The Defeat of the Method

THE lane stretched north and south, and the red dust quivered in the August heat. On one side, a thicket of hazel bushes, sweet fern, and blossoming clematis screened a neglected orchard. On the other side, the low sun struck in dazzling glints through a cornfield. Far off a line of hills lay couchant, covered with fold on fold of dark blue gauze.

The man who walked slowly along the road was footsore. He wore a gray suit, earth-stained, without waistcoat, a flannel shirt many shades cleaner, and a large, soft-brimmed hat. The stone he presently seated himself upon felt cold to him, although it had been in full sunshine half an hour before. Glancing around to see if he were observed, he drew off his shoes, and let his feet sink into the rank grass. Sitting so, with his knees hugged to him and his head dropped forward, he seemed himself a stock or a stone.

A passing wagon roused him tardily. He sprang up, and pattered after it in the dust.

“ Sir ! Say, there ! ” he called. “ Do you want to hire any help ? ”

“ Not your sort,” answered the farmer, looking around over his shoulder a moment. He drove on.

The tramp returned to the spot where he had left his shoes. He pulled them on, and resumed his march. Some blackberries caught his eye, amid the tangled wayside growth. He picked them into his hand, and ate them greedily. Soon the road, turning a sharp corner, mounted straight up a steep little hill. He stopped and regarded it, panting.

“ What’s the good ? ” he muttered.

Then he set his teeth and began to climb.

Ten minutes later he came out on a ridge which commanded a surprising view of a fertile valley, twinkling here and there with house roofs half hidden among trees. A small lake in the foreground shone with a hard silver lustre. Before him stood a solitary house of square, old-fashioned type, with a more modern veranda. The lawn was overgrown. Some jars of flowers flanked the steps. No other signs of occupation appeared about the place. On the west side the blinds were all closed. The house seemed to be taking a siesta in the afternoon sunshine.

While the tramp hesitated, a speck in the road far ahead of him resolved itself into a horse and light buggy, driven at a smart pace by a lady. She sat erect; she was young. She wore an immaculate white shirt waist, with a crisp mull tie, and a white straw walking hat with a band of black velvet around the brim. She managed the reins with masterly lightness. The hoofbeats on the road sounded as rhythmical as music. The tramp watched her in admiration, and as she turned into the driveway he came to some decision, and crossed the road. She pulled up just inside the gate. He touched his hat.

“ Could you give me something to do about your place in exchange for my supper ? ” he asked.

There was a short pause.

“ Is this hard times with you ? ” asked the young lady. Her voice had a resolute, vibrant ring.

Something got into the man’s throat, and he dropped his eyes. A large collie ran out into the drive and sniffed at his legs. He laid his hand on the dog’s head.

“Very hard times,” he answered.

“Not drink, I hope ? ” asked the young lady gravely.

“ No, ma’am, I’m a sober man, but I’m not in my own part of the country, and though I’ve had some odd jobs, I can’t get steady work; the places round here are all full.”

“ Let me see your hands.”

Surprised, he held them toward her, palms upward.

“ Yes, you have worked,” she said, with satisfaction. “ What can you do ? ”

“ I’d be glad to cut the grass for you, or work in the garden. I know something about gardening.”

“ Do you think you could unharness my horse ? She is nervous.”

“ I think so.” He patted the mare’s neck. The young lady tightened her hold on the reins apprehensively, but Molly did not mind.

“ I ’ll try you,” said Miss Gilray. “ This way, please.”

He followed her up the drive to the barn. She sprang to the ground, and stood aside to oversee the business. He went at it awkwardly, but with good will. There was a blur before his eyes, and his pulse hammered in his ears.

“ Where shall I put the harness ? ” he asked.

“ On that nail.”

He hung it in place, and taking up the shafts of the buggy was about to drag it into the barn, when Miss Gilray stopped him, and motioned to him to sit down on the inside stairs. Her face was red, but determined.

“ I wish to feel your pulse.”

He extended his wrist. She took out her watch.

“ People generally learn to give me straight answers,” she said, after a minute. “ You have some sickness about you. What is it ? ”

“ I took cold a few nights ago,” he answered, looking up squarely ; “ I’ve had cramps ever since, and I’m afraid of getting dysentery on me.”

“ Slept out of doors, perhaps ? ”

“ Yes, —yes, ma’am.”

