unsophisticated way of trying to collect a debt. I take some
comfort, in these later days, in knowing that the folks at home
credit me with the virtue of perseverance, and I wish they had used
the milder word when I was a boy.

There is a picture show just around the corner, and I'm in a
quandary, right now, whether to follow the crowd to that show or sit
here and read Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies." If I go to see the
picture film I'll probably see an exhibition of cowboy equestrian
dexterity, with a "happy ever after" finale, and may also acquire the
reputation among the neighbors of being up to date. But, if I spend
the evening with Ruskin, I shall have something worth thinking over
as I go about my work to-morrow. So here is another dilemma, and
there is no one to decide the matter for me. This being a free moral
agent is not the fun that some folks try to make it appear. I don't
really see how I shall ever get on unless I subscribe to Sam Walter
Foss's lines:

"No other song has vital breath
Through endless time to fight with death,
Than that the singer sings apart
To please his solitary heart."




CHAPTER XXVI

RABBIT PEDAGOGY