ve your mark on 'em, and, by
and by, they're dumped at your door. They may be damaged by dirt and
vermin, but you've got to take 'em.

"'After all, Harry, why should a young man whose education has cost
a hundred thousand dollars, if a cent, be giving up his life to
folly? You're too smart to spend the most of your time looking
beautiful--trying to excite the admiration of women and the envy
of men. That might do in some of the old countries where the
people are as dumb as cattle and are capable only of the emotion of
awe and need professional gentlemen to excite it, and to feed upon
their substance. Here the people have their moments of weakness, but
mostly they are pretty level-headed. They judge men by what they do,
not by what they look like. The professional gentleman is first an
object of curiosity and then an object of scorn. He's not for us.
Young man, I knew your father and your grandfather. I like you and
want you to know that I am speaking kindly, but you ought to go to
work.'

"'Mr. Potter, he said, 'upon my word, sir, I'm going to work one of
these days--at something--I don't know what.'

"'The sooner the better,' I said. 'Work is the thing that makes
men--nothing else. In Pointview everybody used to work. Now here are
some facts for your genealogy that you haven't discovered. Your
grandfather and grandmother raised a family of nine children and never
had a servant--think of that. Your grandmother made clothes for the
family and did all the work of the house. She was a doctor, a nurse, a
teacher, a spinner, a weaver, a knitter, a sewer, a cook, a
washerwoman, a gentle and tender mother. Now we are beginning to rot
with idleness.

"'Let me tell you a story of a modern lady of Pointview.'

"Then I told him of the Doctor's call on the pimpled queen at
midnight, and added:

"'Think of that! Think of the fathomless depths of vanity and
selfishness that lie under that pimple. It's a monument more sublime
than the Matterhorn. Think of the poor fellow that has to marry that
human millstone, and be the clerk of her charge-it department.'

"'I can think of no worse luck, really,' said he. 'I wonder who it
is!'

"'Doctors never give names,' I said. 'But you might look for the
little black square of court-plaster."

"'By Jove!' he exclaimed. 'I shall look with interest.'

"The ball came off, and Roger got there, and so did the lady and the
square of black court-plaster; and that night Harry began a new st