the chance.
But I wanted to find my real value, so I wore cheap clothes and kept
clear of my friends. 'What could I do?' every one asked me. You know
my answer. And _their_ answer! I thought only sub-way guards could
say, 'Step lively,' like that. Lordy, how I tramped! But finally I met
a kind gentleman who gave me a chance."

"A gentleman?"

"About the size of your piano--only he had a red mustache and a
red shirt and I should say his complexion needed re-decorating.
Irish--foreman on a water-main trench."

"And you--you took it?"

"Took it? I grabbed it!"

"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r!" his appalled mother slowly
exclaimed--so slowly that each letter seemed to shiver out by itself
in horrified disjunction. "Well, at any rate," she declared with
returning vigor, "I'm glad you have had enough of it to bring you to
your senses and bring you home!"

"Oh, I've had enough all right. My cubic contents of ache is--well,
you wouldn't believe a man of my size could hold so much discomfort.
But that isn't the only thing that brought me home. It was--er--I
might say, mother, that it was suggested to me."

"Suggested? I do not understand."

"If you will permit the use of so inelegant an expression, I was
'fired.'"

"Fired?"

"Yes. The foreman intimated--I won't repeat his language, mother, but
the muscles stood out on his profanity in regular knots--he intimated,
in a way that left no doubt as to his meaning, that I was not quite up
to the nine per week standard. I'll be honest with you and admit that
I didn't lean against the pay-shed and weep. I still wanted to work,
but I decided that I didn't want to start life at its pick-and-shovel
end--if I could help it. So here I am, mother, asking you to give me
a little real education--say as a mining engineer, or something like
that."

Mrs. De Peyster was trembling with indignation.

"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r!" again a letter at a time.
"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r! I'm astounded at you!"

"I thought you might be--a little," he admitted.

"I think you might have some consideration for me! And my position!"

"I suppose it is rather selfish of me to want to earn my own living.
But you don't know what dreary hard work being a gentleman becomes."

"I won't have it!" cried Mrs. De Peyster wrathfully. "This is what
comes of your attending that Intercollegiate Socialist thing in
college! I protested to the president against the college harborin