One Saturday evening as Dave was on the way to their accustomed resort he fell in with Conward on the street. "Hello, old man," said Conward, cheerily, "I was just looking for you. Got two tickets for the show to-night. Some swell dames in the chorus. Come along. There'll be doings."

There were two theatres in the town, one of which played to the better class residents. In it anything of a risque nature had to be presented with certain trimmings which allowed it to be classified as "art," but in the other house no such restrictions existed. It was to the latter that Conward led. Dave had been there before, in the cheap upper gallery, but Conward's tickets admitted to the best seats in the house. Dave had adopted town ways to the point where he changed his clothes and put on a white collar Saturday evenings, and he found himself amid the gay rustle and perfumes of the orchestra floor with a very pleasant sense of being somebody among other somebodies. The orchestra played a swinging air, to which his foot kept tap, and presently the curtain went up and the show was on with a rush of girls and colour.

It was an entirely new experience. From the upper gallery the actors and actresses always seemed more or less impersonal and abstract, but here they were living, palpitating human beings, almost within hand reach, certainly within eye reach, as Dave presently discovered. There was a trooping of girls about the stage, with singing and rippling laughter and sweet, clear voices; then a sudden change of formation flung a line of girls right across behind the footlights, where they tripped merrily through motions of mingled grace and acrobatics. Dave found himself regarding the young woman immediately before him; all in white she was, with some scintillating material that sparkled in the glare of the spot-light; then suddenly she was in orange, and pink, and purple, and mauve, and back again in white. And although she performed the various steps with smiling abandon, there was in her dress and manner a modesty which fascinated the boy with a subtlety which a more reckless appearance would have at once defeated.

And then Dave looked in her face. It was a pretty face, notwithstanding its grease-paint, and it smiled right into his eyes. His heart thumped between his shoulders as though it would drive all the air from his lungs. She smiled at him—for him! Now they were away again; there were gyrations about the stage, he almost lost her in the maze; a young man in fine clothes rushed in, and was apparently being mobbed by the girls, and said some lines in a rapid voice which Dave's ear had not been trained to catch; and then he danced about with one of them—with the very one—with his one! My, how nimble she was! He wondered if she knew the young man very well. They seemed very friendly. But he supposed she had to do that anyway; it was part of her job; it was all in the play. Certainly the young man was very clever, but he didn't like his looks. Certainly he could dance very well. "I could make him dance different to the tune of a six-shooter," Dave said to himself, and then flushed a little. That was silly. The young man was paid to do this, too. Still it looked like a very good job. It looked like a very much better job than shovelling coal for Metford.

Then there was a sudden break-away in the dance, and the girl disappeared behind a forest, and the mobbing of the young man recommenced. Dave supposed she had gone to rest; dancing like that must be hard on the wind. He found little to interest him now in what was going on on the stage. It seemed rather foolish. They were just capering around and being foolish. They were a lot of second-raters. And the young man—it was plain he didn't care a whit for them; he was just doing it because he had to. There was a vacant seat in front. He wished the girl behind the forest would come down and rest there. Then she could see the show herself. Then she could see—

But there was a whirr from the forest, and the girl re-appeared, this time all in red, but not nearly so much in red as she had previously been in white. My, what a quick change she had made! And how her skirt stood out like a rim when she whirled herself! And the young man left all the rest and went to dance with her again. Dave was not altogether pleased with that turn of events. But presently the dance broke up, and they were flung again in line across the stage. And there she was, all in red—no, not all in red, but certainly not in any other colour—right before him. And then she looked down and smiled again at him. And he smiled back. And then he looked at Conward and saw him smiling, too. And then he felt a very distressing uncertainty, which brought the colour slowly to his face. He resolved to say nothing, but watch. And his observations convinced him that the smiles had been for Conward, not for him. And then he lost interest in the play.

They hustled into their overcoats to the playing of the National Anthem. "Hurry," said Conward, "let's get out quick. Ain't she some dame? There—through the side exit—the stage door is that way. She promised to have her chum with her—they'll be waiting if we don't hurry."

Conward steered him to the stage entrance, where a little group was already congregated. In a moment the girl appeared, handsomely dressed in furs. Dave would not have known her, but Conward recognized her at once, and stepped forward. With her was another girl, also from the chorus, but Dave could not recall her part. He was suddenly aware of being introduced.

"This is my friend Belton," Conward was saying. Dave was about to correct him when Conward managed to whisper, "Whist! Your stage name. Mine's Elward. Don't forget."

Conward took the first girl by the arm, and Dave found himself following rapidly with the other. They cut through certain side streets, up a stairway, and into a dark hall. Conward was rattling keys and swearing amiably in his soft voice. Presently a door opened; Conward pressed a button, and they found themselves in a small but comfortably furnished room—evidently bachelor apartments.

The girls threw off their wraps and sauntered about the place, commenting freely on the furnishings and decorations, while Conward started a gas grate and put some water to boil.

"Sorry I've nothing for you to eat," he said, "but I've some good medicine for the thirst."

"Eating's poor business when there's a thirst to be quenched," said one of the girls, with a yawn. "And believe me, I've a long one."

Conward pulled a table into the centre of the room, set chairs about, and produced glasses and a bottle. Dave experienced a sudden feeling as of a poor swimmer beyond his depth. He had never drunk, not even beer, not so much from principles of abstinence as from disgust over his father's drunkenness and enmity towards the means of it. . . .

The glasses were filled and raised. "Ho!" said Conward.

"Here's looking!" said one of the girls. Dave still hesitated, but the other girl clinked her glass against his. "Here's looking at you," she said, and she appeared to lay special emphasis on the last two words. Certainly her eyes were on Dave's as she raised her glass to her lips. And under the spell of those eyes he raised his glass and drained it.

Other glasses were filled and drained. The three were chattering away, but Dave was but vaguely conscious of their talk, and could weave no connected meaning into it. His head was buzzing with a pleasant dreamy sensation. A very grateful warmth surrounded him, and with it came a disposition to go to sleep. He probably would have gone to sleep had his eye not fallen on a picture on the wall, It was a picture of a girl pointing her finger at him. He suspected that she was pointing it at him, and as he looked more closely he became very sure of it. . . No girl could point her finger at him. He arose and made a lunge across the room. He missed her, and with difficulty retraced his steps to the table to make a fresh start.

"She's makin' fun of me," he said, "an' I don't stand for that. Nobody can do that with me. Nobody—see? I don't 'low it."

"Oh, you don't," laughed one of the girls, running into a corner and pointing a finger at him. "You don't?"

He turned his attention to her, steadying himself very carefully before he attempted an advance. Then, with wide-stretched arms, he bore down cautiously upon her. When he had her almost within reach she darted along the edge of the room. He attempted a sudden change in direction, which ended disastrously, and he found himself very much sprawled out upon the floor. He was aware of laughter, but what cared he? He was disposed to sleep. What better place to sleep than this? What better time to sleep than this? In a moment he was lost to all consciousness. . . .

It was later in the night when he felt himself being dragged into a sitting posture. He remonstrated in a mumbling voice. "'S too early," he said. "Altogether too early. Early. Whew! Watch 'er spin. Jus' his job. Paid for it, ain't he?"

"Well, I ain't paid for this," said Conward, rather roughly, "and you got to pull yourself together. Here, take a little of this; it'll put some gimp into you." He pressed a glass to his lips, and Dave swallowed.

"Where am I?" he said, blinking at the light.

He rose uncertainly to his feet and stared about the room in returning consciousness.

"Where's the girls?" he asked.

"Gone," said Conward, sulkily. "Couldn't expect 'em to stick around all night to say good bye, could you, and you sleeping off your drunk?"

Dave raised his hand to his head. A sense of disgrace was already upon him. Then he suddenly turned in anger on Conward.

"You put this up on me," he cried. "You made a fool of me. I've a mind to bash your skull in for you."

"Don't be silly," Conward retorted. "I didn't enjoy it any more than you did—introducing you as my friend, and then have you go out like that. Why didn't you tip me? I didn't know it would put you to sleep."

"Neither did I," said Dave.

"Well, the next thing is to get you home. Can you walk?"

"Sure." Dave started for the door, but his course suddenly veered, and he found himself leaning over a chair. Conward helped him into his overcoat, and half led, half shoved him to his boarding house.



