ne. Out in the broad, immaculately clean roadway, a heavy
three-horse omnibus _Porte Maillot-Hotel de Ville_ creaked its way up to
the Place de l'Etoile.

Todhunter Chase was not a bad-looking boy. There was something about him
which at once attracted the stranger. Small hours and cold bottles had
spoiled his complexion somewhat, and the vernacular and usages of the
Tenderloin had not improved his speech and manners. But people
overlooked his foibles because of his intense good nature. Nothing could
down that. Always smiling, always jolly, ever ready to go out of his way
to oblige a friend, it was little wonder that he was popular. His
features were well cut and his athletic, well-knit figure was well
groomed. With his frank, engaging personality and more than average
intelligence, there was no career in which he might not have done
himself credit. But unfortunately for Tod, he was afflicted with
matritis. In other words, his mother was solely to blame for his having
reached the age of twenty-five without earning as much as the price of a
celluloid collar button. Selfish and short sighted, as are many mothers
with growing sons, the then Mrs. Chase had preferred to have her boy
dangling at her skirts rather than see him prepare himself seriously to
battle with the world. After leaving college without honors, he made a
half-hearted effort to get something to do. He tried a dozen things and
succeeded in none. Utterly unable to concentrate on any one thing he
failed miserably in everything. Office routine he found irksome;
discipline intolerable. So, for several years he just drifted, leading a
lazy, irresponsible life that soon rendered him unfit for anything,
more than gambling or carousing with his cronies. As he grew older he
acquired more sense, but then it was too late. His mother at times
worried about it, but more often took it philosophically. As long as the
money held out, there was enough for her boy. There was plenty of time
to think of his future. Tod was so popular that he would be sure to
marry well. He would get some rich girl whose father would take him in
as partner. Then he would find a position in life ready made. There was
no hurry. Besides, would they not be rich themselves one day? Thus had
Tod's career, also, been marred in a measure by the same dazzling
"prospects" which had ruined his stepfather!

He was weak and he had been foolish, yet at heart Tod was not a bad
sort. A little wild, perhaps, as