“That is the beast for you,” he said, pointing to a gaunt, fiery-eyed creature with a close-cropped tail. “Vincent Duval is going abroad, and you can have him for four hundred.” “But, my dear fellow, I can’t----” “Nonsense, Holy,” said Charlie familiarly falling into the nickname that then and there sprang full-grown like Minerva from his inventive brain. “Look here, young fellow, I want to give you some advice. Let’s go in and smoke on the piazza.” They found easy seats above the broad green lawn, half across which reached already the shadows of a belt of huge bare forest trees that rimmed in the western end; and there, inspired by tobacco and the beauty of the scene, did Charles Townley deliver himself as follows: “My dear boy, we live in a great country; and in a free country a man can make himself just what he likes. You can pick out just the class in life that suits you best. This is the critical moment; and you must decide whether to be a two-thousand-dollar clerk all your life, a ten-thousand bachelor, or a millionaire. If you rate yourself at the two-thousand gauge, the world will treat you accordingly; if you spend twenty thousand, the world, sooner or later, will give it to you. There’s Jimmy De Witt, for instance; after the old man busted, he hadn’t a sous markee--what was the result? He had an excellent taste in cigars and wine, knew everybody, told a good story--you know what a handsome fellow he is?--no end of style, and the best judge of a canvas-back duck I ever saw. Everybody said such a fellow couldn’t be left to starve. So old Duval found him a place as treasurer of one of his leased railroads down in Pennsylvania, where all he has to do is to sign the lessee’s accounts; he did this submissively, and it gave him ten thousand a year. Then we made him manager of the Manhattan Jockey Club--that gave him six thousand more; then he makes a little at whist, and never pays his bills, and somehow or other manages to make both ends meet. And now they say he’s going to marry Pussie Duval. Do you suppose he’d ever have been more than a poor devil of a clerk, like me, if he’d tried economy?” And Charlie leaned back and puffed his cigar triumphantly. “But I mean to pay my bills,” said Arthur. “Well, he will, too, in time,” said Charlie. Arthur smiled to himself, and reflected that the corruptions of New York were rather clumsy, after all, and its snares and temptations a trifle worn-out and crude; but he said nothing, and by this time their tandem was brought around and they whirled off to the city. When they got home, he found a note: “Mr. and Mrs. William H. Farnum request the pleasure--Mr. Holyoke’s company--small party, Thursday the twenty-eighth,” etc, etc. He tossed it over to Charlie. “Since you’re such a social mentor, what must I do to that?” said he. “Decline it, of course,” said the other; “I’ve got one myself; you see they saw us together. You mustn’t show up, the first time, at the Farnums.”