“ What have you had to eat to-day ? ”

“ I had a piece of bread this morning ; some blackberries from a hedge this afternoon.”

“ And yesterday ? ”

“ Nothing.”

Miss Gilray looked out of the door, considering. A fine vertical line appeared between her brows.

“ Wait here,” she ordered. Returning presently, she bade him follow her through the garden to a small tool shed at the end. The door stood open. An old sofa was against one wall.

“ I am going to give you shelter for the night,” she said. “ You will be warm and dry here, and you shall have food and medicine ; but you must promise not to smoke, and burn me out of house and home. Have you any tobacco about you ? ”

“ A little. You can see if you like.”

He turned out the contents of his pockets : a cent, a postage stamp, a pencil stub and several crumpled pieces from a writing pad, a little tobacco done up in a twist of newspaper, and a common brierwood pipe.

“ Had n’t you better let me keep that for you ? Then you will not be tempted to use it.”

“ Certainly.” He held the handle toward her. She took it daintily, and went back to the house. He looked after her with a queer smile.

“ Bless your heart, lady, I would n’t smoke on your premises,” he drawled humorously to himself.

The sofa invited him irresistibly. He lay down, and drew up his knees. In his comparative relief his surroundings faded away from him, until a hot-water bag was pushed gently into his hands, and the imperious voice said, “ Open your mouth.”

He obeyed, and swallowed the medicine.

“ Yes. Now this is boiled milk. It will do you good.”

He struggled into a sitting position, but his hand shook so that Miss Gilray was obliged to hold the glass. There was about her a womanly supremacy not to be disputed. He felt very wretched and very grateful.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“ What is your name, please ? ”

“ Heinrich.”

“ Oh, he is German. He has no accent,” she thought. “ Poor fellow, to have dropped below the use of a surname ! ”

“ Very well, Heinrich, I will come out to see to you again before long, and I hope you will feel better in the morning.”

Next morning, however, Heinrich was worse ; and when Miss Gilray paid him an early visit, she found him too weak to sit up.

“I am sorry,” he said apologetically. “ If you would be good enough to let me stay here to-day, I would not make any trouble. I walked nearly twenty miles yesterday. I’m not shamming.”

“ I can see that for myself,” said Miss Gilray. “ Your forehead is quite damp. Lie down ; I will feed you. People are not under condemnation because they are sick.”

“ Not if they’ve got money,” replied the unfortunate on the sofa.

“Not even when they have none,” said Miss Gilray, in a softer tone than he had heard her use. “ I should be sorry to think you an Anarchist, Heinrich.”

“ An Anarchist ? I an Anarchist ? ” stammered Heinrich. “ But I am not. I am a man who wants to earn his living, — that is all.”

“ That is better. It is better to build up than to destroy.”

“ Depends on what yon build up and what you destroy,” finished Heinrich ; but he did not say it aloud.

All day Heinrich lay on the sofa in the tool shed, with the door open upon the garden. The long alley which faced him was lined with hollyhocks and tall rudbeckias; pinks, larkspurs, poppies, filled sunny spaces beyond; a red admiral’s nervous flight brought him past the doorway ; a scent of mignonette and ripening fruit stole in on the hot air. But for his weakness he would have been very happy. There had once been a time — it seemed very far off now — when it would not have occurred to him as a subject of congratulation that he had food and shelter assured him for another twenty - four hours. He turned these things over in his mind, and dozed, and woke again.

It was dark. Some one had come down and shut the door while he slept. He perceived that by sound, not by sight. The rain pattered dully on the leaves outside. It shut him in in a luxury of loneliness for a time ; then he began to feel stiff, and to wonder how long it was to morning.

All at once the latch lifted, and a light appeared on the threshold. It came from a lantern swinging at Miss Gilray’s wrist. Both her hands were full. The collie followed her in up to the sofa, and shook himself.

“The corner, Peter. You’re wet,” observed his mistress.

Peter retreated to the corner and sat upright, surveying the scene genially. Miss Gilray deposited her tray upon a chair, and held the lantern up to see her patient better.

“ How do you feel now ? Any easier ? Less pain? That is good. I have brought you an extra covering. The wind has changed.”

“ I have been asleep some time, I think. Can you tell me what time it is ? ”

“ It is a little past midnight.”

She administered hot milk to him, spoonful by spoonful. As she spread a comforter over the sofa and tucked it in around his feet, Heinrich turned away his head and put his fingers up to his eyes.

