which I left, having gone to the office to say farewell, I was met by the publisher, who handed me a letter of introduction. It was of the “To whom it might concern” variety and related my labors and capacities in no vague words. I might have used this letter to advantage in many a strait, but never did. Rather, by some queer inversion of thought, I concluded that it was somewhat above my capacity, said more for me than I deserved, and might secure for me some place which I could not fill. For over a year I carried it about in my pocket, often when I was without a job and with only a few dollars in my pockets, and still I did not use it. Why, I have often wondered since. Little as I should understand such a thing in another, so little do I now understand this in myself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER LV THAT evening at seven I carried my bags down to the great Union Station, feeling that I was a failure. Other men had money; they need not thus go jerking about the world seeking a career. So many youths and maids had all that was needful to their case and comfort arranged from the beginning. They did not need to fret about the making of a bare living. The ugly favoritism of life which piles comforts in the laps of some while snatching the smallest crumb of satisfaction from the lips of others was never more apparent to me. I was in a black despair, and made short work of getting into my berth. For a long time I stared at dark fields flashing by, punctuated by lamps in scattered cottages, the gloomy and lonely little towns of Illinois and Indiana. Then I slept. I was aroused by a ray of sunshine in my eyes. I lifted one of my blinds and saw the cornfields of Northern Ohio, the brown stumps of last year’s crop protruding through the snow. Commonplace little towns, the small brown or red railway stations with the adjoining cattle-runs, and tall gas-well derricks protruding out of dirty, snowless soil, made me realize that I was approaching the end of my journey. I found that I had ample time to shave, dress and breakfast in the adjoining buffet—a thing I proposed to do if it proved the last pretentious, liberal, courageous deed of my life. For I was not too well provided with cash, and was I not leaving civilization? Though I had but a hundred dollars, might not my state soon be much worse? I have often smiled since over the awe in which I then held the Pullman car, its porter, conductor, and all that went with it. To my inexperienced soul it seemed to be the acme of elegance and grandeur. Could life offer anything more than the privilege of riding about the world in these mobile palaces? And here was I this sunny winter morning with enough money to indulge in a breakfast in one of these grand ambling chambers, though if I kept up this reckless pace there was no telling where I should end.