The possession of property of any kind gives a curious consciousness of dignity to the human being who is its owner, due very likely to the traditional estimate of the importance of all possessions, and to the mystical but generally erroneous belief that property is in some way an outward and visible proof of the worth or the ability of its possessor--or his forbears. Even the possession of a possibility such as Clark's Field--which was of no positive value to the Clarks, and indeed an increasing source of expense and anxiety to the impoverished family, as taxes rose in company with the rise of all values--conferred upon the Clarks some small consideration in Alton and made them feel the dignity and the tragedy of property ownership. John, who was nothing but a seedy, middle-aged clerk, none too careful of his appearance and uneasily aware of his failure, had ample excuse to himself for his shortcomings and willingness to live on a kind Government, because he had been hardly used by fate in the matter of his inheritance. As the property that might have been his was just beyond his reach, he had a small swagger of superiority in the gas office, and the tradition was well established there that he belonged to a family "land poor,"--the most genteel form of poverty if any form of poverty can be genteel. Even old farmer Samuel had tottered about the Square on his malacca stick and exchanged the time of day with the small merchants there, with a sense of his own importance as the owner of "a valuable piece of property" temporarily under legal disability.