Excerpt: “Lucky” Faulkner arrived in Amesville, Ohio, shortly before seven o’clock of a cold morning in the first week of January. He wasn’t known as “Lucky” then, and he certainly didn’t look especially fortunate as he stepped from train to platform and blinked drowsily at this first sight of the strange city that was to be his new home. He had travelled nearly six hours in a day-coach, sleeping fitfully with his head on the arm of the car seat, and his clothes were creased, his hair rumpled and his face tired and pale under its coating of train dust. He wore a good-looking gray ulster and a cap to match, and carried a big valise whose sides bulged tremendously and which bore the inscription “J. C. F.” in neat old English characters.
