“The programme sounds attractive,” Winthrop had replied, smilingly, “but it’s expensive. Practically I am penniless. Give me a year to gather the threads up again and get things a-going once more, and I’ll take your medicine gladly.” The physician had shrugged his shoulders with a grim smile. “I have never heard,” he replied, “that the hunting or fishing was especially good in the next world.” “What do you mean?” asked Winthrop, frowning. “Just this, sir. You say you can’t afford to take a vacation. I say you can’t afford not to take it. I’ve lived a good deal longer than you and I give you my word I never saw a poor man who wasn’t a whole lot better off than any dead one of my acquaintance. I don’t want to frighten you, but I tell you frankly that if you stay here and buckle down to rebuilding your business you’ll be a damned poor risk for any insurance company inside of two weeks. It’s better to live poor than to die rich. Take your choice.” Winthrop had taken it. After all, poverty is comparative, and he realized that he was still as well off as many a clerk who was contentedly keeping a family on his paltry twenty or thirty dollars a week. He sub-rented his apartment, paid what bills he owed out of the small balance standing to his name at the bank, and considered the question of destination. It was then that he had remembered the piece of property in Florida which he had taken over for the firm and which, having been the least desirable of the assets, had escaped the creditors. He went to the telephone and called up the physician. “How would Florida do?” he had asked. “Good place to play invalid, isn’t it?” “I don’t care where you go,” was the response, “so long as there’s pure air and sunshine there, and as long as you give your whole attention to mending yourself.” He had never been in Florida, but it appealed to him and he believed that, since he must live economically, there could be no better place; at least there would be no rent to pay. So he had written to Major Cass, whose name he had come across in looking over his partner’s papers, and had started South on the heels of his letter. The trip had been a hard one for him, but now the soft, fragrant air that blew against his face through the open car window was already soothing him with its caressing touch and whispering fair promises of strengthening days. A long blast of the whistle moved the conductor to a return of animation and Winthrop awoke from his thoughts. The train was slowing down with a grinding of hand-brakes. Through the window he caught glimpses of gardens and houses and finally of a broad, tree-lined street marching straight away from the railroad up a sloping hill to a gray stone building with a wooden cupola which seemed to block its path. Then the station threw its shadow across him and the train, with many jerks and much rattling of coupling, came to a stop. [Illustration] “Corunna,” drawled the conductor.