and, a waiter and myself began a
systematic search. My hat was nowhere to be found. How the deuce was I
to get up town to the club? I couldn't wear the old plug; I wasn't rich
enough for such an eccentricity. I had nothing but a silk hat at the
apartment, and I hated it because it was always in the way when I
entered carriages and elevators.

Angrily, I strode up to the cashier's desk and explained the situation,
leaving my address and the number of my apartment; my name wasn't
necessary.

Troubles never come singly. Here I had lost my girl and my hat, to say
nothing of my temper--of the three the most certain to be found again. I
passed out of the cafe, bareheaded and hotheaded. I hailed a cab and
climbed in. I had finally determined to return to my rooms and study. I
simply could not afford to be seen with that stovepipe hat either on my
head or under my arm. Had I been green from college it is probable that
I should have worn it proudly and defiantly. But I had left college
behind these six years.

Hang these old duffers who are so absent-minded! For I was confident
that the benevolent old gentleman was the cause of all this confusion.
Inside the cab I tried on the thing, just to get a picture in my mind of
the old gentleman going it up Broadway with my opera-hat on his head.
The hat sagged over my ears; and I laughed. The picture I had conjured
up was too much for my anger, which vanished suddenly. And once I had
laughed I felt a trifle more agreeable toward the world. So long as a
man can see the funny side of things he has no active desire to leave
life behind; and laughter does more to lighten his sorrows than
sympathy, which only aggravates them.

After all, the old gentleman would feel the change more sharply than I.
This was, in all probability, the only hat he had. I turned it over and
scrutinized it. It was a genteel old beaver, with an air of
respectability that was quite convincing. There was nothing smug about
it, either. It suggested amiability in the man who had recently
possessed it. It suggested also a mild contempt for public opinion,
which is always a sign of superior mentality and advanced years. I began
to draw a mental portrait of the old man. He was a family lawyer,
doubtless, who lived in the past and hugged his retrospections. When we
are young there is never any vanishing point to our day-dreams. Well,
well! On the morrow he would have a new hat, of approved shape and
pattern; unless, in