Walter, going over the list of possible men who might help him now, thought of the pastor of the Congregational church in Burrton. This man was a strong, earnest pastor, a tireless worker and an interesting preacher. But here again Walter had no one to blame but himself that he did not feel well enough acquainted with this man to go to him with his personal religious questions. He had been to the church several times and he always liked the Rev. James Harris, but like so many students who are attendants and workers in their own churches, Walter on coming to Burrton had found it easy to lapse into lazy Sunday morning habits. After he had a late breakfast and read the Sunday morning Daily Megaphone, it was generally too late to go to the Sunday School and it was easier on stormy Sundays to curl up on a lounge and read a novel, or on pleasant Sundays to stroll out to the lake two miles away and get an appetite for a big dinner. Then an afternoon of sleep or visiting or walking out used up the rest of the day for him. One of the topics he had avoided with his mother on his recent visit home had been his Sunday program, and he recalled even now the earnest wish she had expressed that he would get to work in the Sunday School when he went back to Burrton. No, he had been so indifferent to all church matters while a student that he could not bring himself to go to the minister, he was too much a stranger to him, and this was a matter that seemed to call for a friend.

"Oh, I wish mother was here!" he exclaimed out loud.

And then because he felt so hungry for comfort and so eager to relieve his mind of its burden, he went over to his writing desk, and wrote a long letter to his mother.

When he finished, it was after one o'clock and he went to bed and slept as if exhausted, but to his dismay when he awoke, his depression and fear were there to greet him and he found himself waiting for his mother's answer almost as if her letter were a reprieve from a sentence of death.

A part of this letter will reveal Walter's excited and even chaotic feeling.

"The bottom seems to be dropped right out of everything, mother. Of what use is it to try to do right when there isn't any likelihood of a future and no personal God and no Redeemer, and no standard for conduct? The doctor said we could not depend upon Christ's own statements about his own resurrection. How then can we trust Him for any statement He made about Himself? The fellows here in Burrton who have money to spend and do about as they please, the fast set that drinks and carouses and gambles and gives the chorus girls wine suppers seems to be pretty happy. They don't worry over the matter of sin or moral responsibility or going to church or getting serious over the condition of the heathen or the wrongs of the world, or the 'high calling' you are so fond of calling my attention to. And why should I be any different from them? Mother, does it pay to be religious? It seems to me religious people are always sober, dull people, always talking reform and disagreeable things and never having much fun. But I want you to help me, mother, no one else can, if you can't. I don't seem to be able to pray any. Why should I pray, if there isn't any super-human, nothing but a force somewhere? I am just groping in the dark and it's awful dark. And I don't know a soul here to help me any. Bauer—well—I never said a word to him on religious matters. I don't know whether he is a Catholic or what he is. And I don't know any minister in Burrton well enough to go to him. And the teachers here don't care about the students' religious life, or if they do I never saw any signs of it, at least not enough to show where to go now.

"Mother, I can't tell you how I feel over all this. But I'm just about down and out. If what Dr. Powers said is true, it seems to me we are living in an awful world. It isn't the world you and father believe in or you taught me to believe in, and I can't understand it. Oh, mother, help me, won't you, if you can! WALTER."

Now his letter reached Mrs. Douglas on the anniversary of her marriage. She was planning as she always did to make the day bright for Paul, had invited her brothers, Walter and Louis, and was going to make it a great family gathering.

The boy's letter smote her heart as nothing in all his experience had ever troubled her. She managed to get through the evening without betraying her feeling, but when her brothers had gone home, and Helen and Louis had retired, she showed the letter to Paul.

He read it and then looked up at Esther.

"You are the one to help him through this," he said. "You are the only person who can do it right now. But you are tired with all the events of the day. Hadn't you better wait until to-morrow?"

"No," Esther said positively. "He is waiting. When a soul is drifting down like his, it is a case of rescue."

"Dear," said Paul, quietly, "I don't have any fears for him. He has too good a mother to make a wreck of his religion."

"He is my son," said Esther proudly. "I would not be worthy of the name mother if I did not have confidence in the eternal things of redemption. I will write him tonight. But you must add to my letter, Paul. He needs us both."

"I will," said Paul, gravely. He was more disturbed over the letter from Walter than he cared to acknowledge to Esther, but he managed to conceal his feelings for her sake. Esther went up to her little corner room, where she had a sewing table and a writing desk. When she had shut herself in there she spread Walter's letter out before the Lord.

That meant that her simple mother faith said to God, "Oh, my Father, I need wisdom now to write this letter. My boy, my first born son is in need of Thee. But he has turned to his mother for help. Show me how to say the right thing. For I can not do it without thy help."

And then without any hesitation or fear of the final result, Esther wrote to Walter. It was a sacred letter, but a part of it belongs to this narrative.

"You must not forget, boy," Esther went on after cheerfully reminding him that he was not the only person in the world to have such an experience; "you must not forget that religion is a universal thing, and that it is a cry of the heart for God. It is not a matter to figure out like mathematics, but it is an answer to the real longing of the soul for a divine life in the world.

"You must not forget, either, that your faith does not depend on what someone else says, but upon the actual needs of your own life. You know that you need God. You know that you are wretched now because you are afraid God has been taken away. Isn't that a sign to you that your simple faith as you have been taught it here at home is a real and necessary thing? What Dr. Powers said (and you must remember you may not have understood his full meaning), what he said has not changed the everlasting facts of sin and moral responsibility and the facts of the plain right and wrong of the world. And when it comes to the resurrection and a future life—all we can do is to take Christ's word for it. He knows more about it than Dr. Powers knows. Your mother is no theologian and no great scholar, but when it comes to taking Dr. Powers's word as against Jesus's own statements about himself, I don't hesitate, and you ought not to. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. Just trust him. It is what thousands of souls bigger than yours have done and they have found the light as you will. We are praying for you, father and I. Father can give you better reasons than I can, perhaps, because he knows more, but listen to me, boy, to your mother, whose heart goes out to you at this time. You don't have to answer all the hard questions of religion all at once. Some of them can bide for an answer. But, oh, plant your feet down on the rock, Christ Jesus! Abide with him and your soul will not be lost. He will not let you go wrong. He came to give you abundant life. The love of God is greater than all other things. Trust simply and don't be afraid. Get to work in the Sunday school and church. Doubt can not live in the atmosphere of doing God's will every moment. Perhaps one reason you have been so overthrown is because you have neglected your church and religious duties since you left home. Pray; trust; act; live for others; listen for God's voice; be true to the high calling. It is the only real and living way for you. And the prayers of your mother go out to God for you now and always. Walter, you are God's child before you are mine. Go to him at once and ask his help as you have asked mine. May He bless you as I can not. Lovingly and prayerfully,

"MOTHER."

Mrs. Douglas was so eager to get her letter off that she did not wait for Paul's added word. But two days later Paul wrote quite at length, in much the same fashion, taking up one or two points Esther had not touched.

"You say in your letter to your mother that you feel the bottom has dropped out of everything. Why? Because a stranger to you who has some reputation as a public speaker has made some statements which destroy your faith in religion.

"Do you think that is a very sensible thing for you to do—to let a man you have never seen before come along and in one address take from you the faith of years? Would you let a man you didn't know destroy your faith in your mother so quickly? Would you simply take his word for it, because he said so?

"You must remember, Walter, that some of the finest theologians and scholars in the world believe in and teach the miracles and a personal God and a personal divine Christ and a personal resurrection. I don't mean old fashioned scholars, but men who are up to date, who rank with the best in the thinking world. If Dr. Powers does not believe in the resurrection there are other men, better scholars than he is, who do. You have no right to let one man's statements be final for you.

"You say again that you don't see what is the use of being good, and you ask if it pays to be religious, citing the example of the fast set in Burrton, who, you say, seem to be pretty happy, and free from anxiety about others, etc. Walter, do you know that is the most terrible thing that can be said about a human creature? That he is satisfied like an animal with an animal's appetite and passions, and careless of any one else or of the world's moral needs? The flies that buzz over a battle field have the same indifference for the agony and struggle going on under them. And would you even now while under the depression you describe, really care to risk your life by becoming like the men in the fast set? Don't you know that they are sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind?

