It struck him there was a dull fire in his heart a great deal like it; and he worked out a fanciful analogy with the coals, still alive, and the ashes creeping over them, and the dead clay and cinders.

He felt sick of himself, sick of his life and of all his works.

He was angry with Fulkerson for having got him into that art department of his, for having bought him up; and he was bitter at fate because he had been obliged to use the money to pay some pressing debts, and had not been able to return the check his father had sent him.

He pitied his poor old father; he ached with compassion for him; and he set his teeth and snarled with contempt through them for his own baseness.

This was the kind of world it was; but he washed his hands of it.