David Lockwin has undertaken that Robert Chalmers shall have no trouble. It was David Lockwin, in theory, who suffered all the ills of life. In this theory David Lockwin has seriously erred. Robert Chalmers must bear burdens.

The first burden is a broken nose and a facial appearance strangely inferior to the look of David Lockwin, the orator. Robert Chalmers need not disguise himself. He will never be identified. That broken nose is a distortion that no detective could fathom. Those scarlet fimbrications under the skin proclaim the toper. Those missing teeth complete a picture which men do not admire.

David Lockwin was courted. Robert Chalmers is shunned. It wounds a personal vanity that in David Lockwin’s philosophy had not existed. It is the ideal of disguises, but it does not make Robert Chambers happy.

Why, too, should Robert Chalmers desire so many appurtenances of life that were in David Lockwin’s quarters? If we find Chalmers housed in comfortable apartments at Gramercy Square, is it not inconsistent that he should gradually supply himself with cough medicine, turpentine, alcohol, ammonia, niter, mentholine, camphor spirits, cholagogue, cholera mixture, whisky, oil, acid, salves and all the aids to health and cleanliness by which David Lockwin flourished? How slight an annoyance is the lack of that old-time prescription of Dr. Tarpion, which alone will relieve the melancholia!

For Robert Chalmers finds that the weather still gives him a turn. If the lost prescription will alone lift the oppression, is not the annoyance considerable, providing Dr. Tarpion cannot be seen?

Robert Chalmers had planned a life at Florence. But now he is a man without a body. It is enough. He will not also be a man without a country. He will stay in New York.

In fact, a fortune of $75,000 is not so much! It will be well to husband it. The books must be bought. Day after day the search must go forward for copies like those in Chicago. Josephus! What other copy will satisfy Robert Chalmers? Here is a handsome Josephus as fine as the one in Chicago. But did Davy’s head ever lie on it?

Well, bear up then, Robert Chalmers. You are free at least. You need not lie and cheat at elections. You need not live with a woman whose heart is as cold as ice and whose pride is like the pride of an Egyptian Pharaoh. You sunk that yawl well in the sands of Georgian Bay! You filled it with stones!

You thought you were the sole survivor, yet how admirably the rescue of Corkey and the boy abetted your escape, Robert Chalmers. They saw David Lockwin die. They took his dying wishes. Fortunate that he could not mention the deposit at New York!

But why is David Lockwin so dear? Why not forget him?

Did he play a part that credits him? Why stop at Washington and take the mail that awaited in that long-advertised list? Truly, Robert Chalmers was strong enough to lay those letters aside without reading. That, at least, was prudent.

Let us read these newspaper accounts. There is intense excitement at Chicago. Lockwin is libeled. The election briberies are exposed. David Lockwin had spent nearly $200,000 to go to Congress, it is stated.

“Infamous!” cries Robert Chalmers, and vows he is glad he is out of a world so base. He puts forth for books.

Search as he may, he cannot find the editions that have grown dear to David Lockwin. He cannot abstain from more purchases of Chicago papers. They are familiar like the books in David Lockwin’s library at Chicago.

This is a dreary life, without a friend. He dares not to seek acquaintances. Not a soul, not even a restaurant keeper, has ventured to be familiar. The man with a broken nose and missing teeth the man with a grotesque voice is scarcely desired as a customer at select places on the avenues and Broadway. Let him find better accommodations among the Frenchmen and Italians on Sixth avenue.

“Probably,” they say, “he has fallen in a duel.”

But there are fits of melancholia. Return, Robert Chalmers, to your handsome apartments. Draw down your folding-bed, turn on the heat, study those Chicago papers. Live once again! What is this? A reaction at Chicago. Why, here is a page of panegyric. Here is a large portrait of the late Hon. David Lockwin, lost in Georgian Bay!

The man whisks off his bed, and runs it up to the wall, whereupon he may confront a handsome mirror. He compares the two faces.

“A change. A change, indeed!” he exclaims sadly. It is not alone in the features. The new man is growing meager. He is an inconsequential person. He is a character to be kept waiting in an ante-room while strutting personages walk into the desired presence.

He pulls the bed down. He cannot lie on it now. He takes a chair and greedily reads the apotheosis of David Lockwin.

As he reads he is seized with a surprising feeling. In all this eulogium he sees the hand of Esther Lockwin. Without her aid this great biography could not have been collated.

The sweat stands on his brow. He studies the type, to learn those confessions that the publishers make, one to another, but not to the world.

“It is paid for,” he groans. He is wounded and unhappy.

“It is her cursed pride,” he says. “I’m glad I’m out of it all.”

He sits, week after week, hands deep in pockets, his legs stretched out, one ankle over the other, his chin far down on his chest.

“Funny man in the east parlor!” says the chambermaid.

“Isn’t he ugly!” says her fellow-chambermaid.