"The main facts of life always remain the same. We may learn more about the facts, but we can't change the real nature and needs of mankind by any belief or absence of belief. Even if there were no God and no future and no miracles and no Jesus of history, sin would be sin and its harvest the same; goodness and right and virtue would always be the same and their harvest the same. But men can not live without God without living in hopeless despair. Walter, what did Christ come into the world for, if not to do for us the very things we really needed and were dying to get? He revealed God to us. Made the future plain. Showed man his duty to his neighbour. Brought light and life and joy into the world. The Christmas season we have enjoyed together ought to show you (and it will when this cloud has gone from your heart) that the world owes more to Jesus Christ than to any other being. The best conditions in the world are found where Christ has been most honoured and his teachings best obeyed. The wrongs of the world are being righted in his name. And the kingdom of God is taking the place of the kingdoms of physical might.

"All this, your father and mother believe, could not be true if Jesus were a mere man. It is the presence of the divine and superhuman, not supernatural, but superhuman, which has made all this redemption of the world possible.

"Walter, trust in God. Believe in Christ. Pray. Seek the light. Keep doing right. Get to work for others. All the inventions in creation are not worth anything if your own soul has no motive power and no track to run on. Religion is as natural as eating and drinking. Prayer is as natural as sleep or work. And I believe with all my might that my feelings are as trustworthy as my reason when both are exercised in a healthy, happy way.

"I haven't any fear for you. It is too bad you can not get help from some of the teachers in the school. There must be something wrong with the management of an educational institution when the teachers know everything except the moral needs of the students.

"Can't your friend, Bauer, help you? You say you have never talked with him. Try it. From one or two talks I had with him while he was with us I gained the impression that he was deeply religious. Affectionately, your father,

"PAUL DOUGLAS."

Both of these letters reached Walter about the same time and he read and reread them and received vast help from them, more than he himself knew at the time. But he could not throw off the feeling of depression and fear that seemed to haunt his spirit. He longed to talk the thing over with someone and the day after his father's letter came, he resolved to take Bauer into his confidence. He had never talked with him on any serious questions except when Bauer had confided in him about his home troubles, and the occasions were rare and only occurred at times when Bauer was so tortured with lonesomeness that he could not endure it any longer and fled to Walter as he did that night in the shop, when he first appealed to him for his friendship.

They had gone up to Walter's room together; and had just finished a discussion over Bauer's incubator and the arrangement for the thermostat when Walter said suddenly:

"Felix, I can't talk this stuff any longer. I want to take up something else, if you don't mind. Of course, you've noticed I've not been up to the mark lately, haven't you?"

"Yes." Bauer blushed as he said it. He had noted Walter's condition, but if truth be told his own state of hopeless feeling towards Helen had absorbed him to such an extent that he had not paid the attention to Walter's feelings that he otherwise might. No one quite so egotistic as your hopeless lover. The world of Bauer revolved around the star of Helen, and the rest of the universe, including Walter, was for the time being not counted as there. With Walter's trouble now made more apparent to him, Bauer's mind at once waked up and stood ready alert to listen to him.

"I might as well confess that Dr. Powers's address two weeks ago knocked the props out from under me. What he said cut under me like a great engine that destroyed my faith."

"You mean your faith in God?" asked Bauer in a tone almost of horror.

"Well, no, not that exactly. I don't think anyone could reason me out of a belief in a God. But when Dr. Powers got through I felt as if all the God he believed in was a kind of electrical force, a little bigger unit of amperes. A sort of international ampere, so to speak, but not much more."

"Do you mean that you can't say 'Our Father' any more?"

Walter was silent half a minute. When he looked up at Bauer his face was haggard.

"I haven't prayed any since that address. What is the use of prayer if God is a machine?"

"But if God is a machine, who made the machine?"

Walter stared. Bauer went on.

"And if God is only high power electricity or force, who made the high power or force? One machine can't make another. And a machine that really thinks and plans, is not a machine but a Being."

Walter did not answer. He was brooding. Finally he said: "Do you really believe in miracles and the superhuman and the resurrection and future and—and a Personal Redeemer and all that?"

"Do I?" Bauer did a thing Walter had never seen him do before. He got up and began to walk the floor.

"If I didn't believe in a personal God who loves me and in a Personal Redeemer who saves me and in a future life which is going to develop me, I might as well be just an animal and be done with it. What advantage have we over the animals if there is nothing to it but flesh and blood and eating and drinking and dying?

"But I simply take my stand on what Jesus did and said and was. I don't go back on that to try to philosophise much, though I can give answers all day long for my religious faith. I wouldn't give anything for it if I couldn't reason it out. I've been through all the books—Kant and Hegle and Straus and Feuerbach and Schopenhauer and Schleiermacher and no end. My father was steeped in all the old world philosophies. I don't think they ever helped him any. At least not to make a better man of him. Why, Walter, do you know your father and mother are the products of Christian faith, and there isn't anything finer in all the world. Where would you go to find a human being who was nearer the perfection of all noble, unselfish, beautiful traits of character than your mother, who is the product of a simple Christian faith?

"My father and mother have always sneered at simple faith. They are sceptics. What has their scepticism ever done for them? To-day they are both———" Bauer choked, and after a long pause, during which Walter looked at him sympathetically, he said quietly:

"I had to have something different from their Godless scheme of life or I believe I would have gone mad. And, thank the Father, I found it. If I hadn't I'd been worse than the fastest of the fast set here. I wouldn't have stopped short of the vilest. I would have been a crowned head of beastliness. And nothing saved me from it but Jesus Christ. Could a man have done that? Could anyone have done it who didn't believe in a future and a spiritual life?"

Bauer came back to his chair and sat down. Walter seemed much impressed by what he "said and the way he said it. At last he remarked thoughtfully:

"You never told me anything of this before. I never understood you felt so, or had such a faith."

"No, I've kept my light under a bushel. But man's religion is the most sacred thing about him. Why don't we talk more about it? I don't know unless with me it's been an excess of sensitiveness."

"I understand and thank you, Felix," said Walter after another long silence.

During the days that followed he had many more talks with Bauer, all of which did him vast good. Bauer, once he had opened the door of his soul, threw away all reserve and invited Walter into the very holy of holies.

They also had plenty of argument. But Walter was no match for the German student, who in his long hours of solitary existence, had managed to do an astonishing quantity of reading and posted himself on all sorts of difficult subjects with the German habit of exactness and thoroughness in matters of detail, so that he soon had Walter hopelessly beaten when it came to debate over religion and its office.

Finally Walter began slowly to regain his buoyancy and before the spring vacation he had found a standing place for his faith and a reason for his religion, so much so that he said to Bauer one Sunday evening after they had come up to the room after hearing Mr. Harris at the church: "Felix, I almost believe I could be a preacher. I believe I almost have a message."

Bauer was immensely pleased.

"You are going to come out all right. You couldn't help it with such a mother."

And yet, strange as it may seem, at that very moment Walter's mother was passing through a crisis that was testing her Christian faith even more severely than Walter's had been tested. There could be no doubt at all but that Esther's pure and steadfast soul would win the victory; but oh, the heartache of sorrowing motherhood! Will it ever cease?

Louis Douglas had been for several months a source of anxiety to both Paul and Esther. As winter wore on he complained more and more of school. One evening he broke out in such a torrent of appeal to his father to let him give up his studies that Paul compelled himself to think of the boy as his first duty and reproaching himself that he had paid little heed to him on account of political matters, he listened to Louis that evening and in a pause of his flood of words asked the boy to come into the library and have it out seriously.

