He turned slowly and looked at me. First his gaze took in every detail of the outer man, from water-soaked cap to my poor, cracked shoes. And then, through my eyes, he seemed to search my soul.

I stood there abashed. I laugh when I think of it now, but then -- well, then it was different.

"And," he said presently, "suppose you were fed. What then?"

"I'd try to get a job somewhere," I muttered after a moment.

"You'd try?"

"Yes, try," I answered, "although there is little chance. Nobody wants men these days. But I don't care for that now. It's food I want. I'm hungry. Can you help me?"

"No," he answered, a note of pity in his voice, "Icannot help you. No man can."

"But you could feed me," I said with some petulance in my voice.

"It is not food that you need," he said.

"What then?" I asked.

"That Something," was his reply.

A man joined him and they began to talk of matters of mutual interest. I was shuffling away through the drizzling rain when he called me back and handed me his card.

"Man, go find That Something," he said, "and when you have found it, come to me."

"Come to you for what?" I asked.

"To thank me," was his answer, and he and his friend walked on.

I believe in miracles. There used to be such things. Man has been taught to work the miracles of today, and he gives them another name. But they are miracles, just the same.

I turned into a pool room and found a seat. I sat there thinking. There were two words that stuck in my memory -- That Something. I fell to wondering.

The balls on the tables before me clicked nickels away from men who could ill afford the pleasures of the place.

I sat there a long time. There was nowhere else to go. Ahead of me I saw another night in jail. Yet the day seemed longer than the night.

It was warm in there. The hum of the voices, the regular click, click of ivory, the occasional thumping of a cue on the marble floor; all this in time developed into a dull chorus of monotony. And then, I fell asleep.

I believe in God. I believe in visions as well. But it is only natural that I should have dreamed of That Something, so perhaps it was neither miracle or vision.

You may think it a foolish dream. Yet it changed my life; that's reason enough for the telling. You may laugh at it scornfully; then my dream will do you no good. You may see in it what I saw. Then you will take your place with the masters of men.

There were once two men who went out to find gold. Each found what he sought. One threw what he found back into the muddy stream.

The other recognized the gold for what it was. One was a failure, the other a success. It is so in life.

This was my dream:

I dreamed that I awoke. That is the most wonderful part of the dream. For in my dream I realized that I had been asleep --a long, long sleep, from the very beginning of things. And I saw myself there in the pool room, asleep.

Then I saw myself start. My eyes opened. "What waked me?" I asked in my dream.

"You awakened yourself," answered a voice nearby. I turned, but no one was near.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am That Something," came the reply.

"But where are you?"

"I am in your soul."

For some moments I thought over what was said. Then I stammered, "How did you get there?"
"I was born there."

"Why have I not known you were there before?"

"No man knows it," answered the voice, "until he awakens."

"No man?" I asked."Are you in other men's souls as well?"

"There is That Something in every man's soul, which can move the mountains or dry the seas."

"Then you must be Faith."

"Yes," came the answer, "I am Faith, but I am more than Faith. I am that which makes men face the fires of hell — and win."

"Then," said I, "you must be Confidence."

"I am more than Confidence. I am that which makes the babbling brooks lift worlds upon their wavelets."

"You are Power," I cried.

"I am more than Power," answered the voice. "I am that which makes the wretched failure lift himself and rule the world."

"Ah! I know you now. You are Ambition."

"Yes," answered the voice, "I am all you say -- Faith, Confidence, Power, Ambition, and more. For greater than all is That Something. I am that which every man must find in his soul, or else he will be but a clutterer of the earth on which he lives."

"But how can man find you?"

"Even as you are finding me now," came the answer. "First you must awaken, then seek, and when you have found, you must learn to control."

"Control what?" I asked, confused!

"That Something," came the reply. "Borrow it from your soul and baptize your life with it. Anoint your eyes, that you may see; anoint your ears, that you may hear; anoint your heart, that you may be!"

"But tell me," I cried frantically, for the voice was trailing off to almost nothing. "how can I do this? How? How?"

"This is the secret," came the voice to me as the whisper of a gentle breeze of springtime, "the talisman of success which you must write on your memory in letters of fire . . ."

"Yes! Yes! What is the talisman?"

"These words -- I will."

And then I awoke with a start.

A man was shaking me roughly. "Clear out o' here," he was saying, "We ain't runnin' no free roomin' house fer bums. If ya wanta sleep, take a sleeper, but git out o' here."

"I Will," I answered unthinkingly as I turned toward the door of the place.

"I Will."

My words brought the dream back to me vividly.

I stood in the doorway, peering out into the rain.

A boy with a dozen bundles stopped near me to shift his load.

"I'll help you, son," I said, and took half his load and started with him down the road.

