l, Groton plus Harvard--it always gets a little inhuman especially
Senior year--but gin had a civilizing influence. Lucky devil!"

"Why?"

"Baker's newest discovery--yes, it does sound like a patent medicine.
Don't mean that, but he has a play on the road--sure-fire, Johnny
says--Edward Sheldon stuff--Romance--"

"The Young Harvard Romantic. An Essay Presented to the Faculty of Yale
University by Theodore Billett for the Degree of--"

"Heard anything about your novel, Oliver?"

"Going to see my pet Mammon of Unrighteousness about it in a couple of
weeks. Oh _Lord!_"

"Present--not voting."

"Don't be cheap, Ted. If I could only make some money."

"Everybody says that there is money in advertising," Ted quotes
maliciously. "Where _have_ I heard that before?"

_"That's_ what anybody says about anything till they try it. Well,
there is--but not in six months for a copy-writer at Vanamee and Co.
Especially when the said copy-writer has to have enough to marry on."
"And will write novels when he ought to be reading, 'How I Sold
America on Ossified Oats' like a good little boy. Young people are _so_
impatient."

"Well, good Lord, Ted, we've been engaged eight months already and we
aren't getting any furtherer--"

"Remember the copybooks, my son. The love of a pure, good woman and the
one-way pocket--that's what makes the millionaires. Besides, look at
Isaac."

"Well, I'm no Isaac. And Nancy isn't Rebekah, praises be! But it is
an--emotional strain. On both of us."

"Well, all you have to do is sell your serial rights. After that--pie."

"I know. The trouble is, I can see it so plain if everything happens
right--and then--well--"

Ted is not very consoling.

"People get funny ideas about each other when they aren't close by. Even
when they're in love," he says rather darkly; and then, for no apparent
reason, "Poor Billy. See it?"

Oliver has, unfortunately--the announcement that the engagement between
Miss Flavia Marston of Detroit and Mr. William Curting of New York has
been broken by mutual consent was an inconspicuous little paragraph in
the morning papers. "That was all--just funny ideas and being away. And
then this homebred talent came along," Ted muses.

"Well, you're the hell of a--"

Ted suddenly jerks into consciousness of what he has been saying.

"Sorry" he says, completely apologetic, "didn't mean a word I said,
just sorry for Billy, poor guy. 'Fraid it'll break him up pretty bad
at firs