id work which caused me to be
recommended for an A.M. degree. But I felt that I had so little in
comparison with others, that I was actually ashamed to receive it.
Socially, however, that extra year was a very delightful one for me.

During two summers as an undergraduate, I worked at Nantasket Beach
selling tickets in the bathing pavilion for $50 a month, besides room and
board. I made good, much to the surprise of the superintendent.

HUNTING A JOB

So then I was finally through college in June, 1906. It is almost
incredible how very childlike I still was, so far as my attitude toward
the world was concerned. I had high ideals, and I wanted to get into
business, but where or how I did not know. Moreover, my money was gone. A
student gave me a note with which I intended to get his previous summer's
job as a starter on an electric car line owned by a railway company. The
position was abolished, however, so I became a conductor on a suburban
line. Unfortunately, my motorman was a high-strung, nervous Irishman, who
made me so nervous that I often could not give the signals properly, and
who made life generally unpleasant for me. He professed a liking for me
and did prevent one or two serious accidents. At the same time, he said I
was the first 'square' conductor he had ever worked with, and, no doubt,
he missed his 'extra,' After three weeks of him, and of the general
public's idea that I must, of course, be knocking down fares, I resigned.
However, the superintendent offered me a job as 'inspector' of registers
on the main line, a job that he was just creating. When the rush was over
after Labor Day, I was again out of a job. I might have secured a
clerkship with the railway company, but I was foolish enough not to try.

A few weeks later found me established in the district office of a
correspondence school not very far from New York City as a representative.
At first I gave good promise of success, but I lost my enthusiasm and
belief in the school and became ashamed to be numbered as one of its
workers because of the character of most of the local field force at that
time and before my time. The reputation of the school in that place was
not very good. Also I was not successful in collecting the monthly
payments from those who had hard luck stories or had been lied to by the
man who had enrolled them. By the end of two months I was ready to quit,
but my immediate superior begged me to stay, in order to keep him fro