fore he had been merely silent and aloof. Hearing that I was about to leave the city, he came to see me at night and said haltingly, "I wonder if there is anything you can do for me there?—Even if it is just a clerical job at twenty or thirty dollars a month, it would be all right. I . . . "
I was very much surprised. I never thought that he would demean himself to this. I did not know what to say.
"I . . . I want to live a few more years . . . "
"I'll see what I can do there. You can be sure that I'll do the best I can."
This was my promise and it recurred to me often and with it Lien-shu's face and his halting, diffident words—"I want to live a few more years." Then I would try to recommend him for jobs. But what was the use? There were more people than jobs and the net result of my efforts was that I received a few words of regret from those I approached and Lien-shu received a few words of apologies from me. As the end of the semester approached, things grew worse. The Weekly Student, published by the local gentry, began to attack me. My name was, of course, never mentioned, but the attacks were so cunningly phrased as to give the unmistakable impression that I was trying to stir up trouble in the educational world, my attempts to find work for Lien-shu being alluded to as an effort to place my own kind.
I was forced to lie low and to shut myself up in my room after classes; I was even afraid that my cigarette smoke might arouse suspicion that I was trying to stir up trouble. Naturally I had to abandon my efforts to help Lien-shu. Thus time dragged on until the middle of winter.
It had been snowing all day and it continued to snow into the night. It was so quiet outside that you could almost hear the stillness. I sat alone with eyes closed in the dim lamplight
