He had risen, he had fallen, made a good thing out
of this tip, been badly done over that, and missed opportunity after
opportunity through a fuddled brain and an overweening self-
confidence.
Last year for several months everything had succeeded; it was during
that happy period that he had visited Maggie. Perhaps it was well
for his soul that success had not continued. He was a man whom
failure improved, having a certain childish warmth of heart and
simplicity of outlook when things went badly with him. Success made
him abominably conceited, and being without any morality self-
confidence drove him to disastrous lengths. Now once more he was
very near destruction and he knew it, very near things like forging
and highway robbery, and other things worse than they. He knew that
he was very near; he peered over into the pit and did not wish to
descend. He was not a bad man, and had he not believed himself to be
a clever one all might yet have been well. The temptation of his
cleverness lured him on. A stroke of the pen was a very simple thing
. . .
To save his soul he thought that he would go and see Maggie.
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