match to the gas and filled my big calabash. As I
looked about me, I felt that my little kingdom was a rather bare and
shabby one. Hitherto it had been perfectly sufficient for my needs, nor
had I ever seen in it anything to find fault with. In fact I had many a
time thought myself fortunate in having so secure a retreat, which only
the feet of faithful friends could be attracted to. They would come to
it only for the sake of their old David. They were content to sit on the
edge of the bed, if the chairs gave out. But now I realized that for
some time strange dreams had been coming to me, of a possibility that in
its occupant a marvelous and glorious creature might one day find
something kindred, a heart to which her own would respond. I had begun
to lift my eyes up to her and now I saw how pitiful the room and the
lodger must seem to her. I felt that all that I should ever get out of
life would be fiction, invention, the playing of tunes on hearts of my
own creation that would never beat for me saving in printed pages. Never
could they become my very own; always, they would go out to others, to
laugh or weep or yawn over. They would represent but pieces of silver
with which I might perhaps bring a bit of happiness to a few, after
paying for my shelter and food, and the clothes which Gordon asserts are
never really made for me.

Poor old Gordon! Frieda predicted that he would be hoist by his own
petard, some day, and it has come to pass. He is now far out of sight of
land, and his head is still awhirl with the amazing wrecking of his
schemes. It would have been a bigger thing for him to do, and a braver,
to have gone to that splendid girl Sophia Van Rossum and confessed he
had sinned against her, and begged her pardon, humbly. I suppose he has
written to her and explained that he has lost the right even to touch
the hem of her garment. It is good that he had the saving grace not to
keep up his pretence of love for her, but his sudden and amazing
departure shows how keenly he has felt the blow. His ambitions have
flown, his plans gone a-gley, and the one thing that could remain was
the eager searching for an immediate change, for a reckless occupation
in whose pursuit he might gamble with his life and, perhaps, throw it
away. I saw his purpose, clearly. In the ambulance corps there would be
no long months of drilling, no marching up and down fields and roads
clear of any enemy. He could at once go to work and play his par