master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."

"That's it," exclaimed McLean, leaping to his feet, "that's what I
mean. That's the sort of a stand for a man to take."

Davis rose and knocked the ashes from his pipe against the
window-sill. "Well, for two poetry-spouting, poetry-consuming,
sentimental idiots, commend me to you fellows. Master of my fate,
captain of my soul, be dashed! Old Jujube, with his bone-pointed
hunting spear, began determining a couple of hundred years ago what I
should be in this year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
ninety-four. J. Webb Davis, senior, added another brick to this
structure, when he was picking cotton on his master's plantation forty
years ago."

"And now," said Halliday, also rising, "don't you think it fair that
you should start out with the idea of adding a few bricks of your own,
and all of a better make than those of your remote ancestor, Jujube,
or that nearer one, your father?"

"Spoken like a man," said McLean.

"Oh, you two are so hopelessly young," laughed Davis.

PART II

After the two weeks' rest which he thought he needed, and consequently
promised himself, Halliday began to look about him for some means of
making a start for that success in life which he felt so sure of
winning.

With this end in view he returned to the town where he was born. He
had settled upon the law as a profession, and had studied it for a
year or two while at college. He would go back to Broughton now to
pursue his studies, but of course, he needed money. No difficulty,
however, presented itself in the getting of this for he knew several
fellows who had been able to go into offices, and by collecting and
similar duties make something while they studied. Webb Davis would
have said, "but they were white," but Halliday knew what his own reply
would have been: "What a white man can do, I can do."

Even if he could not go to studying at once, he could go to work and
save enough money to go on with his course in a year or two. He had
lots of time before him, and he only needed a little start. What
better place then, to go to than Broughton, where he had first seen
the light? Broughton, that had known him, boy and man. Broughton that
had watched him through the common school and the high school, and had
seen him go off to college with some pride and a good deal of
curiosity. For even in middle west towns of such a size, that is,
between seventy and eighty thousan