s like a pirate's
flag, and some of 'em no wings or bones, and why--"

"Oh, good Lord! I don't know. Forget it. You make a noise like a hearse,
Loosh."

"Of course you don't know. _I_ don't know. I don't suppose anybody
knows, exactly. But isn't it great fun to study 'em up, and see the
different kinds, and think about the old chaps who carved 'em, and
wonder about 'em and--"

"No, I'll be banged if it is! It's crazy nonsense. You've got pigeons in
your loft, Loosh. Come on out and give the birds an airing."

This was the general opinion of the class of 19--, that old "Loosh had
pigeons in his loft." However, it was agreed that they were harmless
fowl and that Galusha himself was a good old scout, in spite of his
aviary.

He graduated with high honors in the mathematical branches and in
languages. Then the no less firm because feminine hand of Aunt Clarissa
grasped him, so to speak, by the collar and guided him to the portals
of the banking house of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot, where "Cousin Gussie"
took him in charge with the instructions to make a financier of him.

"Cousin Gussie," junior member of the firm, then in his early thirties,
thrust his hands into the pockets of his smart tweed trousers, tilted
from heels to toes of his stylish and very shiny shoes and whistled
beneath his trim mustache. He had met Galusha often before, but that
fact did not make him more optimistic, rather the contrary.

"So you want to be a banker, do you, Loosh?" he asked.

Galusha regarded him sadly through the spectacles.

"Auntie wants me to be one," he said.

The experiment lasted a trifle over six months. At the end of that time
the junior partner of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot had another interview
with his firm's most recent addition to its list of employees.

"You're simply no good at the job, that's the plain truth," said the
banker, with the candor of exasperation. "You've cost us a thousand
dollars more than your salary already by mistakes and forgetfulness
and all the rest of it. You'll never make your salt at this game in a
million years. Don't you know it, yourself?"

Galusha nodded.

"Yes," he said, simply.

"Eh? Oh, you do! Well, that's something."

"I knew it when I came here."

"Knew you would be no good at the job?"

"At this job, yes."

"Then for heaven's sake why did you take it?"

"I told you. Aunt Clarissa wanted me to."

"Well, you can't stay here, that's all. I'm sorry."

"So am I, for Aun