his half-sister Philomela--who had
no hypocritical concealment about her, thank heaven! and always told
people what she thought of them--pronounced the first of those luxuries
"trash," the second "disgusting," and the other two "idiotic," he met
her candid criticisms with a pleasant laugh, and said that, at any rate,
they hurt nobody but himself.

To which Philomela invariably retorted: "But suppose every strapping
fellow, at your time of life, should take to novel-reading, and such
fooleries, what would become of the world, I would like to know?"

And her brother, puffing out a long stream of smoke, would respond:
"Suppose, my dear sister, every woman was destined to be an old maid, as
you are, what would become of the world, _I_ would like to know?"

The conversation always terminated at this point, by Philomela declaring
that coarse personality was the refuge of weak-minded people when they
could not answer arguments, and that, for her part, she would never take
the trouble to say another plain, straightforward word for his good;
whereupon there would be a truce, lasting sometimes a whole day.

Fayette Overtop, the second of the three young men--the one looking out
of the window, drumming idly on the glass, and continually tossing back
his head to clear the long black hair from his brow, over which it hung
in an incurable cowlick--was a short, compact, nervous person,
twenty-five years old. Mr. Overtop had been educated for the law, but,
finding the profession uncomfortably crowded when he came into it, had
not yet achieved those brilliant triumphs which he once fondly imagined
within his reach. For three years he had been in regular attendance at
his office from nine A.M. to three P.M. (as per written card on the
door), except in term time, when he was a patient frequenter of the
courts. During these three years he had picked up something less than
enough to pay his half of the rent of two small, dimly lighted, but
expensive rooms on the fourth floor of a labyrinth in the lower part
of the city.

Mr. Overtop, when asked to explain this state of things, about which he
made no concealment, always attributed it to a "lack of clients."

If he had clients enough, and of the right kind, he felt confident that
he could make a figure in the profession. Having few clients, and those
in insignificant cases only, of course he had no opportunities for
distinction. He could not stand in the street and beg for clients, or