Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/209

 leave a sure, small thing in a small town for an uncertain, big thing in a big city! It serves me right. I suppose I thought I was too good for the country. I am a fool! Well, now try Harvey & Harris, wholesale and retail books."

Will Young was ambitious, but he was not exactly a fool. He had come on to New York "to accept," his mother and the county paper out in Illinois said "a responsible position in a manufacturing firm in New York, N. Y."

It was at the instigation of a college classmate, who had been enthusiastic over a new company for the manufacture of paper-covered lead-pencils, but had not discovered that the process was already covered by a patent. That is, not until after Young had come East. Then the company went up in smoke, and the classmate went abroad with his wealthy parents, and Will Young was left alone in New York, with the alternative of going home humiliated or of finding something else to do.

For a week he had been pacing the streets