“Welcome!” he exclaimed with his mouth full of toast. “You shall be our Michelangelo, our Sir Christopher Wren! I see, as in a dream,” he went on as he thrust his fork into a poached egg, “I see our fair city adorned with the noble fruits of the genius of Bruce Storrs, the prince of architects. You will require a fleet of Plantagenets to whirl you from one rising edifice to another. I might make you a special price on six cars--but this must be confidential.” “I really want to get into a good office, and I’m not expecting to be taken right into the firm,” said Bruce, laughing. “It will take me a year or two to get acquainted, and then I’d like to set up for myself.” “Certainly a worthy ambition, Bruce. It’s a good thing I’m here on the ground to give you the true dope on the people who count in this teeming village. The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and there’s danger of getting pinched between the old hard-boiled bunch and the birds of gayer plumage who flew in when no one was looking and insist on twittering sweetly on our tallest trees. Let me be your social booster; no one better fitted. I’m the only scion of one of our earliest and noblest families. My grandfather’s bank busted in seventy-three with a loud bang and I had an uncle who was indicted for embezzling public funds. He hid in Patagonia and died there in sinful splendor at a ripe old age. Talk about the aristocracy--I’m it! I derive a certain prestige among what you might call the paralytic group from the fact that my ancestors were mixed up in all the financial calamities that ever befell this town. But it’s the crowd that are the spenders--build the lordly palaces and treat the Eighteenth Amendment with the contempt it so richly deserves--that you want to train with. Your profession is cursed with specialization and I’d warn you against public work. Too much politics there for one of your fastidious nature. Our best man in domestic architecture is Freeman--he’s a Tech man, about seven years ahead of our class. He has a weakness for sun parlors with antique Italian fountains that are made for him special by a pottery right here in town. You’re sure to like Freeman; he’s a whist fiend, but otherwise he’s a decent chap. His wife and Maybelle are chums and we play around together a good deal.” While listening to Henderson’s rambling talk Bruce had been turning over the pages of a memorandum book. He asked about several architects whose names he had noted. Henderson described them succinctly, praising or deriding them for reasons which struck Bruce as not necessarily final as to their merits. “I don’t expect to land a job the first day,” said Bruce. “I may have to go through the list before I find what I want.”