pictures had been hung in a saloon.

I was gasping for breath like a marathon runner at the end of the twenty-third mile, but your Ma was all smiles so I thought I must be making a hit.

That's where I went wrong, and while you're about it Ted just paste this in your hat for future reference. When you begin to be pleased with yourself you're in as much danger as a fat boy running tiddelies on early November ice.

As saloon was the only word in the Benson cannonade that I understood, I replied when the bombardment was over.

"Glad to hear it, I'm sure. If the French brewers are paying him for pictures to hang in their saloons, he should be able to paint some snappy clothing ads for American manufacturers before long."

Mrs. Benson choked, gasped, strangled, and grew so red in the face I thought she was going to have apoplexy. Then she bounded out of her chair with one word, "insulting," and made for the door with your Ma one jump behind, imploring her to stay.

When your Ma returned, I learned saloon was the French word for picture gallery, and that my society stock had gone down like an aviator in a nose dive.

About a year later Old Man Benson busted trying to flood the retailers with bronze kid boots, and it was a real honest-to-goodness failure. The old man was wiped out and Percy came home from Paris.

One morning I was over at the Benson's factory along with a bunch of other creditors. The meeting had hardly got under way, when Percy entered in a cloud of cigarette smoke, and with a breath that made me think the French knew what they were about when they called the place at which he had been studying Booze Arts.

No one there had much love for Percy, but we all realized his father was too old to start again and that it was up to Percy to go to work, for from his general appearance it did not look as though the artist business was paying any dividends. So as gently as I could, I suggested he paint the inside of my factory at $25 per. I was pretty sure it was more than he was worth, but I felt sorry for the old man. Did he take it? He did not. He gave me one scornful glance and strode out of the room with the air of an insulted king. Did he go to work? Not much! He married a waitress at the Dairy Lunch who ought to have known better, and to-day she is working in the stitching room at Fair Bros. while Percy spends his days coloring photographs for about ten a week, and his nights preaching revolution at radical meetings.

Forget the artist stuff Ted, and take a second helping of the education they pass around so liberally at Exeter. It can't hurt you any, and who knows but it may do you some good. And by the way if you can spare the time from your studies (and I guess you can if you try real hard) why not play a little football?

Your Ma says she's afraid you'll have your brains knocked out, but I tell her not to worry over the impossible.

Your affectionate father,

William Soule.

Lynn, Mass.

October 21, 19—

Dear Ted:

As I was walking down Market Street to the factory the other afternoon, I overheard two of your old schoolmates refer to me as the father of the Exeter end.

I'm glad you're on the team, and for the next year or two I don't mind being the father of a star end, provided you keep it firmly fixed in your head that it's just as important to keep old Julius Cæsar from slipping around you for twenty-five yards, as it is to keep the Andover quarter from running back kicks.

After you go to work, if anyone refers to me as the father of an end, I'll feel like turning the factory over to the labor unions, because if there is anything that disgusts a live business man it's to see a young fellow in business trying to live on a former athletic reputation. Just you remember, son, that the letter on your sweater fades quickly; but the letters on a degree last through life.

I didn't care much for that part of your last letter where you said you were afraid you were not good enough to hold down a regular job on the team, and I want to go on record right now that if that's the way you feel about it you're dead right. No man ever succeeded without confidence in himself, and it don't hurt any to let others know you have it.

I don't mean boasting. I despise above all else a person who is in love. That is, with himself, but as yet I have never heard of a scientific organization of bushel raisers, so it won't do you a bit of harm to let a little of your light shine forth now and then.

And, Ted, go out on the field every day with the idea that you're better than the average as a football player, and when you get a kick in the ribs or have your wind knocked out, come up with a grin and go back at 'em harder than before.

Play to win, Ted, but play clean. Your coach doesn't tolerate dirty football, and I don't tolerate dirty business. Play nothing except football on the football field, do nothing except study in your class rooms, and when you go to work, work in business hours. If you stick to that prescription you'll come out with a pretty fair batting average at the end of your life.

You say that if you play in the Andover game you'll be up against an opponent who will out-weigh you fifteen pounds. Don't let that worry you. No less a person than the great Lanky Bob said, "The bigger they are the 'arder they fall." All through your life you will be running up against men who are bigger than you physically, mentally, and in a business way, so it's just as well to get used to the fact while you're young.

Your dreading your bigger opponent reminds me of something that happened to me when I was about your age.

In those days the Annual Cattle and Poultry Show held at Epping was quite the event of our social season, and the one thing all the people looked forward to, for months.

This particular year I had been saving my money a nickle here and a dime there, for your grandfather was determined none of his children should grow up to be spendthrifts, and would turn over in his grave if he knew the allowance I give you.

You needn't tell your Ma this, but in those days I was sweet on Alice Hopkins who was the belle of the town, and after much careful planning and skillful maneuvering had wrung an ironclad promise from her to let me escort her to the show, and I was pretty sure she would keep it, for somehow she got wind of the fact that I had all of $10 to spend which was considerably more than any of her other swains had managed to accumulate. My father loaned me his best buggy for the occasion, and I spent the entire afternoon before the great day washing and polishing it, and grooming our bay mare until she shone; and believe me, I was some punkins in my own estimation when I drove up to Alice's house the next morning and she rustled in beside me in a new pink dress.

As we rolled along the river road, the mist rising white from the marshes, the brilliant splashes of color on the sumac and maples, the autumn tang of the crisp September air, and Alice looking prettier each minute at my side, all made my thoughts turn toward a rosy future in which she and I would ride on and on. I was oblivious of the fact that my entire capital consisted of a spavined colt and the ten dollars in my pocket, and that I had about as much chance of gaining my parents' consent to marry, as a German has of being unanimously elected the first president of the League of Nations.

Alice, I found after I had hitched the horse to the rail in the maple grove