would have fitted me to be a
preacher, but a sudden attack of mumps, with measles complicating,
pulled them to one side and burned the bridge. They afterward drew tight
down on the sounding board, so that now when I talk the rickety buzz is
like that of a horse-fiddle played with the tremolo and the soft pedal.
An aeolian harp made of rubber bands on a bicycle, aroused by the wind as
the machine moves swiftly, gives the same soft rasp--a prolonged "sizz."

What chance had a man with women, handicapped as I was? And I have
mentioned only a few minor matters, which have come quickly to mind, as
I hastily pen this narrative of my adventures as the middleman in Jim's
love affairs. And yet I had a true and noble heart, with a capacity for
manly devotion as great as any ever advertised on Sunday in the
"personal" column. I make this statement because a man in my position
must take the stand in his own behalf, if any testimony is to be given
for his side of the case. I am the only competent witness to my own
virtues. In order to appreciate me, a woman would need to have a fine
discrimination. My beauty might have been revealed to such a woman if
she had concentrated by absent treatment on my lofty, self-sacrificing
character, evidenced by my pursuit of the chaste in art and the sane in
philosophy. But all hope had then well-nigh departed. I realized that
there were inconsistencies in the theories of the survival of the
fittest and natural selection. I was an example of the exception to the
rule. Excluded, I became the last of my race. I was the last candy in
the box--just as full of sugar as those that had been devoured, but
condemned to rattle in solitude because, forsooth, chocolate creams are
preferred to gum-drops. Chilled by a want of sympathetic appreciation
while mingling with my fellows, I had gradually withdrawn to the
scholarly cloisters of our fifth-story apartment, adjacent to the tin
roof, which so fascinated the summer sun, and far above the turmoil of a
world of men and women wholly disinterested in me. Perhaps this may seem
a little too pessimistic for a philosopher whose experience had taught
him to be above disappointment, yet I must confess it is true I could
not witness the social achievements of my companion without pangs of
remorse; the indifference of the world to merit, to much pure gold in
the ore, convinced me that a varnished label in six colors maintains the
market for mediocrity. Driven to desperat