Mr. Frederic Swain,
1010 Fifth Avenue,
New York City.

If not at this address,
please try the Calumet Club.

I sat down on the lowest rung of the ladder, whistling softly to
myself. For Freddie Swain's address was no longer 1010 Fifth Avenue,
nor was he to be found in the luxurious rooms of the Calumet Club. In
fact, it was nearly a year since he had entered either place. For some
eight hours of every week-day, he laboured in the law offices of Royce
& Lester; he slept in a little room on the top floor of the Marathon;
three hours of every evening, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays
excepted, were spent at the law school of the University of New York;
and the remaining hours of the twenty-four in haunts much less
conspicuous and expensive than the Calumet Club.

For Freddie Swain had taken one of these toboggan slides down the hill
of fortune which sometimes happen to the most deserving. His father,
old General Orlando Swain, had, all his life, put up a pompous front
and was supposed to have inherited a fortune from somewhere; but, when
he died, this edifice was found to be all façade and no foundation,
and Freddie inherited nothing but debts. He had been expensively
educated for a career as an Ornament of Society, but he found that
career cut short, for Society suddenly ceased to find him ornamental.
I suppose there were too many marriageable daughters about!

I am bound to say that he took the blow well. Instead of attempting to