s the idea, Anthony? You're wrong, but--what is it?"

"My idea," said the proprietor of Fry's Imperial Liniment slowly, "is
merely this, Johnson: that the whole proposition of the man who is a
dire failure, the man who is a tremendous success, is vastly
exaggerated."

"Meaning?"

"That failure does not of necessity imply incapacity or ineptitude--or
success any tremendous capability, in many cases, for that matter. Taken
by and large, we are all made of much the same stuff, you know. The
trouble lies in the failure of the plain, average, reasonably stupid
citizen to recognize opportunity's one solitary knock!" Anthony smiled,
growing himself more interested by the second. "Now, if opportunity were
but decent enough to knock twice, at least double the number of striving
humans would recognize her nearness and grasp her. If she could bring
herself to knock three times, say, our successes would be tripled.
If----"

"And if she knocked a thousand times in succession, everybody'd be a
millionaire," Johnson Boller suggested.

"Something like that," smiled Anthony. "The chap who does know
opportunity, recognizes her mainly by accident, I honestly believe. Now,
if we could but take each man and place opportunity before him and hold
her there until he fully understood that she was present, the word
failure would be omitted from the dictionaries a generation hence."

Anthony Fry winked rapidly, which in itself was rather a bad sign
because it indicated that the theorizing portion of his cultured brain
was growing quite rapt. At another time, very likely, Johnson Boller
would have heeded the warning and turned Anthony's attention gently back
to the fight; but to-night Boller sought refuge from the haunting
loneliness that Beatrice had left behind.

"I don't agree with you!" he said flatly.

"Eh?"

"Nix!" said Johnson Boller. "Any guy who can come face to face with a
regular honest-to-goodness opportunity, Anthony, and not know her inside
of one second, could have her tied to his right leg for two hundred
years and never know she was there."

"You really believe that?"

"Oh, I know it!" said Johnson Boller. "I have several millions of years
of human experience to prove that I'm right."

Anthony leaned closer, causing the largest of the red-faced trio behind
to growl senselessly as he was forced to shift for a view of the ring.

"Let us assume, Johnson, the individual A," said Anthony. "A wished to
become a lawyer;