CHAPTER SIX

Elden awoke Sunday morning with a feeling that his head had been boiled. Also he had a prodigious thirst, which he slacked [Transcriber's note: slaked?] at the water pitcher. It was the practice of Metford's gang to select one of their number to care for all the horses on Sundays, while the others enjoyed the luxury of their one day of leisure. In consequence of this custom the room was still full of snoring sleepers, and the air was very close and foul.

Dave sat down by the little table that fronted the open window and rested his head on his hands. It was early spring; the snow was gone; dazzling sunshine bathed the prairies in the distance, and near at hand were the twitter of birds and the ripple of water. It was a day to be alive and about.

But the young man's thoughts were not of the sunshine, nor the fields, nor the water. He was recalling, with considerable effort, the events of the previous night; piecing them together in impossible ways; re-assorting them until they offered some sequence. The anger he had felt toward Conward had subsided, but the sting of shame rankled in his heart. He had no doubt that he had furnished the occasion for much merriment upon the part of the young women, in which, quite probably, Conward had joined.

"Fool," he said to himself. And because he could think of no more specific expression to suit his feelings, and because expression of any kind brought a sort of relief, he kept on repeating the word, "Fool, fool, fool!" And as his self-condemnation gradually won him back to a sense of perspective he became aware of the danger of his position. He went over the events of the recent months, and tried to be rational. He had left his ranch home to better himself, to learn things, to rise to be somebody. He had worked harder than ever before, at more disagreeable employment; he had lived in conditions that were almost nauseating, and what had he learned? That you can't beat a card man at his own game, price sixty dollars, and that the gallery seats are cheaper, and sometimes safer, than the orchestra.

Then all of a sudden he thought of Reenie. He had not thought of her much of late; he had been so busy in the days, and so tired at nights, that he had not thought of her much. True, she was always in the back of his mind; in his subconscious mind, perhaps, but he seemed to have put her away, like his skill with revolver and lasso. Now she burst upon him again with all that beauty and charm which had so magnetised him in those glad, golden days, and the frank cleanness of her girlhood made him disgusted and ashamed. It was to fit himself for her that he had come to town, and what sort of mess was he making of it? He was going down instead of up. He had squandered his little money, and now he was squandering his life. He had been drunk. . .

Dave's nature was one in which emotions were accelerated with their own intensity. When he was miserable his misery left no place in his soul for any ray of sunshine. It fed on itself, and grew to amazing proportions. It spread out from its original cause and enveloped his whole life. It tinctured all his relationships, past, present and future. When a cloud of gloom settled upon him he felt that it would never lift, but became heavier and heavier until he was crushed under its weight. And the sudden manner in which Reenie had now invaded his consciousness intensified the blackness in which he was submerged, as lightning darkens the storm. He saw her on that last night, with the moonlight wooing her white face, until his own body had eclipsed it in a warmer passion, and he heard her words, "I know you are true and clean."

True and clean. "Yes, thank God, I am still that!" he cried, springing suddenly to his feet and commencing to dress. "I've been spattered, but nothing that won't wash off. Perhaps," and he stopped as the great thought struck him, "perhaps it was the luckiest thing in the world that the booze did put me out last night. . . It'll wash off."

There was considerable comfort in this thought. He had wasted some precious months, but he had not gone too far, and there was still time to turn back. But he must begin work at once on the serious business of life. With this resolve his spirits returned with a rush, and he found himself whistling as he completed his toilet. There was no breakfast for the late sleepers Sunday mornings, and he went at once into the warm air outside. The sunshine fondled his body, his limbs, his face; the spring ozone was in his lungs; it was good to be alive. Alive—for a purpose. Well, he would start at once; how could he begin a life of purpose to-day? He was quite set on the necessity of doing something, but quite at sea as to what that something should be. It occurred to him for the first time that society had been much more generous in supplying facilities for a boy to go down hill than to go up.

He became aware of a bell ringing. At first the sound had fallen only on his subconsciousness, but gradually he became aware of it, as one being slowly recalled from sleep. Then he remembered that it was Sunday, and that was a church bell. He had often heard them on Sundays. He was about to dismiss the matter when a strange impulse came into his mind. Why not go to church? He had never been in church, and he felt that the surroundings of the pool hall would be much more congenial. He had little stomach for church. What if the rest of the gang should learn he had been at church?

"I believe you're afraid to go," he said to himself. That settled it. In a few minutes he was at the church door, where an oldish man, after surveying him somewhat dubiously, gave him a formal handshake and passed him into the hands of an usher. The usher led him down an aisle and crowded him into a small pew with several others. There were many unoccupied pews, so Dave concluded it must be a church policy to fill them full as far as they went. He also observed that the building was filling up from the rear, notwithstanding the efforts of the ushers to cajole the people farther down the aisles. Dave reflected that the custom here was quite different from the theatre, especially the "rush" gallery, where every one scrambled for the front seats.

He was very conscious of being observed, and there was an atmosphere of formality and, as it seemed to him, of strained goodness that made him uncomfortable. But presently the organ commenced and diverted his interest from himself. It was very wonderful. His position commanded a view of the organist, and Dave marvelled at the manner in which that gentleman's feet hopped about, and how his hands flourished up and down, and occasionally jumped from the keyboard altogether to jerk out a piece of the machine.

Then the choir filed in. They were all dressed alike, and the men had on a kind of gown. Dave thought that was very silly. By some mental freak he found himself picturing a man with a gown roping a steer, and it was only by a sudden tightening of his jaws that he prevented an explosion of amusement. He was still feeling very happy over this when a tall man entered from a side door and ascended the steps to the pulpit. He moved very solemnly, and, when he sat down, rested his head on his hand for a minute. Then he looked over the audience, and Dave thought that his expression was one of approval. Then he looked at the ceiling.

"He feels safe in his seat," thought Dave. "No buckin' in this bunch. Well—"

The organ had broken forth in a great burst of sound and every one was standing up. Dave did so too, belatedly. Then everybody sang. They seemed to know just what to sing. It was all new to Dave, but it sounded all right. It made him feel just like the sunshine did after the stuffy room. Then they all sat down. Dave was becoming more alert, and was not caught napping in this movement.

There was a short prayer, which Dave did not understand, and more singing by everybody, and then the ushers came around for the collection. Dave did not know how much to put on the plate, but he supposed a good seat like this in the theatre would cost a dollar, so he put on that amount. He noticed that his neighbour on one side put on a nickel, and on the other side nothing at all. He began to think he must have made a mistake. All this time the organ was playing boisterously, but suddenly it dropped to a low, meditative theme, and Dave began to fear it would stop altogether. But no; a young woman was standing up in the choir; she was pretty, with quite a different air and a finer comeliness than that of the theatre girls of the night before. In some vague way she seemed reminiscent of Reenie Hardy. Dave's introspection was not deep enough to know that any fine girl would remind him of Reenie Hardy.

Then she began to sing, and he felt again that the sunshine was playing about him, but this time he heard the birds, too, and the ripple of the distant water, and the stir of the spruce trees, and he could see the lattice of sunlight through their dark leaves playing on the brown grass, and there was a smell of distant wood smoke, and the glow of dying coals. . . He was swaying gently in his seat, held in the thrall of her voice, and suddenly he was glad he had put a dollar on the plate. He could not follow all the words, but it was something about a land where the sun would never go down. Well—no doubt the preacher would tell them more about it.

Then there was a long prayer by the preacher. He began by addressing the Deity as all mighty and all knowing, and then spent many minutes in drawing His attention to details which had evidently escaped His notice, and in offering suggestions for the better government of the universe. He dwelt on the humility and penitence of the congregation, including himself, and at this point Dave's unorthodox ear began to detect a false note. He looked about from preacher to congregation, and saw no evidence of penitence or humility. "If God is all-knowin'," said Dave to himself, "that preacher is goin' to get in wrong. Why, he couldn't put over that humility bunk on me."

At length it seemed that the sermon was really going to commence, but a well dressed man came down the aisle and read a long financial statement. Dave gathered from it that the Lord was pretty hard pressed for ready cash. "No wonder," thought he, "if they all give nickels and nothin's. Pretty well dressed bunch, too."

