ppery
maze to nowhere for the many."

A sudden thought seemed to strike Carroll; he looked a little
disturbed. "By-the-way," he said, "I forgot. You yourself--"

Anderson smiled. "Yes, I studied law," said he.

"And gave it up?"

"Yes. I could not make a living with it."

Carroll regarded the other man with a curious, wistful scrutiny. He
looked more and more like Eddy. His next question was as full of
naivete as if the boy himself had asked it, and yet the charming,
almost courtly state of the man never for one instant failed. "And
so," he said, "you tried selling butter and eggs instead of legal
wisdom?" The question might have been insolent from its purport, but
it was not.

Anderson laughed. "Yes," he replied. "People must eat to live, but
they can live without legal wisdom. I found butter and eggs were more
salable."

Carroll continued to regard him with that pathetic, wondering
curiosity. "And you have never regretted the change?" he asked.

"I don't say that, but, regret or not, I had to make it, and--I am
not exactly sure that I do regret it."

"But this--this new occupation of yours cannot be--precisely
congenial."

"That does not disturb me," Anderson said, a little impatiently.

Carroll looked at him with understanding. "I see you feel as I do
about that," he said. "It is rather proving one's self of the common
to hold back too strenuously from it, and yet"--he hesitated a
moment--"it takes courage, though," he said. Suddenly his eyes upon
the other man became full of admiration. "My daughter tells me, or,
rather, my son told me principally, that you are interested in
entomology?" he said.

"Oh, I dabble a little in it," Anderson replied, smiling.

Carroll's eyes upon him continued to hold their wistful questioning,
admiring expression. Anderson began to wonder what he had come for.
He was puzzled by the whole affair. Carroll, too, seemed to present
himself to him under a new guise. He wondered if his reverses had
brought about the change.

"I do not wish," said Carroll, "to display curiosity about affairs
which do not concern me, and I trust you will pardon me and give me
information, or not, as you choose; but may I ask how you happened,
when you became convinced that you were not to make a success in law,
why you chose your present business?"

"I have not the slightest objection to answering," said Anderson,
although he began to wonder if the other had called simply for the
purpose of