My problems could be solved ideally by an instructorship at some college, but how was this to be achieved without the patronage of a Tolliburr or an Enfandin? I had no credentials worth a second’s consideration. Though the immigration bars kept out graduates of foreign universities, no college in the United States would accept a self-taught young man who had not only little Latin and less Greek, but no mathematics, languages, or sciences at all. For a long time I considered possible ways and means, both drab and dramatic; at last, more in a spirit of whimsical absurdity than sober hope, I wrote out a letter of application, setting forth the qualifications I imagined myself to possess, assaying the extent of my learning with a generosity only ingenuousness could palliate, and outlining the work I projected for my future. With much care and many revisions I set this composition in type. It was undoubtedly a foolish gesture, but not having access to so costly a machine as a typewriter, and not wanting to reveal this by penning the letters by hand, I resorted to this transparent device. Tyss picked up one of the copies I struck off and glanced over it. His expression was critical. “Is it too bad?” I asked despondently. “You should have used more leading. And lined it up and justified the lines and eliminated hyphens. Setting type can never be done mechanically or half-heartedly—that’s why no one yet has been able to invent a practical typesetting machine. I’m afraid you’ll never make a passable printer, Hodgins.” He was concerned only with typesetting, uninterested in the outcome. Or satisfied, since it was predetermined, that comment was superfluous. Government mails, never efficient and always expensive, being one of the favorite victims of holdup men, and pneumatic post limited to local areas, I dispatched the letters by Wells, Fargo to a comprehensive list of colleges. I can’t say I then waited for the replies to flow in, for though I knew the company’s system of heavily armed guards would insure delivery of my applications, I had little anticipation of any answers. As a matter of fact I put it pretty well out of my mind, dredging it up at rarer intervals, always a trifle more embarrassed by my presumption. It was several months later, toward the end of September, that the telegram came signed Thomas K Haggerwells. It read, ACCEPT NO OFFER TILL OUR REPRESENTATIVE EXPLAINS HAGGERSHAVEN. I hadnt sent a copy of my letter to York, Pennsylvania, where the telegram had originated, or anywhere near it. I knew of no colleges in that vicinity. And I had never heard of Mr (or Doctor or Professor) Haggerwells. I might have thought the message a mean joke, except that Tyss’s nature didnt run to such humor and no one else knew of the letters except those to whom they were addressed.