arship and stodgy
by habit. But Jerry, of course, would not write it and couldn't if he
would, for no man, unless lacking in sensibility, can write a true
autobiography, and least of all could Jerry do it. To commit him to
such a task would be much like asking an artist to paint himself into
his own landscape. Jerry could have painted nothing but impressions of
externals, leaving out perforce the portrait of himself which is the
only thing that matters. So I, Roger Canby, bookworm, pedagogue and
student of philosophy, now recite the history of the Great Experiment
and what came of it.

It is said that Solomon and Job have best spoken of the misery of man,
the former the most fortunate, the latter the most unfortunate of
creatures. And yet it seems strange to me that John Benham, the
millionaire, Jerry's father, cynic and misogynist, and Roger Canby,
bookworm and pauper, should each have arrived, through different
mental processes, at the same ideal and philosophy of life. We both
disliked women, not only disliked but feared and distrusted them,
seeing in the changed social order a menace to the peace of the State
and the home. The difference between us was merely one of condition;
for while I kept my philosophy secret, being by nature reticent and
unassertive, John Benham had both the means and the courage to put his
idealism into practice.

Life seldom makes rapid adjustments to provide for its mistakes, and
surely only the happiest kind of accident could have thrown me into
the breach when old John Benham died, for I take little credit to
myself in saying that there are few persons who could have fitted so
admirably into a difficult situation.

Curiously enough this happy accident had come from the most unexpected
source. I had tried and failed at many things since leaving the
University. I had corrected proofs in a publishing office, I had
prepared backward youths for their exams, and after attempting life in
a broker's office downtown, for which I was as little fitted as I
should have been for the conquest of the Polar regions, I found myself
one fine morning down to my last few dollars, walking the streets with
an imminent prospect of speedy starvation. The fact of death, as an
alternative to the apparently actual, did not disconcert me. I
shouldn't have minded dying in the least, were it not for the fact
that I had hoped before that event to have expounded for modern
consumption certain theories of mine upon t