledge of horses, also notorious for other and less desirable characteristics, stood leaning against the bar, watching him.