find something else."

"No! no! If you drive my carriage in New Orleans you'll never do
anything else."

"Why, Doctor, there are men standing in the front ranks to-day, who"--

"Yes, yes," replied the Doctor, impatiently, "I know,--who began with
menial labor; but--I can't explain it to you, Richling, but you're not
of the same sort; that's all. I say it without praise or blame; you must
have work adapted to your abilities."

"My abilities!" softly echoed Richling. Tears sprang to his eyes. He
held out his open palms,--"Doctor, look there." They were lacerated. He
started to rise, but the Doctor prevented him.

"Let me go," said Richling, pleadingly, and with averted face. "Let me
go. I'm sorry I showed them. It was mean and foolish and weak. Let me
go."

But Dr. Sevier kept a hand on him, and he did not resist. The Doctor
took one of the hands and examined it. "Why, Richling, you've been
handling freight!"

"There was nothing else."

"Oh, bah!"

"Let me go," whispered Richling. But the Doctor held him.

"You didn't do this on the steam-boat landing, did you, Richling?"

The young man nodded. The Doctor dropped the hand and looked upon its
owner with set lips and steady severity. When he spoke he said:--

"Among the negro and green Irish deck-hands, and under the oaths and
blows of steam-boat mates! Why, Richling!" He turned half away in his
rotary chair with an air of patience worn out.

"You thought I had more sense," said Richling.

The Doctor put his elbows upon his desk and slowly drew his face upward
through his hands. "Mr. Richling, what is the matter with you?" They
gazed at each other a long moment, and then Dr. Sevier continued: "Your
trouble isn't want of sense. I know that very well, Richling." His voice
was low and became kind. "But you don't get the use of the sense you
have. It isn't available." He bent forward: "Some men, Richling, carry
their folly on the surface and their good sense at the bottom,"--he
jerked his thumb backward toward the distant Narcisse, and added, with a
stealthy frown,--"like that little fool in yonder. He's got plenty of
sense, but he doesn't load any of it on deck. Some men carry their sense
on top and their folly down below"--

Richling smiled broadly through his dejection, and touched his own
chest. "Like this big fool here," he said.

"Exactly," said Dr. Sevier. "Now you've developed a defect of the
memory. Your few merchantable qualities have been so long