to lesser performers. He had
been, he remembered, "GIDEON, America's Foremost Native Comedian," a
title that was at once boast and challenge. That necessity was now
past, for he was a national character; any explanatory qualification
would have been an insult to the public intelligence. To the world he
was just "Gideon"; that was enough. It gave him pleasure, as he
sauntered along, to see the announcement repeated on window cards and
hoardings.

Presently he came to a window before which he paused in delighted
wonder. It was not a large window; to the casual eye of the passer-by
there was little to draw attention. By day it lighted the fractional
floor space of a little stationer, who supplemented a slim business by
a sub-agency for railroad and steamship lines; but to-night this
window seemed the framework of a marvel of coincidence. On the broad,
dusty sill inside were propped two cards: the one on the left was his
own red-lettered announcement for the week; the one at the right--oh,
world of wonders!--was a photogravure of that exact stretch of the
inner coast of Florida which Gideon knew best, which was home.

There it was, the Indian River, rippling idly in full sunlight,
palmettos leaning over the water, palmettos standing as irregular
sentries along the low, reeflike island which stretched away out of
the picture. There was the gigantic, lonely pine he knew well, and,
yes--he could just make it out--there was his own ramshackle little
pier, which stretched in undulating fashion, like a long-legged,
wading caterpillar, from the abrupt shore-line of eroded coquina into
deep water.

He thought at first that this picture of his home was some new and
delicate device put forth by his press-agent. His name on one side of
a window, his birthplace upon the other--what could be more tastefully
appropriate? Therefore, as he spelled out the reading-matter beneath
the photogravure, he was sharply disappointed. It read:

Spend this winter in balmy Florida.
Come to the Land of Perpetual Sunshine.
Golf, tennis, driving, shooting, boating, fishing, all of the best.

There was more, but he had no heart for it; he was disappointed and
puzzled. This picture had, after all, nothing to do with him. It was a
chance, and yet, what a strange chance! It troubled and upset him. His
black, round-featured face took on deep wrinkles of perplexity. The
"misery" which had hung darkly on his horizon for weeks engulfed him
witho