Paul Harley had taken
the trouble to investigate the man's past, for "Captain Dan," the
name by which he was known in the saloons and worse resorts which
he frequented, was palpably a broken-down gentleman; a piece of
flotsam caught in the yellow stream. Opium had been his
downfall. How he lived I never knew, but Harley believed he had
some small but settled income, sufficient to enable him to kill
himself in comfort with the black pills.
As he stood there before me in the early morning light, I was
aware of some subtle change in his appearance. It was fully six
months since I had seen him last, but in some vague way he looked
younger. Haggard he was, with an ugly cut showing on his temple,
but not so lined as I remembered him. Some former man seemed to
be struggling through the opium-scarred surface. His eyes were
brighter, and I noted with surprise that he wore decent clothes
and was clean shaved.
"Good morning, Jim," he said; "you remember me, don't you?"
As he spoke I observed, too, that his manner had altered. He who
had consorted with the sweepings af the doss-houses now addressed
me as a courteous gentleman addresses an inferior--not haughtily
or patronizingly, but with a note of conscious superiority and
self-respect wholly unfamiliar.
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