Mr. James Elwell was sealed in a pleasant apartment in one of the many large apartment buildings of Chicago; the windows were open to admit the soft evening air that blew, strong and cool, from its passage over the great lake. The room was comfortably, even luxuriously furnished, and James Elwell, seated in an easy-chair by one of the large windows, with his slippered feet elevated to a comfortable degree, and a cigar in his mouth, was in perfect keeping with the rest of the room. Rather a handsome man was Mr. James Elwell, though the lines were deeply graven in his face, and his dark hair was slightly streaked here and there with gray. He was what is generally termed a rising young man, though his friends would have been puzzled to have told what he had risen from. All they knew of him was that he had got on ’Change a twelvemonth before, and had been on ’Change ever since. He had not occupied these pleasant apartments at that time; his apartments then consisted of one room in a South Side boarding house; but Mr. James Elwell had done a great deal in that year. For, although he had been limited at first in his dealings on ’Change, he had speculated with an audacity that rather astonished the old heads. “Too bad,” he muttered, as he impatiently knocked the ash from his cigar; “too bad, but it’s just my luck. Now that I have fallen on my feet for the first time in my life, I am tied up by that old business, and likely at any time to be pulled down again.” And then a look of pity, almost sorrow, overspread his face, and he murmured: “Poor little thing! I wonder if she still mourns for me?” Just then his meditations were interrupted by a thunderous knock at the door. He called out “Come in!” and half arose from his chair with an expectant look upon his face, which quickly changed to one of indifference as the intruder entered the room. “Hello, Coleman!” he said. “What blew you around here?” “Hello!” replied his visitor, who was a short, fat, jolly-looking little man, with shrewd eyes and a turned-up nose. “This is a nice state of affairs. What’s the matter? Got the blues, or only thinking of how you’ll do them up on the board to-morrow?” “Why, what is the matter?” inquired Elwell placidly. “Don’t things suit you to-night?” “No, they don’t,” replied his visitor coolly. “It never suits me to mope, or to see my friends mope. Life is too short for that.” “Well, you have a reputation to sustain,” said Elwell, with a touch of contempt in his quiet tone. “Every one expects you to be a jolly dog.” “Quite right, too,” said Mr. Peter Coleman, who was commonly called Short, or Shorty, by his intimate friends. “I get more enjoyment out of life in one week by being jolly, than I would in a dozen years if I carried a face as long as some folks,” and he laughed in proof of his assertion. “Quite a compliment to the length of my visage, I suppose,” said Elwell quietly.