Finally the preacher took the meeting in hand again, and announced his text, but Dave soon forgot it in trying to follow the sermon. It was an orthodox exposition of the doctrine of the atonement. Dave would not have known it by that name, and there were many expressions which he could not understand, but out of a maze of phrases he found himself being slowly shocked into an attitude of uncompromising hostility. There was no doubt about it; the preacher was declaring that an innocent One had been murdered that the guilty might go free. This was bad enough, but when the speaker went on to say that this was God's plan; that there had to be a sacrifice, and that no other sacrifice was sufficient to appease the wrath of Jehovah directed toward those whom He had created, Dave found himself boiling with indignation. If this was Christianity he would have none of it. His instruction in religion had been of the most meagre nature, but he had imbibed some conception of a Father who was love, and this doctrine of the sacrifice of the innocent crashed through all his slender framework of belief. Had he been told of a love which remained steadfast to its ideals even at the cost of Calvary his manliness would have responded as to the touch of a kindred spirit, but the attempt to fit that willing sacrifice into a dogmatic creed left him adrift and rudderless. Suddenly from somewhere in his memory came the words, "Then what becomes of the justice of God?" It was Reenie Hardy who had asked that question. And he recalled his answer, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God. All I know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." Was he then in sympathy with this doctrine of cruelty, without knowing it? No. No! Reenie Hardy had believed in justice, and he would believe in the same. He rose from his seat and walked down the aisle and out of the building, oblivious to the eyes that followed him.

His feet led him to the river, running brown with the mud of spring. He sat on the gravel, in the warm sunshine, and tossed pebbles into the swift-flowing water. . . He had determined on a new road, but how was he to find the road? Environment had never been kind to him, and he was just beginning to realize its power in shaping his destinies. He was dissatisfied, but he did not know where to find satisfaction; he was bewildered, and nowhere was a clear path before him. He was lonely. He knew a room where a little game would be in progress; he arose, brushed the gravel-dust from his Sunday clothes, and wended his way down town.

A crowd was entering the theatre which he had attended the night before. He looked at it wonderingly, as by statute the theatres were closed on Sundays. Still, it was evident something was going on, and he went in with the others. No tickets were required, and an usher showed him to a good seat.

It was not long before Dave realized that he was in a Socialist meeting. He knew rather less of Socialism than he did of Christianity, but the atmosphere of the place appealed to him. They were mostly men in working clothes, with tobacco or beer on their breaths, and in their loud whisperings he caught familiar profanities which made him feel at home. When the speaker said something to their liking, they applauded him; when he crossed them they denounced him openly. Interruptions were frequent, and sometimes violent, but Dave admired the spirit of fair play which gave every man a chance to speak his mind. Through it all he gathered that there were two great forces in the world; Capital and Labour, and that Capital was a selfish monster with a strangle-hold on Labour and choking him to death. No, not quite to death, either, for Capital needed Labour, and therefore only choked him until he was half dead. Also, there were two classes of people in the world; the Masters and the Slaves. Dave was a Slave. He had never known it before, but the speaker made it quite apparent.

"But I'm not a slave," said Dave, suddenly springing to his feet. "I can quit my job to-morrow, and tell my boss to go to hell."

There were boos and cat-calls, but at last the man on the platform made himself heard.

"And what will you do, my friend, after you have quit your job?" he asked, quite courteously.

"Get another one," said Dave, without scenting the trap. "There's lots of jobs."

"That is, you would get another master," said the Socialist. "You would still have a master. And as long as you have a master, you are a slave." And Dave sat down, confused and wondering.

After the main address there was a sort of free-for-all. Half a dozen sprang to their feet, each seeking to out-talk his neighbour, and it was with difficulty the chairman obtained order and established a sequence of events. An old man in the gallery read loudly from Victor Hugo while a speaker in the orchestra declaimed on Single Tax. Finally the old man was silenced, and Dave began to learn that all the economic diseases to which society is heir might be healed by a potion compounded by Henry George. Another in the audience started to speak of the failure of the established system of marriage, embellishing his argument with more than one local incident of a salacious nature, but he was at last required to give place to a woman who had a more personal grievance to present.

"You talk about your masters and your slaves, and your taxes and your marriages," she cried in a shrill voice that penetrated every corner of the building. "I can tell you something about masters and slaves. I'm hearing everywhere that what this country wants is population; that is the talk of the politician, and the learned men, that are supposed to know. Now, what is the country doing for those that bring the population—not from the slums of Europe, that is not what I'm asking—but for those that bring the native-born population—the only population that doesn't have to be naturalized? I'm the mother of six, and what has the country done for me, but leave me at the mercy of those who charge more for an hour's attendance than my old man can save from a month's drudgery? And then, with my health broken down—in the service of the State—I have to go to the hospital, and they tell me I must have an operation, and I wake up with a horrid pain and a bill for a hundred and fifty dollars. All done in an hour, or less, and that's the bill, or part of it, for the hospital dues and the extras and etceteras are still to come. Masters and slaves! More than I can save in a year, or two years, and no one to say whether the work was needed or not, or whether it was well done or not. When my kitchen pipes are plugged a plumber fixes them and charges me a dollar, and if he doesn't do it right he has to do it over again, but when the human pipes go wrong the man-plumber charges a hundred and fifty dollars, and if he doesn't do it right he collects just the same, and the undertaker adds another hundred. Now I don't know whether this comes under the head of Capital or Labour or Single Tax, but I do know it is outrageous extortion—extortion of blood money, imposed by the wealthy and prosperous on the poor and the sick and the unfortunate, and while the State clamours for population it does not raise a finger to protect those who are bringing the native-born."

During this philippic Dave had turned toward the woman; her thin face still wore marks of refinement and even his uncultured ear recognized a use of English that indicated a fair degree of education. But she was broken; crushed with the joint cares of motherhood and poverty, and desperate at the injustices of a system that capitalized her sacrifices. He had heard much talk of slaves, but here, he felt, he saw one, not in the healthy, well fed men with their deep mutterings against employers, but in this haggard woman from whose life the lamp of joy had gone out in the bitterness of suffering and physical exhaustion.

He spent the rest of the day alone, thinking. He was not yet sure of any road, but he knew that his mind had been made to think, and that his life was bigger that night than it had been in the morning. He might not find the right road at once, but he could at least leave the old one. He felt a strange hunger to understand all that had been said. He felt, also, a tremendous sense of his own ignorance; tremendous, but not crushing; a realization that the world was full of things to be learned; problems to be faced; conclusions to be studied out, and underneath was a sense almost of exaltation that he should take some part in the studies and perhaps aid in the solutions. It was his first glimpse into the world of reason, and it charmed and invited him. He would follow.

He went early to bed, thinking over all he had heard. His mind was full, but it was happy, and, in some strange way, fixed. Even the morning service came back with a sense of worthwhileness as he recalled it in the semi-consciousness of approaching sleep. . . The music had been good. It had made him think of spring and the deep woods . . . and water . . . and wood smoke. . .

It was about a far away land . . . and Reenie Hardy. She was very like Reenie Hardy. . .



CHAPTER SEVEN

Fortunate Fate, or whatever good angel it is that sometimes drops unexpected favours, designed that young Elden should the following day deliver coal at the home of Mr. Melvin Duncan. Mr. Duncan, tall, quiet, and forty-five, was at work in his garden as Dave turned the team in the lane and backed them up the long, narrow drive connecting with the family coal-chute. As the heavy wagon moved straight to its objective Mr. Duncan looked on with approval that heightened into admiration. Dave shovelled his load without remark, but as he stood for a moment at the finish wiping the sweat from his coal-grimed face Mr. Duncan engaged him in conversation.

"You handle a team like you were born to it," he said. "Where did you get the knack?"

"Well, I came up on a ranch," said Dave. "I've lived with horses ever since I could remember."

"You're a rancher, eh?" queried the older man. "Well, there's nothing like the range and the open country. If I could handle horses like you there isn't anything would hold me in town.

"Oh, I don' know," Dave answered. "You get mighty sick of it."

"Did you get sick of it?"

Elden shot a keen glance at him. The conversation was becoming personal. Yet there was in Mr. Duncan's manner a certain kindliness, a certain appeal of sincere personality, that disarmed suspicion.

