er on I tried to explain my point of view, to justify myself.

"All I mean," I concluded at length, "is that my position is a little
different from Perry's and Tom's. They can afford to isolate themselves,
but I'm thrown professionally with the men who are building up this
city. Some of them, like Ralph Hambleton and Mr. Ogilvy, I've known all
my life. Life isn't so simple for us, Maude--we can't ignore the social
side."

"I understand," she said contentedly. "You are more of a man
of affairs--much more than Tom or Perry, and you have greater
responsibilities and wider interests. I'm really very proud of you.
Only--don't you think you are a little too sensitive about yourself,
when you are teased?"

I let this pass....

I give a paragraph from a possible biography of Hugh Paret which, as
then seemed not improbable, might in the future have been written by
some aspiring young worshipper of success.

"On his return from a brief but delightful honeymoon in England Mr.
Paret took up again, with characteristic vigour, the practice of
the law. He was entering upon the prime years of manhood; golden
opportunities confronted him as, indeed, they confronted other men--but
Paret had the foresight to take advantage of them. And his training
under Theodore Watling was now to produce results.... The reputations
had already been made of some of that remarkable group of financial
geniuses who were chiefly instrumental in bringing about the industrial
evolution begun after the Civil War: at the same time, as is well
known, a political leadership developed that gave proof of a deplorable
blindness to the logical necessity of combinations in business. The
lawyer with initiative and brains became an indispensable factor," etc.,
etc.

The biography might have gone on to relate my association with and
important services to Adolf Scherer in connection with his constructive
dream. Shortly after my return from abroad, in answer to his summons, I
found him at Heinrich's, his napkin tucked into his shirt front, and a
dish of his favourite sausages before him.

"So, the honeymoon is over!" he said, and pressed my hand. "You are
right to come back to business, and after awhile you can have another
honeymoon, eh? I have had many since I married. And how long do you
think was my first? A day! I was a foreman then, and the wedding was at
six o'clock in the morning. We went into the country, the wife and I."

He laid down his knife and fork,