When King Dubignon left Cornell and some seven hundred who had labored with him through several years of architecture and watercolor, he bore with him the consciousness that final examples of his work, left there, had not been excelled, and the memory of many friendly assurances that his place was waiting for him out in the great world. That he construed these assurances too literally was the fault of his temperament, and so, perfectly natural. Home yearning pulled him back to his beloved South for the initial plunge, and it was not long before his name in gilt invited the confidence of the good people of Macon, who had castles in the air. The field proved narrow and depressing for one of his profession and temperament. The seven-room cottage of many colors seemed the limit of popular imagination at that time. This, for a young man who was bursting with ideas, and who dreamed of thirty-live story buildings and marble palaces printing graceful lines against skies of blue! The years that slipped held some minor triumphs, but he classed them as time wasted. Then a provincial board turned down his modern school building for a combination barn, silo and garage, designed by somebody’s nephew, and the proverbial straw was on the celebrated camel’s back. It was a spring day when the camel’s spine collapsed. Birds were building homes for themselves, and wonderful flowers were solving, without human aid, marvels of form and color, and voices were calling to him across years unborn. Ah, those voices! He placed a foot under the corner of his drawing table and wrecked it against the wall. Three days later he was in New York, that Mecca of ambitious young Southerners, and at the door of Beeker, Toomer & Church, esteemed by him and many another as the great city’s leading architects. Mr. Church, the junior partner, heard his application. A little smile hovered about the man’s thin lips, and a slight movement of the lines leading southeast and southwest from the nostrils expressed a cynical weariness. “On an average,” said he with an air of calculation, “we have applications from Cornell men at the rate of six a week. And there are others!” He waved a hand feebly toward a vista of rooms with bending forms therein. “We can’t always keep the crowd we have busy.” “I know all about that,” said King coolly, “but perhaps you need a man in this special line--art glass, stained glass windows?” He opened a portfolio and laid some designs before the architect. Now, while no artist listens with patience to business argument, none refuses to listen to pictures. Mr. Church looked, carelessly at first, then with a distinct show of interest. The sheets slipped rapidly through his hands and he shot a swift glance at his visitor. “These yours?” “Yes.” Mr. Church pressed a button somewhere, his eyes still on the designs. A little gate opened. “Come in,” he said. And King Dubignon stood at the threshold of his career.