"Yes, I got sick of it," he said. "I lived on that ranch eighteen years, and never was inside school or church. Wouldn't that make you sick? . . . So I beat it for town."

"And I suppose you are attending church regularly now, and night school, too?"

Dave's quick temper fired up in resentment, but again the kindliness of the man's manner disarmed him. He was silent for a moment, and then he said, "No, I ain't. That's what makes me sick now. I came in here intendin' to get an education, an' I've never even got a start at it, excep' for some things perhaps wasn't worth the money. There always seems to be somethin' else—in ahead."

"There always will be," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start."

"I suppose so," said Dave, wearily, and took up the reins.

But Mr. Duncan persisted. "You're not in such a hurry with that team," he said. "Even if you are late—even if you should lose your job over it—that's nothing to settling this matter of getting started with an education."

"But how's it to be done?" Dave questioned, with returning interest. "Schools an' books cost money, an' I never save a dollar."

"And never will," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start. But I think I see a plan that might help, and if it appeals to you it will also be a great convenience to me. My wife likes to go driving Sundays, and sometimes on weekday evenings, but I have so many things on hand I find it hard to get out with her. My daughter used to drive, but these new-fangled automobiles are turning the world upside down—and many a buggy with it. They're just numerous enough to be dangerous. If there were more or less they would be all right, but just now every horse is suspicious of them. Well—as I saw you driving in here I said to myself, 'There's the man for that job of mine, if I can get him,' but I'm not rich, and I couldn't pay you regular wages. But if I could square the account by helping with your studies a couple of nights a week—I used to teach school, and haven't altogether forgotten—why, that would be just what I want. What do you say?"

"I never saw anything on four feet I couldn't drive," said Dave, "an' if you're willing to take a chance, I am. When do we start?"

"First lesson to-night. Second lesson Thursday night. First drive Sunday." Mr. Duncan did not explain that he wanted to know the boy better before the drives were commenced, and he felt that two nights together would satisfy him whether he had found the right man.

Dave hurried back to the coal-yard and completed the day's work in high spirits. It seemed he was at last started on a road that might lead somewhere. After supper he surprised his fellow labourers by changing to his Sunday clothes and starting down a street leading into the residential part of the town. There were speculations that he had "seen a skirt."

Mr. Duncan met him at the door and showed him into the living-room. Mrs. Duncan, plump, motherly, lovable in the mature womanliness of forty, greeted him cordially. She was sorry Edith was out; Edith had a tennis engagement. She was apparently deeply interested in the young man who was to be her coachman. Dave had never been in a home like this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, an atmosphere that Dave could feel although he could not define it; a sense that everything was all right. He soon found himself talking with Mrs. Duncan about horses, and then about his old life on the ranch, and then about coming to town. Almost, before he knew it, he had told her about Reenie Hardy, but he had checked himself in time. And Mrs. Duncan had noticed it, without comment, and realized that her guest was not a boy, but a man.

Then Mr. Duncan talked about gardening, and from that to Dave's skill in backing his team to the coal-chute, and from that to coal itself. Dave had shovelled coal all winter, but he had not thought about coal, except as something to be shovelled and shovelled. And as Mr. Duncan explained to him the wonderful provisions of nature; how she had stored away in the undiscovered lands billions of tons of coal, holding them in reserve until the world's supply of timber for fuel should be nearing exhaustion, and as he told of the immeasurable wealth of this great new land in coal resources, and of how the wheels of the world, traffic and industry, and science, even, were dependent upon coal and the man who handled coal, Dave felt his breast rising with a sense of the dignity of his calling. It was no longer dirty and grimy; it was part of the world; it was essential to progress and happiness—more essential than gold, or diamonds, or all the beautiful things in the store windows. And he had had to do with this wonderful substance all winter, and not until to-night had it fired the divine spark of his imagination. The time ticked on, and although he was eager to be at work he almost dreaded the moment when Mr. Duncan should mention his lesson. But before that moment came there was a ripple of laughter at the door, and a girl in tennis costume, and a young man a little older than Dave, entered.

"Edith," said Mrs. Duncan. Dave arose to shake hands, but then his eyes fell full on her face. "Oh, I know you," he exclaimed. "I heard you sing yesterday."

Slowly he felt the colour coming to his cheeks. Had he been too familiar? Should he have held that back? What would she think? But then he felt her hand in his, and he knew it was all right.

"And I know you," she was saying. "I saw you—" she stopped, and it was her turn to feel the rising colour.

"Yes, I know what you saw," he took up her thought. "You saw me get up and go out of church because I wouldn't sit and listen to a man say that God punished the innocent to let the guilty go free. And I won't." There was a moment's silence following this outburst, and Mr. Duncan made a new appraisal of his pupil. Then it was time to introduce Mr. Allan Forsyth. Mr. Forsyth shook hands heartily, but Dave was conscious of being caught in one quick glance which embraced him from head to heel. And the glance was satisfied—self-satisfied. It was such a glance as Dave might give a horse, when he would say, "A good horse, but I can handle him." It was evident from that glance that Forsyth had no fear of rivalry from that quarter. And having no fear he could afford to be friendly.

Dave had no distinct remembrance of what happened just after that, but he was conscious of an overwhelming desire to hear Miss Duncan sing. How like Reenie she was! And just as he was beginning to think Mr. Duncan must surely have forgotten his lesson, he heard her asking him if she should sing. And then he saw Forsyth at the piano—why couldn't he leave her to do it herself, the butt-in?—and then he heard her fine, silvery voice rising in the notes of that song about the land where the sun should never go down. . . And suddenly he knew how lonely, how terribly, terribly lonely he was. And he sat with head bowed that they might not know. . .

And then there were other songs, and at last Mrs. Duncan, who had slipped away unnoticed, returned with a silver teapot, and cups of delicate china, and sandwiches and cake, and they sat about and ate and drank and talked and laughed. And Edith refilled his cup and sat down beside him, leaving that Forsyth quite on the opposite side of the room. And suddenly he was very, very happy. And when he looked at his watch it was eleven o'clock!

"I guess we didn't get any lesson to-night," he said, as he shook hands with Mr. Duncan at the sidewalk.

"I am not so sure," replied his tutor. "The first thing for you to learn is that all learning does not come from books. A good listener can learn as much as a good reader—if he listens to the right kind of people." And as Dave walked home the thought deepened in him that it really had been a lesson, and that Mr. Duncan had intended it that way. And he wondered what remarkable fortune had been his. The air was full of the perfume of balm-o'-gilead, and his feet were light with the joy of youth. And he thought much of Edith, and of Reenie Hardy.

In subsequent lessons Dave was rapidly initiated into many matters besides parlour manners and conversation. Mr. Duncan placed the first and greatest emphasis upon learning to write, and to write well. They had many philosophic discussions, in which the elder man sought to lead the younger to the acceptance of truths that would not fail him in the strain of later life, and when a conclusion had been agreed upon, it was Mr. Duncan's habit to embody it in a copy for Dave's writing lesson. One evening they had a long talk on success, and Mr. Duncan had gradually stripped the glamour from wealth and fame and social position. "The only thing worth while," he said, "is to give happiness. The man who contributes to the happiness of the world is a success, and the man who does not contribute to the happiness of the world is a failure, no matter what his wealth or position. Every man who lives long enough, and has brains enough, comes to know this in time. And those who have not brains enough to know it, are the greatest failures of all, because they think they have attained success, and they have only been buncoed with a counterfeit."

"But a man who has money is in a position to give more happiness than one who hasn't," objected Dave. "Think of all the things a man with a million dollars can do to make people happy—like paying for libraries, and giving excursions to poor children, and things like that. So, in order to make people happy, wouldn't the first step be to make money, so it could be spent in that way?"

"That is a good thought," agreed Mr. Duncan, "but not a conclusive one. In reckoning the happiness a man gives we must, of course, subtract the unhappiness he occasions. He may make a great sum of money, and use much of it in creating happiness, but if in the making of the money he used methods that resulted in unhappiness, we must subtract the unhappiness first before we can give him any credit for the happiness he has created. And I am disposed to think that many a philanthropist, if weighed in that balance, would be found to have a debit side bigger than his credit. No matter how much wealth a man may amass, or how wisely he may distribute it, we cannot credit him with success if he has oppressed the hireling or dealt unfairly with his competitors or the public. Such a man is not a success; he is a failure. In his own soul he knows he is a failure, that is, provided he still has a soul, and if not, as I said before, he is a greater failure still."

