where would I have been? Loudon," he cried, "I tell you the truth:

you're too full of refinement for this world!"

"I condemn you out of your own lips," I replied. "'The fairest kind of

shipowning,' says you. If you please, let us only do the fairest kind of

business."

The shot told; the Irrepressible was silenced; and I profited by the

chance to pour in a broadside of another sort. He was all sunk in

money-getting, I pointed out; he never dreamed of anything but dollars.

Where were all his generous, progressive sentiments? Where was his

culture? I asked. And where was the American Type?

"It's true, Loudon," he cried, striding up and down the room, and

wildly scouring at his hair. "You're perfectly right. I'm becoming

materialised. O, what a thing to have to say, what a confession to make!

Materialised! Me! Loudon, this must go on no longer. You've been a loyal

friend to me once more; give me your hand!--you've saved me again. I

must do something to rouse the spiritual side; something desperate;

study something, something dry and tough. What shall it be? Theology?

Algebra? What's Algebra?"

"It's dry and tough enough," said I; "a squared + 2ab + b squared."

"It's stimulating, though?" he inquired.

I told him I believed so, and that it was considered fortifying to

Types.

"Then that's the thing for me. I'll study Algebra," he concluded.

The next day, by application to one of his type-writing women, he got

word of a young lady, one Miss Mamie McBride, who was willing and able

to conduct him in these bloomless meadows; and, her circumstances

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