His progress through the grades and the high school was intermittent. Often he had to stop for months at a time to earn money for their living. In turn he was newsboy, bootblack, and messenger boy. He drove a delivery wagon for a grocer, ushered at a theater, was even a copyholder in the proofroom of a newspaper. Hard work kept him thin, but he was like a lath for toughness. Seven weeks after he was graduated from the high school his mother died. The day of the funeral a real estate dealer called to offer three, hundred dollars for the lots in the river bottom bought some years earlier by Mrs. Farnum. Jeff put the man off. It was too late now to do his mother any good. She had had to struggle to the last for the bread she ate. He wondered why the good things in life were so unevenly distributed. Twice during the next week Jeff was approached with offers for his lots. The boy was no fool. He found out that the land was wanted by a new railroad pushing into Verden. Within three days he had sold direct to the agent of the company for nine hundred dollars. With what he could earn on the side and in his summers he thought that sum would take him through college. CHAPTER 2 I wonder if Morgan, the Pirate, When plunder had glutted his heart, Gave part of the junk from the ships he had sunk To help some Museum of Art; If he gave up the role of “collector of toll” And became a Collector of Art? I wonder if Genghis, the Butcher, When he'd trampled down nations like grass, Retired with his share when he'd lost all his hair And started a Sunday-school class; If he turned his past under and used half his plunder In running a Sunday-school class? I wonder if Roger, the Rover, When millions in looting he'd made, Built libraries grand on the jolly mainland To honor success and “free trade”; If he founded a college of nautical knowledge Where Pirates could study their trade? I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, If Pirates were ever the same, Ever trying to lend a respectable trend To the jaunty old buccaneer game Or is it because of our Piracy Laws That philanthropists enter the game? --Wallace Irwin, in Life. THE REBEL IS INSTRUCTED IN THE WORSHIP OF THE GOD-OF-THINGS-AS-THEY-ARE Part 1 Jeff was digging out a passage in the “Apology” when there came a knock at the door of his room. The visitor was his cousin, James, and he radiated such an air of prosperity that the plain little bedroom shrank to shabbiness. James nodded in offhand fashion as he took off his overcoat. “Hello, Jeff! Thought I'd look you up. Got settled in your diggings, eh?” Before his host could answer he rattled on: “Just ran in for a moment. Had the devil of a time to find you. What's the object in getting clear off the earth?” “Cheaper,” Jeff explained.