nic elusiveness and he could no longer carry
his liquor with his former assurance. While outwardly he was the same
suave, debonair old beau, he was beginning to have inner doubtings and
despairs. And Joe, who had, as it were, taken up the pen when he had
cast aside the sword, became for him a potential straw adrift on the
downward current.

Uncle Buzz's message in the Rathskeller the night before had been
cryptic to the others but plain enough to Joe. Uncle Buzz was in
trouble again. Trial balance, maybe. There was no telling. As Joe
finished footing up a long column of figures he smiled. It meant
another trip to Bloomfield on Saturday. And Saturday was the day after
to-morrow. Thus the day wore on.

On Saturday, which was a day of the same pattern as its predecessors,
at eleven o'clock Joe quietly rose from his desk, took his hat, and
unostentatiously walked out of the office. He punched the time clock
gently so that it would attract the attention of only the most
observant of clerks, and hurried away, feeling that this repeated
dereliction was bound to bring him some notice, even if the first
offense had not. But for some reason he felt singularly indifferent.

An hour later he had forgotten it all. The dumpy accommodation train
was bumping itself along at a great rate, puffing stertorously up the
long grade past "Sassafras Hill," and then swinging itself around the
curves that followed the river so desperately that passengers and
freight alike--for it was a combination train as well as
accommodation--were like to be flung from it, hurled into space as
useless encumbrances to its desperate need of getting there. It would
rush along madly for a mile or two, then give a wild shriek and stop,
and after a great puffing and snorting, start up again.

It was such an enthusiastic train that Joe could not long escape the
contagion of its enthusiasm. Ten miles out they came into a stretch of
rolling meadow where the shadows of trees were like purple splotches
upon the shimmering mist of the grass. A high wind had arisen that set
the countless blades vibrating so that each bit of sun-swept meadow
was naught but a silverish blurr, with the tree tops above it tossing
wildly about. A little girl, holding open a gate for an old man in a
buggy behind a placid old white horse, was all fluttering ribbon ends,
and as they passed, her sunbonnet was torn from her grasp and flung
over the fence, far afield. Joe could see her running a