Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-08-01
CHAPTER w.
The Turn of the Page.

=
UOHN VALIANT stirred and
laughed, a little self consciously,
~ for there had been drops on his
face.
Presently he took check-book from
his pocket and began to figure on the
stub, looking up with wry smile.
ITO come down to brass tacks, he
muttered, when I've settled every
thing (thank heaven, l don't owe my
tailorD there will be a little matter
of twenty-eight hundred odd dollars,
passe motor and my clothes be-
tween me and the bread-line!"
Everything else he had disposed of
everything but the four footed COM
rade there at his feet. At his look,
the white bulldog sprang up whining
and made joyful pretense of devour-
ing his masters immaculate boot
laces. Valiant put his hand under the
eager muzzle, lifted the intelligent
head to his knee and looked into the
beseeching amber eyes. But I'd not
sell you, old chap" he said softly;
mot single lick of your friendly pink
tongues; not for a beastly hundred
thousand"
He withdrew his caressing hand and
looked again at the check stub.
Twenty eight hundred He laughed
bleakly. Why, he had spent more
than that a month ago on a ball at
Sherry's This morning he had been
rich; tonight he was poor! He had
imagined this in the abstract. but now
of a sududen the fact seemed fraught
4, Il
Righteousness as a man might feel
who going to bed with full thatch
of hair, confronts the morning mirror
to find himself as bald as a porcelain
mandarin.
What could he do? He could not
remember a time when he had not
had all that he wanted. He had never
borrowed from a friend or been
dunned by an importunate tradesman.
And he had never tried to earn a dol
lar in his life; as to current methods
of making a living, he was as igno-
rant as a Pueblo Indian.
What did others do? The men he
knew who joked of their poverty and
their debts, and whose hilarious habit
it was to picture life as desperate
handicap in which they were forever
three jumps ahead of the sheriff"
somehow managed to cling to their
yachts and their stables. Few of his
friends had really gone smash" and
of these all but one had taken them
selves speedily and decently off. He
thought of Rod Creighton, the one
failure who had ching to the old life,
\, CO.. n two sie fr1 -
brilliant success of living on his
friends. When this ended he had
gone on the road for some
champagne or other. Everybody had
ordered from him at the start. But
this, too. had failed He had dropped
out of the clubs and there had at last
befallen an evil time when he had
come to haunt the avenue, as keen for
stray quarters as any panhandler.
Where was Creighton now. he Won
dered?
Across the avenue was Larry Tread
wells brokerage office. Larry had a
brain for business; as a youthful
scamp in knickerbockers he had been
as sharp as steel-trap. But what
did he, John Valiant. know of bust
ness? Less than of law Why, he
was not fit to smirS behind counter
and measure lace insertion for the
| petticoats of the women he waltzed
with! All he was really fit for was to
work with his hands
He thought of a gang of laborers he
had seen that afternoon breaking the
asphalt with crowbars. What must 1t
be to toll through the clammy cold of
winter and the smothering fur-heat of
Summer, in some revolving routine of
| filth and unredeemable ugliness? He