Out of this discussion Mr. Duncan evolved the copy line, "The success of a life is in direct proportion to its net contribution to human happiness," and Dave sat writing it far into the night.

As soon as Dave had learned to read a little Mr. Duncan took him one day to the public library, and the young man groped in amazement up and down the great rows of books. Presently a strange sense of inadequateness came over him. "I can never read all of those books, nor half of them," he said. "I suppose one must read them in order to be well informed."

Mr. Duncan appeared to change the subject.

"You like fruit?" he asked.

"Yes, of course. Why—"

"When you go into a fruit store do you stand and say, 'I can never eat all of that fruit; crates and crates of it, and carloads more in the warehouse?' Of course you don't. You eat enough for the good of your system, and let it go at that. Now, just apply the same sense to your reading. Read enough to keep your mind fresh, and alert, and vigorous; give it one new thought to wrestle with every day, and let the rest go. . . Oh, I know that there is a certain school which holds that unless you have read this author or that author, or this book or that book, you are hopelessly uninformed or behind the times. That's literary snobbery. Let them talk. A mind that consumes more than it can assimilate is morally on a par with a stomach that swallows more than it can digest. Gluttons, both of them. Read as much as you can think about, and no more. The trouble with many of our people is that they do not read to think, but to save themselves the trouble of thinking. The mind, left to itself, insists upon activity. So they chloroform it."

Mr. Duncan also took occasion to speak with Dave about his religious views. He did not forget Dave's explanation of why he went out of the church. "I sympathize with your point of view a great deal," he said, "but don't be too sweeping in your conclusions. The church is too fussy over details; too anxious to fit the mind of man—which is his link with the Infinite—into some narrow, soul-crushing creed; too insistent upon the form of belief and not nearly insistent enough upon conduct. It makes me think of a man who was trying to sell me an automobile the other day. He was explaining all about the trimmings; the cushions and the lights and the horn and all that sort of stuff, and when he was through I said, 'Now tell me something about the motor. I want to know about the thing that makes the wheels go round. If it's no good I guess the trimmings are only fit for junk.' Well, that's the way with the church. The motor that has kept it running for nineteen centuries is the doctrine of love; love of man to man, love of man to God, love of God to man. Nothing about wrath—that's only a back-fire—but love. Without that motor all the trimmings are junk. Each sect has its own trimmings, but they all profess to use the same motor. . . Still, the motor is all right, even if it is neglected and abused. I don't think you'll find a better, and you must have power of some kind."

"What about Socialism?" asked Dave.

"Very good, insofar as it is constructive. But there is a destructive brand of Socialism which seizes the fancy of disappointed and disgruntled men and women, and bids them destroy. There is a basic quality in all human nature which clamours for destruction. You see it in the child pulling his toys to pieces, or in the mob wrecking buildings. Destruction is easy and passionate, but construction demands skill and patience."

"I have been at some of their meetings," said Dave. "They lay great stress on the war between Labour and Capital—"

"Between husband and wife in the family of production," interrupted Mr. Duncan. "Nothing is to be gained by that quarrel. I admit the husband has been overbearing, offensive, brutal, perhaps; but the wife has been slovenly, inefficient, shallow. Neither has yet been brought to realize how hopeless is the case of one without the other. And I don't think they will learn that by quarreling. What they need is not hard words, but mutual respect and sympathy, and an honest conception of what constitutes success. Doctrines and policies are helpful to the extent to which they cause men to think, either directly, or by creating environment conducive to thought; but they will never bring the golden age of happiness. That can come only through the destruction of selfishness, which can be destroyed only by the power of love. That is why I emphasized the motor, in our talk about the church. It is our only chance."

Dave's talks with Mr. Duncan became almost nightly occurrences, either at the Duncan home, or when he drove the family—for the master of the house often accompanied them—or when they met down town, as frequently happened. And the boy was not slow to realize the broad nature of the task to which Mr. Duncan had set himself. His education was to be built of every knowledge and experience that could go into the rounding of a well-developed life.

The climax seemed to be reached when Mr. Duncan invited Dave to accompany him to a dinner at which a noted thinker, just crossing the continent, had consented to speak.

"It will be evening dress," said Mr. Duncan. "I suppose you are hardly fitted out that way?"

"I guess not," said Dave, smiling broadly. He recalled the half humorous sarcasm with which the Metford gang referred to any who might be seen abroad in their "Hereford fronts." He had a sudden vision of himself running the gauntlet of the ridicule.

But Mr. Duncan was continuing. "I think I can fix you up," he said. "We must be pretty nearly of a size, and I have a spare suit." And almost before he knew it it was arranged that Dave should attend the dinner.

It was an eventful night for him. His shyness soon wore off, for during these months he had been learning to accept any new experience gladly. "Life is made up of experience," his teacher had said, "therefore welcome every opportunity to broaden your life by travelling in new tracks. There are just two restrictions—the injurious and the immoral. You must grow by experience, but be sure you grow the right way. Only a fool must personally seize the red iron to see if it will burn. . . But most of us are fools." And as he sat among this company of the best minds of the town he felt that a new and very real world was opening before him. His good clothes seemed to work up in some way through his sub-consciousness and give him a sense of capability. He was in the mental atmosphere of men who did things, and by conforming to their customs he had brought his mind into harmony with theirs, so that it could receive suggestions, and—who knows?—return suggestions. And he was made to think, think, think.

As he walked home with Mr. Duncan under the stars he spoke of the subtle sense of well-being and ability which came with good clothes. "I don't mind confessing I have always had something like contempt for stylish dressing," he said. "Now I almost feel that there's something to it."

"There is some good quality in everything that survives," said Mr. Duncan. "Otherwise it would not survive. That doesn't mean, of course, that the good qualities outweigh the bad, but the good must be there. Take the use of liquor, for instance; perhaps the greatest source of misery we have. Yet it touches a quality in man's life: sociability, conviviality, if you like; but a quality that has virtue in it none the less. And the errors of sex are so often linked with love that one can scarcely say where virtue ceases and where vice begins. I know convention placards them plainly enough, but convention does not make virtue vice, nor vice virtue. There are deeper laws down beneath, and sometimes they may set at defiance all accepted codes.

"Yet I would not quarrel with the accepted codes—until I knew I had something better. Accepted codes represent man's net progress through experience to truth. The code, for instance, 'Thou shalt not kill;' we accept it in general, but not completely. The State does not hesitate to kill in self-defence, or even to carry out purposes which have no relation to defence. And shall we not allow similar exceptions to the other codes? And yet, although we may find our codes are not infallible, are they not still the best guides we have?

"To return to clothes. Clothes won't make you, but they will help you to make yourself. Only, don't become a clothes-tippler. You can run to intoxication on fine raiment as well as on fine wines. It has virtue in it, but just beyond the virtue lies the vice."



CHAPTER EIGHT

The summer was not far gone when Dave, through an introduction furnished by Mr. Duncan, got a new job. It was in the warehouse of a wholesale grocery, trundling cases and sacks of merchandise. It was cleaner than handling coal, and the surroundings were more congenial, and the wages were better—fifty dollars a month, to begin.

"The first thing is to get out of the dead-line," said Mr. Duncan. "I am not hoping that you will have found destiny in a wholesale warehouse, but you must get out of the dead-line. As long as you shovel coal, you will shovel coal. And you are not capable of anything better until you think you are."

"But I've liked it pretty well," said Dave. "As long as I was just working for my wages it was dull going, but it was different after I got to see that even shovelling coal was worth while. I suppose it is the same with groceries, or whatever one does. As soon as you begin to study what you handle the work loses its drudgery. It isn't a man's job that makes him sick of his job; it's what he thinks of his job."

