ss
comes to the fellow who goes after it in the right way."

"And suppose a fellow doesn't care to go after it?"

"He stays a nobody."

James was in evening dress, immaculate from clean-shaven cheek to patent
leather shoes. He had a well-filled figure and a handsome face with
a square, clean-cut jaw. His cousin admired the young fellow's virile
competency. It was his opinion that James K. Farnum was the last person
he knew likely to remain a nobody. He knew how to conform, to take the
color of his thinking from the dominant note of his environment, but he
had, too, a capacity for leadership.

"I'm not going to believe you if I can help it," Jeff answered with a
smile.

The upper classman shrugged. "You'd better take my advice, just the
same. At college you don't get a chance to make two starts. You're sized
up from the crack of the pistol."

"I haven't the money to make a splurge even if I wanted to."

"Borrow."

"Who from?" asked Jeff ungrammatically.

"You can rustle it somewhere. I'm borrowing right now."

"It's different with you. I'm used to doing without things. Don't worry
about me. I'll get along."

James came with a touch of embarrassment to the real object of his
visit. "I say, Jeff. I've had a tough time to win out. You won't--you'll
not say anything--let anything slip, you know--something that might set
the fellows guessing."

His cousin was puzzled. "About what?"

"About the reason why Mother and I left Shelby and came out to the
coast."

"What do you take me for?"

"I knew you wouldn't. Thought I'd mention it for fear you might make a
slip."

"I don't chatter about the private affairs of my people."

"Course not. I knew you didn't." The junior's hand rested caressingly
on the shoulder of the other. "Don't get sore, Jeff. I didn't doubt you.
But that thing haunts me. Some day it will come out and ruin me when I'm
near the top of the ladder."

The freshman shook his head. "Don't worry about it, James. Just tell
the plain truth if it comes out. A thing like that can't hurt you
permanently. Nothing can really injure you that does not come from your
own weakness."

"That's all poppycock," James interrupted fretfully. "Just that sort of
thing has put many a man on the skids. I tell you a young fellow needs
to start unhampered. If the fellows got onto it that my father had been
in the pen because he was a defaulting bank cashier they would drop me
like a hot potato."

"None but the sn