He was capable of quixotism of the most whimsical sort. He had, for a year, taken his meals at a cheap boarding-house in order that he might maintain two Indian boys in school. He was not at all aggrieved when, at the end of the first year, they ran away and resumed tribal relations with their brethren. He chaffed himself about it to his friends.

"It was wrong for me," he would say, "to try to pervert the tastes of those young savages. I nearly ruined my own digestion to buy them white man's[Pg 17] luxuries; I wore out my old clothes that they might not go naked; and all they learned was to smoke cigarettes."

[Pg 17]

It was not enough to say that Warry Raridan could lead a german or tie an Ascot tie better than any other man on the Missouri River; for he was also the best informed man in that same strenuous valley concerning the traditions of the English stage, and was a fairly good actor himself, as amateurs go. He had an almost fatal cleverness, which made him impatient of the restraints of college; and he left in his sophomore year owing to difficulties with the mathematical requirements. Good books had abounded in his father's house, and he was from boyhood a persistent, though erratic reader. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the study of the rise of monastic orders; and from this he changed lightly to the newest books on psychology. There were many ways in which he could be entertaining. He had a slight literary gift, which he cultivated for his own amusement. His humor was fine and keen, and he occasionally wrote screeds for the local papers, or mailed, apropos of something or nothing, pleasant jingles to his intimate friends.

No Clarkson hostess felt that a visiting girl had received courteous attention unless she carried home a portfolio of verses written in her honor by Warry Raridan. He gave, indeed, an impression of great frivolity, but there were people who took him seriously, and lawyers who knew him well said that he might win success in his profession if he would apply himself. He had once appeared for the people in a suit to compel the street-railway company to pave[Pg 18] certain streets, as provided by the terms of its franchise, and had gained his point against the best lawyers in the state. This accomplished, he refused an appointment as local counsel for a great railway, and with characteristic perverseness spent the following summer managing an open-air mission for poor children.

[Pg 18]

Saxton was greatly amused and entertained by Raridan. Even 

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