he
poor? How do you classify yourself?"

"You do me a cruel wrong, Morris, a cruel wrong. You read my sign on the
outer wall? Well, that's a bluff. There's nothing in real estate, _per
se_, as old Doc Bridges used to say at college. And the loan business
has all gone to the bad,--people are too rich; farmers are rolling in
real money and have it to lend. There was nothing for little Willie in
petty brokerages. I'm scheming--promoting--and I take my slice off of
everything that passes."

"That certainly sounds well. You've learned fast. You had an ambition to
be a poet when you were in college. I think I still have a few pounds of
your verses in my traps somewhere."

Balcomb threw up his head and laughed in self-pity.

"I believe I _was_ bitten with the literary tarantula for a while, but
I've lived it down, I hope. Prexy used to predict a bright literary
future for me in those days. You remember, when I made Phi Beta Kappa,
how he took both my hands and wept over me. 'Balcomb,' he says, 'you're
an honor to the college.' I suppose he'd weep again, if he knew I'd only
forgotten about half the letters of the Greek alphabet,--left them, as
one might say, several thousand parasangs to the rear in my mad race for
daily sustenance. Well, I may not leave any vestiges on the sands of
time, but, please God, I shan't die hungry,--not if I keep my health.
Dear old Prexy! He was a nice old chump, though a trifle somnolent in
his chapel talks."

"Well, we needn't pull the planks out of the bridge we've crossed on. I
got a lot out of college that I'm grateful for. They did their best for
us," said Morris.

"Oh, yes; it was well enough, but if I had it to do over, Tippecanoe
wouldn't see me; not much! It isn't what you learn in college, it's the
friendships you make and all that sort of thing that counts. A western
man ought to go east to college and rub up against eastern fellows. The
atmosphere at the freshwater colleges is pretty jay. Fred Waters left
Tippecanoe and went to Yale and got in with a lot of influential fellows
down there,--chaps whose fathers are in big things in New York. Fred has
a fine position now, just through his college pull, and first thing you
know, he'll pick up an heiress and be fixed for life. Fred's a winner
all right."

"He's also an ass," said Leighton. "I remember him of old."

"An ass of the large gray and long-eared species,--I'll grant you that,
all right enough; but look here, old man, you'