GRANICE told his story simply, connectedly.

He began by a quick survey of his early years — the years of drudgery¹ and privation. His father, a charming man who could never say “no,” had so signally failed to say it on certain essential occasions that when he died he left an illegitimate family and a mortgaged estate. His lawful² kin³ found themselves hanging over a gulf⁴ of debt, and young Granice, to support his mother and sister, had to leave Harvard and bury himself at eighteen in a broker’s office. He loathed⁵ his work, and he was always poor, always worried and in ill-health. A few years later his mother died, but his sister, an ineffectual neurasthenic, remained on his hands. His own health gave out, and he had to go away for six months, and work harder than ever when he came back. He had no knack⁶ for business, no head for figures, no dimmest insight into the mysteries of commerce. He wanted to travel and write — those were his inmost longings⁷. And as the years dragged on, and he neared middle-age without making any more money, or acquiring any firmer health, a sick despair possessed⁹ him. He tried writing, but he always came home from the office so tired that his brain could not work. For half the year he did not reach his dim up-town flat till after dark, and could only “brush up” for dinner, and afterward¹⁰ lie on the lounge with his pipe, while his sister droned through the evening paper. Sometimes he spent an evening at the theatre; or he dined out, or, more rarely, strayed off with an acquaintance or two in quest of what is known as “pleasure.” And in summer, when he and Kate went to the sea-side for a month, he

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