Forgetful of my character as a workman; miserably callous to the claim of duty to find employment, if possible; and in any case, to live honestly the life which I had assumed, I entered the wide-open, hospitable doors, and was soon lost to other thought, and even to the sense of shame, in the absorbing interest of favorite books. In the lonely tramp across the mountains of Pike County I walked sometimes for miles with no opportunity of quenching a growing thirst, when suddenly I came upon a mountain-spring that trickled from the solid rock, and formed a little pool in its shade, where I threw myself on the ground, and, with a glorious sense of relief, drank deeply of its cold water. The analogy is a weak one, for the physical relief and the momentary pleasure but faintly suggest the prolonged intellectual delight, after two months of unslackened thirst. Here was an inexhaustible supply, and there were polite librarians who responded cheerfully to your slightest wish; and, best of all, there was an inner door which disclosed a reading-room, where perfect quiet reigned, and comfortable chairs invited you to grateful ease, and shelves on shelves of books were free to your eager hand. To pass from one writer to another, among the volumes that lay on the table, lingering over long-loved passages, or dipping lightly here and there, absorbing pleasure from the very touch of the book and the sight of the well-printed page, held by the charm of some characteristic phrase, and finally to sink into the folds of an easy-chair with a store of books within ready reach--what delight can equal such satisfaction of a craving sense? There through the livelong day I sit, and through the early evening, until I am roused by the sound of slamming shutters which is the janitor's signal for nine o'clock, the hour of closing for the night. Taking my hat and stick I walk out into the gas-lit street, and into our modern world, with its artificialities and its social and labor problems; and I remember that I am a proletaire out of a job, and that with shameless neglect of duty I have been idling through priceless hours. Crestfallen, I hurry to my boarding-house, longing, like any conscious-stricken inebriate, to lose remorse in sleep. As I walk to my lodgings a certain fellow-feeling warms me with fresh sympathy for my kind. I have met with my first reverse, not a serious one, but still the search for work for the first time in my experience has been fruitless through most of a morning. Instead of persevering industriously, I yield weakly to the desire to forget my present lot, and the duty it entails, in the intoxication that beckons to me from free books. That happens to be my temptation, and I fall.