Things relatively¹ interesting, contrasts nearly as sharp and as well calculated to cause one to meditate² on the wonder, the beauty, the uncertainty³, the indifference⁴, the cruelty and the rank favoritism of life, were daily if not hourly put before me. Now it would be some such murder as this or a social scandal of some kind, often of a gross and revolting character, in some ultra-respectable neighborhood, or a suicide of peculiarly sad or grim character. Or, again, it would be a fine piece of chicane, as when a certain “board-and-feed” stable owner of the west end, about to lose his property because of poor business and anxious to save himself by securing the insurance, set fire to the stable and destroyed seventeen healthy horses as well as one stable attendant and “got away with it,” legally anyhow. His plan had probably been to save the horses and the man, but the plan miscarried. I gathered as much from him when I interviewed him. I put some pertinent⁵ questions at him but could get no admissions on which to base a charge. He was a shrewd, calculating, commercial type, vigorous and semi-savage. He evaded⁶ me blandly⁷ and I had to write the fire up as a sad accident, thereby⁸ aiding him to get his insurance, the while I was convinced that he was guilty, a hard-hearted scoundrel.