TROUBLE

ONE  thing  stood  in  the  way — his  parting  with  the  Con
ductor.  Try  as  he  would,  he  could  not  muster  courage
to  tell  him.  He  had  been  so  thoroughly  decent,  he  had
still  been  kind  when  Emmett  had  ridiculed  everything
which  he  held  dear — "and  God  knows,"  thought  Emmett,
"his  life  had  been  no  bed  of  roses  either."  He  hid  a  pain-
shriveled  heart  also,  and  he  drank  no  rare  wine,  nor
walke'd  on  velvet  stairs,  nor  had  he  been  surrounded  and
complimented  on  a  worthless  sermon  by  superficial
women  who  wore  thick  glasses  when  they  were  forced  to
lodk  at  life.
He  walked  up  and  down  the  Bowery,  and  suddenly
thought  of  writing  a  letter  to  his  friend !  "He  could  write
better  than  he  talked,"  he  thought,  for  had  he  not  always
won  the  prize  in  the  Home  for  composition?  He  bought
pa'per  and  envelope  and  walked  to  the  Cooper  Union  Li
brary.  One  of  the  kind  women,  who  had  been  his  friend
in  the  library,  came  up  to  talk  to  him — a  rare  human
angel  she  was — who  had  spent  the  best  years  of  her  pul
sating  life  in  a  wilderness  of  dead  dreams.  When  his
letter  had  been  finished,  he  bade  good-by  to  the  women
in  the  library,  and  walked  out  and  mailed  it.
He  paid  his  fare  to  Yonkers,  where  he  waited  for  a

229


230  EMMETT  LAWLER

train  going  west.  As  he  waited,  he  thought  how  pleased
the  Conductor  might  be  with  the  letter.  Many  a  bishop
had  not  been  told  that  he  was  Christ's  real  brother.
