March 11. When I left My Fancy, after my visit, Agnes had nothing but praise for me. "I was certain that you and Maizie would be friends if you ever really knew each other," she said triumphantly. Unfortunately, our first meeting in the city served only to prove the reverse. In one of my daily walks up-town, I met you and Agnes outside a shop where you had been buying Christmas gifts for the boys of your Neighborhood Guild. You were looking for the carriage, about which there had been some mistake, and I helped you search. When our hunt was unsuccessful, you both said you would rather walk than let me get a cab, having been deterred only by the growing darkness, and not by the snow. So chatting merrily, away we went, through the elfin flakes which seemed so eager to kiss your cheeks, till your home was reached.

"If we come in, will you give us some tea?" asked Agnes.

"Tea, cake, chocolates, and conversation," you promised.

"I am sorry," I said, "but I cannot spare the time."

I thought you and Agnes exchanged glances. "Please, Doc—" she began; but you interrupted her by saying proudly, "We must not take any more of Dr. Hartzmann's time, Agnes. Will you come in?"

"No," replied Agnes. "I'll go home before it's any darker. Good-night."

I started to walk with her the short distance, but the moment we were out of hearing she turned towards me and cried, "I hate you!" As I made no reply, she demanded impatiently, "What makes you behave so abominably?" When I was still silent she continued: "I told you how Maizie felt, and I thought it was all right, and now you do it again. It's too bad! Well, can't you say something? Why do you do it?"

"There is nothing for me to say, Miss Blodgett," I responded sadly.

"You might at least do it to please me," she persisted, "even if you don't like Maizie."

I made no answer, and we walked the rest of the distance in silence. At the stoop, however, Agnes asked, "Will you go with me to call on Maizie, some afternoon?"

I shook my head.

"Not even to please mamma and me?" she questioned.

Again I gave the same answer, and without a word of parting she left me and passed through the doorway. From that time she has treated me coldly.

Another complication only tended to increase the coldness, as well as to involve me with Mrs. Blodgett. In December, Mr. Blodgett came into Mr. Whitely's office and announced, "I've been taking a liberty with your name, doctor."

"For what kindness am I indebted now?" I inquired.

"I'm a member of the Philomathean," he said,—"not because I'm an author, or artist, or engineer, or scientist, but because I'm a big frog in my own puddle, and they want samples of us, provided we are good fellows, just to see what we're like. I was talking with Professor Eaton in September, and we agreed you ought to be one of us; so we stuck your name up, and Saturday evening the club elected you."

"I can't afford it"—I began; but he interrupted with:—

"I knew you'd say that, and so didn't tell you beforehand. I'll bet you your initiation fee and a year's dues against a share of R. T. common that you'll make enough out of your membership to pay you five times over."

"How can I do that?"

"All the editors and publishers are members," he replied, "and to meet them over the rum punch we serve on meeting nights is worth money to the most celebrated author living. Then you'll have the best club library in this country at your elbow for working purposes."

"I don't think I ought, Mr. Blodgett."

He was about to protest, when Mr. Whitely broke in upon us, saying, "Accept your membership, Dr. Hartzmann, and the paper shall pay your initiation and dues."

I do not know whether Mr. Blodgett or myself was the more surprised at this unexpected and liberal offer. Our amazement was so obvious that Mr. Whitely continued: "I think it'll be an excellent idea for the paper to have a member of its staff in the Philomathean, and so the office shall pay for it."

"Whitely," observed Mr. Blodgett admiringly, "you're a good business man, whatever else you are!"

"I wish, Blodgett," inquired Mr. Whitely, "you would tell me why I have been kept waiting so long?"

"Many a name's been up longer than yours," replied Mr. Blodgett in a comforting voice. "You don't seem to realize that the Philomathean's a pretty stiff club to get into."

"But I've been posted for over three years, while here Dr. Hartzmann is elected within four months of his proposing."

"Well, the doctor has the great advantage of being a sort of natural Philomath, you see," Mr. Blodgett explained genially. "He was born that way, and so is ripe for membership without any closet mellowing."

"But my reputation as a writer is greater than Dr."—began Mr. Whitely; but a laugh from Mr. Blodgett made him halt.

"Oh come, now, Whitely!"

"What's the matter?" asked my employer.

"Once St. Peter and St. Paul stopped at a tavern to quench their thirst," said Mr. Blodgett, "and when the time came to pay, they tossed dice for it. Paul threw double sixes, and smiled. Peter smiled back, and threw double sevens. What do you suppose Paul said, Whitely?"

"What?"

"'Oh, Peter, Peter! No miracles between friends.'"

"I don't follow you," rejoined Mr. Whitely.

Mr. Blodgett turned and said to me, "I'm going West for two months, and while I'm gone the Twelfth-night revel at the Philomathean is to come off. Will you see that the boss and Agnes get cards?" Then he faced about and remarked, "Whitely, I'd give a big gold certificate to know what nerve food you use!" and went out, laughing.

