"
"Tell me about him, Bryce."
"Don't have to. You've just told me about him, However, I'll read you
his letter. I claim there is more character in a letter than in a
face."
Here Bryce read aloud:
Golden Gate Hotel--Rooms fifty cents--and up. San Francisco,
California, August fifteenth, 1916.
MY DEAR CARDIGAN: Hark to the voice of one crying in the wilderness;
then picture to yourself the unlovely spectacle of a strong man
crying.
Let us assume that you have duly considered. Now wind up your wrist
and send me a rectangular piece of white, blue, green, or pink paper
bearing in the lower right-hand corner, in your clear, bold
chirography, the magic words "Bryce Cardigan"--with the little up-
and-down hook and flourish which identifies your signature given in
your serious moods and lends value to otherwise worthless paper. Five
dollars would make me chirk up; ten would start a slight smile;
twenty would put a beam in mine eye; fifty would cause me to utter
shrill cries of unadulterated joys and a hundred would inspire me to
actions like unto those of a whirling dervish.
I am so flat busted my arches make hollow sounds as I tread the hard
pavements of a great city, seeking a job. Pausing on the brink of
despair, that destiny which shapes our ends inspired me to think of
old times and happier days and particularly of that pink-and-white
midget of a girl who tended the soda-fountain just back of the
railroad station at Princeton.
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