The legislature was in session and Douglas was overwhelmed with committee work, with shaping up bills, and winning converts to his ideas of reform. He had anticipated opposition and difficulties of various sorts, but the actual thing that confronted him was so much greater than he had supposed possible that he almost let go at one time, in disgust, and vowed he would never enter politics again. Next day he was back in the game to stay. But from the beginning to the end of the legislative session he was blocked in nearly every effort he made for clean, honest reform of old, corrupt and selfish party devices. In his soul he knew, and those who knew him knew, that he was heart and soul for the good of the people. The measures he wanted put into law had no possible self-seeking in them. He was clean and upright in every detail of his private and public life, yet he faced every day facts like these:

The other paper in Milton contained columns of abuse, of misrepresentation and of downright charges of self-seeking against him. Man after man in the party that had asked him to run for Senator came to him to beg him to desist from his fight on corporations that broke the laws and charged the people prohibitive prices for the necessities of life. Party worshippers like the Hon. Mr. Maxwell besieged the committee room pleading for harmony, meaning by "harmony," a slavish compromise with the greed and influence of money and power that might help the party if they were let alone. Letters flooded him from all parts of the state begging him or threatening him to leave well alone. Some of the very men who had during the election campaign promised to stay with him and help push his bills, lied outright, broke their promises and called him a deserter and a party traitor. Old friends who had stood by him for years, left him and in some cases became his bitterest enemies. Bill after bill framed with only one great-hearted purpose to benefit all the people went through the grinding process of detraction, of vilification, of amendment and final defeat. A little handful of members rallied around him. But the greed forces of the entire state were on the other side. The selfish corporations, the highwaymen of commerce, the whiskey powers fighting for their lives to maintain the license system of the state, the gang of thugs that lived on the gambling house and the barter in human blood in the sale of virtue and the degradation of boys and girls, all fought him. The newspapers that print liquor and other questionable advertisements, the microscopic men who made a living by appointment to little political dirty jobs, the horde of hungry office seekers who didn't know "America" from the latest vaudeville rag-time, the plunderers of the treasury who live without any visible means of support except what they boldly stole from contracts on public works, the princely robbers who are the crowned heads of special privilege, whose wives and daughters figure in the society columns as leaders in those useful callings of bridge whist and select receptions, the great and ignorant mob of pygmies who never had the capacity for a political idea bigger than their own diminutive measurement, the newspaper and magazine hacks who live on abuse of everybody who has a high ideal, all joined in the whoop and chase after Douglas of the fourth district, branded him as a fakir, an idiot, a senseless dreamer, an egotist, a demagogue, a party traitor, a knocker, and every other objectionable kind of disturber of the peace, meaning by "peace," the peace of those who are let alone by reformers to rob the state, degrade politics, enthrone injustice, keep the party in power and reelect themselves.

And this is the kind of thing the preacher urges his high-spirited young men to confront if they go into public careers. Do you think American politics could be made more attractive to the strong men of this nation if some of the abuse and personal sewer methods were eliminated? Do you think all this gutter spattering is necessary to reach conclusions and arrive at a final better condition for the nation's life? Do you think that even if discussion and defence of opinion are necessary in the settlement of great public affairs, it is also in order to question a man's purity of purpose, his patriotism and his personal devotion to a great ideal?

Paul's whole nature was stirred by what he was going through and his absorption in the matters nearest his heart was so complete that it was with no ordinary shock he came to realise that his own son was in a critical condition. As a father he reproached himself for neglecting the boy under the plea of trying to reform the state. And when he began to question Louis that night he rapidly noted the lad's physical condition and took account of his manner which, the more he studied it, was not at all reassuring.

"Tell me, now, Louis, what you want. Begin at the beginning and hide nothing."

Louis looked sullenly at his father.

"You haven't time to listen to me. You never have."

"Yes, I have. I'll take it." Paul felt more self-reproach every minute he eyed Louis. And as he looked at him he could not help thinking of how much the boy resembled in many ways Esther's brother Louis, who used to give him such concern.

"Well, father, I want to quit High School. I don't like it. I hate it."

"Why? Tell me honestly now. I can't help you unless you give me the real facts."

"I don't like the teachers. They nag me. I hate them."

"Hate them? You mean all of your teachers?"

"Well, most of them. They criticise me and make fun of me. Miss Barrows showed what I wrote about tuberculosis to every other teacher in the school."

"Go on," said Paul, after a pause.

"I can't get the English. I don't understand the long definitions. I am not cut out for a scholar."

"Have you tried?"

"Yes, I have. But the harder I try, the worse it is."

"What lessons are you carrying?"

"English, algebra, physics, manual training, German and chemistry."

"Tell me now," said Paul good-naturedly, "which one of all these studies you hate the least."

Louis laughed. "I don't like any studies."

"But which one would you choose first if you couldn't help yourself?"

"Manual training."

"What do you do in that?"

"Oh, I plane and saw and glue up boards and make things."

"What things?"

Louis hesitated. "You'll laugh."

"No, I won't." Paul felt more like crying than laughing as Louis eyed him doubtfully.

"Great God!" he felt like saying to himself. "Here I have been so busy with everybody else's affairs that my own son is afraid of me."

"Well, I finished a writing desk the other day. I was going to give it to mother for her birthday. I brought it home last night."

"A writing desk! Let me see it."

"It's in my room," Louis said with some hesitation.

"I want to see it," said Paul. He rose to go up stairs and had got as far as the hall when the telephone rang.

"Go on. I'll come as soon as I answer this," Paul said, and Louis hurried up stairs as if he wanted to get there some time before his father.

The man at the other end of the telephone wire was an angry committeeman at the State House.

"I say," he exclaimed in a strident voice that clanged into the receiver like a personal insult. "When are you coming down? We've been waiting here over an hour."

Paul made a lightning decision and answered. "I can't come down to-night. I have a very important engagement elsewhere."

"Elsewhere!" snorted the irate committeeman. "Why, you made this a personal meeting. You've got to come down. I can't hold Rogers to our plan if you don't come. And Alvard is on the fence. We lack just enough to make a majority. This is your pet measure. Are you going back on it?"

"I can't come down to-night. Put it through among you. If you really mean business you don't need me. Stand by the bill at all costs."

The committeeman broke in with an oath: "All costs! It's your bill. If you desert it now at this pinch, it is down and out. I can't look after your fences."

The receiver at the other end went up with a bang and Paul realised that another one of his cherished measures had received its coup de grace. Partly, he said to himself as he started up to Louis's room, on account of the half hearted action of those who called themselves friends. What friends! Rabbits! Cowards! Self seekers! Real friends could have managed that bill without his presence and there was a show for it owing to its popular character, if anyone would push matters with energy and intelligent enthusiasm. "But was it his duty always to neglect his own children even for service to the state?" He said "No" as he went along up and into Louis's room.

He had seldom been into the boy's sanctum, and as he came in now he was curious, and interested in what he saw. Louis had employed the interval of his father's presence to pick a number of things up off the floor and what he did not have time to throw on top of the bed he had kicked under it, so the room presented a fairly respectable outward appearance.

He had pulled the writing desk out into the middle of the room and as his father stopped in front of it he said suddenly: "There it is, now laugh."

Paul was simply astonished when he examined the article. To be sure, all the joints on it were not perfect by any means and one of the legs looked a little out of plumb. But as a whole the writing desk was so creditable a piece of work that he could not help saying, "I call that pretty fine. Mother will be tremendously pleased. You made it all yourself?"

"Yes, all but this little bit of carving. That Johnson started me on. The rest of it is mine."

"It's mighty good," said Paul, walking around it. "Straighten that leg out by amputating it just below the knee and it will———"

"Yes, I knew you would laugh at me. All the teachers do," wailed Louis.

"No, I'm not laughing at you, Louis. You have done splendid work. But you mustn't feel badly to have your faults pointed out. That is the way to learn. If you hadn't been in quite such a hurry you would have made a better job, wouldn't you? Your fault, one of your faults, is lack of patience and thorough painstaking over details. Isn't that so?"

"It must be. All my teachers say so all the time."

"Well, if they say so all the time there must be some reason for it. But honest, now, the writing desk is not a bad piece of work viewed as a whole."

Louis felt somewhat mollified and after his father had made one or two more comments they started down stairs. When they reached the hall, the telephone rang again.

"Go into the library and wait for me," Paul said as he went to the instrument.

