“I should be sorry if I had to contradict you,” said Vallory soberly. “At that, you are only accusing me of the common civilized humanities. The world has been very decent to me, thus far. Doesn’t it occur to you that a man usually finds what he looks for in life?—that, as a general[6] proposition, he gets just about what he is willing to give?”

[6]

The bearded man shook his head, as one too well seasoned to argue with unvictimized youth.

“Four years in college, and two in a Government service which taught you absolutely nothing about life as it is lived in a world of men and women and sharply competitive business,” he scoffed gently. “Ah, well; we’ll let it go with a word of advice—advice from a man whose name you don’t know, and whom you will most likely never meet again. When you come to take the plunge; the real plunge into the sure-enough puddle of life as it is lived by most men and not a few women; don’t tie up too hard with any man or set of men, or yet to those old-fashioned principles which you have been taught to regard as law and Gospel. If you do, you won’t succeed—in the only sense in which the world measures success.”

The train was moving on again, and Vallory was not sorry. Being healthily suspicious of cynicism in any of its forms, he was glad that his critical section mate had not chosen to begin on him at the dining-car breakfast, where they had first met. None the less, at the station stop he shook hands with the volunteer prophet of evil.

“Good-by,” he said. “I’d like to hear your estimate[7] of the next man with whom you happen to share a Pullman section. But part of your prediction will doubtless come true. I have definitely broken away from the Government job, and I shall probably not stay very long in Middleboro.”

[7]

As he left the train he glanced at his watch. It was past nine; therefore his father would be at the bank. With only a hand-bag for encumbrance he walked rapidly up the main street with the well-remembered home town surroundings still making their curiously depressive appeal.

[8]

II The Deluge

THE Middleboro Security Bank, housed in a modest two-storied brick three squares up from the railroad station, seemed on that morning of mornings to be a center of subdued excitement. Early in the forenoon as it was, a number of farm teams were halted at the 

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