st omitted; such truth as was retained for this artistic
version of a human happening was so perverted that it was falser than
the simon pure fictions with which it was interwoven. Just as the
literal truth about his success was far from being altogether to his
credit, so the literal truth as to his fall gave him little of the
vesture of the hero, and that little ill fitting, to cover his naked
humanness. Let him who has risen to material success altogether by
methods approved by the idealists, let him who has fallen from on high
with graceful majesty, without hysterical clutchings and desperate
attempts at self-salvation in disregard of the safety of others--let
either of these superhuman beings come forward with the first stone for
Norman.

Those at some distance from the falling man could afford to be romantic
and piteous over his fate. Those in his dangerous neighborhood were too
busy getting out of the way. "Man falling--stand from under!" was the
cry--how familiar it is!--and acquaintances and friends fled in mad
skedaddle. He would surely be asking favors--would be trying to borrow
money. It is no peculiarity of rats to desert a sinking ship; it is
simply an inevitable precaution in a social system modeled as yet upon
nature's cruel law of the survival of the fittest. A falling man is
first of all a warning to all other men high enough up to be able to
fall--a warning to them to take care lest they fall also where footing
is so insecure and precipices and steeps beset every path.

Norman, falling, falling, gazed round him and up and down, in dazed
wonder. He had seen many others fall. He had seen just where and just
why they missed their footing. And he had been confident that with him
no such misstep was possible. He could not believe; a little while, and
luck would turn, and up he would go again--higher than before. Many a
lawyer--to look no farther than his own profession--had through
recklessness or pride or inadvertence got the big men down on him. But
after a time they had relented or had found an exact use for him; and
fall had been succeeded by rise. Was there a single instance where a man
of good brain had been permanently downed? No, not one. Stay--Some of
these unfortunates had failed to reappear on the heights of success.
Yes, thinking of the matter, he recalled several such. Had he been
altogether right in assuming, in his days of confidence and success,
that they stayed down because they belonged d