This time it was Rogers, the doubtful member of the committee. He wanted to ask one or two questions about the bill and Paul quickly and eagerly answered him.

"But we need you right here now. We can't do anything without you. Burke is mad and we can't depend on him. You've just got to come if you want to see the thing through."

"I can't come, Rogers. You can whip them into line." Paul rapidly shot directions at him. "Stand by the thing for my sake if not for the sake of the bill. Don't go back on your promise."

"Promise! What's become of yours? The thing is impossible without you. I can't do anything with Burke and the rest of the committee are hot over your absence. Don't blame anyone but yourself when you read the morning paper."

Paul started to answer, but the committeeman had finished, and after hesitating over the matter he went into the library and resumed his questions with Louis.

"After the manual training, which one of your studies do you take to most?"

"Oh, I don't like any of them. Chemistry, I guess."

"Do you like mathematics?"

"I don't mind, but I want to go into business, father. I want to quit school altogether and go into business."

"What business?"

"Any kind. I want to make money."

"What do you want to make money for?"

"What does any one want money for? I want to buy——"

"Go on. Tell me exactly."

"Well, clothes and—and—I want things, so I can go out and be with other fellows, and have something to spend—and———"

In his burst of unconcealed eagerness to get out of school Louis was really revealing to his father some of the actual reasons for wanting to give up his studies, and as Paul listened to him he felt that the boy's eagerness went even farther. He determined to be very frank with him and get at the bottom of the thing if possible.

"Do you want to make money so as to go with the girls and get popular with them and spend money on them?"

The question was almost brutal in its directness, and one that his father had never before suggested. Louis reddened with an angry but self-conscious manner that told Paul he had not guessed very wide of the real motive that was urging the boy.

He did not answer the question but sat sullenly tearing bits of paper from the leaves of a magazine on the table. And his father sat silently staring at him, wondering how he was going to manage Louis and help him to make a possible manhood for himself. The problem across the library table in this boy of his was even a greater problem than the one down at the State House. He could afford politically to lose the bill. But could he afford parentally to lose the boy?

"You needn't answer my question, Louis, you have answered it. Now listen to me. I am your father and next to your mother I love you more than anyone else in all the world. Do you believe that?"

"I suppose so," Louis managed to say.

"You know it, Louis. There is no guess work. You are sixteen. You have fairly good health and more than average brains. The main business in your life for the next ten years ought to be study and education. The girls—society—all that—do you want to make a fool of yourself and miss the one thing of manhood that's worth getting? If you do, I don't for you. I am several years older than you are, Louis. And I am your father for the purpose, as I believe, of really being worth something to you in the matter of counsel and direction for your voyage over life's great ocean. If you are planning to start out without a compass or the right kind of equipment I would be worse than a fool if I didn't prevent such a voyage, wouldn't I? Well, I don't intend to let you do just as you please just because for the time being you choose to go your own gait. Mind, Louis, I am not going to ask you to do impossible things or be tyrannical with you. But neither do I intend that you should throw away a splendid chance for education just to gratify a present longing to make money for the purpose you want it for."

The telephone rang again at this point and Paul went over to it.

Burke had come to the instrument again.

"We can't agree on the bill in its present shape and it's simply impossible to put it through in your absence. You are being judged by all the committees and some of them don't hesitate to say you are being bought out. If you come down now you may be able to save it. But we are on the point of kicking the bill out or reporting adversely. Can't you come down within an hour?"

"I can't promise. I have a very important engagement here. I might be able to get down by midnight, but wouldn't promise."

"Midnight! The members are dead tired now. Rogers is asleep in his chair and Colfax is dozing on the lounge. If you don't come within an hour you needn't come at all."

"I can't come within an hour."

"What is it? A matter of life and death?"

"Yes, a matter of life and death," Paul answered slowly.

"Oh, very well. Then the old bill is dead, that's all. It's not a matter of question."

And Paul could picture Burke as with an incredulous sneer he hung up, and told the committee to clear out and go to bed.

He went back into the library and sat down by Louis and put his arm around his shoulder and reasoned with him as he had never in all the campaign reasoned with a political acquaintance for the purpose of winning his friendship. He showed the boy clearly what it meant to lose an education, what a handicap it would be to him all his life if he did not have the schooling and culture that history and language and science stood ready to give. He pictured to Louis the tremendous advantages that go with education in the social life of the world and cited numerous instances in the range of his own experience to show Louis what a prize he was throwing away at the age of sixteen if he deliberately threw away the riches of mental power for the dirt of lust and mammon. He got hold of Louis as he never had before, because he divined the really impure and foolish motive the boy had for going into business, and as the minutes ticked into hours Louis gradually became convinced of certain things which he had only vaguely entertained so far.

In the first place he began to have a feeling that his father did care for him tremendously after all. Paul's absorption in politics for the last year had been so deep that, as has been said, he had neglected the boy's interests and had not paid attention to his frequent complaints and appeals. But now that the matter was squarely met, Louis knew from what he caught of the telephone dialogue that his father was neglecting a very important political affair to spend the entire evening with him. The thought added to the feeling he began to have of his father's real character. Then Louis had all his life had the greatest respect for his father's intellectual life and regarded it with admiration. He was fond of quoting him and there was no one in Milton who read Douglas's editorials more regularly and carefully than Louis.

And added to all the rest that influenced him that night was the shame he began to feel that his father knew his real motive for wanting to leave the school and make money. He had become fascinated and led away by a certain set in the High School and he wanted to go with them, wear expensive clothes, frequent society functions and spend freely and get the reputation of a generous and even lavish giver. This he could not do with the allowance his father gave him, and he chafed under it foolishly. He had not supposed his father would detect his underlying motive in his longing to quit school and go into business. Now that he realised his father did understand he felt ashamed to continue his plea as he had first made it. At the end of the evening together, a certain definite agreement was reached between father and son.

Louis agreed to continue his studies for another year and do his best with those branches he found most difficult where he was not allowed to choose electives. His father agreed to study with him in a regular course, helping him through hard places, practically being his tutor and agreeing to give him all the time he needed in the evening. "And why not?" Paul kept asking almost with a sob as he noted the glow that was creeping back into Louis's eye, the glow of a new interest in study. "Why not? What shall it profit the reformer if he reforms the whole state and loses his own children? I don't believe that even high-flown Patriotism requires such a sacrifice as that."

When Louis went up to bed tears were on his cheeks and a choking in his breast. His father had simply said, "My boy, I want you to be a man. Your mother and I have prayed for you all these years. We believe you will not disappoint us. Don't forget God, Louis. You need to pray to overcome this great temptation of impure thinking. The gates of Hell are close by that sort of life. Not even your father and mother can spare you from ruin that way. You have got to fight it out yourself. God helping you."

Paul looked up at the clock and saw it was after midnight, but on a venture he called up the committee room at the State House. A night janitor answered and informed him that the committee had been gone for over an hour.

He went upstairs and found Esther in her sewing room, her face pale and troubled, traces of tears on her cheeks and such a look of real fear on her face that Paul exclaimed, "Esther! What is it?"

She turned to her table and picked up a package of postcards and with a shudder of loathing held them out to Paul.

He took them and saw at a second's glance that they were the vulgar, coarse, suggestive and even indecent photographic postcards which this great civilised, supposedly Christian, government even yet allows to pass through the post office and be displayed and sold at every news stand and book store in the country.

"They dropped out of Louis's coat when I began to mend it this evening. And there was worse. He or some other boy had written this vile thing." Esther handed it to Paul what she had found. Paul read it and his face grew white and stern. Esther sat down and put her head on her arms and almost shrieked.

"Oh, I can't bear it! Louis! Louis! How could you! Oh, how can his soul ever be clean again! Oh, boy, your mother's heart is broken! After all my prayers for you! After all the days and nights of consecration! Oh, my son, my son! Would God I had died before I knew or saw this! Oh, my Master, the cup is too bitter! I can't drink it!"

