tched conversation; and above all," I added,
with an irrepressible shudder, "don't tell them how I said it! There's
that phrase, now: 'With a proud, glad smile.' Who cares whether I smiled
or not?"

"Oh, there now, Loudon, you're entirely wrong," he broke in. "That's
what the public likes; that's the merit of the thing, the literary
value. It's to call up the scene before them; it's to enable the
humblest citizen to enjoy that afternoon the same as I did. Think what
it would have been to me when I was tramping around with my tin-types to
find a column and a half of real, cultured conversation--an artist, in
his studio abroad, talking of his art,--and to know how he looked as he
did it, and what the room was like, and what he had for breakfast; and
to tell myself, eating tinned beans beside a creek, that if all went
well, the same sort of thing would, sooner or later, happen to myself;
why, Loudon, it would have been like a peep-hole into heaven!"

"Well, if it gives so much pleasure," I admitted, "the sufferers
shouldn't complain. Only give the other fellows a turn."

The end of the matter was to bring myself and the journalist in a more
close relation. If I know anything at all of human nature--and the _if_
is no mere figure of speech, but stands for honest doubt--no series of
benefits conferred, or even dangers shared, would have so rapidly
confirmed our friendship as this quarrel avoided, this fundamental
difference of taste and training accepted and condoned.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "What's the matter with him?"

[2] "The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked too long
at your daub."

CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE

Whether it came from my training and repeated bankruptcy at the
commercial college, or by direct inheritance from old Loudon, the
Edinburgh mason, there can be no doubt about the fact that I was
thrifty. Looking myself impartially over, I believe that is my only
manly virtue. During my first two years in Paris I not only made it a
point to keep well inside of my allowance, but accumulated considerable
savings in the bank. You will say, with my masquerade of living as a
penniless student, it must have been easy to do so; I should have had no
difficulty, however, in doing the reverse. Indeed, it is wonderful I did
not; and early in the third year, or soon after I had known Pinkerton, a
singular incident proved it to have been equally wise. Quarter-d