mong themselves, but applauded the boy's intention to his face.

"Good for you, Jack!" said one. "You are just the man for a doctor, and
I'll give you all my business."

This man, of course, was a humorist.

Another said: "Jack, you are perfectly right. Real estate and coal are
not for you. Go in for medicine; when my leg is cut off you shall do the
cutting."

To avoid details, however, some of which would make a story in
themselves, Jack Barkis went through college, studied medicine, received
his diploma as a full-fledged M.D., and settled down at Dumfries Corners
for practice. And practice did not come! And income was not.

It was plainly visible to the community that Barkis was hard up, as the
saying is, and daily growing more so. To make matters worse, it was now
impossible to help him as the boy had been helped. He was no longer a
child, but a man; and the pleasing little subterfuges, which we had
employed to induce the boy to think he was making his way on his own
sturdy little legs, with the man were out of the question. His clothing
grew threadbare, and there were stories of insufficient nourishment. As
time went on the outward and visible signs of his poverty increased,
yet no one could devise any plan to help him.

And then came a solution, and inasmuch as it was brought about by the
S.F.M.E., an association of a dozen charming young women in the city
forming the Society for Mutual Encouragement, or Enjoyment, or
Endorsement, or something else beginning with E--I never could ascertain
definitely what the E stood for--it would seem as if the young ladies
should have received greater consideration than they did when prosperity
knocked at the Doctor's door.

It seems that the Doctor attended a dance one evening in a dress coat,
the quality and lack of quantity of which were a flagrant indication of
a sparse, not to say extremely needy, wardrobe. All his charm of manner,
his grace in the dance, his popularity, could not blind others to the
fact that he was ill-dressed, and the girls decided that something must
be done, and at once.

"We might give a lawn fete for his benefit," one of them suggested.

"He isn't a church or a Sunday-school," Miss Daisy Peters retorted.
"Besides, I know Jack Barkis well enough to know that he would never
accept charity from any one. We've got to help him professionally."

"We might boycott all the fellows at dances," suggested Miss Wilbur,
"unless they will patronize the D