He thought she had gone, but it was only to set down part of her load on the steps outside. Now she returned, and holding the lantern high asked, “ What is the trouble ? ”

He looked around, and saw her face glowing out of the darkness, young and strangely tired, with that faint vertical line dividing her dark brows. She fixed his gaze like a star.

“ You — you ’re so kind to me ! ”

“ Well, are n’t you worth it ? ” asked the girl, regarding him steadily.

“ I hope I am,” he answered humbly.

“ Of course you are ! ” she flashed out. “ You act like a man whose self-respect has been hurt.”

“ It has.”

“ Get it back again, then ! Every human being has a place of his own in this world. You have yours, and it is your business to fill it. If you have failed in the past, you must try harder in future. That is all. Now go to sleep. I bid you good-night.”

“ I shall be carrying lilies of the valley to prisons next, if this sort of thing keeps on,” she soliloquized, as she went back to the house, with Peter, through the midnight rain. “ This is the queerest specimen of the working tramp that I have ever met with.”

Late as it was when she had locked the doors and windows below, she drew from her desk a small blank book labeled Sociological Notes. It was half full of entries. They were arranged under numbers. She turned over the pages to number 17, and wrote : —

“This morning Heinrich asked me if he might have some warm water to wash his face and hands with; he said he felt dirty. I washed them for him, and he thanked me almost as a gentleman might. If it were not for his ugly stubble of a beard, he would not be ill-looking for a workman. His frontal development is good, and his ears are remarkably well set. I do not believe, myself, in these generalizations drawn from the study of one feature alone. It is singular that a man whose physical characteristics indicate natural capacity should sink to a level where he has to beg for work. There must be some strain of weakness, possibly inherited ; but he says he doesn’t drink, and he certainly shows no signs of dissipation.”

One morning, several days later, Heinrich awoke and stretched himself without pain. A delicious sense of returning health possessed him. The natural man, impatient of the trammels of bodily weakness, asserted itself. He was free, — free to go where he would. He wondered why those last twenty miles had seemed to him a self-inflicted torture. He felt capable of yet other twenty miles. Nothing like having the keys of the fields.

A stream of cool air flowed in. He heard Molly thrashing nervously in the barn ; then he heard her whinny. Twisting his head back to peep behind the row of rakes which stood against the window, he caught a glimpse of Miss Gilray running back to the house. Evidently she had no man, or she would not have asked him to unharness for her. Suddenly a new thought made his heart beat fast. Could it be that she was all alone on the premises ?

He recalled the air of enchantment about the house with its closed blinds, the neglected lawn. During all the days he had lain there he had heard no conversation, no sounds of coming and going ; only Peter’s occasional bark and the quick footstep he had learned to know by heart. Had she been coming out at all hours on her errand of mercy, herself unprotected ?

Beneath his rough exterior Heinrich was as romantic and impressionable as a girl. The very suggestion that his chatelaine had been relying upon herself alone, as fearlessly as any Alrunamaiden of old, flooded his being with chivalrous intent. He got off the sofa slowly. The cracked pitcher on a chair held fresh water. He dragged the wheelbarrow in front of the door, and took a bath. He shook his coat violently ere he put it on again. “ I 'm so dirty ! ” he grumbled.

When he had moved the wheelbarrow back, he was chagrined to find that he was still weak. His visions of other twenty-mile tramps faded out, and he sat down on the doorstep, with his head in his hand, discouraged.

Thus Helen Gilray discovered him, as she appeared at the farther end of the alley with a tray. His eyes brightened at sight of her.

“ Good-morning,” she said, pleased that he rose to his feet. “You were asleep when I came down awhile ago. How are you this morning? ”

“ Better, — much better.” He felt surprisingly better again.

“ I have brought your breakfast. I will come back for the things by and by.”

“ Do not take the trouble. I will bring the tray to the house — shall I ? ”

“ Very well.”

Heinrich made short work of his breakfast, and found his way around to the back porch. It was as he had imagined. His Alruna-maid was alone in the kitchen, stirring custards at the stove, and too busy to answer him. Her blue-striped cuffs were pushed up ; a white apron with bretelles covered her gown. Some loaves of newly baked bread and a plate heaped high with sugar cookies stood on a table. It was a homely scene, that tugged somewhere at the roots of him.

