h a pang that he could not answer, but with a
twig played a game of tick-tack-toe in the dust, while he thought
bitterly that no one could blame Helene Spenceley for preferring Canby
to a person who seemed destined to failure in whatever he attempted.

He was another of the "four-flushers," he told himself, and the country
was full of them, who just fell short of doing something and being
somebody. Probably, in time, he would have no ambition beyond working
for a "grub-stake" in summer so he could "shack up" in winter. He would
let his hair grow, and go sockless, and buy new clothes rather than wash
his old ones, and eat from soiled dishes, and read mail-order catalogues
for entertainment, and dog-gone it! why couldn't he bring himself to
think of marrying some respectable girl like the blacksmith's daughter
there in Prouty, who had no chin and a fine complexion and cooked like
an angel and never said a cross word to anybody?

Since Wallie was too uncommunicative to be interesting, Pinkey got up
and left him to his reflections, remarking philosophically as he
departed to join Miss Eyester:

"Well, I never heard of anybody bein' hanged for owin' money, so I guess
there's no use in us goin' around with the double-breasted blues over
it. We might as well whistle and say we like it."

Wallie looked after his partner almost angrily.

Oh, yes, it was well enough for him to talk about being cheerful and not
worrying, but he guessed he would not be so chipper and so easily
resigned to disappointment if he had nothing more to which to look
forward than he had.

The lugubrious voice of Mr. Hicks declaiming reached him:

"Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling!
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the bird is on the wing."

That was the worst of it, Wallie thought despairingly. The Bird of Time
had but a little way to flutter. He was so old--twenty-seven! The
realization that he was still a failure at this advanced age increased
his misery. He was a fool to go on hoping that he meant anything to
Helene Spenceley or ever would; but, just the same--Wallie stood up and
squared his shoulders--if he couldn't have the woman he wanted there
wouldn't be any other! He would sell his place for what he could get for
it, pay his debts, and go to Tahiti and be a beach-comber, or to
Guatemala and start a revolution, or live a hermit in the Arctic Circle,
t