As for Johnny McComas, he found one year of our Academy enough. It was the getting in, not the staying in, that provoked his young powers. Our school, moreover, was explicitly classical in a day when the old classical ideal still ruled respected everywhere; and Johnny, much as he liked being with us and of us, could not see the world in terms of Latin paradigms. He wanted to be "doing something"; he wanted to be "in business." During the summer following his year at Dr. Grant's I heard of him as somebody's office-boy somewhere downtown, and then quite lost sight of him for the five years that succeeded. It occurred to me that Johnny must be doing just the right thing for himself; he would make the sort of office-boy that "business men" would contend for: easy to imagine the manoeuvres, even the feuds, that would enliven business blocks in the downtown district for the possession of Johnny's confident smile and dashing, forthright way. I learned, in due season, that Johnny had cast in his lot with a real-estate operator, and had been cherished, through periods harried by competition, as a pearl of price. The city was emphatically still in the "real-estate" stage. Anybody arriving without profession or training straightway began to sell lots. Nothing lay more openly abundant than land; the town had but to propagate itself automatically over the wide prairies. The wild flowers waved only to welcome the surveyor's gang; and new home-seekers--in the jargon of the trade--were ever hurrying to rasp themselves upon the ragged edges of the outskirts. One Sunday morning in May, Raymond and I determined on an excursion to the country--or, at all events, to some of the remoter suburbs. The bank would not claim his thoughts for twenty-four hours, nor the law-school mine. We left the train at a promising point and prepared to scuffle over a half-mile splotched with vervain and yarrow, yet to bloom, toward a long, thin range of trees that seemed to mark the course of some small stream. But between us and that possible stream there soon developed much besides the sprinkling of prairie flowers. We began to notice rough-ploughed strips of land that seemed to mean streets for some new subdivision; piles of lumber, here and there, which should serve to realize the ideals of the "home-seekers"; and presently a gay, improvised little shack with a disproportionate sign to blazon the hopes and ambitions of a well-known firm back in town. And in the doorway of the shack stood Johnny McComas. He was as ruddy as ever, and his blue eyes were a bit sharper. He was slightly heavier than either of us, but no taller. He knew us as quickly as we knew him. For some reason he did not seem particularly glad to see us. He made the reason clear at once.