Mere opportunism? That and a little more; a sort of conviction that fortune herself is something of an opportunist, that what a man wants to do, fortune, sooner or later, will help him to do, if he only wills himself in the direction of the want early enough and long enough to give the fickle jade her chance. By way of proceeding immediately to hammer, Hampstead reached for a heavy calf-bound volume, bearing the imprint of the Los Angeles Public Library, and settled himself to read. Most people in the railroad office were tired when they finished their day’s work. They were done with effort. John, however, was just ready to begin. They thought of recreation; John thought only of hammering. Since his scholastic education had been broken off in the middle by economic necessities, he had formed the plan of reading at night the entire written history of the world, from the first cuneiform inscription down to the last edition of the last newspaper. In pursuance of this plan, he had already traveled far down the centuries, and it was with eagerness that he adjusted his eye-shade to-night, because when he lifted the cover of his book he knew that he would swing open the doors on one of the greatest centuries in human history, the century in which the world discovered the individual. Hampstead was himself an individual. This was in some sense the story of his own discovery. When John had been reading for perhaps half an hour, there came a bird-like tap at his door, accompanied by a suppressed giggle. "Who comes there?" called the student in sepulchral tones, stabbing the page at a particular spot with his thumb, while his eyes were lifted. The only audible sound was another giggle, but the door swung open mysteriously, revealing two small, white-robed figures silhouetted against the shadows in the studio. "Enter, ghosts!" John commanded, in the same sepulchral voice, while his eyes fell again upon his pages. The ghosts chortled and advanced, but with great circumspection, to the little table with its dangerously balanced bookshelf, its miscellaneous litter of papers, and its silent, absorbed student. Tayna, her long burnished curls cascading over the white of her nightgown, and her eyes shining softly, ducked her head and arose under one arm of her uncle, where presently she felt herself drawn close with an affectionate, satisfying sort of squeeze. The boy, approaching from the other side, laid an arm upon the shoulder of the man, and stood watching with fascination the eyes of his uncle in their steady sweep from side to side of the printed page. "Uncle John," asked Tayna shyly, burying her face in his neck as she put the question, "when will you be President?" "When _shall_ you be President?" corrected the boy, looking across at his sister with that same old-mannish expression which was a part of all he said and did.