[Illustration: MR. QUEED, YOU ARE AFFLICTED WITH A FATAL MALADY. YOUR COSMOS IS ALL EGO] QUEED A NOVEL BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY R.M. CROSBY [Illustration: TOVT RIEN OV RIEN] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1911 TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS I _First Meeting between a Citizen in Spectacles and the Great Pleasure-Dog Behemoth; also of Charles Gardiner West, a Personage at Thirty_. 3 II _Mrs. Paynter's Boarding-House: which was not founded as an Eleemosynary Institution_. 14 III _Encounter between Charlotte Lee Weyland, a Landlady's Agent, and Doctor Queed, a Young Man who wouldn't pay his Board_. 25 IV _Relating how Two Stars in their Courses fought for Mr. Queed; and how he accepted Remunerative Employment under Colonel Cowles, the Military Political Economist_. 40 V _Selections from Contemporary Opinions of Mr. Queed; also concerning Henry G. Surface, his Life and Deeds; of Fifi, the Landlady's Daughter, and how she happened to look up Altruism in the Dictionary_. 51 VI _Autobiographical Data imparted, for Sound Business Reasons, to a Landlady's Agent; of the Agent's Other Title, etc._ 64 VII _In which an Assistant Editor, experiencing the Common Desire to thrash a Proof-Reader, makes a Humiliating Discovery; and of how Trainer Klinker gets a Pupil the Same Evening_. 79 VIII _Formal Invitation to Fifi to share Queed's Dining-Room (provided it is very cold upstairs); and First Outrage upon the Sacred Schedule of Hours_. 93 IX _Of Charles Gardiner West, President-Elect of Blaines College, and his Ladies Fair: all in Mr. West's Lighter Manner_. 104 X _Of Fifi on Friendship, and who would be sorry if Queed died; of Queed's Mad Impulse, sternly overcome; of his Indignant Call upon Nicolovius, the Old Professor_. 114 XI _Concerning a Plan to make a Small Gift to a Fellow-Boarder, and what it led to in the Way of Calls; also touching upon Mr. Queed's Dismissal from the Post, and the Generous Resolve of the Young Lady, Charles Weyland_. 127 XII _More Consequences of the Plan about the Gift, and of how Mr. Queed drinks his Medicine like a Man; Fifi on Men, and how they do; Second Corruption of the Sacred Schedule_. 137 XIII _"Taking the Little Doctor Down a Peg or Two": as performed for the First and Only Time by Sharlee Weyland_. 146 XIV _In which Klinker quotes Scripture, and Queed has helped Fifi with her Lessons for the Last Time_. 163