“That wasn’t any excuse,” insisted Abercrombie. “If I’d been any good I’d have known. As a matter of fact--as--a--matter--of--fact,” he repeated slowly, “I think that at heart I was the sort of boy who’d have lived and died here happily and never known there was anything better.” He turned to Hemmick with a look almost of distress. “It worries me to think that my--that what’s happened to me can be ascribed to chance. But that’s the sort of boy I think I was. I didn’t start off with the Dick Whittington idea--I started off by accident.” After this confession he stared out into the twilight with a dejected expression that Hemmick could not understand. It was impossible for the latter to share any sense of the importance of such a distinction--in fact, from a man of Abercrombie’s position it struck him as unnecessarily trivial. Still, he felt that some manifestation of acquiescence was only polite. “Well,” he offered, “it’s just that some boys get the bee to get up and go North and some boys don’t. I happened to have the bee to go North. But I didn’t. That’s the difference between you and me.” Abercrombie turned to him intently. “You did?” he asked, with unexpected interest, “you wanted to get out?” “At one time.” At Abercrombie’s eagerness Hemmick began to attach a new importance to the subject. “At one time,” he repeated, as though the singleness of the occasion was a thing he had often mused upon. “How old were you?” “Oh--’bout twenty.” “What put it into your head?” “Well, let me see--” Hemmick considered. “I don’t know whether I remember sure enough, but it seems to me that when I was down to the University--I was there two years--one of the professors told me that a smart boy ought to go North. He said, business wasn’t going to amount to much down here for the next fifty years. And I guessed he was right. My father died about then, so I got a job as runner in the bank here, and I didn’t have much interest in anything except saving up enough money to go North. I was bound I’d go.” “Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you?” insisted Abercrombie in an aggrieved tone. “Well,” Hemmick hesitated, “Well, I right near did but--things didn’t work out and I didn’t get to go. It was a funny sort of business. It all started about the smallest thing you can think of. It all started about a penny.” “A penny?” “That’s what did it--one little penny. That’s why I didn’t go ’way from here and all, like I intended.” “Tell me about it, man,” exclaimed his companion. He looked at his watch impatiently. “I’d like to hear the story.” Hemmick sat for a moment, distorting his mouth around the cigar.