of money
had been made in it. Mr. Tolman was rich--very rich indeed.

And yet, as he sat in his counting-room one winter evening, he looked
his oldest. He had on his hat and his overcoat, his gloves and his fur
collar. Every one else in the establishment had gone home, and he,
with the keys in his hand, was ready to lock up and leave also. He
often stayed later than any one else, and left the keys with Mr.
Canterfield, the head clerk, as he passed his house on his way home.

Mr. Tolman seemed in no hurry to go. He simply sat and thought, and
increased his apparent age. The truth was, he did not want to go home.
He was tired of going home. This was not because his home was not a
pleasant one. No single gentleman in the city had a handsomer or more
comfortable suite of rooms. It was not because he felt lonely, or
regretted that a wife and children did not brighten and enliven his
home. He was perfectly satisfied to be a bachelor. The conditions
suited him exactly. But, in spite of all this, he was tired of going
home.

"I wish," said Mr. Tolman to himself, "that I could feel some interest
in going home." Then he rose and took a turn or two up and down the
room. But as that did not seem to give him any more interest in the
matter, he sat down again. "I wish it were necessary for me to go
home," said he, "but it isn't." So then he fell again to thinking.
"What I need," he said, after a while, "is to depend more upon
myself--to feel that I am necessary to myself. Just now I'm not. I'll
stop going home--at least, in this way. Where's the sense in envying
other men, when I can have all that they have just as well as not? And
I'll have it, too," said Mr. Tolman, as he went out and locked the
doors. Once in the streets, and walking rapidly, his ideas shaped
themselves easily and readily into a plan which, by the time he reached
the house of his head clerk, was quite matured. Mr. Canterfield was
just going down to dinner as his employer rang the bell, so he opened
the door himself. "I will detain you but a minute or two," said Mr.
Tolman, handing the keys to Mr. Canterfield. "Shall we step into the
parlor?"

When his employer had gone, and Mr. Canterfield had joined his family
at the dinner-table, his wife immediately asked him what Mr. Tolman
wanted.

"Only to say that he is going away to-morrow, and that I am to attend
to the business, and send his personal letters to ----," naming a city
not a h