make the effort and so prove the truth of the assertion; it is infinitely less trouble to let some other fellow get the true meaning and joy out of life while you content yourself with the corner seat at the club fireside and the comfortable certainty that the chef understands to a dot how you like your cutlets and asparagus tips. Just the same I will speak to Bob—and meanwhile I have awakened to the realization that it is ten[Pg 11] minutes to nine and that only a taxi-driver with no reverence for the speed laws can deliver me at the Pennsylvania station in time for the southbound train. I do make it, with a quarter of a minute to spare, and now I remember that I have forgotten to send a wire to Mr. Eldon. I can telegraph him at Wilmington, but there is small chance of its being delivered in time; probably I shall have to rustle my own means of conveyance to "Hildebrand Hundred." I shall have full two hours between the arrival of my train at Crown Ferry and the time appointed for the funeral. That ought to be sufficient even if I have to walk.

[Pg 10]

[Pg 11]

The ride over the Cape Charles route is not particularly interesting; moreover, it was infernally dusty, and the food provided by the buffet on the Pullman seemed extraordinarily unappetizing. Where on earth does the company procure such tasteless provender? Everything tastes so desiccated and deodorized, the mere shadow of really substantial viands, a veritable feast of Barmecide. There was the usual delay owing to a freight wreck, and my two hours of leeway had shrunken to a scant sixty minutes by the time I had alighted at the little flag station of Crown Ferry.[Pg 12]

[Pg 12]

Not a very inviting place, this shabby way station set in a wilderness of jack-pine and hackberry trees. There was not a soul in sight, outside of the depressed looking individual who served as general utility man and who apparently resented the intrusion of a stranger upon his lonely domain. To my inquiry concerning the possibility of obtaining some sort of conveyance, he returned a monosyllabic "Nope," and he showed not the smallest inclination to give me any real assistance in finding my way to "Hildebrand Hundred"; he pointed out the general direction, with a lean, tobacco-stained finger, and let it go at that.

There was no house in sight, nothing but the two rutted tracks of a sandy country road leading off toward the west and bifurcating itself a couple of hundred yards away from the station—"deepo" in the vernacular. I 

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