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the headmaster for my sake. You would forget it all, but I haven’t.”
    “Youthful folly,” Hamilton gently said, taking Lankin’s hand, letting their clasped hands lay on the bedclothes.
    “But an accurate barometer indicating the storm of reprehensible deeds to come.”
    Another coughing fit seized Lankin as a pretty maid came in and drew the curtains against the gloom outside the window. Hamilton helped him sit up, gave him a drink of water and then lowered him back to the bed, letting him recover his gasping breath. Finally he lay still and calm, as rain pattered and a changeable wind rattled the sash. The two men were silent until the maid was gone.
    “I know you had many years of dissolution, my friend,” Hamilton said. “Was there a point at which you could have changed, if you had been sufficiently motivated?”
    “Do you mean if I had been sufficiently intelligent?” Lankin asked, with a ghost of a smile. “Oh, yes, there was, John. Shall I tell you about it?”
    “If it doesn’t tire you too much. Are you sure you should not be better for some sleep?”
    “Sleep, when it comes, will be eternal,” Lankin said. “Let me talk. It occupies the time.”
    “Tell me, then.”

Part 7 - The Descent
    Life can be viewed as a body of water; either it is a still pond fed only by rainwater, and therefore stagnant in time, or it moves and refreshes itself as it goes, like a river or stream. Think of that stagnant pond, never changing except in the addition of foul detritus from the animals that live near it. That was Lankin’s life for the next ten years, as he strove to live on as he had in that first heady year of his adulthood. He drank, gambled, stayed out all night, led gangs of young men who boxed the watch and joined the Four-in-Hand club, spending his days careening about London on his yellow barouche, wearing his many-caped coat and driving his matched set of bays.
    He found, though, that every season fewer and fewer of his past cronies accompanied him on his revels. They were all getting married, starting families, less and less likely to be free to carouse. Oh, they belonged to the same clubs, but they disappeared from White’s after a quiet supper and some cards. They chatted desultorily amongst themselves, these married men, about what school their junior would attend, and how their money was doing on the exchange. They complained about their wives with affection-tinged irritation, and compared their mistresses, beautiful young women with whom they set up separate establishments.
    Few indulged in all night binges anymore. In fact, some began to shun him altogether, and appeared queasy when he bragged of his indiscriminate seductions. He had made the secret “Susan” bet, as it was known to certain members of White’s, a yearly event, and so there was a trail of ten betrayed innocents behind him by then. One fellow club member, a man who in the past could drink all night and charm a duchess at an outdoor breakfast the next day, even took him to task. He was raising a daughter, and said if Lankin came near her, he would shoot him dead, like a mad dog.
    Lankin laughed and asked the little girl’s name for future reference, then asked if she promised to be pretty in six years or so. He jested, but the other man challenged him. An intermediary stepped in before it came to blows or pistols. That particular disagreement became legendary in the card room of White’s, but not many of the members supported Lankin, sympathizing with the outraged father in this instance.
    Time passed, as it inevitably does, even for those who ignore its passage. Lankin was forced to take up with younger and younger men, or at least, the age of the young men never changed. He was the one getting older. There were fewer, though, accompanying him on his revels. He awoke on his thirty-first birthday and acknowledged that even the young bucks no longer wished to follow his well-trod path to debauchery. His reputation as a rake