Never in all his knowledge of Esther had Paul ever seen her like this. His own heart almost stopped at the sight. For years she had been so uniformly calm and strong even when her children had disappointed her. She had with high-spirited motherhood faced their sins and wrong-doing with a peaceful faith that they would do right in the end. But this discovery seemed to smite her soul down into a hopeless darkness, where there was no redemption. And as Paul looked at her there was in his soul more anguish for her than fear for Louis over what she had discovered. In a sense he was prepared for this, somewhat, because of the glimpses he had been getting that very evening of Louis's nature and its temptations.

He kneeled by his wife and put his arm about her.

"This is too great for you to bear alone. Besides, it may not be as hopeless or as terrible as you think. Let me see Louis. I have just been having an evening with him. If he hasn't gone to bed I believe now is the time for me to see him."

Esther had grown quiet. She seemed to be praying. Paul got up and went out of the room along the hallway to Louis's room and knocked. At Louis's answer he went in and found him at work on the writing desk.

Without any preliminary Paul held out the cards to Louis and said, "Louis, are these yours?"

Louis' face blanched on the instant. His hand trembled so he could not hold the cards still. He tried to answer but his tongue seemed paralysed. His father repeated the question more sternly. Louis broke down completely, flung himself on the bed in a spasm of fear and shame.

His father eyed him with conflicting feelings. Again he was strongly reminded of Louis Darcy and his many experiences with him. Louis still refused to answer, and Paul said:

"Look up here, Louis. Look up and answer me. Did you write that?"

His father thrust the paper his mother had found close up to the boy. Louis cried out. "No, no, father. That is not mine. One of the boys———"

Paul felt relieved as far as that went, for Louis had never lied to him.

"But these cards. Are these yours?"

"Yes."

"How long have you had them?"

"I got them yesterday."

"Give them to me." Louis handed them over and Paul tore them across again and again and flung the pieces into the waste paper basket. Louis had never seen his father angry like that before. He shrank and cowered back while his father said:

"Louis, I would almost rather see you in your coffin than with those vile things in your hands and their foul imaginings in your heart. Do you realise what this will lead to? Your manhood will be blasted! your soul blackened! your body tortured! all the angel in you turned into animal———"

Paul nearly broke down himself. He shuddered and for one instant Louis really caught a glimpse into the horror that sin causes.

But Paul Douglas was not a cowardly father nor one who is content to leave it to boys to learn unaided bitter lessons from evil. He sat down by Louis and gave him the plainest talk on the subject of personal purity the boy had ever had. And the effect on him in all his after life was even more than either Paul or Esther had dared to hope. Paul never did a better hour's work. When he was through, Louis was completely broken. In the moment of his cry to his father for help, Paul kneeled by him, put his arm around him and prayed for him such a prayer of appeal and hope and good cheer that Louis Douglas will never forget. The whole thing was the beginning of a new manhood for the boy. And when the next day he plucked up courage to confess to his mother, one of the hardest things he ever did in all his life, the entire unfolding of his mother's love, her passionate appeal to his better nature, her cry to him to seek God's help in overcoming all, overwhelmed him. Again the boy caught a glimpse of the mightiness of father and mother affection and young as he was he came from that soul yearning of Esther with a manly determination in his boyish heart not to disappoint either father or mother in the struggle he would make to be true to the high calling. For as the time slipped away many and many a time he was reminded of the black pit on the edge of which he had almost slipped, to fall into its slimy and murky abyss, and perhaps never again come up into the pure sweet air of God under his blue sky and its silver stars. O Louis, you will never be able to measure the rescue your father and mother made for you at that crisis when your soul was wandering over the treeless moor of passion.



CHAPTER X

FELIX BAUER sat at his bench in the electrical machine shop at Burrton just about to open a letter which had been left there late in the afternoon. The shop men sometimes brought one another's mail up from the village and Bauer, who often worked at his task without going out to tea, was glad to get his occasional letters before he finished his bench work late into the night.

Bauer's mail was not very frequent nor very heavy. After that vacation at the Douglas home, he had come back to Burrton and plunged into the work in a vain endeavour to forget Helen Douglas. He did not forget her in the least and did not try to pretend that he ever could. He had never ventured to ask if he might write to her, but Mrs. Douglas had dropped a friendly note now and then for which he was grateful and Paul had sent him a copy of Heine, which Bauer had admired on the library shelves at Milton.

The only additional letters he received were those which belonged to his correspondence with the people in Washington who were interested in his electrical patent. The circular glass incubator was finally completed, and Bauer had experimented on it to such satisfaction that it was a common joke with the boy that Bauer's electrical chickens were so thick they ate up all the currents in the shop.

Bauer could afford to take all the criticism, even the caustic remarks of Anderson the foreman, because it began to look now very much as if the stubborn, dogged, plodding German were on the road to financial success. He had been through the regular struggles necessary to make his model and get his patent. But he had finally succeeded in all the preliminary stages, his model was in the patent office, and he had even begun to receive letters from two or three manufacturing firms about putting the incubator on the market.

He was totally inexperienced in this business and needed much counsel from older heads. Anderson the foreman finally saw that Bauer had really invented a very valuable article and he came to his assistance in the final correspondence over the patent, but Bauer had some reluctance about sharing with him the correspondence over the actual manufacture and sale of the incubators, because of Anderson's unfortunate habit of antagonising the shop men in various matters. He had never been able to overcome a general distrust on the part of the students, and Bauer shared that distrust so keenly that he did not feel willing to risk any great amount of confidence in him.

Since his return from Milton, Bauer had brooded over money matters. A small inheritance from his grandfather's estate in Lausbrachen had helped him through school, and his living wants were so few that he had not suffered any from privations which most of the rich men's sons at Burrton would have considered absolutely impossible.

But a new and unknown ambition had invaded Bauer's hitherto placid and somewhat passive soul since Helen Douglas had come into his circle of interest. What was it the girl had said during that talk in the library that day when she had made a vow not to speak first and had broken it? Bauer remembered every phase of that incident; the girl's real sparkle of interest in his invention; her eager questions; her coming up to the library table and bending over Bauer's plan; her head so close to his that a stray curl of her hair had almost touched his cheek; her startled drawing back at Bauer's solemn remark about the eggs having to be good before they could hatch; her frank but entirely innocent questioning of him about his home life, and how she unknowingly hurt him; her swift realisation of something wrong and her tactful change of conversation; and then her remark about the power of money when she had asked Bauer about the possibility of his becoming rich. The girl's enthusiasm, her perfect physical animal health, her smile, her unquestioned interest in his work, her ingenuous and pure joy in life,—all affected poor Bauer so deeply that he felt as if he were walking through an apple orchard in full bloom, his feet pressing through fragrant red clover, and the apple blossom petals floating down gently, caressing his face and hands, the sky a robin egg blue and the air elixir of heaven—and then, he was suddenly recalled to the plain, dusty, weed-bordered road he was actually travelling, he, Felix Bauer, German, poor, homely, with a dishonoured family history, with no prospects worth considering and no future worth dreaming over. And the road became very dusty, and the weeds very coarse, and the sky very grey and the air very heavy for Bauer, as Helen went out of the library and left him there staring intently at the place where she had been and recalling what she had said about money.

After all, money was the great power of the world. It could buy anything, even a wife, even in these modern times. But could it buy love? Had it ever bought so divine a thing as that since the foundation of the world?

Bauer's question did not go much farther. Somehow he shrank from trying to answer it. But he brooded over the utter hopelessness of his thought of Helen as he stood, penniless and obscure, and dishonoured, as he believed, through the sin of his parents. And as his patent grew under his hands and the possibility of his really making money from it became more possible, he found himself growing possessed with the "auri fames" and nourishing it as if it were the one indispensable factor in his final possession of the one being in the whole world worth living for. He believed he could never win such a life without money. There might be some hope for him or any man with it.

The letter which he was about to open bore the Washington postmark and he took for granted it was from someone interested in the purchase of his patent rights. He opened it in his usual slow deliberate manner, but the moment he began to read his whole manner changed. It was as if one had opened a cage door to take a pet bird in his hand suddenly to find his fingers in contact with a snake.

