The Alternative
By GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON
Author of "The Husbands of Edith," "The Purple Parasol," "The Flyers,""The Butterfly Man," Etc.
With Illustrations
By HARRISON FISHER
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1909, by
Dodd, Mead and Company
Published, April, 1909
"'Agrippa! Come here, sir!'"
Contents
| CHAPTER I | The Van Pyckes | 1 |
| CHAPTER II | A Young Lady Enters | 26 |
| CHAPTER III | The Amazing Marriage | 53 |
| CHAPTER IV | The Secretary Goes Home | 78 |
| CHAPTER V | His First Holiday | 97 |
Illustrations
The Alternative
CHAPTER I
THE VAN PYCKES
A shrieking wind, thick with the sleety snow that knows no mercy norfeels remorse, beat vainly and with savage insolence against the staidwindows in the lounging room of one of New York's most desirableclubs—one of those characteristic homes for college men who were up formembership on the day they were born, if one may speak so broadly of thevirtue that links the early eighteenth-century graduate with hisgreat-grandson of the class of 1908. Not to say, of course, that theeighteenth-century graduate was so carefully preserved from the bitingsnowstorm as the fellow of to-day, but that he got his learning in theancient halls that now grind out his descendants by the hundred, one wayor another. It is going much too far to assert that every member of thisautocratic club had a colonial ancestor in college, but you'd think soif you didn't pin him down to an actual confession to the contrary. Itis likely to be the way with college men who do not owe their degrees tocertain mushroom institutions in the West, where electricity andmechanics are considered to be quite as necessary to a young man'sequipment as the acquaintance, by tradition, with somebody'sgreat-grandaddy, no matter how eminent he may have been in hisprimogenial day.
All of which is neither here nor there. Ancestors for the future are inthe club this night, enjoy