, for I am. I may be odd--I may be amusing to the
thoughtless, but to the wise I am serious."

And it was thus, during all the cold months of his work, pleading to his
friends to construe him seriously. Sometimes he would check his
enthusiasm, fearful that his dancing spirits might make him appear
grotesque. But the neighbors, among their rattling milk-cans, laughed at
him, his walk, his gestures, the tones of his voice. One morning near
the end of March, he got on the train, a precious bundle hugged under
his arm. He had spent half the night with Milford, and had come away
strengthened by the strong man. Now he flew toward the journey-end of
hope. A brakeman on the milk train had heard the farmers laugh at him,
and felt at liberty to poke fun at him.

"Got your crop under your arm?" he asked.

The Professor bristled. "If it were the straw of wild oats three times
threshed, it would still hold more value than the chaff that blows about
in your empty skull. Keep your place, which means--distance."

He was serious; he felt it and gloated over it with a solemn pride. But
before the train reached the city he begged the fellow's pardon. "I am
worn out with hard work," he said, "and I hope you will forget my
harshness."

Cabmen bellowed at him as he passed out of the station, and ragged boys
guyed him as he walked along the street. He had a list of the
subscription book publishers, and decided to submit his favor to the
nearest one. The elevator boy put him off on the wrong floor. A
scrub-woman looked up and leered at him. "Poverty, like anger, hath a
privilege," he mused. He found the publisher's quarters, but waited a
long time before he was admitted to the presence of the manager. The
great man was closeted with a book agent. In the subscription book house
the author is nothing; the agent everything. The manager has been an
agent, or perhaps a "fake" advertising man. He hates an author; he hated
the Professor at sight, and flouted when he learned that the scholar had
brought a book. What an insult! The idea of bringing a book to a
publishing house! The Professor attempted to explain the scope of his
work. The manager drew back. "No need to unwrap it," he said. "We've got
more books now than we can sell. Say," he bawled, to some one outside
his den, "tell Ritson I want to see him before he goes."

"I thought," began the Professor, bowing;--but the manager shut him off.
"We do our own thinking," he said.

"Well, sir,