He rose from his bench so abruptly that his chair fell over, and he threw the letter down, eyeing it as if it were alive and dangerous to the touch. Then after a few seconds he picked up the letter and yielding to a very unusual passion tore the paper clear across, and threw the two pieces down on the bench. Then he seemed to be aware of yielding to an unusual outburst and picking up his chair he sat down.

There were only a few students in the shop. Walter had gone out an hour before. It was almost seven o'clock and the foreman was just going out of his little office room at the other end of Bauer's section of benches.

Bauer sat there until the foreman had gone out and then he picked up the two pieces of the letter and with a flush of colour on his face as unusual as his recent outburst of feeling, he slowly read. The handwriting was very peculiar even for German script and the tearing of the letter in two made its intelligent perusal doubly difficult.

When he reached the end he hesitated and at last put the two pieces of the letter into its envelope and the envelope in his pocket and then he sat staring at the stuff on his bench with a hard look in which scorn and shame and perplexity were mingled. He sat there until he was all alone. Then he got up and tried to go on with his work. He was on the track of another invention,—a spring coil to prevent the jar to a tungsten lamp. But after picking up a tool and making one or two efforts to continue his task, he threw his material down on the bench and after a moment of indecision closed up the locker, put on his coat and went out.

He and Walter had rooms opposite each other in the same hall. As he went up to the landing he stopped at Walter's door and finding it open, went in. Walter was writing to his father. Bauer waited until he was through and then in his usual direct simple manner said:

"Walter, I want your advice. I'm in a hard place and I don't know just what I ought to do."

"All right. Fire away," said Walter frankly. The friendship of the two was now on a perfect basis and Bauer had lost all reserve although he had never up to this time taken Walter into complete confidence in his family matters, partly owing to an honest feeling of independence and a courageous reluctance to burden Walter with it.

"I want to read you a letter from my father," said Bauer, eyeing Walter wistfully.

Walter nodded, and Bauer took out the letter and read in his slow almost stammering fashion.

"Washington, D. C., "October 5, 1909.

"Son Felix.

"Undoubtedly this letter will cause you surprise. It is only after much painful contemplation of all the facts that I venture to send you this communication. It is not an easy matter for myself after the experiences through which I have passed to approach you with a proposition which may seem altogether impossible to you. Before you judge me, hear me. Whatever may have been the mistakes I have made you have never been involved in them in any way, and I am writing you now to assure you of my real affection for you and to hasten to dispel any ill will you may have for me on account of the deep shadow which has fallen on my life.

"I am living here in Washington and have opened a law office on H street. A few days ago I had occasion to go to the patent office and there I saw your model of the electric incubator. There were two men standing there looking at the model and I overheard one of them saying, 'That thing is good for a fortune to someone.' I learned by inquiry that the speaker was Halstead of the manufacturing firm of Halstead, Burns & Co. He does not know me, and I am sure he did not see me or notice me while he was in the patent office.

"Now what I am writing you for is simply this. If you will put the business of this patent into my hands, I am confident I can manage it for you to your satisfaction. I am confident you have made a very valuable invention and it ought to bring you a good sum of money. I am willing to do all the work of negotiating between you and the parties interested and charge you only a fair price for my services. As you know, I have had some experience in business affairs and I am not without ability. There will be two offers made you no doubt, one to buy your patent outright, and the other to contract for a share of the manufactured sales. In the first case a lump sum would be offered. In the other you would be obliged to wait a long time for any returns. I would be inclined to favour the sale of the patent rights and hold to a stiff price. But that is a matter for deliberation. You may not agree with me. However, very much would depend on the amount the patent right could bring. If this man Halstead, who is one of the largest manufacturers in the east, is right in his judgment it is possible the sum he will offer you would decide the matter for you and give you a sum of ready money which I have no doubt you could well use in your education.

"I do not offer any apologies for this missive as I do not consider that it calls for any. My offer is purely a business one and I make it partly on my own account as well as yours. If the patent turns out a success we would both benefit by it. I am confident, as I say, that I can serve your interests better than any mere stranger. I am here on the ground, I am familiar with the patent laws and I believe I can make good terms with a man like Halstead. If you decide to accept my offer, write me at once, giving me authority to act for you. The sooner the better, for I believe Halstead is going to make you an offer if he has not already done so. But he does not know that anyone knows what he really thinks of the value of your work and he will do what they all do, try to get your patent for the lowest possible figure.

"My address is 427 H Street East.

"ADOLPH BAUER."

When Felix had finished reading, there was a moment of silence. Then Walter said, to give Bauer time to let him into his confidence if he chose:

"Has this man Halstead corresponded with you yet?"

"No, I have had no letters from him."

"You probably will hear from him soon, then?"

"Why, yes, if what he says is true?"

Bauer all through this talk with Walter never mentioned his father's name directly but spoke of him using the personal pronoun.

"What do you suppose the patent is worth?"

"I have no imagination about it. But say, Walter, what do you think I ought to do about this letter?"

"I don't know. You have never told me——" Walter began slowly.

"I know, of course you can't advise me unless I tell you more. He—well, he deserted mother. She was involved in some similar disgrace. From all I could learn while in Washington that time I went, he turned over all his property to her. That was the only redeeming thing abut the wretched business. But at any rate he has been obliged to go back to his old law business. He is very capable. Brilliant. My mother—I can't talk of her."

Poor Bauer put his face in his hands. Walter was silent. What could anyone say?

After a little, Walter said gently, "Why do you hesitate about accepting your father's offer?"

"I don't wish to be under any obligations to him."

"But he makes you a purely business proposition. Can't you trust him to handle it?"

"Oh, I suppose so, I never knew of his being dishonest. And you know the old proverb: 'Wer lugt, der stiehlt auch'; 'show me a liar and I'll show you a thief.' His faults were always of a different sort. But you can see how I would naturally hesitate to correspond with him or have any dealings with him."

"I think you are wrong about that," said Walter positively. "This is a purely business affair. You ought to treat it as such. He can handle the matter for you, being on the ground, far better than you can do it through correspondence at this distance."

"Do you think so?"

"I know it. If I were in your place I wouldn't hesitate a minute. You are totally at the mercy of the manufacturers unless you can make them understand your ability to take care of yourself. Isn't it true that the great majority of inventors die poor? The manufacturers make the money, not the inventors."

"That's true. But I don't want to die poor. I won't die poor. I have not the ambition of a Carnegie or a Rockefeller."

"You need a good friend at Washington to protect your interests. My! Won't it be great if your incubator should make you rich! I don't know why it shouldn't. The way the chickens hatched out of it was wonderful. Just think, old man. Most everyone nowadays has electricity in his house. Thousands of people could just as well as not be raising chickens on the side. Ministers, doctors, college professors, newspaper men, lawyers, school teachers,—no end. The sun would never set on your incubator any more than hens have to. I tell you, old man, there's money in your electric birds if you manage the business end of this thing right. And I don't see why your father's offer isn't just—well, providential."

"I never knew anything about him to be 'providential,'" said Bauer in almost the only bitter tone Walter had ever known him to use. "But I don't want to take any chances on this. Perhaps he is sent along at this time to help me out."

Walter looked curiously at his friend.

"You seem to be awfully anxious to make money, Felix. Never knew you that way before. What you going to do? Get married? And start a chicken ranch?"

Over Bauer's face a great flood of colour swept. There was one confidence he had determined never to make to Walter, and that was his feelings towards Helen. He believed Walter had no hint of it. And as a matter of fact that was true. Walter had so far had no love experiences and Bauer had never by so much as a look or a word in Walter's presence betrayed his secret.

"I don't expect to get married. At least not very soon," Bauer managed to say. "But I want money. You can borrow of me," he added with one of his rare smiles, "if you need it for your own nuptials."

"No immediate need," said Walter, laughing. "I have never seen the girl my mother would like to welcome."

"Ah! Your mother. But she would be kind to the girl you would choose."

