He was glad he had her in his office, and
hoped she'd stay, and that was about all.
Daylight did not improve with the passing years. The life was
not good for him. He was growing stout and soft, and there was
unwonted flabbiness in his muscles. The more he drank cocktails,
the more he was compelled to drink in order to get the desired
result, the inhibitions that eased him down from the concert
pitch of his operations. And with this went wine, too, at meals,
and the long drinks after dinner of Scotch and soda at the
Riverside. Then, too, his body suffered from lack of exercise;
and, from lack of decent human associations, his moral fibres
were weakening. Never a man to hide anything, some of his
escapades became public, such as speeding, and of joy-rides in
his big red motor-car down to San Jose with companions distinctly
sporty--incidents that were narrated as good fun and comically in
the newspapers.
Nor was there anything to save him. Religion had passed him by.
"A long time dead" was his epitome of that phase of speculation.
He was not interested in humanity. According to his rough-hewn
sociology, it was all a gamble. God was a whimsical, abstract,
mad thing called Luck.
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