TO understand this story you will have tobelieve in the Greater Gods—Love and Youth,for example, and Adventure and Coincidence; alsoin the trusting heart of woman and the deceitfulspirit of man. You will have to reconcile yourselfto the fact that though daily you go to Londonby the nine-seven, returning by the five-fifteen,and have your accustomed meals at eight, one,and half-past six, there are those who take neithertrains nor meals regularly. That, while nothingon earth ever happens to you, there really are onearth people to whom things do happen. Nor isthe possibility of such happenings wholly a matterof the independent income—the income for whichyou do not work. It is a matter of the individual[2]soul. I knew a man whose parents had placedhim in that paralyzing sort of situation which issymbolized by the regular trains and the regularmeals. It was quite a nice situation for somepeople, a situation, too, in which one was certainto "get on." But the man I knew had otherdreams. He chucked his job, one fine Saturdaymorning in May, went for a long walk, met atinker and bought his