you; imprisonment for debt don't go nowadays."

"Debt?"

"I'm a theatrical manager, my girl, and I'm not on the inside:
which is another way of saying that a man who can't swim has
fallen overboard."

"And when you do go down--"

"A little less exultation, my dear, or I might suppose you'd be
glad when I do."

"Well, when you know yourself going down for the last time, do
you mean to tell me you won't grasp at a straw like--like this?"
I nodded toward the open window, and the desk with all its papers
tumbling out.

"Not much." He shook his head, and bit the end of a cigar with
sharp, white teeth. "It's a fool graft. I'm self-respecting. And
I don't admire fools." He lit his cigar and puffed a minute,
taking out his watch to look at it, as cold-bloodedly as though
we were waiting, he and I, to go to supper together. Oh, how I
hated him!

"Honesty isn't the best policy," he went on; "it's the only
one. The vain fool that gets it into his head--or shall I say her
head? No? Well, no offense, I assure you--his head then, that
he's smarter than a world full of experience, ought to be put in
jail--for his own protection; he's too big a jay to be left out