times coincident with housecleaning seasons at home. Clarkson business men who maintained non-resident memberships in Chicago or St. Louis clubs, said, in excusing the poor patronage of the Clarkson Club, that Clarkson was not a club town, like Kansas City or Denver, where there were more unattached men with money to spend.

Saxton was not over-sensitive, but the stiffness and hardness of the club house were not without their disagreeable impression on him as he sat at dinner toward the close of his first day in Clarkson. Two of the men to whom Porter had introduced him at noon proved to[Pg 14] be fellow lodgers, and they exchanged greetings with him from the table where they sat together. They unsociably read their evening papers as they ate, and left before he finished. He had lighted a cigar over his coffee, and was watching the fading colors of a brilliant sunset when a young man appeared at the door, and after a brief inspection of Saxton's back walked over to him.

[Pg 14]

"Aren't you Mr. Saxton? I thought you must be he. My name is Raridan. Don't let me break in on your meditations," he added, taking the chair which the waiter drew out for him. "I met Mr. Porter a while ago, and he adjured me on penalties that I won't name to be good to you. I don't know whether this is obeying orders,"—he broke off in a laugh,—"that depends on the point of view." He had produced a cigarette case from his pocket and rolled a white cylinder between his palms before lighting it. As the flame leaped from the match, Saxton noted the young man's thin face, his thick, curling dark hair, his slight mustache, the slenderness of his fingers. The eyes that lay back of rimless glasses were almost too fine for a man; but their gentleness and kindliness were charming.

"You are guilty of a very Christian act," Saxton said. "I was just wondering whether, after the sun had gone down behind that ridge over there, the world would still be going round."

"The world never stops entirely here," returned Raridan, "but the motion sometimes gets very slow. Mr. Porter tells me that you're to be one of us. Let me congratulate us,—and you!"

"I'm not so sure about you," rejoined Saxton. "At[Pg 15] my last stopping place in the West they had a way of getting rid of undesirable members of the community, and I've never got over being nervous. But that was Wyoming. I'm sure you're more civilized here."

[Pg 15]

"Not merely 

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