A CRACKED HEART 



then, what are you, Timon, Orlando, or Hamlet? 

 How do you sleep ? Do you know ? &quot; 



&quot; No. I have lost interest in the operation.&quot; 



&quot; Good. Can you eat without a menu, and 

 stop without tipping somebody ? Good. Does 

 salt junk at certain ecstatic moments look to your 

 purged vision like the staff&quot; of life ? Good. You 

 can t spread the morning paper out beside your 

 plate and cram your brain and your stomach at 

 the same time ? Good. You ll live to be eighty- 

 rive if you keep on.&quot; 



&quot; Oh, you d better tell me the plain truth at 

 once. I can stand it.&quot; 



&quot; Dreams ? &quot; 



&quot;Every day. Can t quite shut off the rubbish 

 of hopes and ambitions.&quot; 



&quot; Day be hanged. How about the night ? &quot; 



&quot; Oh, I don t know anything about the night. 

 My system appears to have lost all interest in 

 that.&quot; 



&quot; Then you re all right. Night is the only im 

 portant part of a man s existence. It s the only 

 time when he ought to stop kicking against the 

 Eternal. If your nights are clean and empty, the 

 unimportant days will take care of themselves. 

 Man is such an infatuated suicide that Nature has 

 to drug him once every twenty-four hours to keep 

 him from destroying himself. Great Scott, what 

 a luxury it is to get rid of a coat once more ! 

 Have you got another brier-wood pipe ? Thank 

 you. Say, old fellow,&quot; he continued, as he took 

 the match from Charlie and lit the pipe, &quot; did it 



93 