"Or the one that would choose me, you mean. I don't know. Mother would be pretty particular about the people that got into the Douglas family. Did I ever mention old man Damon who came around courting Helen last winter. He wears a wig and deals in rubber goods. Old enough to be Helen's father. I never saw mother so upset. And as for Helen—why—I would as soon think of her taking you for a suitor as Damon. But you never can tell what a girl will do. They generally do the opposite of what you expect."

Bauer managed to say—"That's fortunate for some of us perhaps. Else there might be no hope for unfortunate and homely people if there was any fixed rules by which girls acted."

Walter stared at Bauer as he sometimes had to when Bauer opened his philosophy unexpectedly.

"I wonder what will happen to you, old man, when you fall in love, really and deeply?"

"I wonder," said Bauer softly.

"It will be interesting to watch you," said Walter laughing.

"Same to you," said Bauer with some spirit.

"We can watch each other," Walter continued.

"I have no doubt you will bear watching," was Bauer's reply, wrung from him by the tense situation.

Walter roared, and did not venture to say any more on that subject. But he went on to urge Bauer to answer his father's letter at once and give him power of attorney to act for him and make the best possible terms for his invention. Bauer promised before he left the room to do so, and on reaching his own room he at once set to work on the difficult business of answering his father on purely business grounds. Without making any definite promises or giving his father any authority to act for him, with characteristic caution he asked several questions about the patent laws, and especially about the possibility of undertaking the manufacture of the incubators on shares. He enclosed the letters he already had received from companies interested, none of which however had made him any positive offer, only sounding him in general as to his disposition to sell the patent rights on certain terms which had no very promising prospects of ready money. And it was money Bauer wanted,—not dim future prospects of the all-powerful medium of happiness or unhappiness.

After his letter had been mailed, he felt a little uncertain about it all, but he was of a direct, straight-forward habit and once started in a course of action he seldom changed it. Once committed to the correspondence with his father he would hold to it, keeping it all on a cold business basis as if his father had no other relation to him, and letting the heartache take care of itself. It is astonishing how many heartaches do take care of themselves in this old world. Only, like Bauer's, they are apt to take care of themselves so poorly that the ache starves the heart out of house and home.

Two days later, Walter, who was in his room going over some complicated formulae connected with Rausch's Dynamics, was interrupted by Bauer who came running in from his room across the hall waving a little slip of paper.

"What do you think of that," he exclaimed with unusual excitement.

Walter looked at the little yellow slip and read "One Thousand Dollars payable to Felix Bauer by Halstead, Burns & Co., of Washington."

"They offer me that for my patent right, with a small percentage of profit on certain sales."

Walter was excited in his turn and started to offer congratulations. But Bauer's next words broke in on him.

"I'm going to send the check back. It's not enough and they know it."

"I believe you're right," said Walter, after a stare at Bauer in this new light of money hunger. "The fact that they sent a check shows their eagerness to get into the business and their faith in its value. What will you hold them up to?"

"I don't know. But I am going to put the matter up to—to him."

"You mean your father?"

"Yes," said Bauer hastily. "The more I think of it the more I believe he can get more than I can. I'll mail him Halstead's correspondence."

That same afternoon Bauer returned the check to Halstead, Burns, & Co. with a brief business note saying that he was not prepared to sell out at such a small figure. He added that he had placed the business connected with the patent in the hands of his father, giving street number and office. In the same mail he sent his father Halstead's letter and told of his return of the check, at the same time authorising his father to have full power to act for him with Halstead or any other firm.

"I do not know just what I ought to receive for my patent." Bauer wrote. "But I am not going to act hastily nor sell at a sacrifice. I trust you to make terms that will at least be some measure of the real value of the article."

A week passed by during which time Bauer's father wrote acknowledging Bauer's letters, thanking him for accepting his offer, commending his action in returning the check to Halstead, Burns & Co., and assuring Felix that the business would receive prompt and careful attention.

A week later as Walter and Bauer were in the shop a telegraph messenger came in with an envelope for Felix Bauer.

Bauer opened and read and without a word passed the message over to Walter. It read, "Halstead offers $5,000 cash down and percentage on American sales. Shall I close with offer? Adolph Bauer."

Walter could hardly speak—he was so excited.

"Better close with it. You can't do better. That father of yours must be a———"

Bauer smiled faintly. "Perhaps I can't expect more. I believe I will wire accept."

"Better find out what the percentage is, and why European sales are not included."

"Yes," said Bauer briefly. He was strangely calm and not particularly overjoyed by his unexpected good fortune. Walter recalled that afterwards.

He answered the telegram with a letter, asking for details which his father furnished promptly. The European sales were subject to such expense and delay that the manufacturers explained the unusual risk and made a plausible showing why royalty terms were difficult to arrange. After two weeks correspondence, Bauer finally telegraphed his father— "You are authorised to close with Halstead on their terms. Take your commission out of the $5,000."

By the business arrangements made between them Bauer's father was to receive five per cent on any cash offer. Bauer felt kindly towards him for the way the affair had come out and in a letter written the same day he sent the telegram he authorised his father to take out ten per cent commission instead of the five agreed upon in their formal contract.

"I don't want to get too money mad," he said to himself with a grim smile as he posted the letter, and with a great feeling of weariness upon him went into the shop.

Felix Bauer was one of the few students at Burrton who never subscribed to a daily paper and seldom read one. He kept up with the news of the world by dropping into Walter's room and hearing him dribble out the events of the day from a New York daily which Walter took. The edition reached Burrton eight hours after the date line.

Three days after Bauer had authorised his father to close the contract on the patent for him Walter opened up his New York Daily for his usual skim over its contents. It was two o'clock. He had heard Bauer come up the stairs and go into his room and had not heard him go out.

He glanced down over the usual political and sporting news and then his eye caught a headline that made him start.

"LEAVES ON THE KAISER WILHELM UNDER SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES."

"Adolph Bauer, ex-attache of the Consular service, sailed yesterday on the Kaiser Wilhelm for Bremen. Bauer will be remembered as the brilliant but shady member of the Washington coterie of unsavory reputation in connection with the Jaynes-Buford scandal. Before sailing, Bauer cashed a check for $5,000 on Halstead, Burns & Co., payment it is said on a patent right owned by himself and son for a new invention in the incubator line. The son is a student at Burrton Electrical School. There is no charge of crookedness at the bank. The check had the regular endorsement of Halstead. But parties who are interested in Bauer's movements socially, have taken steps to track him to Europe. Interesting developments are promised by those who know Bauer's antecedents and especially his treatment of his wife from whom he is separated pending a divorce."

Walter was tremendously downcast by this bit of news.

"Poor Bauer! Poor old man!" he said over and over. "What an unmitigated rascal that father of his must be to steal that money. Bauer will never get a cent. And I advised him to take up with his precious father's offer! But how could I foresee a thing as black as this. Oh, I don't know what I ought to do! How can I tell him! I can't do it! But he will find it out in a day or two! It can't be kept. Blame it! Why are there such things in the old world! And Bauer has been so eager to get money lately. Oh, I can't tell him! I just can't."

Walter paced his room in great agitation. He dreaded to see Bauer. How could he break this to him? He dreaded to see his friend come out of the room. And he waited. But after an hour, Bauer had made no move and Walter, recalling his strength of character and mindful that the news would have to come to him some time, finally shook himself together, went out, crossed the hall and knocked on Bauer's door.

The knock was a faint one and there was no reply. He knocked again a little louder, and getting no answer, he did what he often did, opened and went in.

Bauer was standing over by his washbowl, leaning over and as he raised his head and turned around, Walter was startled at the look that greeted him.

"What!" He took a stride over to his friend and put one hand on his shoulder. In the other hand he held the New York paper.

Bauer smiled back at him.

"I was going to tell you. It's too much bother to hide it. But this hemorrhage is worse than the others. I've been to see the doctor and he says I'll come out all right if I can get into the painted desert and stay there a year or two."

Walter stared at Bauer without a word.

The paper slipped out of his fingers, and he was hardly conscious of the fact that Bauer had stepped on it as he had walked over to his couch to lie down there.

