our head. A vacation just now
would only aggravate the difficulty. I wouldn't have a moment's peace
knowing this South American business might be bungled. I'd worry myself
to death."

* * * * *

The funeral of Mr. Crandall was certainly one of the most splendid
spectacles the city had seen for many a day. The papers all spoke
highly of the qualities of the dead manufacturer, whose growth had been
typical of the growth of the city. The eloquent minister spoke of the
inscrutable ways of Providence in cutting off a man in his prime, and
in the very height of his usefulness.

THE FAILURE OF BRADLEY.

The skater lightly laughs and glides,
Unknowing that beneath the ice
On which he carves his fair device
A stiffened corpse in silence glides.

It glareth upward at his play;
Its cold, blue, rigid fingers steal
Beneath the tracings of his heel.
It floats along and floats away.

--Unknown Poem.

"If I only had the courage," said Bradley, as he looked over the stone
parapet of the embankment at the dark waters of the Thames as they
flashed for a moment under the glitter of the gaslight and then
disappeared in the black night to flash again farther down.

"Very likely I would struggle to get out again the moment I went over,"
he muttered to himself. "But if no help came it would all be done with,
in a minute. Two minutes perhaps. I'll warrant those two minutes would
seem an eternity. I would see a hundred ways of making a living, if I
could only get out again. Why can't I see one now while I _am_ out. My
father committed suicide, why shouldn't I? I suppose it runs in the
family. There seems to come a time when it is the only way out. I
wonder if he hesitated? I'm a coward, that's the trouble."

After a moment's hesitation the man slowly climbed on the top of the
stone wall and then paused again. He looked with a shudder at the
gloomy river.

"I'll do it," he cried aloud, and was about to slide down, when a hand
grasped his arm and a voice said:

"_What_ will you do?"

In the light of the gas-lamp Bradley saw a man whose face seemed
familiar and although he thought rapidly, "Where have I seen that man
before?" he could not place him.

"Nothing," answered Bradley sullenly.

"That's right," was the a