"Gee mister," he said, "that's pretty swell of you, all right. How far you goin' this way?"

"Where are you taking these things?"

He told me.

"Why, that's right where I'm going,' I answered in mock surpise. And so we hurried on our way.

It was then that the clouds overhead began to break. Before we had gone halfway, the sun peeped out, and the boy by my side laughed with the pure delight of it.

"Gee, mister, she's gonna to be some handsome day tomorrow, ain't she?"

"I Will," I answered absently. He looked up at me, startled by my answer, started to asked a question, thought better of it, and giving me another queer look, trudged on in silence.

When we had delivered his packages, he turned toward the thoroughfare. And, as I followed, he asked me, with the innocent impertinence of boyhood, "Say, mister, where do you work?"

"Why, I'm working for you right now. It's good to work, don't you think?"

"But ain't you got no steady job?"

"Yes," I answered firmly, "I will."

Again he cast at me his queer look, and quickened his pace.

We went together to the store at which he worked. It was the largest in the city. We hurried through a doorway at the rear, and I found myself in a large room.

A man stepped up to me and asked what I wanted.

"I have come to work."

"What department? Who sent you?" he asked.

Before I could answer his question, someone called him and he hurried away.

There were many men packing boxes. I took off my coat and hung it on a nail where the other men had hung theirs. I started to work, following the example of those near.

A half hour later the man who had first accosted me passed.

"Oh," he said as he paused behind me, "so they put you at it while I was away, did they?"

"I'm doing my best, sir," I answered as I drove a nail home with a bang.

And so I worked until six O'clock.

When the six o'clock bell rang, the men began filing by the clock. "What about the clock?" I asked.

"Didn't they give you a number?"

"No."

Then I gave him my name, he gave me a number, and I punched out.

The boy was waiting for me at the door.

"How did you get that job?" he asked me curiously.

"Why, that was secured for me before I showed up here," I answered.

"Who got it for you?" he asked.

"That Something" was my reply.

"Aw, quit your stringing' me. How'd you get on? I seen a dozen men tryin' to get that job this morning and they was all turned down."

"But, " I explained with a smile, "they had never found That Something."

He again favored me with a queer look. "Where do you live?" he asked finally.

"I am going to find a place now," I answered.

"Well say," he cried, "my maw keeps a boarding house, and it's all right, too. Why don't you come up to my house?"

There was but one other boarder. He was a professor of a number of ology branches at the nearby denominational college. He was a little man with unreasonable hair on his face, and very little of it on his head. He wore thick glasses perched on a beaked nose. His eyes were small and black like shoe buttons.

He watched me covertly as I ate. When the meal was finished, he invited me to sit with him in his room.

"I do hope you won't think me prying," he said when we were seated, "but I have been trying to figure you out."

"Yes?"

"Yes," he reiterated, "and I have come to the conclusion that you are a student of Sociology."

I laughed.

"Bobby tells me that you are packing boxes down at his store."

I nodded assent.

"Then," he said triumphantly, "of course, it is for the study of the working masses that you are down there."

"Yes," I admitted, "I am very much interested in conditions of the masses right now."

"Then you can help me," he said, "I am writing a series of papers on that very subject. Will you answer me this, please. What do the upper 10 possess that the under 10,000 do not have?"

"Why, it's That Something," I answered.

"What do you mean? Education? Environment?"

Before my mind was flashed the picture of my boyhood. I saw my home. I remembered the tender care of my parents, the love of a mother, the guiding hand of a father. I saw myself in college, at the head of my class. I remembered that day when I was give a sheet of parchment, and was told that I was a Master of Arts.

And then, in the twinkling of an eye, the scene changed and I saw in that awful room with a hundred men lying around me on the cold hard floor.

"No," I answered thoughtfully, "it is neither education nor environment. That Something is different entirely. I don't know just what it is myself now, but I am going to find it, pin it down, and thenI will tell you more of it."

As I looked into his face I noticed the same puzzled expression as the boy had worn. And so, by mutual consent, the subject was changed and we talked of trivial things.

For a week or more I packed boxes and drove nails. I was a good packer. I made That Something work with me all the time.

One day I noticed that the shipping clerk had ahead of him more than he could handle. There were men in the department idle who could do nothing until he checked up to them.

I laid down my hammer and walked over to where he stood. "I am to help you this afternoon," I said simply.

He looked up at me with a start. "Well, that's good. I'm glad they have sense enough to give me somebody to help out at last."

He handed me a bunch of papers and made room for me at the desk.

The superintendent was, of course, out of the room at the time.

Presently he came back. "So, they've got you helping out Dickey?"

I shrugged my shoulders without looking up and continued figuring.

