Harper's Round Table, February 25, 1896

Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

Author of Show-shoes and Sledges, The Fur-Seal's Tooth, The 'Mate' Series, Flamingo Feathers, etc.
Alaric Dale Todd was his name, and it was a great grief to him to be called Allie. Allie Todd was so insignificant and sounded so weak. Besides, Allie was a regular girl's name, as he had been so often told, and expected to be told by each stranger who heard it for the first time. There is so much in a name after all. We either strive to live up to it, or else it exerts a constant disheartening pull backward.
Although Alaric was tall for his age, which was nearly seventeen, he was thin, pale, and undeveloped. He did not look like a boy accustomed to play tennis or football, or engage in any of the splendid athletics that develop the muscle and self-reliance of those sturdy young fellows who contest interscholastic matches. Nor was he one of these; so far from it, he had never played a game in his life except an occasional quiet game of croquet, or something equally soothing. He could not swim nor row nor sail a boat; he had never ridden horseback nor on a bicycle; he had never skated nor coasted nor hunted nor fished, and yet he was perfectly well formed and in good health. I fancy I hear my boy readers exclaim:
What a regular muff your Alaric must have been! No wonder they called him 'Allie'!
And the girls. Well, they would probably say, What a disagreeable prig! For Alaric knew a great deal more about places and people and books than most boys or girls of his age, and was rather fond of displaying this knowledge. And then he was always dressed with such faultless elegance. His patent-leather boots were so shiny, his neck-wear, selected with perfect taste, was so daintily arranged, and while he never left the house without drawing on a pair of gloves, they were always so immaculate that it did not seem as though he ever wore the same pair twice. He was very particular, too, about his linen, and often sent his shirts back to the laundress unworn because they were not done up to suit him. As for his coats and trousers, of which he had so many that it actually seemed as though he might wear a different suit every day in the year, he spent so much time in selecting material, and then in being fitted, and insisted on so many alterations, that his tailors were often in despair, and wondered whether it paid to have so particular a customer after all. They never had occasion, though, to complain about their bills, for no matter how large these were or how extortionate, they were always paid without question as soon as presented.