least a month earlier than was customary
the next spring, and in other ways, as you will see later on.

Just as he was beginning to rise, phoenixlike, from the ashes of his
despond, the _Patriot_ reprinted the full details of Nellie's
complaint as they appeared in a New York daily. For a brief spell he
shrivelled up with shame and horror; he could not look any one in the
face. Nellie's lawyers had made the astounding, outrageous charge of
infidelity against him!

Infidelity!

He was stunned.

But just as he was on the point of resigning his position in the
store, after six months of glorious triumph, the business began to
pick up so tremendously that he wondered what had got into people.

His uncle chucked him in the ribs and called him a gay dog! Men came
in and ordered sundaes who had never tasted one before, and they all
looked at him in a strangely respectful way. Women smirked and giggled
and called him a naughty fellow, and said they really ought not to let
him wait on them.

All of a sudden it dawned on him that he was "somebody." He was a
rake!

The New York paper devoted two full columns to his perfidious
behaviour in the Tenderloin. For the first time in his life he stood
in the limelight. Nellie charged him with other trifling things, such
as failure to provide, desertion, cruelty; but none of these was
sufficiently blighting to take the edge off the delicious clause which
lifted him into the seventh heaven of a new found self-esteem! His
first impulse had been to cry out against the diabolical falsehood, to
deny the allegation, to fight the case to the bitter end. But on
second thought he concluded to maintain a dignified silence,
especially as he came to realise that he now possessed a definite
entity not only in Blakeville, but in the world at large. He was a
recognised human being! People who had never heard of him before were
now saying, "What a jolly scamp he is! What a scalawag!" Oh, it was
good to come into his own, even though he reached it by a crooked and
heretofore undesirable thoroughfare. Path was not the word--it was a
thoroughfare, lined by countless staring, admiring fellow creatures,
all of whom pointed him out and called him by his own name.

Mothers cautioned their daughters, commanding them to have nothing to
do with him, and then went with them to Davis' to see that the
commands were obeyed. Fathers held him up to their sons as a dreadful
warning, and then made it a point to