Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Efficiency Expert

7. CHAPTER VII. JOBLESS AGAIN. (continued)

It would be two days before his room rent was again due, but in the mean time Jimmy had no money wherewith to feed the inner man. It was an almost utterly discouraged Jimmy who crawled into his bed to spend a sleepless night of worry and vain regret, the principal object of his regret being that he was not the son of a blacksmith who had taught him how to shoe horses and who at the same time had been too poor to send him to college.

Long since there had been driven into his mind the conviction that for any practical purpose in life a higher education was as useless as the proverbial fifth wheel to the coach.

"And even, "mused Jimmy, "if I had graduated at the head of my class, I would be no better off than I am now."