And all this was because an uncle had disinherited him, and cut down
his allowance from liberality to nothing. And all that was because
his nephew had disobeyed him concerning a certain girl, who comes not
into this story--therefore, all readers who brush their hair toward
its roots may be warned to read no further. There was another nephew,
of a different branch, who had once been the prospective heir and
favorite. Being without grace or hope, he had long ago disappeared in
the mire. Now dragnets were out for him; he was to be rehabilitated
and restored. And so Vallance fell grandly as Lucifer to the lowest
pit, joining the tattered ghosts in the little park.

Sitting there, he leaned far back on the hard bench and laughed a
jet of cigarette smoke up to the lowest tree branches. The sudden
severing of all his life's ties had brought him a free, thrilling,
almost joyous elation. He felt precisely the sensation of the
aeronaut when he cuts loose his parachute and lets his balloon drift
away.

The hour was nearly ten. Not many loungers were on the benches. The
park-dweller, though a stubborn fighter against autumnal coolness, is
slow to attack the advance line of spring's chilly cohorts.

Then arose one from a seat near the leaping fountain, and came and
sat himself at Vallance's side. He was either young or old; cheap
lodging-houses had flavoured him mustily; razors and combs had passed
him by; in him drink had been bottled and sealed in the devil's bond.
He begged a match, which is the form of introduction among park
benchers, and then he began to talk.

"You're not one of the regulars," he said to Vallance. "I know
tailored clothes when I see 'em. You just stopped for a moment on
your way through the park. Don't mind my talking to you for a while?
I've got to be with somebody. I'm afraid--I'm afraid. I've told
two or three of those bummers over about it. They think I'm crazy.
Say--let me tell you--all I've had to eat to-day was a couple
pretzels and an apple. To-morrow I'll stand in line to inherit three
millions; and that restaurant you see over there with the autos
around it will be too cheap for me to eat in. Don't believe it, do
you?

"Without the slightest trouble," said Vallance, with a laugh. "I
lunched there yesterday. To-night I couldn't buy a five-cent cup of
coffee."

"You don't look like one of us. Well, I guess those things happen. I
used to be a high-flyer myself--some years ago. What knocked you