“ Now what did you ask me ? ” said Helen, turning toward the door when the custards were finished. Her flushed face bore such deepening signs of fatigue that Heinrich wanted to fall down before her and entreat her pardon for having given her trouble for a day. Instead he stood awkwardly in the doorway.

“ Could you give me something to do ? ”

“ There is much that needs to be done outside, Heinrich,” said Helen, with approval. Clearly this young man was not lazy. “ It distresses me to see the garden so overgrown. The weeds are very high in the beds by the fence.”

“ Between the calendulas and the tritoma ? Yes, ma’am.”

“ Yes, there. You know something of botany, Heinrich? ”

“ Why, a little.” Heinrich colored. “ Gardeners like to fire Latin names at you : the longer they are, the more they enjoy the sound of them.”

Miss Gilray laughed gently, but checked herself. It would not do to give this interesting tramp too much headway ; to make a study of his characteristics was another thing.

“ Why not let me do those for you ? ” asked Heinrich, indicating a pan of potatoes and beets with the earth still clinging to them.

“ I wish you would, Heinrich,” said Helen, in evident relief. “ Sit there on the steps ; but you must have an apron.”

“ My clothes are n’t worth much,” said Heinrich, submissively allowing her to tie the apron around his neck.

“ That is very foolish,” said Miss Gilray severely. “ You don’t know how long it may be before you can afford to buy another suit.”

“ Men have such elaborate ways of doing things,” she wrote in her notebook. “ A woman rushes in and gets it done somehow, while they are thinking out a system ; and then, by the hundredth time, the man has found a short cut, if there is one, while the woman is plodding along in her old rut. Heinrich prepared the vegetables and arranged them in rows, most beautiful to behold (I could have done it myself in half the time) ; then he informed me that the knife was hideously dull, and said he would be glad to sharpen it for me. He really seemed to enjoy the business. His figure is athletic, and he says ‘ calendula.’ Cleggett talked about ‘calendulies,’ and ‘ gladiolas,’ and ‘ hyderangeas.’ I do not feel sure that I understand Heinrich very well yet. For a man who has knocked about so much in the world, there seems to be a good deal of diffidence about him at times.”

While Heinrich was weeding, that afternoon, Miss Gilray called him to her, and bade him help her to spread some rugs on the grass.

“ Now please bring out the steamer chair from the veranda,” she added.

“She is not alone,” thought Heinrich.

He arranged chair and cushions, and set the tea table in place. He cut the flowers she asked for. The sleepy house took on an air of mild festivity. Presently Miss Gilray reappeared. She was freshly dressed in white. Behind her sauntered a tall youth, whose morning coat hung loosely on his figure, and whose blue eyeglasses gave him a strained look.

“This is jolly, Helen,” he remarked, with a sort of weary cheerfulness, sinking into the steamer chair. “ It seems good to get outside of four walls. Grass looks rather ragged, though. I suppose you told Cleggett not to cut it on account of my confounded head.”

Helen shook her head. “ No. Cleggett is gone, Bert. That hot night when you were worse, and I sent him to town for Dr. Carr, he came home drunk, and made such a scene that I dismissed him on the spot. Of course his wife went with him.”

“ So you were holding the fort alone, all the while I was laid up in bed ? That explains a host of things. I wish I had known it sooner.”

“ I don’t,” said Helen.

He stretched his hand out toward her. She suddenly slipped down to the grass beside him, and laid her head against his knee.

“ Poor Helen ! — poor girl ! ”

Heinrich, screened by the calendulas, watched them both.

Heinrich had agreed to stay a few days longer, until they could find another man. Miss Gilray offered to pay him the same wages she had given the last gardener. Absorbed in his morning task, he was not aware of her proximity until she came out of the barn, leading the horse and buggy. In a moment he was at her side.

“ Why did n’t you ask me to harness for you, Miss Gilray? ”

“ You were weeding. You weed better than you harness.”

“I am very sorry,” began Heinrich deprecatingly. “ I was not brought up in a stable.”

“ Neither was I,” thought Helen, smiling slightly, and stepping up to the seat she drove off.

Heinrich went back to his work. For the moment it seemed that it would have been a great advantage to him to have been brought up in a stable.

The door opened, and Bert Gilray strolled out, bareheaded. He walked aimlessly up and down the path, and then wandered over to the corner where Heinrich was grubbing away on his knees.

“ How are you getting along ? ” he inquired. “ I am glad you are on hand to help my sister out.”

