Hence, it is not surprising that he
was willing to go far afield in search of the things that seemed more or
less worth while to a young gentleman who had suffered the ill-fortune
to be born in the nineteenth century instead of the seventeenth. Romance
and adventure, politely amorous but vigorously attractive, came up to
him from the seventeenth century, perhaps through the blood of some
swash-buckling ancestor, and he was held enthralled by the possibilities
that lay hidden in some far off or even nearby corner of this hopelessly
unromantic world of the twentieth century.
To be sure there was war, but war isn't Romance. Besides, he was too
young to fight against Spain; and, later on, he happened to be more
interested in football than he was in the Japs or the Russians. The only
thing left for him to do was to set forth in quest of adventure;
adventure was not likely to apply to him in Fifth Avenue or at the
factory or--still, there was a certain kind of adventure analogous to
Broadway, after all. He thought it over and, after trying it for a year
or two, decided that Broadway and the Tenderloin did not produce the
sort of Romance he could cherish for long as a self-respecting hero, so
he put certain small temptations aside, chastened himself as well as he
could, and set out for less amiable but more productive by-ways in other
sections of the globe.
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