onally selfish; his mother
and his other friends loved to see his face, if it were but for an
hour. But young men are always inconsiderate of their loved ones'
affections. They probably fear that in humoring their parents and kin
they will humor themselves to the point of losing their grit. What
Evan considered self-preservation was, from the standpoint of the folk
at home, something resembling neglect or indifference. When his mother
received a note from him saying he would not be home till fall, she had
a "good" cry. Mr. Nelson smiled, while the women-folk were looking,
and sighed later.

"Let him go it," he said, cheerily; "it takes these things to make a
man, you know."

Mrs. Nelson was more resigned after that; she was most anxious to see
her son "a man."

Frankie was also notified of the rigid resolve. She felt chilly while
reading the letter, and postponed an answer for two weeks. The letter
she wrote was as follows:

"Dear Evan,--I don't see why you should make yourself any further away
than you really are. It may not be very much pleasure for you to come
back to this little burg, but it _is_ nice for us.

"I wrote off my Latin and German papers to-day; to-morrow it's French
and Literature. Do you remember how you used to help me guess the
passages for memorization? You surely were a lucky guesser.

"If you are dead certain you don't want to come home for all those
months, you will at least write occasionally and tell us how you are
getting along. Mother is calling me now, and I must close. I hope you
won't be offended at this letter.

"Sincerely,
"FRANK."

When Evan received the note from "his" girl he was much excited. Perry
had been moved, a new junior had come, and the old junior was promoted
to savings bank. Not only was he excited, he was confused. Besides
having to actually wait on customers he was obliged to break in the new
"swipe"; and the latter, sad to tell, was about Porter's speed.

The reply Evan sent Frankie was busy. It was rushed off to convey the
good news of promotion, and must necessarily have a business ring. In
spite of its brevity, however, it contained two or three new bank
idioms.

Real work began for Nelson. Not to say that a juniorship is a
sinecure: some swipes earn their salaries several times over. One was
once known to write the inspector as follows:

"Dear Sir,--I could make more money sawing wood than I can banking."

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