A Friend in Need

"This story is about a man who has had bad luck at cards. He doesn't have any money and he is in a bad condition because has been drinking a lot. He comes to his successful and prosperous friend and asks him for a job. But he has no skills except swimming. The friend agrees to give him a job on condition that he swim around the beacon, which he knows is impossible to do in such a bad condition. The young man has nothing to do but agree. He drowns but his friend doesn't express any regret. It turns out that he just doesn't have a vacancy in his office." (Angelina Kulagina)

First published in Hearst's International & Cosmoploitan, April 1925, as " The Man Who Wouldn't Hurt a Fly."