When I left the room that night, the superintendent of the department joined me.

"Say," he said, as we turned up the street, "I never did get onto just how you were put in there. What's the idea? Working to learn the business?"

"Yes," Ianswered with confidence, "Just that. I am to learn every detail of it."

"Well, I thought something of the kind. Which one of them are you kin to?"

"I do not think it wise to discuss that at this time," was my answer.

"Oh, sure," he hastened to say, "I don't mean to be inquisitive. Anything I can do to help you, just let me know."

And he left me.

The shipping clerk was a bright young fellow. I like him, and he liked me.

One day, shortly after my first raise in wages, he came to me with a problem. That night we stayed after quitting time and worked it out together.

We soon got the habit of staying down one night every week and working over his systems. He lacked originality. He had been doing things just like the fellows ahead of him had doing them. The business had been growing -- practically doubled.

We worked out an improved system. We drew up forms, planned them out in every detail.

The next day he carried our plans to the Man in Authority. There came up a question that the shipping clerk did not quite understand, so they sent for me.

I was a well-dressed man at this time. Nothing loud, nothing flashy, but well clothed. That had been my first investment.

My approach was far different than that of the sniveling beggar who had asked the man on the street corner for food.

The Man in Authority looked at me in surprise.

"Who are you?"

I handed him my card. These cards had been my second investment. He thumbed it a moment in silence.

"You are packing boxes?" he asked in surprise.

"Yes, I am in the packing room, temporarily."

And then we went over the plans in detail.

"I think they are alright," said the Man in Authority finally. "I'll have these forms sent to the printer in the morning."

As we turned to leave the office, he called me back.

"How long have you been in the packing rooms?"

"Sixty-three days,"I answered.

You've been in there long enough. There is nothing more for you to learn there, is there?"

"No," I answered.

He studied me for awhile in silence.

"Funny neither of them ever said anything about you to me," he said at length , speaking half to himself. "I suppose the Old man's idea was for you to work out your own salvation. Is that it?"

"In a way," I replied. "what any man eventually accomplishes must come from That Something within him."

He pondered this for a moment. Then he scrawled a few words on a piece of paper.

"Hand this to Perkins in the Auditing Department tomorrow morning, and we'll see how you show up there."

I thanked him, and turned to leave the room.

"And say," calling me back the second time, "better forget about my having said anything about your relations with the Old Man. After all, it's none of my business."

"Certainly," I answered, and left the room.

Three months later I left Bob's mother's boarding house. It hurt me to do this. She had been almost a mother to me. There was a home life about the place that I had learned to love. Even the little, hairy ology professor and his fanciful theories had become dear to me. But That Something demanded that I move on.

And so I moved on up the hill. I arranged for a small suite of rooms at a quiet family hotel. It was at the suggestion of the Man in Authority that I chose this hotel. It was where he lived.

So we became at first acquaintances. Then friends. He urged that I join his club. I made friends of the right sort there.

All these things were investments.

Never once did the Man in Authority mention the fact that I was "learning the business."

A year rolled' round. It was time for Perkins to take his vacation. I was given his place until he returned.

One day the Old Man came into the office. He looked at me keenly. Directly the Man in Authority also came in.

The Old Man called him aside, and I heard a portion of their conversation. "Who's the man at Perkins' desk?" the Old Man asked. The Man in Authority mentioned my name.

"Funny I never heard of him before," said the Old Man. The Man in Authority gasped. The rest was spoken in guarded tones, and I heard no further word.

That night the Man in Authority came into my sitting room.

"Say," he began, "you've certainly got me locoed, or something of the sort. I've been figuring you out all along as a ward, or a long lost cousin of the Old Man's. Now today he comes in and jumps all over me for putting you in this place of responsibility without first knowing all about you. Of course, I know you're all right," he added kindly, "but, by Jupiter, I'm placed in a deucedly unholy kind of light, anyhow."

"What's the trouble?" I asked. "My work going wrong?"

"Oh no! I should say not," he exclaimed with enthusiasm, "but that's aside from the question. What's got me going is how you did it. How could you hold down the most responsible job on the place without anybody knowing just who you are? Tell me about yourself, will you?"


"Well," I began in a sing-song voice, "Iwas born of poor but honest parents, in a quaint little hamlet of Virginia, where the rising sun . . ."

"Oh, drat the rising sun and the history. Tell me who you are kin to, or who is backing you up. It's pull that counts these days. Who gave your your start with the company?"

I leaned back in my leather Morris chair. Memory brought back the picture of that drab day of just a year before. And that brought to my mind the card that had been give to me. I had not thought of it before, until that minute.

I arose and went to the closet, where hung the very suit that I had worn on that eventful day. I had kept it as a souvenir of my awakening. As I had hoped, the card was in the pocket of the shabby vest.

