"Not on twelve hundred a year, certainly--unless you spend the little principal you have left, and, then, drop off for good." "Which would be playing the baby act, sure enough." Macloud nodded. "It would," he said; "but, sometimes, men don't look at it that way. They cannot face the loss of caste. They prefer to drop overboard by _accident_." "There isn't going to be any dropping overboard by accident in mine," replied Croyden. "What I've decided to do is this: I shall disappear. I have no debts, thank God! so no one will care to take the trouble to search for me. I shall go down to Hampton, to the little property that was left me on the Eastern Shore, there to mark time, either until I can endure it, or until I can pick out some other abode. I've a bunch of expensive habits to get rid of quickly, and the best place for that, it seems to me, is a small town where they are impossible, as well as unnecessary." "Ever lived in a small town?" Macloud inquired. "None smaller than my old home. I suppose it will be very stupid, after the life here, but beggars can't be choosers." "I'm not so sure it will be very stupid," said Macloud. "It depends on how much you liked this froth and try, we have here. The want to and can't--the aping the ways and manners of those who have had wealth for generations, and are well-born, beside. Look at them!" with a fling of his arm, that embraced the Club-house and its environs.--"One generation old in wealth, one generation old in family, and about six months old, some of them scarcely that, in breeding. There are a few families which belong by right of birth--and, thank God! they show it. But they are shouldered aside by the others, and don't make much of a show. The climbers hate them, but are too much awed by their lineage to crowd them out, entirely. A nice lot of aristocrats! The majority of them are puddlers of the iron mills, and the peasants of Europe, come over so recently the soil is still clinging to their clothes. Down on the Eastern Shore you will find it very different. They ask one, who you _are_, never how much money you have. Their aristocracy is one of birth and culture. You may be reduced to manual labor for a livelihood, but you belong just the same. You have had a sample of the money-changers and their heartless methods--and it has left a bitter taste in your mouth. I think you will welcome the change. It will be a new life, and, in a measure, a quiet life, but there are compensations to one to whom life holds more than garish living and ostentatious show." "You know the people of the Eastern Shore?" asked Croyden. "No!--but I know the people of the Western Shore, and they come from the same stock--and it's good stock, mighty good stock! Moreover, you are not burying yourself so deep--Baltimore is just across the Bay, and Philadelphia and New York are but a few hours distant--less distant than this place is, indeed."