ophy, and the result discouraged him.

He drew out his last clean collar and put it on, with the vague idea of
going somewhere and doing something--what, he could not have told. His
eyes fell on a framed document hanging near his mirror, a small but
ornate instrument, setting forth that the Faculty and Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University, by virtue of the authority in them
vested, etc., conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry on
Philip Howard Williamson.

His thoughts turned back toward a morning over four years gone, when he
walked down the platform bearing that "last of his childhood's toys,"
and in imagination P.H. Williamson, M. D., held conversation with Philip
Howard Williamson, A. B.

Williamson, A. B., standing just the other side of the mirror, spoke and
said:

"It looks as though you were up against it."

Williamson, M. D., arranging his tie so as to hide his soiled shirt,
answered:

"I am up against it. And it's your fault."

Williamson, A. B., did not seem to see it. But he was a conceited
creature, anyway.

"It's more than half your fault," went on the man on the real side of
the mirror. "You dug and worked, and you thought that if you only kept
ahead of your class in Physiology you had a clean card to success. How
many fellows did you know in college?"

"Some. I never went in for being popular. There were Trueman, and
Miller, and Rodney--"

"And how many of them were of the sort to help you? Trueman, without
family or brains, and Miller, who lived in the East, and little Rod--"

"They were the best I could meet. They were the only ones who understood
that I really wanted people. No one understood how I loved the college
and wanted to be in things. I wasn't good at telling; and besides, I had
my work to do. They knew the way I used to look across the campus on
Spring nights--"

Williamson, M. D., checked him at this point. That impractical creature
thought that they were talking of friendship, when it was only a
question of Pull. He conveyed that point to the Bachelor.

"Why didn't you find some friends who would be of use to Me?" he asked,
savagely. "While you were following out sutures and involuntary
reactions, what was Marshall doing? Running for class president and
making the Mandolin Club and getting acquainted with people of some use
to him. He isn't one-two-six with me for ability and never was; but he
has patients to give away, and I--"

Williamson, A.