THE MAN WHO COULD NOT LOSE

by Richard Harding Davis



The Carters had married in haste and refused to repent at leisure.
So blindly were they in love, that they considered their marriage
their greatest asset. The rest of the world, as represented by
mutual friends, considered it the only thing that could be urged
against either of them. While single, each had been popular. As a
bachelor, young "Champ" Carter had filled his modest place
acceptably. Hostesses sought him for dinners and week-end parties,
men of his own years, for golf and tennis, and young girls liked
him because when he talked to one of them he never talked of
himself, or let his eyes wander toward any other girl. He had been

brought up by a rich father in an expensive way, and the rich
father had then died leaving Champneys alone in the world, with no
money, and with even a few of his father's debts. These debts of
honor the son, ever since leaving Yale, had been paying off. It had
kept him very poor, for Carter had elected to live by his pen, and,
though he wrote very carefully and slowly, the editors of the
magazines had been equally careful and slow in accepting what he
wrote.

With an income so uncertain that the only thing that could be said
of it with certainty was that it was too small to support even
himself, Carter should not have thought of matrimony. Nor, must it
be said to his credit, did he think of it until the girl came along