ck exposed for sale caused me annoyance. Of course
my salary as a clerk brought me into no unfavourable comparison with the
clock; and I doubt if I could make you understand my sometimes feeling
when I passed Tiffany's window that I should like to smash the clock."

"I met Ethel frequently in society, dancing with her, and sitting next
her at dinners. And by the time I had dined at her own house, and walked
several afternoons with her, my lot as a six-hundred-dollar clerk
began to seem very sad to me. I wrote verses about it, and about other
subjects also. From an evening passed with Ethel, I would go next
morning to the office and look at the other clerks. One of them was
fifty-five, and he still received six hundred dollars--his wages for the
last thirty years. I was then twenty-one; and though I never despaired
to the extent of believing that years would fail to increase my value
to the firm by a single cent, still, for what could I hope? If my salary
were there and then to be doubled, what kind of support was twelve
hundred dollars to offer Ethel, with her dresses, and her dinners, and
her father's carriage? For two years I was wretchedly unhappy beneath
the many hours of gaiety that came to me, as to every young man."

"Those two years we could have been in Michigan," said Ethel, "had you
understood."

"I know. But understanding, I believe that I should do the same again.
At the office, when not busy, I wrote more poetry, and began also
to write prose, which I found at the outset less easy. When my first
writings were accepted (they were four sets of verses upon the Summer
Resort) I felt that I could soon address Ethel; for I had made ten
dollars outside my salary. Had she not been in Europe that July, I
believe that I should have spoken to her at once. But I sent her the
paper; and I have the letter that she wrote in reply."

"I"--began Ethel. But she stopped.

"Yes, I know now that you kept the verses," said Richard. "My next
manuscript, however, was rejected. Indeed, I went on offering my
literary productions nearly every week until the following January
before a second acceptance came. It was twenty five dollars this time,
and almost made me feel again that I could handsomely support Ethel.
But not quite. After the first charming elation at earning money with
my pen, those weeks of refusal had caused me to think more soberly. And
though I was now bent upon becoming an author and leaving Nassau Street,
I bu