unds and perplexities the world offers, it also offers a
cure for each one if we know where to seek it. Suddenly he gets a vision
of the whole race of men, campers out on a swinging ball, brothers in
the common motherhood of earth. Born out of the same inexplicable soil
bred to the same problems of star and wind and sun, what absurdity of
civilization is it that has robbed men of this sense of kinship? Why he
himself, he feels, could enter a Bedouin tent or an Eskimo snow-hut and
find some bond of union with the inmates. The other night, he reflects,
he saw moving pictures of some Fiji natives, and could read in their
genial grinning faces the same human impulses he knew in himself. What
have men done to cheat themselves of the enjoyment of this amazing
world? "We've been cheated!" he cries, to the stenographer's horror.

He thinks of his friends, his partners, his employees, of conductors on
trains and waiters in lunchrooms and drivers of taxicabs. He thinks, in
one amazing flash of realization, of all the men and women he has ever
seen or heard of--how each one nourishes secretly some little rebellion,
some dream of a wider, freer life, a life less hampered, less mean, less
material. He thinks how all men yearn to cross salt water, to scale
peaks, to tramp until weary under a hot sun. He hears the Peace, in its
far northern valley, brawling among stones, and his heart is very low.

"Mr. Edwards to see you," says the stenographer.

"I'm sorry, sir," says Edwards, "but I've had the offer of another job
and I think I shall accept it. It's a good thing for a chap to get a
chance----"

My friend slips the key ring back in his pocket.

"What's this?" he says. "Nonsense! When you've got a good job, the thing
to do is to keep it. Stick to it, my boy. There's a great future for you
here. Don't get any of those fool ideas about changing around from one
thing to another."

"OWD BOB"

CHAPTER I

(INTRODUCES OUR HERO)

Loitering perchance on the western pavement of Madison avenue, between
the streets numbered 38 and 39, and gazing with an observant eye upon
the pedestrians passing southward, you would be likely to see, about
8:40 o'clock of the morning, a gentleman of remarkable presence
approaching with no bird-like tread. This creature, clad in a suit of
subfuse respectable weave, bearing in his hand a cane of stout timber
with a right-angled hornblende grip, and upon his head a hat of rich
texture, would prob