heard nothing from him for a week, and I am afraid he is in trouble. After such encouragement as he has given us I don't like to let go of him.  

“Be sure to come if you can.  

“Very sincerely yours,  

“Margaret Davies.”  

The above note accounts for the presence of Halloran and Le Duc (he of the nimble legs) in a suburban train, on that Friday evening, bound for Clybourn and the Settlement. A few seats behind them sat Miss Davies, escorted by Mr. Babcock, a young business man who seemed to be going in heartily for charity work at this time. Le Duc was talking earnestly with Halloran. Apparently a momentous question had arisen in his life, and the young man beside him, who had had plenty of experience in earning his own living, who could steer a life-boat in a boiling sea, whose generalship alone, it was conceded by one party in college, had won the Chicago game that fall, was, he felt sure, the best counselor to be found in the difficult task of guiding a life straight toward its destiny.  

“I don't know another fellow I could come to with a question like this, Jack; but you understand these things; you know life. You've learned things already that the rest of us spend the most of our lives finding out. Now what would you say--how far do you think a man ought to go in sticking to the idea of an education?” Le Due's “education,” for several years now, had consisted of the study of elocution, with an occasional peck at English Literature or the French language, and a few, a very few, disastrous examinations. “I've got an offer to quit college right now to go in as second comedian with the Pooh Bah Company. They offer thirty dollars a week to begin with, with every prospect for a future. It is a rising company, you see--a sure thing. They are as safe as the First National Bank. If that were just the work I wanted, I couldn't do better.”  

Halloran was sitting back with his hat down on his forehead, listening conscientiously, but losing a word now and then, thanks to the roar of the train.  

“You see, old chap, I set my mind on Shakespeare when I first came to college. I decided then it would be Shakespeare or nothing with me. A man's got to have a goal, you know; he's got to aim high or he will never get anywhere; and my goal has been Shakespeare. But the question is just this: Ought I to give up this offer, when it may be my chance to get a good start on the stage? I might be able to work up into Shakespeare by 

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