nces. One was an
irruptive craving within him to take some part in the dynamic activities
of the surrounding world. The other was the "freak" will of his late
and little-lamented uncle, from whom he had his present income, and his
future expectations of some ten millions. Adrian Van Reypen Egerton had,
as Waldemar once put it, "--one into the mayor's chair with a good name
and come out with a block of ice stock." In a will whose cynical humor
was the topic of its day, Mr. Egerton jeered posthumously at the public
which he had despoiled, and promised restitution, of a sort, through his
heir.

"Therefore," he had written, "I give and bequeath to the said Adrian Van
Reypen Egerton Jones, the residue of my property, the principal to be
taken over by him at such time as he shall have completed five years of
continuous residence in New York City. After such time the virus of the
metropolis will have worked through his entire being. He will squander
his unearned and undeserved fortune, thus completing the vicious circle,
and returning the millions acquired by my political activities, in a
poisoned shower upon the city, for which, having bossed, bullied and
looted it, I feel no sentiment other than contempt."

"And now," remarked Waldemar in his heavy, rumbling voice, "you aspire
to disappoint that good old man."

"It's only human nature, you know," said Average Jones. "When a man
puts a ten-million-dollar curse on you and suggests that you haven't the
backbone of a shrimp, you--you--"

"--naturally yearn to prove him a liar," supplied Bertram.

"Exactly. Anyway, I've no taste for dissipation, either moral or
financial. I want action; something to do. I'm bored in this infernal
city."

"The wail of the unslaked romanticist," commented Bertram.

"Romanticist nothing!" protested the other. "My ambitions are practical
enough if I could only get 'em stirred up."

"Exactly. Boredom is simply romanticism with a morning-after thirst.
You're panting for romance, for something bizarre. Egypt and St.
Petersburg and Buenos Ayres and Samoa have all become commonplace to
you. You've overdone them. That's why you're back here in New York
waiting with stretched nerves for the Adventure of Life to cat-creep up
from behind and toss the lariat of rainbow dreams over your shoulders."

Waldemar laughed. "Not a bad diagnosis. Why don't you take up a hobby,
Mr. Jones?"

"What kind of a hobby?"

"Any kind. The club is full of hobby-ride