editions of our papers. I do not agree with it entirely.
Nevertheless, it will serve as an excellent foundation for my own
adventures; and what is best of all, save labour.




V

FRIENDS


My name is Harry Wendel.

I am an attorney and until recently boasted of a splendid practice
and an excellent prospect for the future. I am still a young man;
I have had a good education and still have friends and admirers.
Such being the case, you no doubt wonder why I give a past
reference to my practice and what the future might have held for
me. Listen:

I might as well start 'way back. I shall do it completely and go
back to the fast-receding time of childhood.

There is a recollection of childish disaster. I had been making
strenuous efforts to pull the tail out of the cat that I might use
it for a feather duster. My desire was supreme logic. I could not
understand objection; the cat resisted for certain utilitarian
reasons of its own and my mother through humane sympathy. I had
been scratched and spanked in addition: it was the first storm