When I took the invitations to Mrs. Blodgett, I found you all with your heads full of a benefit for the Guild, to be given at your home,—a musical evening, with several well-known stars as magnets, and admission by invitation as an additional attraction. Mrs. Blodgett said to me in her decisive way, "Dr. Hartzmann, the invitations are five dollars each, and you are to take one."

I half suspected that it was only a device to get me within your doors, though every society woman feels at liberty to whitemail her social circle to an unlimited degree. But the fact that the entertainment was to be in your home, even more than my poverty, compelled me to refuse to be a victim of her charitable kindness or her charitable greed. I merely shook my head.

"Oh, but you must," she urged. "It will be a delightful evening, and then it's such a fine object."

"Do not ask it of Dr. Hartzmann," you protested, coming to my aid. "No one"—

"I'm sure it's very little to ask," remarked Mrs. Blodgett, in a disappointed way.

"Mrs. Blodgett," I said, in desperation, "for years I have denied myself every luxury and almost every comfort. I have lived at the cheapest of boarding-houses; I have walked down-town, rain or shine, to save ten cents a day; I have"—I stopped there, ashamed of my outbreak.

"I suppose, Dr. Hartzmann," retorted Agnes, with no attempt to conceal the irritation she felt toward me, "that the Philomathean is one of your ten-cent economies?"

Before I could speak you changed the subject, and the matter was dropped,—I hoped for all time. It was, however, to reappear, and to make my position more difficult and painful than ever.

At Mrs. Blodgett's request, made that very day, I sent you an invitation to the Philomathean ladies' day. It was with no hope of being there myself, since my editorial duties covered the hours of the exhibition; but good or bad fortune aided me, for Mr. Whitely asked me for a ticket, and his absence from the office set me free. The crowd was great, but, like most people who try for one thing only, I attained my desire by quickly finding you, and we spent an enjoyable hour together, studying the delicious jokes and pranks of our artist members. The truly marvelous admixture of absurdity and cleverness called out the real mirth of your nature, and our happiness and gayety over the pictures strangely recalled to me our similar days spent in Paris and elsewhere. You too, I think, remembered the same experience, for when we had finished, and were ascending the stairs to the dining-room, you remarked to me, "I never dreamed that one could be so merry after one had ceased to be a child. For the last hour I have felt as if teens were yet unventured lands."

I confess I sought a secluded spot in an alcove, hoping still to keep you to myself; but the project failed, for when I returned from getting you an ice, I found that Mr. Whitely had joined you. The pictures, of course, were the subject of discussion, and you asked him, "Are all the other members as clever in their own professions as your artists have shown themselves to be?"

"The Philomathean is made up of an able body of men," replied Mr. Whitely in a delightfully patronizing tone. "Some few of the very ablest, perhaps, do not care to be members; but of the second rank, you may say, broadly speaking, that it includes all men of prominence in this city."

"But why should the abler men not belong?"

"They are too occupied with more vital matters," explained my employer.

"Yet surely they must need a club, and what one so appropriate as this?"

"It is natural to reason so," assented the would-be member. "But as an actual fact, some of the most prominent men in this city are not members," and he mentioned three well-known names.

The inference was so unjust that I observed, "Should you not add, Mr. Whitely, that they are not members either because they know it is useless to apply, or because they have applied in vain; and that their exclusion, though superficially a small affair, probably means to them, by the implication it carries, one of the keenest mortifications of their lives?"

"You mean that the Philomathean refuses to admit such men as Mr. Whitely named?" you asked incredulously.

I smiled. "The worldly reputation and the professional reputation of men occasionally differ very greatly, Miss Walton. We do not accept a man here because his name appears often in the newspapers, but because of what the men of his own calling know and think of him."

"And of course they are always jealous of a man who has surpassed them," contended Mr. Whitely.

"There must be something more against a man than envy of his confrÈres to exclude him," I answered. "My loyalty to the Philomathean, Miss Walton, is due to the influence it exerts in this very matter. Errors are possible, but the intention is that no man shall be of our brotherhood who is not honestly doing something worth the doing, for other reasons than mere money-making. And for that very reason, we are supposed, within these walls, to be friends, whether or not there is acquaintance outside of them. We are the one club in New York which dares to trust its membership list implicitly to that extent. Charlatanry and dishonesty may succeed with the world, but here they fail. Money will buy much, but the poorest man stands on a par here with the wealthiest."

"You make me envious of you both," you sighed, just as Mrs. Blodgett and Agnes joined us.

"What are you envying them?" asked Agnes, as she shook hands with you,—"that they were monopolizing you? How selfish men are!"

"In monopolizing this club?"

"Was that what you envied them?" ejaculated Mrs. Blodgett. "I for one am glad there's a place to which I can't go, where I can send my husband when I want to be rid of him." Then she turned to Mr. Whitely, and with her usual directness remarked, "So they've let you in? Mr. Blodgett told me you would surely be rejected."

Mr. Whitely reddened and bit his lip, for which he is hardly to be blamed. But he only bowed slightly in reply, leaving the inference in your minds that he was a Philomath. How the man dares so often to—

The striking clock tells me it is later than I thought, and I must stop.

Good-night, dear heart.

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