After several interviews with Mr. Allis we came to an agreement that as soon as his son Thomas arrived from Europe I was to take him into partnership on equal terms and he was to pay me a bonus of three thousand dollars. A couple of weeks later my sign again came down and a new one went up, reading W. E. Stowe & Co. With three thousand dollars in the bank my mind was again at ease and we immediately looked for our new home. We were offered a very prettily furnished, nicely located house, a few blocks from my mother's, for the summer at a very low rent. We decided to take it and not look up a permanent home until fall. Our housekeeping that summer was a delightful experience and we knew we should never again be satisfied to board. We were fortunate in getting a good maid, the boy kept well, we had a cool summer, business was fairly good and we had soon forgotten the hard times of the previous winter. Of course, we were prudent in our expenditures, but we lived well and did a little entertaining. In October we rented and furnished tastefully but inexpensively a three-story and basement house, one of a new row in a pleasant street, not far from the residence of Mr. Sherman. While we did not own the house, the fact that the contents belonged to us gave us a sense of proprietorship that we had not felt in the house we had recently vacated. We had enjoyed greatly our shopping for the furnishings and felt very happy in our new home amidst our household gods. Our efficient maid was devoted to our boy and to her mistress. The housekeeping ran smoothly, and although we already began to talk of the day when we should own our home and of what that home should be, we were entirely contented and happy. As the winter approached I began to suffer, slightly at first, with muscular rheumatism. Not since the days of childhood, when I had gone through the usual category of children's diseases, had I been really ill. I always had suffered to some extent with neuralgic headaches, inherited no doubt from my mother, who was a great sufferer, and with the advent of the rheumatism these headaches became more frequent and severe. I did not regard the trouble seriously and I so enjoyed the fond nursing and petting of my wife that the pain brought its own recompense. It soon became evident, however, that I required medical attention. First one and then another physician was called upon without getting relief, the attack recurring at shorter intervals and each time seemingly more severe. I stood it through the winter, though suffering greatly, and with the warmer weather my health improved. CHAPTER VIII THE NEW PARTNER. Tom Allis, my new partner, was one of the most peculiar men I have ever met. In social life he was affable and self-possessed, but in his business intercourse exhibited confusion and a shyness that was simply amazing.