e had
been exploded, as by a spark, to burst into a brilliancy that filled his
entire horizon. Life was filled with dazzling and unexpected stars of
shining gold. There was but one moon in all his heavens, a warm,
friendly, almost mystic moon that rendered gentle and fine everything
upon which it bestowed benignancy. His universe could scarcely note the
extinguishment of a sun. He had never paused to analyze it, but had
fallen upon the truth that the love of a man of thirty-four makes or
breaks far more irrevocably than does the evanescent love of a boy. The
latter patient recovers amazingly. The former seeks a hospital alone,
and the soul of him dies!

Jimmy found less difficulty in telegraphing an extravagant order for
violets to be sent to "Miss Nellie Sturgis, care Martha Putnam Hotel,
New York," than he did in the composition of a suitable letter of
apology.

"I've never been so darned particular about what kind of stationery I
used before," he thought, as he stared at the display in a shop and
cogitated over what was the best. "In fact, come to think of it, hotels
have paid for all I've ever used, and most times I didn't care much
whether it came in reams or in rolls. Just so it would show where the
lead pencil had traveled across. About all I ever thought of a letter
was that one begins writing in the upper right hand corner, writes
straight across, then goes back to the left hand again and does it over
until the page is full, then turns it over and does some more, and at
last thinks whether he ought to sign 'Yours truly,' 'Yours sincerely,'
'Your friend,' or 'Your old pal.'"

He wished now that he had time to secure something in blue with his
monogram embossed either in the corner or the center, and with some
special envelopes to match. Ordinary paper, purchasable from a regular
shop, didn't seem good enough to be handled by those slender white
fingers he had longed to kiss. There was nothing good enough for them,
and anything less than the unattainable good enough might soil them.

"Dear me! What a particular, hard-to-please old crank!" said the young
thing who served him after he, the traveling ray of sunshine, had
departed with the most exclusive box of paper in the shop under his arm.

The fortunate, but to Jimmy Gollop unappreciated, fact is that this
world is at the present moment filled with men who have tried to write
just such letters, and that probably it always has been so since the
first cave m