leader?  Vast, vague ideas passed slowly across the vision of his mind, ideas that could hardly be formulated into thought, ideas of the infinite herd of humanity, driven on as if by some enormous, relentless engine, driven on toward some fearful distant bourne, driven on recklessly at headlong speed.  All life was but a struggle to keep from under those myriad spinning wheels that dashed so close behind.  Those were happiest who were farthest to the front.  To lag behind was peril; to fall was to perish, to be ridden down, to be beaten to the dust, to be inexorably crushed and blotted out beneath that myriad of spinning iron wheels.  Geary looked up quickly and saw Vandover standing in the doorway.

For the moment Geary did not recognize the gaunt, shambling figure with the long hair and dirty beard, the greenish hat, and the streaked and spotted coat, but when he did it was with a feeling of anger and exasperation.

“Look here!” he cried, “don’t you think you’d better knock before you come in?”

Vandover raised a hand slowly as if in deprecation, and answered slowly and with a feeble, tremulous voice, the voice of an old man:  “I did knock, Mister Geary; I didn’t mean no offence.”  He sat down on the edge of the nearest chair, looking vaguely and stupidly about on the floor, moving his head instead of his eyes, repeating under his breath from time to time, “No offence—­no, sir—­no offence!”

“Shut that door!” commanded Geary.  Vandover obeyed.  He wore no vest, and the old cutaway coat, fastened by the single remaining button, exposed his shirt to view, abominably filthy, bulging at the waist like a blouse.  The “blue pants,” held up by a strap, were all foul with mud and grease and paint, and there hung about him a certain odour, that peculiar smell of poverty and of degradation, the smell of stale clothes and of unwashed bodies.

“Well?” said Geary abruptly.

Vandover put the tips of his fingers to his lips and rolled his eyes about the room, avoiding Geary’s glance; then he dropped them to the floor again, looking at the pattern in the carpet.

“Well,” repeated Geary, irritated, “you know I haven’t got all the time in the world.”  All at once Vandover began to cry, very softly, snuffling with his nose, his chin twitching, the tears running through his thin, sparse beard.

“Ah, get on to yourself!” shouted Geary, now thoroughly disgusted.  “Quit that!  Be a man, will you?  Stop that! do you hear?” Vandover obeyed, catching his breath and slowly wiping his eyes with the side of his hand.

“I’m no good!” he said at length, wagging his head and blinking through his tears.  “I’m—­I’m done for and I ain’t got no money; yet, of course, you see I don’t mean no offence.  What I want, you see, is to be a man and not give in and not let the wolf get me, and then I’ll go back to Paris.  Everything goes round here, very slow, and seems far off; that’s why I can’t get along, and I’m that hungry that sometimes I twitch all over.  I’m down.  I ain’t got another cent of money and I lost my job at the paint-shop.  There’s where I drew down twenty dollars a week painting landscapes on safes, you know, and then—­”