n my point of view, to justify myself.

"All I mean," I concluded at length, "is that my position is a little
different from Perry's and Tom's. They can afford to isolate themselves,
but I'm thrown professionally with the men who are building up this city.
Some of them, like Ralph Hambleton and Mr. Ogilvy, I've known all my
life. Life isn't so simple for us, Maude--we can't ignore the social
side."

"I understand," she said contentedly. "You are more of a man of
affairs--much more than Tom or Perry, and you have greater
responsibilities and wider interests. I'm really very proud of you.
Only--don't you think you are a little too sensitive about yourself, when
you are teased?"

I let this pass....

I give a paragraph from a possible biography of Hugh Paret which, as then
seemed not improbable, might in the future have been written by some
aspiring young worshipper of success.

"On his return from a brief but delightful honeymoon in England Mr. Paret
took up again, with characteristic vigour, the practice of the law. He
was entering upon the prime years of manhood; golden opportunities
confronted him as, indeed, they confronted other men--but Paret had the
foresight to take advantage of them. And his training under Theodore
Watling was now to produce results.... The reputations had already been
made of some of that remarkable group of financial geniuses who were
chiefly instrumental in bringing about the industrial evolution begun
after the Civil War: at the same time, as is well known, a political
leadership developed that gave proof of a deplorable blindness to the
logical necessity of combinations in business. The lawyer with initiative
and brains became an indispensable factor," etc., etc.

The biography might have gone on to relate my association with and
important services to Adolf Scherer in connection with his constructive
dream. Shortly after my return from abroad, in answer to his summons, I
found him at Heinrich's, his napkin tucked into his shirt front, and a
dish of his favourite sausages before him.

"So, the honeymoon is over!" he said, and pressed my hand. "You are right
to come back to business, and after awhile you can have another
honeymoon, eh? I have had many since I married. And how long do you think
was my first? A day! I was a foreman then, and the wedding was at six
o'clock in the morning. We went into the country, the wife and I."

He laid down his knife and fork, possessed by the memory