To Have And Have Not

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT
he had made was double her original capital and
then he could afford to take no notice of her. After
his money had reached that point he had never
been annoyed by her sick headaches, by her com-
plaints, or by her plans. He had ignored them.
He had been admirably endowed for a speculative
career because he had possessed extraordinary sexual
vitality which gave him the confidence to gamble
well; common sense, an excellent mathematical
brain, a permanent but controlled scepticism; a
scepticism which was as sensitive to impending
disaster ^s an accurate aneroid barometer to
atmospheric pressure; and a value time sense that
kept him from trying to hit tops or bottoms. These,
coupled with a lack of morals, an ability to make
people like him without ever liking or trusting them
in return, while at the same time convincing
them warmly and heartily of his friendship; not a
disinterested friendship, but a friendship so in-
terested in their success that it automatically made
them accomplices; and an incapacity for either
remorse or pity, had carried him to where he was
now. And where he was now was lying in a pair of
striped silk pyjamas that covered his shrunken old
man's chest, his bloated little belly, his now useless and
disproportionately large equipment that had once
been his pride, and his small flabby legs, lying on a
bed unable to sleep because he finally had remorse.
His remorse was to think if only he had not been
quite so smart five yean ago. He could have paid
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