ring the political season did very well; after that
there came a slump and the city editor let him out; the other papers had
no room for him, of course--they were dropping men--and he couldn't get
a thing of any sort to do, though he rustled hard. You know Coles and
Harrison, the boys call them the Stanford Employment Bureau, they have
found quite a number of places for the fellows; but this particular man
was evidently up against it, and there wasn't the smallest symptom of a
job. He managed to get something in the Sunday supps, but barely enough
to keep him alive, and nothing certain. Meanwhile he pawned his things
gradually and grew pretty well discouraged. I remember I heard him say
once, and his laugh covered more than I guessed at the time, that Jewish
holidays ought to be prohibited by state law, since closed doors under
the three balls meant some Stanford man's going hungry. He got down to
bedrock and finally reached the point where he had gone without three
successive meals. Pretty rough, wasn't it?"

"I should say so," answered Williamson. His own distress was trivial
beside a trouble like this.

Lincoln fed the alcohol flame burning around the omelet just brought
them.

"It seems to me," he went on, "that there is a case in which a man is
justified in asking help; he ought to ask it long before he gets to such
a pass as that; if he lets his pride prevent him it's his own fault. We
certainly have carried away from the University something of the spirit
we learned there. I know for my part that such a man has a claim on
whatever help I can give him, and as a Stanford man he has a right to
seek it. Don't you agree with me?"

Williamson had been waiting through the course of the dinner for a
chance to advance an identical theory. He could not have hoped for a
better opening.

"Indeed I do," he said. "You have the old Stanford spirit as strong as
ever, haven't you, Lew? Now I want to tell _you_ a story."

At a table near them a woman who looked as though she had a history, one
that dated far back at that, began to sing--one of those ballads about
home and the wandering boy. The two men tipped back in their chairs and
listened to the song. Williamson was planning what he should say as soon
as it was ended. It would be better to tell the whole thing.

During the applause that followed, Lincoln dropped his cigarette into
his coffee cup and started to speak. Williamson, unwilling that another
subject should fo