id indifferently. He was accustomed to signs of hopelessness when his
case was discussed, and was unmoved by them.

"Have you family ties?" the doctor asked. He liked the grit this man's
manner indicated.

"None that need to be counted," was the brief reply.

The doctor noticed that his patient wasted no extra words in self-pity.
"That's good! It lessens a man's worries. And--where are you staying, Mr.
Noland?"

"At the hotel, till I get a place on a farm. Before I invest I'm going to
get my bearings about farms, by working around till I get on to things.
You don't know of a place where a man could work for his board for a month
till the spring seeding and things come on do you?"

He was pushing the cuticle back from his finger-nails as they talked, and
Doctor Morgan smiled.

"Those hands don't look much like farm work," he said.

The man laughed easily. "Oh, that's habit. I'll get over it after a
while."

"You will if you work for these yahoos around here much. Why don't you
invest in land and have your own home right from the start? A man like you
can't live in the kind of houses and do the kind of work You'll find in
this country."

"I wouldn't work for myself--I've nothing to work for. When you take away
a man's chances to marry and live the normal life, you make a sluggard of
him. I've got to have a partner, and have his interests to serve as well
as my own, or I won't work, and in the meantime I want to look about a bit
before I pick up some one to go into business with. I won't be long
finding some one."

"No whine in him," was the doctor's mental comment, but what he said was:
"Well, You'll find life about here a bit dull. Come in, and make yourself
at home in this office while you're in town, and I'll see what I can do
about finding a place for you."

After he had watched his patient swing off up the street he considered the
case seriously.

"College athletics do just about that sort of thing for a boy," he said
aloud. "Now I believe Silas Chamberlain would take him for his board, and
there ain't any children there. Children's the devil in a farmhouse: no
manners, and they set right on top of you, and if you say anything the
folks are hurt. He's a nice fellow, and I intend to hold on to him. It was
like old times to talk for a while to a man that knows chemistry and
things. I'll see more of him. I'm gettin' old altogether too fast in this
blamed hole. I need some one to talk to that's more like a