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 more education than what he had picked up on the march.

"But I was out of the gun business for good," he said, "and thank God for it."

One instinctively sides with the hero in any story—not that Mr. Marsden was that exactly—but in his struggles and hardships and disappointments and the gritty fight he made to get through college and make something of himself and his abilities. Think of the Bo-peep puzzle, for instance. He made it for his landlady's little girl, who was sick in bed, and he too poor to buy her a Christmas present! His big things were all failures, while this unconsidered trifle, whittled out with his jack-knife late one night, and inspired simply by kindness, brought him an unexpected and Heaven-sent independence. He sold it to a syndicate for thirty-five dollars, and only retained half profits because they wouldn't make it one hundred dollars outright.

"Now they are Marsden Incorporated," he said, "and I am under a ten years' iron-clad