of the way; he was working hard, with clean ambitions, yet he was
hungry. He could not understand it. No doubt an empty stomach
inclines a man to much logic and the splitting of straws. There comes
with an empty stomach less of grossness and more of abstract reason,
and an exaltation which may be all impractical, but which is recklessly
acute.

"I want to do things, I want to help others--I don't know why, but I
do--I have ambitions, but I try to make them good. I am doing the best
I can with the brains I have. I get up in the morning from the office
floor and do my utmost all day, and try to do better when I get out,
but nothing helps me! Where is the God who, it is said, at worst,
helps those who help themselves.

"'You say that we have a meaning;
So has dung, and its meaning is flowers.'

"The Hindoo king must be right. I am, we all are but like horses, or
trees, or mushrooms; and it is only some sort of accident which makes
each thing with life successful or unsuccessful, happy or unhappy, as
the case may be."

So, at this time, Grant Harlson reasoned, blindly, yet in his heart
there was something which protested against his own deductions and kept
him in the path which was straightforward, and from staking all the
future on the morrow. So drifted away the days, and this strong-limbed
young fellow became hungrier and hungrier, and more shiny at knees and
elbows, and more lapsided of foot-gear, and more thoroughly puzzled at,
and disgusted with, the city world.