the end. I
was going to take my family to Europe, but there came a galloping down
the road and overtook me. Since then my hands have been tied."

"When I look around," said Mrs. Dolihide, "and see ordinary people
living on the best in the land, it makes me mad to think that as smart a
man as the Professor--"

"My dear, like you I could question fate, but--"

"Fate nothing; I don't know what it is, but it does seem strange to me.
I don't understand why a man as well educated as you are has to struggle
with the world when the commonest sort of a person can buy property. I
don't understand it."

"Easy enough," the Professor replied. "The commonest sort of a person
may have money, and having money, buys property. Nut-shell argument,
Milford," he added, slapping his hand flat upon the table.

"Failure has always been easier to understand than success," said
Milford. "Failure is natural, it seems to me. It comes from the weakness
of man and nothing is more natural than weakness. I am arguing from my
own case, and don't mean to reflect on any one else. I have thrown away
many an opportunity, but that was in keeping with my weakness."

"But I hear that you are anything but weak," said the Professor's
daughter. "They call you a mystery, and a mystery is a success until it
is solved."

"But an unsolved conundrum might starve to death," he replied.

"Not so long as it remained unsolved," the Professor declared. "We feed
the performer till he explains the trick."

"Then I suppose Mr. Milford will not explain his trick," said the girl.

"I'd be foolish to shut off my supplies, wouldn't I?"

"Yes," she admitted, "but if you have a mystery you ought to let your
friends share it."

"Ha," said the Professor, "that would mean the disposition of all the
shares. But I don't see why they call my friend a mystery. A man comes
into the neighborhood and goes to work. Is there anything so mysterious
about that? It would be more of a mystery if he lived without work."

"Father sometimes fails to catch the atmosphere of a situation," said
the girl, giving Milford a smile not so narrow and not so dry with
irony. "One's appearance might have something to do with the estimate
formed of him," she continued.

"The hired man marches from the east to the west and back again," said
Milford. "And I am a hired man--hired by myself to do something, and I
am going to do it," he added with a tightening of his face.

"But that mysterious som