u know something of my story, you alone of all this grinding city.
You saw me in college and in the law school, where on a coolie diet I
did a man's work. But even you don't know how close to hard pan I was
during those seven years,--down to crackers and water for weeks at a
time."

"You don't mean to say you went hungry?"

"Hungry?" laughed Donaldson. "Man dear, there were days when I was
starving! I 've been to classes when I was so weak I could n't push my
pencil. I was hungry, and cold, and lonesome, but at that time I had
my good warm, well-fed dreams, so I did n't mind so much. And always I
thought it would be better next year, but it was n't. None of the
things that come to some men fell to me; it continued the same old
pitiless grind until I began to expect it. Then I said to myself that
it would be different when I got through. But it was n't. I finished,
and you are the only pleasant recollection I have of all that past.
You used to let me sit by your fire and now and then you brought out
cake they had sent you from home."

"Good Lord," groaned Barstow, "why did n't you let a fellow know?"

"Why should I let you know? It was my fight. But I 've watched by the
hour your every move about the room, so hungry that my pulse increased
or decreased as you neared or retreated from the closet where you kept
that cake. I 'll admit that this condition was a good deal my
fault,--I had a cursed false pride that forbade my doing for grub what
some of the fellows did. Then, too, I was an optimist; it was coming
out all right in the end. But it did n't and it has n't."

Donaldson paused.

"Am I boring you, old man?"

"No! No! Go on. But if I had suspected--"

"You could not then have been the friend you were to me,--I 'd have cut
you dead. And understand, I 'm not recalling this now for the purpose
of exciting sympathy. I don't deserve sympathy; I went my own gait and
cheerfully paid the cost, content with my dreams of the future. I
would n't sell one whit of myself. I wouldn't sacrifice one
extravagant belief. I would n't compromise. And I 'm glad I did n't.

"When I finished my course you lost sight of me, but it was the same
old thing over again. I refused to accept a position in a law office,
because I would n't be fettered. I had certain definite notions of how
a law practice ought to be conducted,--of certain things a decent man
ought not to do. This in turn barred me from a job offer