oth tool, and having used him, had deliberately
passed him, standing fine and patient in the line, to throw the mantle
over the corrupt and unspeakable Bangor.

By heavens, it was not to be endured. Was it for this that he had left
Blaines College, where a career of honorable usefulness lay before him;
that he had sacrificed personal wishes and ambitions to the insistent
statement that his City and State had need of him; that he had stood ten
months in the line without a murmur; and that at last, confronted with
the necessity of choosing between the wishes of his personal intimates
and the larger good, he had courageously chosen the latter and suffered
in silence the suspicion of having played false with the best friends he
had in the world? Was it for this that he had lost his valuable
assistant, whose place he could never hope to fill?--for this that he
was referred to habitually by an evening contemporary as the Plonny Neal
organ?

He was thoroughly disgusted with newspaper work this morning, disgusted
with the line, disgusted with hopeful efforts to uplift the people. What
did his _Post_ work really amount to?--unremitting toil, the ceaseless
forcing up of immature and insincere opinions, no thanks or
appreciation anywhere, and at the end the designation of the Plonny Neal
organ. What did the uplift amount to? Could progress really ever be
forced a single inch? And why should he wear out his life in the
selfless service of those who, it seemed, acknowledged no obligation to
him? As for public life, if this was a sample, the less he saw of it the
better. He would take anything in the world sooner than a career of
hypocrisy, double-dealing and treachery, of dirty looting in the name of
the public good, of degrading traffic with a crew of liars and
confidence men.

But through all the young man's indignation and resentment there ran an
unsteadying doubt, a miserable doubt of himself. Had his motives in the
reformatory matter been as absolutely spotless as he had charmed himself
into believing?... What manner of man was he? Did he really have any
permanent convictions about anything?... Was it possible, was it
thinkable or conceivable, that he was a complaisant invertebrate whom
the last strong man that had his ear could play upon like a flute?

West passed a most unhappy morning. But at lunch, at the club, it was
his portion to have his buoyant good-humor completely restored to him.
He fell in with ancient boon com