r,
and were interested in girls of a slightly older set, but the point was
the same. These things hurt him.

He himself had no avenue of progress which, so far as he could see, was
going to bring him to any financial prosperity. His father was never
going to be rich, anybody could see that. He himself had made no
practical progress in schoolwork--he knew that. He hated
insurance--soliciting or writing, despised the sewing machine business,
and did not know where he would get with anything which he might like to
do in literature or art. His drawing seemed a joke, his writing, or wish
for writing, pointless. He was broodingly unhappy.

One day Williams, who had been watching him for a long time, stopped at
his desk.

"I say, Witla, why don't you go to Chicago?" he said. "There's a lot
more up there for a boy like you than down here. You'll never get
anywhere working on a country newspaper."

"I know it," said Eugene.

"Now with me it's different," went on Williams. "I've had my rounds.
I've got a wife and three children and when a man's got a family he
can't afford to take chances. But you're young yet. Why don't you go to
Chicago and get on a paper? You could get something."

"What could I get?" asked Eugene.

"Well, you might get a job as type-setter if you'd join the union. I
don't know how good you'd be as a reporter--I hardly think that's your
line. But you might study art and learn to draw. Newspaper artists make
good money."

Eugene thought of his art. It wasn't much. He didn't do much with it.
Still he thought of Chicago; the world appealed to him. If he could only
get out of here--if he could only make more than seven or eight dollars
a week. He brooded about this.

One Sunday afternoon he and Stella went with Myrtle to Sylvia's home,
and after a brief stay Stella announced that she would have to be going;
her mother would be expecting her back. Myrtle was for going with her,
but altered her mind when Sylvia asked her to stay to tea. "Let Eugene
take her home," Sylvia said. Eugene was delighted in his persistent,
hopeless way. He was not yet convinced that she could not be won to
love. When they walked out in the fresh sweet air--it was nearing
spring--he felt that now he should have a chance of saying something
which would be winning--which would lure her to him.

They went out on a street next to the one she lived on quite to the
confines of the town. She wanted to turn off at her street, but he ha