R. ALFRED TALLCOTT had gone through college because he thought it was a proper thing to do. At the end of two years, during which he had been vainly trying to find a niche for himself in the world, he came to the conclusion that there was something radically wrong in the universe. Whether it was that there were too few niches, or that there were too many college-bred men, he could not quite determine; but in either case the situation was embarrassing. In one of his idle moments, of which he had a great abundance, he took down his diploma, which hung in its frame on the wall, and the original idea occurred to him that it might be worth reading. He soon discovered, after a little puzzling over the construction, that this parchment, officially signed and sealed by good men and true, declared him to be worthy of a variety of honors and dignities. The honors and dignities, however, had appeared to be in no haste to descend upon him. He had in an ambitious moment aspired to the dignity of a newspaper reporter, and had visited some twenty editors in the hope of realizing this ambition. But the editors were, as a rule, so embarrassed with a superfluity of talent seeking employment that they politely begged him to call again—next year. It had been suggested to him by a disgruntled relative that the honors attending a clerkship in a dry-goods store might not be beyond his reach: but with the music of choric odes and Homeric hexameters singing in his brain, how could he condescend to measuring tapes and ribbons? To be sure, this music was becoming very dim of late, and the roar of a rude and prosaic reality was beginning to drown the faint classical echoes. But this same prosaic reality had the advantage of containing a creature who was very dear to Mr. Tallcott, and on that account could not help interesting him. He had made the discovery that a certain young lady named Kate Remington was surpassingly fair; but Kate unfortunately, in spite of her loveliness, had a streak of prose in her, and she demanded in the most sweetly peremptory language his reconciliation with reality. In other words, she refused to marry him, or even to be engaged to him, unless he could make a living. It was this perverseness on Kate's part, in connection with a note from his guardian informing him that his slender patrimony was well-nigh exhausted—it was these two unpleasant circumstances which at last moved him to a desperate resolution. He determined to go West. Kate—the sweet practical Kate—when he cautiously broached the subject to her, had the cruelty to approve of his plan. She even parted from him with heart-rending cheerfulness at the railroad depot, and advised him not to take a sleeping car, because, she said, it was such a pity to sleep away so much money. He attempted to kiss her, because of her "amusing worldliness"; but she objected to any such demonstration, because it looked so engaged.
"And we are not engaged, Hal," she said; "you know we are not."
"I thought we were what you might call provisionally engaged," he said, in smiling dismay.
"What do you mean by that??"
"I mean that if I make a success of life, you will marry me; and if I don't, you will marry some one else. In other words, I am engaged to you, but not you to me."
"Hal," she cried, radiantly, "I will kiss you good-by; for that is the cleverest thing I have heard you say yet." And she promptly executed her threat. "You will succeed in the West, Hal. I know you will succeed."
He jumped aboard, and she stood waving her handkerchief to him while the train moved out of the depot.