West was older now, a little less ready in his enthusiasms, a shade less
pleased with the world, a thought less sure of the eternal merits of the
life of uplift. In fact he was thirty-three years old, and he had
moments, now and then, when he wondered if he were going forward as
rapidly and surely as he had a right to expect. This was the third
position he had had since he left college, and it was his general
expectation to graduate into a fourth before a great while. Semple
frequently urged him to return to the brokerage business; he had made an
unquestioned success there at any rate. As to Blaines College, he could
not be so confident. The college had opened this year with an increased
enrollment of twenty-five; and though West privately felt certain that
his successor was only reaping where he himself had sown, you could not
be certain that the low world would so see it. As for the _Post_, it was
a mere stop-gap, a momentary halting-place where he preened for a far
higher flight. There were many times that winter when West wondered if
Plonny Neal, whom he rarely or never saw, could possibly have failed to
notice how prominently he was in line.
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