was
nervous, weak, and diffident.

"I am now," he said, "a salesman in a dry goods store. But I have only
held the job three months and do not expect that I will be permitted to
remain more than a week or so longer. I have been warned several times by
the floor-walker that my errors will cost me my position. God knows, I do
my best to succeed in the work, but it is like all the other positions
I've held. Somehow or other I don't seem to be able to give satisfaction.
While I am on my guard and as alert as I know how to be against one of the
things I've been told not to do, I am just as sure as sunshine to go and
do some other thing which is against the rules. If I don't do something
against the rules, then I forget to do something I was told to do. If I
don't forget to do something I've been told to do, then I am quite likely
to make some outlandish mistake that no one ever thought of framing a rule
to fit. The result of it all is that in about another week or, at the
most, two, I'll be out of employment again. I have tried driving a
delivery wagon. I've tried grocery stores. I've tried doing collections. I
began once as clerk in a bank. Immediately after leaving college, I
started in as newspaper reporter. I've been a newsboy on railroad trains.
I sold candies and peanuts in a fair ground. I have been night clerk in a
hotel. I've been steward on a steamboat. I've been a shipping clerk in a
publishing house, and I have been fired from every job I have ever had.
True enough, I've hated them all, but, nevertheless; I have tried to do my
best in them. Why I cannot succeed with any of them, I don't know, and yet
I have a feeling that somehow, somewhere, sometime, I will find something
to do that I will love, and that I can do well."

"Music," we said, "unquestionably music."

"Do you think I could?" he said wistfully. "Music has been my passion all
my life long. It has been my one joy, my one solace in all my wanderings
and all my failures. But I have always been afraid I would fail also in
that, and, if I should, it would break my heart sure. But if you think I
have the talent, then I shall give my whole time, my whole thought, my
whole energy to music hereafter."

It was rather late in life for this young man to begin a musical career.
While he had always been fond of music, he had been sent to college for a
classical course by parents to whom a classical course meant everything
that was desirable in an education. He h