With these people it was a question of help, not merely of dollars and digging, reflected Heinrich.

“ I was glad of the job, sir.”

“ Been down on your luck ? ”

“ Yes, sir.”

“I am down on my luck,too. Must n’t give in. My sister — Miss Gilray — is always saying that. She ’ll brace you up.”

“ She has.”

“ That’s all right.” He had a singularly winning and unconventional manner. Heinrich was instantly attracted to him. He would have liked to have him standing there beside him all the morning.

The young fellow lingered about for some time, talking in his odd, jerky way. As he started to go in, he suddenly staggered and put his hand up to his head. Heinrich sprang to his feet, and, sweeping an arm around him, bore him to the house. He laid him on a couch. Bert Gilray opened his eyes.

“ Ice,” he said faintly. “ The ice bag is upstairs somewhere ” —

Heinrich ran upstairs for the ice bag, and found his way to the refrigerator. Bert lay as he had left him, with hands clenched, and a look of painful self-repression on his boyish face.

“ Don’t worry my sister,” he murmured, at the sound of carriage wheels in the yard.

Heinrich went out. Helen Gilray’s face changed at sight of him. She spoke one word : “ Worse ? ”

“ A little better now.”

She stood still a moment. Her arms dropped helplessly at her sides. The tears came into her eyes. Heinrich led the horse to the barn. There was a lump in his throat.

That evening she came to him. “ Thank you for what you did for my brother. You were very kind. I thought he was getting better! ” she broke out, too tired to care whether the sympathy she perceived was from an equal or not. “ He had a relapse ten days ago. It has been such a hard summer ! ”

“ You were nursing him, then, while you were taking care of me ? ”

“ Yes.”

Heinrich turned away, and leaned his head on his hand. “ She would put backbone into a jellyfish,” he thought. “ I have been weak, —contemptibly weak.”

“ It preys on him so not to be able to use his eyes. He never complains.”

“ He keeps himself under on your account.”

“ How do you know ? If I thought that — That is what I came out for. He wants you to sit with him. He says ” — Miss Gilray’s upper lip twitched — 舠 he says he is glad to see a man on the place. He says it makes him feel less cheap. Will you come ? ”

Heinrich started for the house. Miss Gilray turned around in the path and faced him.

“ I am trusting you a great deal, Heinrich.”

“ You are doing right, Miss Gilray.”

It was not the answer she expected, and it puzzled her not a little, but she leaned on him from that moment.

So it came to pass that this man, who ten days before had slept fasting under the stars, brought help to a stranded household. For the time his problem was, not “ How shall I earn my bread ? ” but “ How can I serve ? ” He chopped wood, he made fires, he ran up and down on errands. He spoke little, but he proved to have a soothing way with his hands. Helen grew more and more perplexed in her sociological study, and owned it frankly in her notes.

“ I had an interesting conversation with Heinrich while we were arranging flowers. (It is nonsense to say that taste is necessarily the result of culture; his eye for form and color is as good as mine.) He said he once believed that if a man failed to get work it was something in himself. He had changed his mind, because there were other factors at work besides the man: there was the other man. ‘ He may want the job done, and not want me,’ he said. ‘ Feelings have something to do with it. If I were the only man who could do the job, it would be different, but that is n’t the case.’ Cold comfort if one were starving. I wonder if it is this impersonality, this — how shall I put it ? — this loss of teeth and claws, that makes it hard for him to get along ? This raises a very interesting question. He admits that he has had some education. Suppose he should be a man of higher position under a cloud ? If he were an escaped convict, I would keep him here so long as he did Bert good; but Peter would n’t. Dogs often adore weak people, but Peter despises a rascal.”

“ I should like to have you go to town this morning, Heinrich,” she said, a few days afterward. “ You will telephone to Hartford for the cook they promised to send me. Stop at the grocery store, too, please, and get a codfish ; pick out a good large one.”

“ Certainly,” answered Heinrich ; and then, blushing and hesitating, “ Will you be kind enough to advance me a little of my wages, Miss Gilray ? ”

Helen’s face darkened. “ Now, Heinrich, I cannot have you spend your hardearned money on beer”

“ But I don’t want beer ! ” exclaimed Heinrich. “ I want — it is only thirtyfive cents that I want. Not unless you are willing, though.”