But after this long discontent, Robert Chalmers finds that Chicago mourns for him. He is flattered. “I earned it!” he cries, and goes in search of the books that once eased him the identical copies.

The movement for a cenotaph makes him smile. On the whole, he is glad men are so sentimental about monuments. He is glad, however, that no monument will be erected.

It is undoubtedly embarrassing.

He is thinking too much of Chicago. He must begin this second life on a new principle. He must forget David Lockwin. It grows apparent to the man that his brain will not bear the load which now rests upon it. He must rather dwell upon the miseries that he has escaped He must canvass the good fortune of a single and irresponsible citizen, Robert Chalmers, who has no less than $74,500 in bank. He must put his mind on business.

No!

One reason for quitting the old life was the desire to pass a studious life.

Well, then, he must wait patiently for that period when his mind will be quiet. A certain thought at last reanimates him.

Would it not be well to act as a clerk until the weariness of servitude should make freedom pleasing? This is both philosophical and thrifty.

Robert Chalmers therefore advertises for a situation as book-keeper. This occupation will support him in his determination to neglect the Chicago newspapers.

“Greatest man I ever saw to sit stretched out, his hands deep in his pockets, his feet crossed, his head far down on his shirt bosom,” says the chambermaid at Gramercy Square. “He must be an inventor. He thinks, and thinks, and thinks. Dear sakes, but he is homely.”

An advertisement secures to Robert Chalmers a book-keeper’s place in a dry-goods agency on Walker street. The move is a wise one. The labor occupies his time, improves his spirits and emancipates him from the unpleasant conclusions that were forcing themselves on him. He is not liked by the other clerks because he is not social, but he is able to consider, once more, the humiliations which he escaped by avoiding a contested election, and by a successful evasion of a wedding compact which was a part of his foolish political ambition.

Several months pass away. If Chalmers is to be anything better than a book-keeper at nine hours’ work each day he must move, but he who so willingly took the great step is now afraid to resign his book-keepership. He dreads life away from his tall desk. This problem is engaging his daily attention. This afternoon the clerks are arguing about Chicago. He cannot avoid hearing. He is the only party not engaged in the debate. They desire his arbitration. Does Clark street run both north and south of the river in Chicago? Here, for instance, is the route of a procession. Is it not clear that Clark street must run north if the procession shall follow this route?

They lay a Chicago Sunday paper on his desk. The portrait of David Lockwin confronts Robert Chalmers. There is a page of matter concerning the dedication of a monument on the following Saturday.

The arbiter stammers so wretchedly that the losing side withdraw their offer of arbitration.

“Chalmers doesn’t know,” they declare, and take away the paper while Chalmers strives to read to the last syllable.

He is sick. He cannot conclude his day’s work. His evident distress secures a leave for the day.

“Get somebody in my place if I am not here tomorrow,” he says, thoughtfully, for they have been his only friends, little as they suspect it. “Chicago in mourning for David Lockwin!” he cries in astonishment, as he purchases great files of old Chicago papers. “Chicago dedicating a monument to David Lockwin! It is beyond conception! And so soon! The monument of Douglas waited for twenty years.”

The air and the ride revive the man. He even enters a restaurant and tries to eat a table d’hote dinner with a bottle of Jersey wine, all for 50 cents, To do a perfunctory act seems to resuscitate him. He takes up his heavy load of newspapers and finds a boy to carry them. He remembers that he is a book-keeper on a small salary, and discharges the boy at half-way.

He reaches his apartments and prepares for the long perusal of his files of Chicago news. Each item seems to feed his self-love. He is not Robert Chalmers. He is David Lockwin.

Hour by hour the reader goes on. Paper after paper falls aside, to be followed by the succeeding issue. At last the tale is complete. David Lockwin, dead, is the idol of the day at Chicago.

The man stretches his legs, puts one ankle over the other, sinks his hands deep in his pockets, a newspaper entering with the left arm, and lowers his head far down on his chest. The clock strikes and recalls him to action.

“I can reach Chicago in time for that dedication,” he says. “I guess, after all, that I am David Lockwin’s chief mourner.”

Ah, yes! Why has not this second life brought more joy? The man ponders and questions himself.

“I am Davy’s chief mourner, too!” he says, and sobs. “By heaven, it is Davy that has made me unhappy! I thought it was Chicago. I thought it was politics. I thought it was Esther. It must have been Davy!”

“If it were Davy,” he says, an hour later, “I have made a mistake.”

Down he looks into his heart, whither he has not dared to search before. He is homesick. Nobody loves Robert Chalmers. Nobody respects Robert Chalmers. David Lockwin dead is great and good. How about David Lockwin living?

His hands go deeper in his pockets at this. The motion rustles the newspaper. He strives to shake free of the sheet. His eye rests on the railway timetables.

He falls into profound meditation again. He considers himself miserable. He is, in fact, happy, if absence of dreadful pain and turmoil be a human blessing. At last his eye lights up, and the heavy face grows cheerful.

“I will go to Chicago!” he says.