"Yes," answered Vandover. "I'm broke; I haven't a cent. I'm blest if I know how I'm to get along. Lately I've been working for a paint-shop, painting landscapes on safes. I drew down fifty dollars a week there, but I've lost my job."
"Good Lord, Van!" Geary suddenly exclaimed, nodding his head toward him reflectively, "I'm sorry for you!"
The other laughed. "Yes; I suppose I'm a pitiable looking object, but I'm used to it. I don't mind much now as long as I can have a place to sleep and enough to eat. If you can put me in the way of some work, Charlie, I'd be much obliged. You see, that's what I want--work. I don't want to run any bunco game. I'm an honest man--I'm too honest. I gave away all my money to help another poor duck; gave him thousands, he was good to me when I was on my uppers and I meant to repay him. I was grateful. I signed a paper that gave him everything I had. It was in Paris. There's where my bonds went to. He was a struggling artist."
"Look here!" said Geary, willing to be interested, "you might as well be truthful with me. You can't lie to me. Have you gambled away all those bonds, or have you been victimized, or have you still got them? Come, now, spit it out."
"Charlie, I haven't a cent!" answered Vandover, looking him squarely in the face. "Would I be around here and trying to get work from you if I had? No; I gambled it all away. You know I had eighty-nine hundred in U.S. 4 per cents. Well, first I began to pawn things when my money got short--the Old Gentleman's watch that I said I never would part with, then my clothes. I couldn't keep away from the cards. Of course, you can't understand that; gambling was the only thing that could amuse me. Then I began to mortgage my bonds, very little at first. Oh, I went slow! Then I got to selling them. Well, somehow, they all went. For a time I got along by the work at the paint-shop. But they have let me out now; said I was so irregular. I owe for nearly a month at my lodging-place." His eyes sought the floor again, rolling about stupidly. "Nearly a month, and that's what makes me jump and tremble so. You ought to see me sometimes--_b-r-r-r-h!_--and I get to barking! I'm a wolf mostly, you know, or some kind of an animal, some kind of a brute. But I'd be all right if everything didn't go round very slowly, and seem far off. But I'm a wolf. You look out for me; best take care I don't bite you! Wolf--wolf! Ah! It's up four flights at the end of the hall, very dark, eight thousand dollars in a green cloth sack, and lots of lights a-burning. See how long my finger nails are--regular claws; that's the wolf, the brute! Why can't I talk in my mouth instead of in my throat? That's the devil of it. When you paint on steel and iron your colours don't dry out true; all the yellows turn green. But it would 'a' been all straight if they hadn't fired me! I never talked to anybody--that was _my_ business, wasn't it? And when all those eight thousand little lights begin to burn red, why, of course that makes you nervous! So I have to drink a great deal of water and chew butcher's paper. That fools him and he thinks he's eating. Just so as I can lay quiet in the Plaza when the sun is out. There's a hack-stand there, you know, and every time that horse tosses his head so's to get the oats in the bottom of the nose-bag he jingles the chains on the poles and, by God! that's funny; makes me laugh every time; sounds gay, and the chain sparkles mighty pretty! Oh, I don't complain. Give me a dollar and I'll bark for you!"