Partly reassured, she gave him the money. Heinrich telephoned to Hartford, and found that the cook was on her way. In the grocery store he picked out a codfish, a good large one. It was so large that the supply of paper in the store seemed to be inadequate, and the clerk tied it up in a roll, with the tail outside.

“ There ! I guess you can carry it well enough,” he said.

Heinrich guessed he could, and started back, after stopping at the drug store for a toothbrush. He whistled as he walked home. He had begun to call it “ home.” As he drew near the house, a tall girl, pushing her bicycle up the hill he had once climbed, approached him. She scrutinized him a moment, and, walking toward him quickly, extended her hand, exclaiming: “ Why, Professor Heinrich ! I did not expect to meet you here.”

Heinrich hoisted the codfish higher under his arm, and lifted his hat. “ And I did not expect to see you, Miss Van Duzen,” he said, with perfect truth.

“ Are you staying in town ? Oh, a walking trip, — I see. Men are so free ! Well, call on us at the Birch Trees Inn, if you pass.”

“ Thank Heaven, she ’s gone ! ” thought Heinrich fervently, watching her and her wheel to a safe distance.

He entered the gate, and confronted a frowning Alruna-maid who had risen from a seat under the trees.

“I overheard what you said. That girl called you ‘ professor.’ Is it true ? ”

“ It is true,” answered Heinrich, standing before her, with his hat in one hand and the codfish in the other. “ Adolf Heinrich.”

“Professor Adolf Heinrich, of Maldon House, who wrote The Poor in Country Towns ? ”

“ Rubbish ! ” said the professor impatiently. “ It was rubbish! ”

“ And you let me think you a tramp, and never explained your real position ? ”

“ Don’t be angry, — don’t.”

“ I am — I am — why, I don’t know what I am ! ” Helen laughed, and it sent a shiver of delight through her hearer. He began to realize that up to this time he had seen her under a strain ; the every-day girl was humorous and gay. “ You brought home that codfish ? ”

“Why not?” asked the professor.

“ I would n’t let you have your wages ” —

“ Oh, do not apologize,” said Heinrich, with great earnestness. “ If all were like you, there would be no labor problem.” It is certain that he meant it. “ You took me in, a stranger. There are things that sink deep.”

He turned his back on her abruptly. She saw his emotion, and, like a woman, ran away from it.

“ Sit down, and tell me all about it.”

“There is so little to tell,” he answered, seating himself beside her. “ I wanted to see if I could earn my bread with my hands. Other men have tried it and succeeded ; I have failed, — that is the difference. For a time I got on fairly well. I got a job at haying, afterward at cutting tobacco. The farmer was n’t satisfied. He said it took brains to cut tobacco. The hired man I roomed with borrowed my toothbrush Sunday evening : that riled me! I am nothing but a tenderfoot, anyway. Then I fell sick. Nothing takes the starch out of a man like sickness. The day I came here, as I stopped to get my breath before climbing the hill, I was ready to toss the whole thing up ; but to go back to my men with the consciousness that in the primitive struggle between man and the universe I had been a failure ” —

“ But what makes you think you have failed? ” she asked. “ You have shown great persistence. Entire success might have hardened you. You would have said that a man was sufficient unto himself. Now you will know better, and others will gain from it. Our failures are a source of strength and inspiration ! ”

“ Ah, what you say puts new heart into me ! ” he exclaimed. “ It is true I make as many mistakes as most men, in this terrible problem of man’s relations to man ; but if I was ever an egotist, I shall remember now that I too have lived by the hour; I shall remember that I have asked for shelter and been refused. You advise me to go on, then ? ”

“ Yes, go on — if you feel able.”

“ I will go.”

“ I go,” he repeated after dinner, when Helen said good-by to him on the veranda, “ but I shall sometime come back. I shall come back as Adolf Heinrich,” he added firmly, and raising her hand suddenly to his lips he kissed it.

Helen went up the stairs in deep thought.

“ Where were my eyes, that I could live in the same house with him day after day and not see that I had a gentleman to deal with ? I did know it; I felt he was a gentleman the moment my hand touched his pulse ; but I would not trust my instincts. I had to be scientific ; I had to reach my conclusions by cold-blooded analysis.”

She pushed away her Sociological Notes. As she did so, her eye came within range of a small brown object on the mantel. She laughed out suddenly, and gave it a friendly pat.

“ At least, he has left me his pipe,” she said.

Margaret L. Knapp.