own head and fire himself out of existence. For the instruments of deception and debasement are not in the peddling-box, but rather in his heart.
No; I did not think peddling was as bad as other trades. Here at least, the means of deception were reduced to a minimum. And of a truth, if everybody were to judge themselves as strictly as Khalid, who would escape burning?
So I turned from him that day fully convinced that my little stock of holy goods was innocent, and my balance at the banker’s was as pure as my rich neighbour’s. And he turned from me fully convinced, I believe, that I was an unregenerate rogue.
Ay, and when I was knocking at the door of one of my customers, he was walking away briskly, his hands clasped behind his back, and his eyes, as usual, scouring the horizon.”
And on that horizon are the gilded domes and smoking chimneys of the seething city. Leaving his last friend and his last burden behind, he will give civilised life another trial.
Loafer and tramp that he is! For even the comforts of the grand cable-railway he spurns, and foots it from the Bronx down to his cellar near Battery Park, thus cutting the city in half and giving one portion to Azrael and the other to Iblis. But not being quite ready himself for either of these winged Furies, he keeps to his cellar.
He would tarry here a while, if but to carry out a resolution he has made. True, Khalid very seldom resolves upon anything; but when he does make a resolution, he is even willing to be carried off by the effort to carry it out. And now, he would solve this problem of earning a living in the great city by honest means.