A Man by the Name of Mud.

Deep in a leather chair, the Kid sat looking out at where the rain slanted before the dull brown houses and hammered swiftly upon an occasional lonely cab. The happy crackle from the great and glittering fireplace behind him had evidently no meaning of content for him. He appeared morose and unapproachable, and when a man appears morose and unapproachable it is a fine chance for his intimate friends. Three or four of them discovered his mood, and so hastened to be obnoxious.

“What’s wrong, Kid? Lost your thirst?”

“He can never be happy again. He has lost his thirst.”

“That’s right, Kid. When you quarrel with a man who can whip you, resort to sarcastic reflection and distance.”

They cackled away persistently, but the Kid was mute and continued to stare gloomily at the street.

Once a man who had been writing letters looked up and said, “I saw your friend at the Comique the other night.” He waited a moment and then added, “In back.”

The Kid wheeled about in his chair at this information, and all the others saw then that it was important. One man said with deep intelligence, “Ho, ho, a woman, hey? A woman’s come between the two Kids. A woman. Great, eh?” The Kid launched a glare of scorn across the room, and then turned again to a contemplation of the rain. His friends continued to do all in their power to worry him, but they fell ultimately before his impregnable silence.

As it happened, he had not been brooding upon his friend’s mysterious absence at all. He had been concerned with himself. Once in a while he seemed to perceive certain futilities and lapsed them immediately into a state of voiceless dejection. These moods were not frequent.