Some time ago I read an exceedingly clever poem in some magazine, describing the sufferings of Pierrot, that inimitable and fascinating French modification of Harlequin, ever vainly seeking his elusive Columbine. "I, who am Pierrot, pity me! Oh pity me!" he cries in his helpless desire for sympathy. Sometimes I feel like Pierrot, though my suffering is not as his. I hesitate, somehow, at telling my own story lest I be misunderstood or offend in some manner. I have some courage and I'm not asking sympathy in any weak or maudlin way. I am but stating a case, a case with a problem attached and one which I have, so far, been unable to solve, though the quality of my life must depend upon the nature of the solution. I am neither whining nor begging. The story may or may not possess a degree of interest. I wish I could tell it better. I am thirty-four years of age, and I think I can fairly say, am well educated; so thorough was my college course and so diligently did I apply myself, that I excel most graduates in the extent of my real acquirements. I have forgotten neither my classics nor my mathematics and I read and speak French and German fluently. I keep myself familiar with what occurs in the field of literature. I chance to have a retentive memory and my perceptions are, it seems to me, at least reasonably keen. I am six feet in height and, absurd as it may seem in me to say it, am a well formed, well set up man. I have clean cut features, rather aquiline than otherwise, grey eyes, light hair, which curls slightly, and a fair complexion. I am an athlete, trained from boyhood, and have borne myself, I hope, as a man should in encounters in the southwest, where brawn has for the moment counted for more than brains. I describe myself thus directly, but not conceitedly, because I want to be known as you see me, for just what I am. To discredit myself unjustly in the least, to tell less than the truth, would mar the justice of the premises upon which I make my case and from which I make clear, or at least try to make clear, the nature of the problem which has proved too difficult for me. I have had ambitions, hopes and love. I have known men and women. I have become familiar with the affairs of the world. I am naturally of a buoyant and hopeful disposition and yet I, a strong man, am to-day perplexed, sad, almost hopeless. I have no incumbrances. A healthy, educated man of thirty-four, with no burden of the ordinary sort, and yet disheartened! I can imagine you saying, with an inflection of either pity or contempt. Well, what I have told of myself is the truth and I must take the consequences.