d from being an insignificant shrub, it now grows to the
size of a small tree. Most painful to relate, however, the once admired
shrub has become a veritable pest, and the people of the islands are
using their ingenuity in seeking a way to destroy it.

Now, that is very much the early history of Nort in the office of the
_Star_. At first, of course, he was way down in the depths, both in his
own estimation and in ours--a man to tinker the engine, run the job
presses, sweep the floors, and do the thousand and one other useful but
menial things to help Fergus. Moreover, he was on his good behaviour and
more than ordinarily subdued. It required a reasonable amount of good
honest depression in those days to make Nort tolerable. He was like a
high-spirited horse that has to be driven hard for a dozen miles before
it is any pleasure to hold the reins. If we had known then--but we knew
nothing.

There are two ways by which men advance in this world--one is by doing,
the other by being. We Americans, these many years, have been
cultivating and stimulating the doers. We have made the doers our
heroes, and have, therefore, had no poetry, no art, no music, no
personality, and, I was going to say, no religion. Doing leads the way
to riches, power, reputation, and if it occasionally lands a man in the
penitentiary, still we feel that there is something grand about it, and
reflect that the same process also leads to the Senate or the White
House or a palace on Fifth Avenue. Ed Smith was a doer, but Nort was
only a be-er. And Nort didn't even _try_ to be: he just was. And we
planted him, a humble shrub, in the garden of our lives, and in no time
at all the vagabond had spread to the sunny uplands of our hearts. And
then----

[Illustration: I soon found that every one else in the office, Anthy
included, had begun to be interested in Nort]

I soon found that every one else in the office, Anthy included, (at that
time, anyway), had begun to be interested in Nort, much as I was. It was
not that Nort tried to court our favour by working hard, being sober,
appearing willing, in order to get ahead; that would have been Ed
Smith's way; but Nort had never in all his short life thought of getting
ahead. Of whom was he to get ahead? And why should he get ahead?

The fact is that Nort, caught in the rebound from a life that had become
temporarily intolerable, found the quietude of Hempfield soothing to
him; and the life of the printing-offic