nd Mr. Burgess, and
Jonas Lyle, and John Summers. As he went, on the court house square he
met Ed Mitchell and George Taps and Will Groniger, and four or five
others whom he had known in school. From them he learned how things
were. It appeared that George Anderson had married a local girl and was
in Chicago, working out in the stock yards. Ed Waterbury had gone to San
Francisco. The pretty Sampson girl, Bessie Sampson, who had once gone
with Ted Martinwood so much, had run away with a man from Anderson,
Indiana. There had been a lot of talk about it at the time. Eugene
listened.

It all seemed less, though, than the new world that he had entered. Of
these fellows none knew the visions that were now surging in his brain.
Paris--no less--and New York--by what far route he could scarcely tell.
And Will Groniger had got to be a baggage clerk at one of the two depots
and was proud of it. Good Heavens!

At the office of the _Appeal_ things were unchanged. Somehow Eugene had
had the feeling that two years would make a lot of difference, whereas
the difference was in him only. He was the one who had undergone
cataclysmic changes. He had a been a stove polisher, a real estate
assistant, a driver and a collector. He had known Margaret Duff, and
Mr. Redwood, of the laundry, and Mr. Mitchly. The great city had dawned
on him; Verestchagin, and Bouguereau, and the Art Institute. He was
going on at one pace, the town was moving at another one--a slower, but
quite as fast as it had ever gone.

Caleb Williams was there, skipping about as of yore, cheerful,
communicative, interested. "I'm glad to see you back, Eugene," he
declared, fixing him with the one good eye which watered. "I'm glad
you're getting along--that's fine. Going to be an artist, eh? Well, I
think that's what you were cut out for. I wouldn't advise every young
fellow to go to Chicago, but that's where you belong. If it wasn't for
my wife and three children I never would have left it. When you get a
wife and family though--" he paused and shook his head. "I gad! You got
to do the best you can." Then he went to look up some missing copy.

Jonas Lyle was as portly, phlegmatic and philosophic as ever. He greeted
Eugene with a solemn eye in which there was inquiry. "Well, how is it?"
he asked.

Eugene smiled. "Oh, pretty good."

"Not going to be a printer, then?"

"No, I think not."

"Well, it's just as well, there're an awful lot of them."

While they were talkin