‘He is a success, always has been, always will be, I think.’

I inquired after a young fellow who came to the town to study for one of the professions when I was a boy.

’He went at something else before he got through—­went from medicine to law, or from law to medicine—­then to some other new thing; went away for a year, came back with a young wife; fell to drinking, then to gambling behind the door; finally took his wife and two young children to her father’s, and went off to Mexico; went from bad to worse, and finally died there, without a cent to buy a shroud, and without a friend to attend the funeral.’

’Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful young fellow that ever was.’

I named another boy.

’Oh, he is all right.  Lives here yet; has a wife and children, and is prospering.’

Same verdict concerning other boys.

I named three school-girls.

’The first two live here, are married and have children; the other is long ago dead—­never married.’

I named, with emotion, one of my early sweethearts.

’She is all right.  Been married three times; buried two husbands, divorced from the third, and I hear she is getting ready to marry an old fellow out in Colorado somewhere.  She’s got children scattered around here and there, most everywheres.’

The answer to several other inquiries was brief and simple—­

‘Killed in the war.’

I named another boy.

’Well, now, his case is curious!  There wasn’t a human being in this town but knew that that boy was a perfect chucklehead; perfect dummy; just a stupid ass, as you may say.  Everybody knew it, and everybody said it.  Well, if that very boy isn’t the first lawyer in the State of Missouri to-day, I’m a Democrat!’

‘Is that so?’

‘It’s actually so.  I’m telling you the truth.’

‘How do you account for it?’

’Account for it?  There ain’t any accounting for it, except that if you send a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don’t tell them he’s a damned fool they’ll never find it out.  There’s one thing sure—­if I had a damned fool I should know what to do with him:  ship him to St. Louis—­ it’s the noblest market in the world for that kind of property.  Well, when you come to look at it all around, and chew at it and think it over, don’t it just bang anything you ever heard of?’

’Well, yes, it does seem to.  But don’t you think maybe it was the Hannibal people who were mistaken about the boy, and not the St. Louis people’

’Oh, nonsense!  The people here have known him from the very cradle—­ they knew him a hundred times better than the St. Louis idiots could have known him.  No, if you have got any damned fools that you want to realize on, take my advice—­send them to St. Louis.’

I mentioned a great number of people whom I had formerly known.  Some were dead, some were gone away, some had prospered, some had come to naught; but as regarded a dozen or so of the lot, the answer was comforting: