"Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat.

"You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair
imitation."

"Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can
forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!"

"That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing
to enter into his friend's mood.

"Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North.

"I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a
conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may
be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's
the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the
skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't
burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of
light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my
metaphors."

"Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?"

"But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim
your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of
your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's
saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on
crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be