A light of satisfaction was in his teacher's eyes as Dave made this answer. Mr. Duncan had realized that he was starting late with this pupil, and if there were any short-cuts to education he must find them. So he had set out deliberately to instil the idea that education is not a matter of schools and colleges, or courses of reading, or formulae of any kind, but a matter of the five senses applied to every experience of life. And he knew that nothing was coarse or common that passed through Dave's hands. Coal had ceased to be a smutty mineral, and had taken on talismanic qualities unguessed by the mere animal workman; and sugar, and coffee, and beans, and rice, and spices, each would open its own wonderful world before this young and fertile mind. As an heritage from his boyhood on the ranges Dave had astonishingly alert senses; his sight, his hearing, his sense of smell and of touch were vastly more acute than those of the average university graduate. . . And if that were true might it not fairly be said that Dave was already the better educated of the two, even if he, as yet, knew nothing of the classics?

As Dave parted from the Metford gang he felt that he knew what Mr. Duncan had meant by the dead-line. These were men who would always shovel coal, because they aspired to nothing better. There was no atom of snobbery in Dave's nature; he knew perfectly well that shovelling coal was quite as honourable and respectable a means of livelihood as managing a bank, but the man who was content to shovel coal was on the dead-line. . . And, by the same logic, the man who was content to manage a bank was on the dead-line. That was a new and somewhat startling aspect of life. He must discuss it with Mr. Duncan.

Dave's energy and enthusiasm in the warehouse soon brought him promotion from truck hand to shipping clerk, with an advance in wages to sixty-five dollars a month. He was prepared to remain in this position for some time, as he knew that promotion depends on many things besides ability. Mr. Duncan had warned him against the delusion that man is entirely master of his destiny. "Life, my boy," he had said, "is fifty per cent. environment and forty per cent. heredity. The other ten per cent. is yours. But that ten per cent. is like the steering gear in an automobile; it's only a small part of the mechanism, but it directs the course of the whole machine. Get a good grip on the part of your life you can control, and don't worry over the rest."

To economize both time and money Dave took his lunch with him and ate it in the warehouse. He had also become possessed of a pocket encyclopaedia and it was his habit to employ the minutes saved by eating lunch in the warehouse in reading from his encyclopaedia. It chanced one day that as he was reading in the noon hour Mr. Trapper, the head of the firm, came through the warehouse. Dave knew him but little; he thought of him as a stern, unapproachable man, and avoided him as much as possible. But this time Mr. Trapper was upon him before he was seen.

"What are you reading?" he demanded. "Yellow backed nonsense?"

"No, sir," said Dave, rising and extending his arm with the book.

"Why, what's this?" queried Mr. Trapper, in some surprise. "Tea—tea—oh, I see, it's an encyclopaedia. What is the idea, young man?"

"I always like to read up about the stuff we are handling," said Dave. "It's interesting to know all about it; where it comes from, how it is grown, what it is used for; the different qualities, and so forth."

"H'm," said Mr. Trapper, returning the book. "No doubt." And he walked on without further comment. But that afternoon he had something to say to his manager.

"That young fellow on the shipping desk—Elden, I think his name is. How do you find him?"

"Very satisfactory, sir. Punctual, dependable, and accurate."

"Watch him," said Mr. Trapper.

The manager swung around in his chair. "Why, what do you mean? You haven't occasion to suspect—?"

Mr. Trapper's customary sternness slowly relaxed, until there was the suggestion of a smile about the corners of his mouth, and rather more than a suggestion in the twinkle in his eye.

"Do you know what I caught that young fellow doing during noon hour?" he asked. "Reading up the encyclopaedia on tea. Tea, mind you. Said he made a practice of reading up on the stuff we are handling. We, mind you. Found it very interesting to know where it came from, and all about it. I've been in the grocery business for pretty close to forty years, and I've seen many an employee spend his noon hour in the pool rooms, or in some other little back room, or just smoking, but this is the first one I ever caught reading up the business in an encyclopaedia. Never read it that way myself. Well—you watch him. I'd risk a ten-spot that he knows more about tea this minute than half of our travellers."

But Dave was not to continue in the grocery trade, despite his reading of the encyclopaedia, A few evenings later he was engaged in reading in the public library; not an encyclopaedia, but Shakespeare. The encyclopaedia was for such time as he could save from business hours, but for his evening reading Mr. Duncan had directed him into the realm of fiction and poetry, and he was now feeling his way through Hamlet. From the loneliness of his boyhood he had developed the habit of talking aloud to himself, and in abstracted moments he read in an audible whisper which impressed the substance more deeply on his mind, but made him unpopular in the public reading rooms. It was well known among the patrons of the rooms that he read Hamlet. This fact, however, may not have been altogether to Dave's disadvantage. On the evening in question an elderly man engaged him in conversation.

"You are a Shakespearean student, I see?"

"Not exactly. I read a little in the evenings. But I haven't gone far enough to call myself a student."

"I have seen you here different times. Are you well acquainted with the town?"

"Pretty well," said Dave, scenting that there might be a purpose in the questioning.

"Working now?"

Dave told him where he was employed.

"I am the editor of The Call," said the elderly man. "We need another man on the street; a reporter, you know. We pay twenty-five dollars a week for such a position. If you are interested you might call at the office tomorrow."

Dave hurried with his problem to Mr. Duncan. "I think I'd like the work," he said, "but I am not sure whether I can do it. My writing is rather—wonderful."

Mr. Duncan turned the matter over in his mind. "Yes," he said at length, "but I notice you are beginning to use the typewriter. When you learn that God gave you ten fingers, not two, you may make a typist. And there is nothing more worth while than being able to express yourself in English. They'll teach you that on a newspaper. I think I'd take it.

"Not on account of the money," he continued, after a little. "You would probably soon be earning more in the wholesale business. Newspaper men are about the worst paid of all professions. But it's the best training in the world, not for itself, but as a step to something else. I have often wondered why editors, who are forever setting every other phase of the world's work to rights, are content to train up so many thousands of bright young men—and then pass them along into other businesses where they are better paid. But the training is worth while, and it's the training you want. Take it."

Dave explained his disadvantages to the editor of The Call. "I didn't want you to think," he said with great frankness, "that because I was reading Shakespeare I was a master of English. And I guess if I were to write up stuff in Hamlet's language I'd get canned for it."

"We'd probably have a deputation from the Moral Reform League," said the editor, with a dry smile. "Just the same, if you know Shakespeare you know English, and we'll soon break you into the newspaper style."

So, almost before he knew it, Dave was on the staff of The Call. His beat comprised the police court, fire department, hotels, and general pick-ups. And the very first day, as though to afford fuel for his genius, a small fire occurred in a clothing store.

"'S good for two sticks—about four inches," said the editor, when Dave had given him the main facts. "Write your story to fit."

Dave suddenly realized that, although he had been a persistent reader of newspapers during the recent months, he had scarcely the remotest idea of how many words went to a column, or to an inch. It was a piece of information needed at once, so he set about to count the words in a column. Then he wrote his story to fit. He had already learned that everything in a newspaper office, from a wedding to a ball game, is "a story." When he turned his in it looked like this:

The fire bell was heard ringing this morning about ten o'clock, and soon after crowds were seen wending their way to the Great West Clothing Store. There was a heavy black smoke coming from the back end of the store. The firemen were late in getting there, and before they arrived a man had got badly choked by trying to go into the store. Presently the engine came up and before long water was being applied in great quantities, and soon the fire was under control. Part of the roof fell in, and the building is pretty badly ruined. Some of the contents may be fit for sale. It seems too bad that the fire engine should have been so long in coming, as without doubt if it had got there promptly the fire could have been put out before much damage occurred. However, it might have been worse, as it was a frame building, in a row of other frame buildings, and if the fire had once got beyond control much damage might have been done. Nobody seems to know how the fire started.

It was with much quiet excitement that he awaited the appearance of the evening edition. He had a strange eagerness to see his contribution in print; a manifestation, no doubt, of that peculiar trait in human nature which fills the editorial waste basket with unaccepted contributions. At last he found it, but it read like this:

Fire this morning gutted the Great West Clothing Store with a loss of $8,000.00 of which $4,000.00 is covered by insurance in the Occidental. Frank Beecher, proprietor of the store, was overcome by smoke, and is in the city hospital.

Smoke was first seen issuing from the back of the store by Fred Grant, a delivery man for the Imperial Laundry, who turned in an alarm at 10.08. Owing to the fire team colliding with a dray owned by Sheppard & Co. some minutes of delay occurred. During this period the building, which was of frame, burned fiercely. It was almost completely destroyed, although some of the stock may be salable.

