“If I had only my father’s profession, I would have a chance to get in among these fellows, and I would soon have my share of the gate money,” he growled. “But to take a place in the line of mere drudges, to sink down into the death in life of a hall room and a cheap boarding-house. Once planted there, I am there forever. And I have not a friend in the whole world!” His mental harvest had only been one of husks, and he keenly felt the absence of any definite calling _pour accrocher_. Suddenly his eye caught the gleam of a sunset upon a dozen drifting, glittering white sails on the river. They all seemed to float on serenely, borne along upon the broad tide, with no visible man’s hand to guide. “I will drift a while,” he murmured. “I have a few thousand dollars. Something will surely turn up. If it does not,” he resolutely said, “then, I will turn it up myself.” “There are women here, too—women with hearts of flame, and who are to be won. I was a fool ever to go out to the frontier. Perhaps—” And his mind reverted to a lucky college chum who had married a woman nearly two generations older than himself, but a well-preserved Madame “Midas.” “By Jove! anything is better than this beastly poverty,” he mused. “Even that.” “This is no era for poor men. Poverty is the only crime nowadays.” His cynicism was broken off by the approach of two men, who rose to rejoin friends in the train as it dashed along toward the Bronx River. As they came up the smoking-car, Vreeland easily recognized Fred Hathorn, the stroke of the college crew in which he had once won hard-fought honors for the orange. There was no mistaking the easy luxury which exhaled from Mr. Fred Hathorn of the great firm of Hathorn and Potter, bankers and brokers of dingy Wall Street, a man who had already arrived! The first crucial glance of rapid inspection was not lost on Vreeland, as Hathorn, in an easy way cried: “Hello, Hod Vreeland! What brings you over here?” With a perfunctory politeness, Mr. James Potter halted and calmly acknowledged Hathorn’s listless introduction. The little blonde man-about-town, however, gazed longingly ahead at the car where certain fair dames now awaited their escorts. Jimmy Potter was born to “no end of easy money,” and so his dashing senior partner’s genius for finance was strongly buttressed by the whirlwind of cash which clustered around Jimmy Potter’s lucky head. All sorts of financial bees seemed to swarm around Potter and quietly settle in his hive. “What’s the use of making a row?” he often remarked. “Sit still, and what you want in life will come to you.” Mr. James Potter of New York was an Epicurean disciple. The blood mounted to Vreeland’s forehead as he noted all the deprecating courtesy of Hathorn’s welcome. “Damn him! I’ll give him a bit of a bluff,” he quickly decided, under the inspiration of some bold, familiar spirit. There was an air of quiet comfort in the careless response of Vreeland.