That day marked the beginning of the change with John Norton. He felt that this new position of his was held at the expense of manhood and self-respect. This left its mark on his character. Alertness and energy seemed to leave him as the ambition faded out of his life. In his despair he became morbid. His was the uncertainty of a man who feels he has failed without knowing how or where. He told himself the day was coming to him just as it had come to Gordon, when his services would no longer be of value to any one,—his little contribution to the world's progress having been made he would be discarded, he would drift farther and farther out of the moving current of things until he finally reached the great Sargasso of human energy where the wrecks stay, a derelict. At first he had preferred to look upon the position as temporary, as a convenience to serve his end until a better offered, but nothing better did offer and he finally lost all idea of another place. His only fear was that he might be discharged, and he knew that a week's idleness would be a calamity. Try as he would he could not get ahead. It was with difficulty that he managed to keep up his life insurance, which was the only provision he was able to make for the future. It was probable that at this time neither his economies nor his expenditures were ordered with any particular intelligence or to any practical ends. His ability was that of the average man and he sacrificed himself to the average opinion. It was necessary for him to live in a certain way; his home must be in a respectable neighborhood, his wife and children must be well dressed. These were the essentials. Sometimes he talked with Alice of giving up the struggle. He had a vague notion that if he went into the country, where he could work with his hands, he would do better and get larger returns for his toil. But it always ended in talk; nothing ever came of it; his point of view was the extreme one. He felt that he belonged to another race and time, with different ideals, different capacities and different aptitudes. The men he knew were all of the same sort. With the brawn of pioneers and soldiers wasting in their arms they were clutching pens pathetically enough, or selling silks and millinery when they had much rather be felling trees. But the trees are all felled, the worlds work as far as it can be done by hand is finished, and these primitive natures, who in a wilderness would have been all sufficient to themselves, retain but a doubtful utility. Alice never really knew how difficult it was for him,—he kept that to himself.