Beecher rushed into the back room for certain papers, where he was found by Fireman Carey in an unconscious condition. He is recovering, and is already planning to rebuild.

Dave read the account with a sinking heart. By the time he reached the end it seemed his heart could sink no further. He found that the editor had not left the office, so he approached him with as much spirit as he could command.

"I guess you won't need me any more," he said. "I'm sorry I made a mess of that fire story."

There was a kind twinkle in the chief's eye as he answered, "Nonsense. Of course we need you. You have merely made the mistake every one else makes, in supposing you could write for a newspaper without training. We will give you the training—and pay you while you learn. The only man we can't use is the man who won't learn. Now let me give you a few pointers," and the editor got up from his desk and held the paper with the fire story before him. "In the first place, don't start a story with 'the,' at least, not more than once or twice a week. In the second place, get the meat into the first paragraph. Seventy-five per cent. of the readers never go further than the first paragraph; give them the raw facts there; if they want the trimmings they will go down for them. That is where a magazine story is exactly opposite to a newspaper story; a newspaper story shows its hand in the first paragraph, a magazine story in the last.

"Then, get the facts. Nobody cares whether the fire bell rang or not, but they do care about the man who was suffocated; who he was, what he was doing there, what became of him. Revel in names. Get the names of everybody, and get them right. The closest tight-wad in the town will buy a paper if it has his name in it. Every story, no matter how short, is good for a number of names. In your copy as you turned it in"—the editor picked it up from his desk; he had evidently saved it for such an occasion as this—"the only name you had was that of the clothing store. I had one of the other boys get to work on the telephone, and you see he got the name of the proprietor; of the insurance company, with the amount of the insurance; of the man who turned in the alarm; of the owner of the dray team that obstructed the engine, and of the firemen who carried Beecher to safety. Every one of these people, with their families, their cousins, and their aunts, become especially interested in the story the moment their names are introduced.

"Next, remember that it is not the business of a reporter to pass editorial comment. It may have been too bad that the fire engine was delayed, but that is a matter for the editor to decide. The business of the reporter is to find out why it was delayed, and state the facts, without regrets or opinions. You must learn to hold the mirror up to nature without making faces in it. You know what I mean—keep your own reflection out of the picture. If you think the incident calls for an expression of opinion by the paper, write an editorial and submit it to me. But remember that the editorial and news columns of a paper should be as distinct as the two sides of a fence."

"Thank you very much," said Dave, slowly, when it was plain the editor had finished. "I think I begin to see. But there's one thing I don't understand. Why did you not mention the origin of the fire?"

A flicker of amusement—or was it confession?—ran across the chief's face as he answered, "Because we don't know what started it—and Beecher is one of our best advertisers. To say the origin of the fire is unknown always leaves a smack of suspicion. It is like the almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulder at the mention of a woman's name. You can't get away from it. And it is the advertiser who keeps the paper alive. . . I know it's not idealism, but idealism doesn't pay wages and paper bills, and as long as readers demand papers for less than it costs to print them they will have to take second place to the advertiser."

"Then all reports are to be coloured to suit the advertiser?" demanded Dave.

"No. Where a principle is involved—and we have principles, even in these degenerate days—we stand by the principle, even if we lose the patronage. Our notions of what is for the public good have cost us a lot of money at times. You see, the exploiter is always ready to pay his servants, which is more than can be said of the public. But where no real principle is involved we try to be friendly to our friends."

With these fresh viewpoints on his profession Dave entered upon his work the following day chastened but determined. Almost immediately he found the need of acquaintanceships. The isolation of his boyhood had bred in him qualities of aloofness which had now to be overcome. He was not naturally a good "mixer;" he preferred his own company, but his own company would not bring him much news. So he set about deliberately to cultivate acquaintance with the members of the police force and the fire brigade, and the clerks in the hotels. And he had in his character a quality of sincerity which gave him almost instant admission into their friendships. He had not suspected the charm of his own personality, and its discovery, feeding upon his new-born enthusiasm for friendships, still further enriched the charm.

As his acquaintance with the work of the police force increased Dave found his attitude toward moral principles in need of frequent re-adjustment. By no means a Puritan, he had, nevertheless, two sterling qualities which so far had saved him from any very serious misstep. He practised absolute honesty in all his relationships. His father, drunken although he was in his later years, had never quite lost his sense of commercial uprightness, and Dave had inherited the quality in full degree. And Reenie Hardy had come into his life just when he needed a girl like Reenie Hardy to come into his life . . . He often thought of Reenie Hardy, and of her compact with him, and wondered what the end would be. And meanwhile he found the need of frequent readjustments. He became aware of the fact that in every community there are two communities; one on the surface, respectable, discreet, conventional; and one beneath the surface, to which these terms would not apply. He found that the province of the police was not to enforce morality, but to prevent immorality becoming obnoxious. Anything, almost, might go on so long as its effects were confined to the voluntary participants. Underneath the sham of good behaviour was a world, known to the police and the newspaper men and a few others, which refused to accept standard conventions and lived according to its own impulse. And this world included so-called best citizens, of both sexes. And they were good citizens. It seemed the community had two natures; a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a community basis. Splendid qualities; large heartedness, generosity, were mingled and streaked through degrees of selfishness and lust running down into positive crime. . . And the wonder was not what the papers printed, but what they left untold. . . And he was glad he had met Reenie Hardy. She was an anchor about his soul. . . And Edith Duncan.

One morning, as he sat with Carson of The Times at the reporters' table in the police court, listening absently to the clerk calling a list of names, his companion, with a grimace, intimated that there was something beneath the surface. "Pure fiction," he whispered, as the list was completed. "It would do you good to know who they are. Shining lights, every one of them. And when they are lit up they can't be kept under a bushel. The police just had to do something. They won't be here—not one of them. Their lawyer will plead guilty, and pay the fines, and every one will be sorry—they were caught. Even his nibs on the bench isn't twice as happy. It was by good luck he wasn't with the bunch himself."

It turned out as Carson predicted. One of the leading lawyers of the city addressed the Court, expressing the regret of his clients that their behaviour had necessitated interference by the police. He was full of suave assurances that no disrespect to the law, nor annoyance to any member of the community, was intended, and he pleaded feelingly for as great leniency as the court might consider consistent with the offence. The minimum fine was imposed, and the lawyer withdrew, bearing with him the double happiness of having earned a good fee and having saved a number of his personal friends from a public exposure which would have been, at least, embarrassing. As the lawyer passed the reporters' table Dave felt something pressed into his hand, and heard the whispered words, "Split it."

In his hand was a ten dollar bill. "What's the idea?" said Dave to Carson, when the session was over.

"The idea is that I get five," said Carson, "and both of us forget it. Cheap skate, he might have made it twenty. Of course the names were bogus, but they couldn't risk mention, even with that precaution. Easy picking, isn't it?"

"It doesn't look quite right," Dave faltered. "I'm here to get the news—"

"Oh, can that. You know we don't publish all the news. Why, man, we'd wreck society, or the ship of state, or whatever it is we are all floating on, if we did that. We'd have every lawyer in this burg busy in a week, and they're making too much money already. What the world doesn't know the world doesn't grieve over. And the joke of it is, everybody thinks he's putting it over somebody else, and while he's busy thinking that somebody else is putting it over him. So they're about even in the finish. Besides, if you talk about principle, doesn't the Bible say to do unto others as you would that they should do unto you? How would you feel in their position?

"I tell you," said Carson, warming up to his subject, "this is an intricate game, this life business. Pretty seedy in spots, but, after all, most people are merely victims of circumstances. And if circumstances place a five-spot in your hand to-day, accept what the gods bring you. To-morrow they will take it away.

"See this suit," he continued, indicating his attire, which greatly out-classed Dave's. "A friend gave me that. I get all my suits that way. When a scrap occurs in a bar-room; a booze riot, or knifing, or something goes wrong upstairs, I just mention that it took place in 'a down town hotel.' Then I order myself a suit, or something of that kind, and have the tailor send his bill to the proprietor of the joint. He pays. If he doesn't, next time I name his tavern right in the story."

"Don't you call that graft?" asked Dave.

"Graft? Nonsense! Merely an exchange of courtesies. . . There are others, too. You'll get wise to them in time."

