The Casual Murderer and Other Stories

I was crossing Union Square on my way to the office thinking about nothing at all, when I received one of those curious psychical shocks that the sight of an unknown face will sometimes give one. This was a young man sitting on a bench with his long legs stretched before him, and his hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets. He was out of luck—well, all the benchers in November are out of luck; this one bore it with a difference. His chin was not sunk on his breast, but held level, and his gentian-blue eyes were staring straight before him with an expression of complete despair.

My impulse was to speak to him. I suppressed it, of course, and kept on. How quickly one learns to suppress ones natural impulses in town! But this one was not going to be so easily suppressed. It set up a painful agitation in my breast. Coward! Coward! a still small voice whispered to me. How about the Good Samaritan? Here is a fellow-creature suffering some wound infinitely more dreadful than wounds of the flesh, and you pass by on the other side!