o back to Gladys Todd beaten before I had even
come to blows with life.

The last picture I had of her was the heroic one of a woman speeding
her knight to battle. Gladys had an embarrassing way of calling me
"her knight." She stood on the platform of the Harlansburg station,
and I leaned from a window of the moving train. Beside her was Doctor
Todd waving his hat, and behind her the three Miss Minnicks with
handkerchiefs fluttering. She was very straight and very still, but I
knew what was in her thoughts. She had faith in my strength; when she
saw me again my feet would be firmly set on the ladder by which men
climb above the heads of their herded fellows. In the hours of the
long journey the picture of her was very clear to me; I seemed to be
wearing her colors as I went to the conflict; with her spirit watching
over me, I could strike no mean blow nor use my strength in any
unworthy cause.

How glad I was that she could not see me now, as I sat in the hotel
window on two legs of my chair, with my feet on the brass rail, a
figure of dejection. The glamour of my great adventure was gone. I
had come quickly to the waste places of which the Professor had spoken.
When I closed my eyes to the noisome street and the clamor, when I saw
the pines on the ridge-top clear cut against the moonlit sky, when I
heard the whippoorwill calling from the elm and the sheep bleating in
the meadow, I believed that I was marching to barren conquests and
fighting for worthless booty. But I dared not turn back.

In the morning, however, I looked at that same street with different
eyes. The thin, sluggish stream of life had swollen to a mighty
current. The raucous little medley of the night was lost in the
thunders of the awakened city. The towering canyon was swept by the
brightest of suns. I seemed to be standing idle in the midst of the
conflict, and I was eager to plunge into it. So at noon that day I
began my fight. I presented myself at the editorial rooms of _The
Record_ and asked for Mr. Carmody. In my hand I held a letter to him
from Boller, recommending me in such high terms that it seemed highly
improbable that he could refuse me his good offices. To support
Boller's assertions as to my acquirements I had also letters from
Doctor Todd and Mr. Pound. According to Doctor Todd, the journal which
secured the services of David Malcolm was to be congratulated; he
recited my high achievements, my graduation with honor