good-natured gesture, as much as to say, "You must not do that, bad boy, you."

I went away in high feather

I called on Mrs. Dienstog again the very next morning. She received me well, but the first thing she did after returning my greeting was to throw the door wide open and to offer me a chair in full view of the hallway

"Oh, shut the door," I whispered, in disgust. "Don't be foolish."

She shook her head

"Just one kiss," I begged her. "You are so sweet."

She held firm

I came away sorely disappointed, but convinced that her inflexibility was a mere matter of practical common sense

I kept these experiences and reflections to myself. Nor did an indecent word ever cross my lips. In the street, while attending to my business, I heard uncouth language quite often. The other push-cart men would utter the most revolting improprieties in the hearing of the women peddlers, or even address such talk to them, as a matter of course. Nor was it an uncommon incident for a peddler to fire a volley of obscenities at a departing housewife who had priced something on his cart without buying it. These things scandalized me beyond words. I could never get accustomed to them

"Look at Levinsky standing there quiet as a kitten," the other peddlers would twit me. "One would think he is so innocent he doesn't know how to count two. Shy young fellows are the worst devils in the world."

They were partly mistaken, during the first few weeks of our acquaintance, at least. For the last thread that bound me to chastity was still unbroken.

It was rapidly wearing away, though.

CHAPTER III

THE last thread snapped. It was the beginning of a period of unrestrained misconduct. Intoxicated by the novelty of yielding to Satan, I gave him a free hand and the result was months of debauchery and self-disgust. The underworld women I met, the humdrum filth of their life, and their matter-of-fact, business-like attitude toward it never ceased to shock and repel me. I never left a creature of this kind without abominating her and myself, yet I would soon, sometimes during the very same evening, call on her again or on some other woman of her class

Many of these women would simulate love, but they failed to deceive me. I knew that they lied and shammed to me just as I did to my customers, and their insincerities were only another source of