uring the last two weeks,
when he had been full of glad confidence in himself and in this
invention of his--this brake which Billings had told him an hour ago was
not worth the stuff of which it was made. The recountal of his
performance would doubtless afford much entertainment to the pair in the
post-office. Just yesterday he had asked the postmaster to find for him,
if possible, a capable maid-servant, and had said, without thinking
anything in particular about it, that he would pay a satisfactory girl
five dollars a week. Five dollars a week--it had not seemed much to him;
he had been amused by Barbour's evident astonishment. To-day he saw more
reason in it.... Then there was that perfume for Gertrude--he should
have to countermand his order for that. He had no choice in the matter,
he told himself, with bitter resentment that a paltry nine dollars
should mean so much to him. In spite of the fact that he had come to
this decision before he reached the drug store, he did not go in, but
walked past with his head in the air, looking neither to right nor to
left. He felt as though every one must already know of the morning's
experience; and he was fearful of meeting eyes alight with cynical
understanding.

The postmaster and Jim watched the young man from the post-office door
as he made his way up the one hilly street of the little town. The
soldierly precision of his carriage and gait, together with a certain
air of distinction about his clothes, made him seem singularly out of
keeping with all about him--the narrow, stony road, the straggling white
houses on each side of it, the unkempt yards, the neglected trees, the
dilapidated sidewalks half hidden by an amazing growth of dog-fennel.

"You'd know somep'n had gone wrong by the way he had his head reared
back, wouldn't you?" Jim asked with a smile on his dark face.

He had just finished telling Barbour of what had happened that morning.
Several days before, Allison had got word from the railroad company
that some time this week they would send a man to tell him what offer
they were prepared to make for the brake on which he had been working
for so many weeks, and had finally finished; and this morning Billings
had put in his appearance. The brake was practically good for nothing,
he assured Allison--certainly not worth a cent to the company; and he
told him the reasons why this was so.

He went on to say, however, that he felt sorry for Allison,--sorry for
that n