II


THE IDLER


_Concerning the Young Man in the Ditch and His Attempts to Get Out of It_

Although he was not vindictive, he did not care to owe anything to
anybody who might be inclined to give him a hearing on account of former
obligations or his social position. Everybody knew he had gone to smash;
everybody, he very soon discovered, was naturally afraid of being
bothered by him. The dread of the overfed that an underfed member of the
community may request a seat at the table he now understood perfectly. He
was learning.

So he solicited aid from nobody whom he had known in former days; neither
from those who had aided him when he needed no aid, nor those who owed
their comfortable position to the generosity of his father--a gentleman
notorious for making fortunes for his friends.

Therefore he wrote to strangers on a purely business basis--to amazing
types lately emerged from the submerged, bulging with coal money, steel
money, copper money, wheat money, stockyard money--types that galloped
for Fifth Avenue to build town houses; that shook their long cars and
frisked into the country and built "cottages." And this was how he put
it:

"_Madam:_ In case you desire to entertain guests with the professional
services of a magician it would give me pleasure to place my very unusual