for a book, but he believed that his business faculty had much to do with
his success; and he was as proud of that as of the book itself. Perhaps
he was not so very proud of the book; he was at least not vain of it; he
could, detach himself from his art as well as his material.

Like all literary temperaments he was of a certain hardness, in spite of
the susceptibilities that could be used to give coloring to his work. He
knew this well enough, but he believed that there were depths of
unprofessional tenderness in his nature. He was good to his mother, and
he sent her money, and wrote to her in the little Indiana town where he
had left her when he came to Chicago. After he got that invitation from
the Bird of Prey, he explored his heart for some affection that he had
not felt for him before, and he found a wish that his employer should not
know it was he who had invented that nickname for him. He promptly avowed
this in the newspaper office which formed one of the eyries of the Bird
of Prey, and made the fellows promise not to give him away. He failed to
move their imagination when he brought up as a reason for softening
toward him that he was from Burnamy's own part of Indiana, and was a
benefactor of Tippecanoe University, from which Burnamy was graduated.
But they, relished the cynicism of his attempt; and they were glad of his
good luck, which he was getting square and not rhomboid, as most people
seem to get their luck. They liked him, and some of them liked him for
his clean young life as well as for his cleverness. His life was known to
be as clean as a girl's, and he looked like a girl with his sweet eyes,
though he had rather more chin than most girls.

The conductor came to reverse his seat, and Burnamy told him he guessed
he would ride back with him as far as the cars to the Hoboken Ferry, if
the conductor would put him off at the right place. It was nearly nine
o'clock, and he thought he might as well be going over to the ship, where