For the first time, I read the name engraved -- Matthew Morrison Randolph, Bond Broker. I handed it to the Man in Authority. He read it with wondering eyes.

Now, Randolph was the silent partner of the business. Impossible coincidence? You may think so. I know men who believe success is impossible, and to them success is impossible. But I tell it to you as it happened.

"Funny Randolph never mentioned your name to the Old Man. Anyway, I wish I'd known this when he was talking about you today."

"I'm glad you didn't," I answered with a short laugh.
"Why?" he asked, puzzled.

"Go to the phone and call up Randolph. I think he will tell you why."

"But . . ." he began

"Go on, call him up. I want you to." I insisted.

In a moment Randolph was on the line. The Man in Authority asked him about me. I watched the changing expressions on his face.

"You - say - you - never heard of the man!" gasped the Man in Authority. "Why, he's holding down the most responsible job on the place."

"Better let me talk to Mr. Randolph," I interrupted. His hand was trembling as he surrendered the phone.

"Mr. Randolph," I said, "I know you do not remember my name, for I am quite sure you never heard it. You may remember, however, one miserable day, a year ago, when a beggar asked you for food."

"Well, go on," came a crisp voice over the phone.

"You may also remember telling that beggar that it was not food. that he needed. You told him that it was That Something he needed, and that alone. Well, Mr. Randolph, I am the beggar to whom you spoke, and I have found That Something. I have learned to use it, and I want to thank you for having shown me the way. When may I tell you about it?"

An hour later, the story you have just read was told to a strange trio: the Man in Authority, the Professor of Ologies, and Matthew Morrison Randolph. From time to time, as I told the story to a strange trio, Randolph nodded his head in approval, and I noticed a strange light begin to glow in the little professor's eyes. When I had finished, we sat a long time in silence, broken at last by Randolph, who said, "And now tell me just what you think That Something really is."

I shook my head in dismay.

"You know as much as I do," I answered. "But of this one thing I am convinced, through and through. It is real Power, as truly as the electric current. It is the power of the inner man, the fuel of the soul machine. It is the one thing necessary.

"We are all of us born much alike. We have come into the world, all animals of a sort. Most of us have the same senses, about equally developed. And then we begin to live, animals all.

"Until we awaken That Something of the soul, we live as a horse lives. We bear on our muscles those who have found That Something. And we bear them up the mountains, to take their places among the masters of men.

"That Something lies dormant in every soul until aroused. With many, it sleeps until the last great sleep. Sometimes it does not awaken until man stands tottering on the border of the grave. Sometimes it is found by the child, playing by its mother's knee.

"Some have sneered, and called it luck. Luck is but the fleeting smile of fortune. That Something is the highway to her home.

"A man's success depends alone on That Something -- That Something of his soul.

"Abraham Lincoln found it when a lad. It warmed the cold floor on which he lay and studied. It added light to the flickering flow of the wood fire, that he might see to read. It spurred him on, and on, and on.

"That Something is awful force. It made a puny Corsican the ruler of the world. It made of a thin-chested bookkeeper the money king of a great country. It made Edison the great man of his age. It made Carnegie! It made Woodrow Wilson! It made Teddy Roosevelt! It can make you. And it is now in your soul.

"Awaken it, That Something."

Again the silence followed. I watched the professor of many ologies. I saw the kindled fires in his eyes gradually die out. He shook his head wearily.

"No, it can't be done; it can't be done," he murmured. "I have drunk deeply of the cup of life, and I am now drinking of the dregs. The cup is filled but once, and when it's gone, there's nothing left but the dregs of old age and poverty."

"You fool," cried Randolph, leaning forward and shaking the little man roughly. "You almost had That Something in your power, and now you sing it back to sleep with your silly song of pessimism.

"It's the false philosophy such as you sing which has kept men in the ruts of their own digging for centuries past. Wake, man, wake. Wake That Something within your soul!"

The two men sat looking deeply into each other's eyes. It was the little man who broke the silence.

"Thank you Randolph, he said. "you are right. I will!"

Randolph turned to me. "Man, write that story you've told us. Write it so that every man may read. Send that message out into the world. If men will read that story, read and reread it, until it is written on the pages of their memories, if men will believe the message you bring, and then if they will be awaken That Something within their souls that now lies asleep — I say if you can make them do this, you have done more for mankind than any man or any thousand men have done in many, many years. Write it, man, write it word for word, as you have told it here, so that every man may read. Write it, man, write it."

And you, who have read it, I pray that you will read it again and again, every word, until That Something of your soul has been aroused, and you have taken your place among the Rulers of the World.


The End -- which can be the Beginning.