Let's talk."






II





GRANICE told his story simply, connectedly.

He began by a quick survey of his early years--the years of drudgery
and privation. His father, a charming man who could never say "no,"
had so signally failed to say it on certain essential occasions that
when he died he left an illegitimate family and a mortgaged estate.
His lawful kin found themselves hanging over a gulf of debt, and
young Granice, to support his mother and sister, had to leave
Harvard and bury himself at eighteen in a broker's office. He
loathed his work, and he was always poor, always worried and in
ill-health. A few years later his mother died, but his sister, an
ineffectual neurasthenic, remained on his hands. His own health gave
out, and he had to go away for six months, and work harder than ever
when he came back. He had no knack for business, no head for
figures, no dimmest insight into the mysteries of commerce. He
wanted to travel and write--those were his inmost longings. And as
the years dragged on, and he neared middle-age without making any