But Dave was by no means satisfied with Carson's philosophy. He went to his editor with the five dollar bill and the police court incident. "What shall I do about it?" he demanded.

He fancied there was a note of impatience in the editor's reply. "Give the money to the Salvation Army," he said, "and forget about the rest. Isn't it Kipling who says 'There comes a night when the best gets tight,' and so on? We could tell the story, but what good would it do? And let me tell you, Elden, there are mighty few, men or women, who have gone half way through life without something they'd like to forget. Why not let them forget it? You're young yet, and perhaps you don't see it that way, but you'll be older. There's a verse by somebody runs like this:

"Don't take the defensive by saying "I told only just what was true," For there's more at that game might be playing If the truth were all told about you."

"That may be bad poetry, but it's good journalistic ethics."

But after Dave had gone the editor called his business manager. "I guess we'll have to raise Elden to thirty dollars a week," said he. "He's so honest he embarrasses me, and I guess I need that kind of embarrassment, or I wouldn't be embarrassed."



CHAPTER NINE

While the gradually deepening current of Dave's life flowed through the channels of coal heaver, freight hustler, shipping clerk, and reporter, its waters were sweetened by the intimate relationship which developed between him and the members of the Duncan household. He continued his studies under Mr. Duncan's directions; two, three, or even four nights in the week found him at work in the comfortable den, or, during the warm weather, on the screened porch that overlooked the family garden. His duties as reporter frequently called for attendance at public meetings devoted to all conceivable purposes, and he was at first disposed to feel unkindly toward these interruptions in his regular studies. He raised the point with Mr. Duncan.

"One thing I have been trying to drill into you," said his tutor, "is that education is not a thing of books or studies or formulae of any kind. It is the whole world; particularly the world of thought, feeling, and expression. It is not a flower in the garden of life; it is the garden itself, with its flowers, and its perfumes, and its sunshine and rain. Yes, and its weeds, and droughts, and insects and worms. There is a phase of education in the public meeting, whether its purpose be to discuss the municipal tax rate or the flora of the Rockies. You can't afford to miss any subject; but still less can you afford to miss the audiences that are interested in any subject. They are deeper than any book. There are all kinds of audiences. There is the violent audience, and the mysterious audience, and the sentimental audience, and the destructive audience, and the whimsical audience, and the hysterical audience,—and every other kind. And the funny thing is that they are all made up of much the same people. Take a sentimental audience, for instance; a few passes, and you have an hysterical audience. It is a difference of moods. We don't think enough about moods. We are all subject to moods, and yet we judge a new acquaintance by the mood he happens to be in—and the mood we happen to be in—at the time of making the acquaintanceship. Another day, in other moods, he would make a quite different impression—if the impression already made could be effaced. I have a theory that the world's sorrow is largely a matter of moods. I don't deny the sorrow, nor the need for sorrow, nor the reality of it, but I do believe there is a mood of happiness which even the deepest sorrows cannot suppress. And the more you study people the more you will understand moods, and, perhaps, be master of your own. And the man who can, by force of his own will, determine the mood in which he will live, is master of the world."

So Dave came to realize that every incident in the reportorial round was to be assimilated for its educational value, and this lent a zest to his work which it could not otherwise have had. But the attraction of the Duncan household grew upon him, and many an hour he spent under its hospitable roof. Mrs. Duncan, motherly, and yet not too motherly—she might almost have been an older sister—appealed to the young man as an ideal of womanhood. Her soft, well modulated voice seemed to him to express the perfect harmony of the perfect home, and underneath its even tones he caught glimpses of a reserve of power and judgment not easily unbalanced. She was a woman to whom men might carry their ambitions, and women their hopes, and little children their wonderings, and all be assured of sympathetic audience and wise counsel. And as Dave's eyes would follow her healthy, handsome figure as it moved noiselessly about in her domestic duties, or as he caught the flush of beauty that still bloomed in her thoughtful face, or as at rarer intervals he plunged into the honest depths of her frank grey eyes, the tragedy of his own orphaned life bore down upon him and he rebelled that he had been denied the start which such a mother could have given him.

"I am twenty years behind myself," he would reflect, with a grim smile. "Never mind. I will do three men's work for the next ten, and then we will be even."

And there was Edith,—Edith, who had held him rapture-bound on that first Sunday in church—Edith, who had burst so unexpectedly upon his life that first evening in her father's home. He had not allowed himself any foolishness about Edith. It was evident that Edith was pre-empted, just as he was pre-empted, and the part of honour in his friend's house was to recognize the status quo. . . Still, Mr. Allan Forsyth was unnecessarily self-assured. He might have made it less evident that he was within the enchanted circle, while Dave remained outside. His complacence irritated Dave almost into rivalry. But the boon camaraderie of Edith herself checked any adventure of that kind. She checked it in two ways; by her own frank acceptance of him much as she would have accepted a brother in the household, and by her uncanny and unconscious knack of reminding him in almost every word and gesture of Reenie Hardy. She was of about the same figure as Reenie Hardy; a little slighter, perhaps; and about the same age; and she had the same quick, frank eyes. And she sang wonderfully. He had never heard Reenie sing, but in some strange way he had formed a deep conviction that she would sing much as Edith sang. He was not yet psychologist enough to know that his admiration for Edith was the reflex action to his love for the girl who had so wonderfully invaded his foothill life and so wonderfully changed the current of his destinies. In love, as in religion, man is forever setting up idols to represent his ideals. . . And forever finding feet of clay.

Dave was not long in discovering that his engagement as coachman was a device, born of Mr. Duncan's kindness, to enable him to accept instruction without feeling under obligation for it. When he made this discovery, he smiled quietly to himself, and pretended not to have made it. Two things were apparent after their first drive; that nothing was further from the minds of Mr. Duncan's bays than anything which called for so much exertion as a runaway, and that, even had they been so disposed, Edith was entirely competent to manage them. The girl had not lived in the foothill town since childhood without becoming something of a horse-woman. But Dave pretended not to know that he was a supernumerary. To have acted otherwise would have seemed ungrateful to Mr. Duncan. And presently the drives began to have a strange attraction of themselves.

When they drove in the two-seated buggy on Sunday afternoons the party usually comprised Mrs. Duncan and Edith, young Forsyth and Dave. Mr. Duncan was interested in certain Sunday afternoon meetings. It was Mrs. Duncan's custom to sit in the rear seat, for its better riding qualities, and it had a knack of falling about that Edith would ride in the front seat with the driver. She caused Forsyth to ride with her mother, ostensibly as a courtesy to that young gentleman,—a courtesy which, it may be conjectured, was not fully appreciated. At first he accepted it with the good nature of one who feels his position secure, but gradually that good nature gave way to a certain testiness of spirit which he could not entirely conceal. It became evident that he would have preferred other ways of spending the Sunday afternoons. The parks, for instance, or quiet walks through the cottonwoods by the river. . .

The crisis was precipitated one fine Sunday in September, in the first year of Dave's newspaper experience. Dave called early, and found Edith in a riding habit.

"Mother is 'indisposed,' as they say in the society page," she explained. "In other words, she doesn't wish to be bothered. So I thought we would ride to-day."

"But there are only two horses," said Dave.

"Well?" queried the girl, and there was a note in her voice that sounded strange to him. Then, after a pause in which the colour slowly rose to her cheeks, "There are only two of us."

"But Mr. Forsyth?"

"He is not here. He may not come. Will you saddle the horses and let us get away?"

It was evident to Dave that, for some reason, Edith wished to evade Forsyth this afternoon. A lover's quarrel, no doubt. That she had a preference for him, and was revealing it with the utmost frankness, never occurred to his sturdy, honest mind. One of the delights of his companionship with Edith had been that it was a real companionship. None of the limitations occasioned by any sex consciousness had narrowed the sphere of the frank friendship he felt for her. She was to him almost as another man, yet in no sense masculine. It seemed rather that her femininity was of such purity that, like the atmosphere he breathed, it surrounded him, flooded him without exciting consciousness of its existence. Save for a certain tender delicacy which her womanhood inspired, he came and went with her as he might have done with a man chum of his own age. And when she preferred to ride without Forsyth it did not occur to Elden that she preferred to ride with him.