"You see," he said, lying on his back, looking up at Walter and speaking in his usual slow fashion, "I've only had the flow three times. First time I never minded it. Next one took me three weeks ago while you were gone to the Harrisburg Exhibition. The doctor says I will come out all right if I go out there. My money will come in a day or two and I'll start for Canyon Diablo. I ought to have a pretty good time on $4,500. Living is cheap in the painted desert. And any way, 'Wir mussen alie einmal sterben?' 'We must all die sometime,' you know."

Walter's eyes travelled from Bauer's face to the newspaper on the floor and back again. And Bauer mistaking his look said, "Don't take it so hard. It might be worse. Money salves the wound you know. Perhaps you can go out with me for a few weeks. Can you? Of course I'll foot all the bills if you'll go." And he smiled at Walter as he spoke.



CHAPTER XI

WALTER was trembling with sympathy and the sudden shock from the unexpected revelation of Bauer's physical condition. He was so overwhelmed with this that the loss of the money seemed comparatively trivial.

"Why did you not tell me the condition you were in? I ought to have known about it. It does not seem possible."

"It's not as serious as it seems. You remember Gardner, class of 1909? He's out in New Mexico with a U. S. surveying party and he's all right. A year or two out there will put me right."

Walter looked at him doubtfully.

"What a chump I must have been all this winter not to see. I wouldn't have believed it if I read it in a book."

Bauer smiled again.

"You couldn't do anything if you had known. Nobody could. The change of climate will fix me all right. Lucky that money is coming in just now. Lots of fellows don't have my good luck."

"Good luck?"

"Yes. I might be sick here without a cent, and be dependent like Franklin out at the day camp. I felt awfully sorry for him at the time, didn't you?"

"Yes, tell me! but no! it hurts you to talk?"

Bauer nodded. "I don't have any pain to-day. Just weakness. It's only one lung, the doc says. It might be my knee joints or my mucous or a dozen other places worse than lungs. If you're going to have tuberculosis have it when it will raise the most sympathy. If I only had a heart-rending cough to go with the hemorrhages I could get some church or tuberculosis society to send me out to Arizona free of charge."

Walter was so upset by the whole thing and so disturbed by the inevitable revelation that was bound to come that he sat miserably silent, while Bauer rambled on in a disconnected manner to all outward appearances quite unterrified by his trouble, or at any rate making a brave and successful attempt at deceiving his friend. But at last he unexpectedly gave Walter an opportunity to lead up to the article in the paper.

"Seems a little queer I don't hear from him. I understood Halstead and Burns were going to pay at once. Would you mind going down after the three o'clock mail? I feel a little uneasy about it. Never had so much money before. Probably never will again."

"Did you have any reason to distrust your father?" asked Walter.

"No, I told you his faults were of another sort."

"What would you do if he should try to cheat you out of the money?"

"How could he do that?"

"Didn't you give him power of attorney to act for you?"

"Yes."

"Well, what would hinder his having the check from Halstead drawn in his name instead of yours?"

"Nothing, only———"

"Only what?"

"Why, just sheer humanity."

Bauer was sitting up on the couch, his hands doubled up and his eyes fixed on Walter.

"What is it?" he said at last quietly enough. "Are you keeping something from me? I would rather have it from you than from anyone else."

"Poor old man!" Walter could not hold back a groan as his eye travelled to the paper on the floor.

Bauer saw his glance. "What is it? Read it for me."

Walter put his hands over his face and muttered.

"Oh, I can't, Felix, it's too cruel."

"Nothing's too cruel if you're used to it." He started to get up from the couch, but Walter prevented him.

"Lie down there. I'll read it to you if I must, simply because someone will have to do it sometime. But I would rather be hanged than do it."

He hardly ventured to look at Bauer when he had finished the newspaper account. When he did look at him, he saw him sitting up on the couch, his hands clasped over his knees, a slight increase of colour on his face but no mark of any unusual anger or feeling.

"How could he do it! How could he!" Bauer whispered to himself, looking off into the distance as if Walter were not present. His whole attitude affected Walter more deeply than if he had given way to a violent passion.

"It's an outrage! There ought to be some way to get the money. You could have him arrested when he———"

"Arrest my father? On the charge of being a thief? Would you do that to your———"

Walter choked. "Arrest my father? I should think not. But———"

"He may be all you think, but I will never lift a finger against him. Let God punish him, as he has already."

"And meanwhile, if Halstead & Co. are informed how matters are, they might———"

"It isn't likely. They have paid the money once. Certainly they won't do it again. I never heard of any such philanthropists doing business in Washington."

"But how will you be able to go out to Arizona?" Walter blurted before he thought, and then wanted to bite his tongue off as Bauer turned his face towards him, a faint smile lighting it.

"I won't go. 'Wir mussen alie einmal sterben?'"

"But you'll have to go. We'll have to find a way."

"Where there's a will there's a way? Also even more necessary, the money. Now I've will enough. But it won't pay for a ticket nor buy the necessary canned goods to go with the sand of the desert when I get there. I'll set up my incubators here at Burrton and raise chickens enough to bury me decently. 'Wir mussen alie einmal sterben.'"

"Yes, but we don't have to die before our time. There must be some way out."

"I don't know of any." said Bauer gravely but not with any bitterness. "But don't let it worry you. I don't want to have you worried with it."

Nevertheless Walter did worry over it tremendously. He had never known anything in all his experience that affected him so profoundly. And in his next letter home, without hinting to Bauer of his intention, he sounded his father as to ways and means for helping Bauer at this crisis in his life.

"Isn't there some one in Milton who would be interested enough in Bauer to help send him out to Arizona? The doctor says it's his only chance. And he's pretty hard hit. Think of losing $4,500 at one fell swoop, and by his own father too. And I advised the business relation between them. Of course we had no idea that the matter would turn out as it has but that doesn't change the fact. As near as I can figure, it will cost at least three hundred dollars to get Bauer out to Arizona, pay for his board and room and keep him there a year. He isn't a member of any church and Dr. Howard of the Congregational Church here in Burrton said a few Sundays ago that his people must make a special effort to raise the money to care for several needed cases of their own, so I don't feel like going to him with Bauer's story right now. And besides, I don't believe Bauer would take church help. He's awfully proud and while he doesn't say much about his trouble and pretends to take it easy, I can see he is pretty hard hit. And who wouldn't be, to lose $4,500 at one clip and at the same time realise that he's got consumption. I tell you it strikes me as pretty hard lines for poor Bauer. The worst of it is this mess about his father. That seems awful. And there isn't anyone more affectionate and dependent than Bauer. That's the reason he took up with me, because he had to have someone. He doesn't know I'm writing this sort of a letter about him, if he did he'd object, but I feel as if something ought to be done. Perhaps you and mother can think out some plan to help him. If I could see some way to cut down my expenses here I would do it and put in my little to help. But I'm living as close to the line as I can. The school is expensive and I don't know what I can do until I get out and begin to make instead of mar dollars."

Paul took this letter to Esther. And it happened that while he was reading it to her, Helen came in. Paul stopped reading and looked at Esther.

"It's all right. Let Helen hear it. I'm sure Walter meant it for a family letter."

They were all shocked at the news. And Helen seemed even more moved by the letter than her father and mother, though she made no remark of any kind until Esther began to look at her with some concern. Paul said, after a moment of sober thought:

"I believe Masters can do something for him out there at Tolchaco. There is the old Council Hogan out there in the cottonwoods past the 'dobe flats. Bauer could sleep there. It's about the same as outdoors. And he could do something perhaps at the trading post to help pay for his board. I'll write to Masters at once and see what he says. And—I have another idea that I think will do something. We can't let a fellow like Bauer go down without doing something and if he objects to being helped, why, we'll just box him up and ship him out there f. o. b."

After Paul had gone down to the office Mrs. Douglas and Helen continued the discussion over Walter's letter.

"What other idea does father have to help Mr. Bauer?" asked Helen.

"I don't know unless he is thinking of that precious book of his!" Mrs. Douglas laughed and Helen joined her.

It had come to be a good natured joke in the Douglas household that Paul's book was such a great failure that publishers had it listed among the "six worst sellers" if anyone ever had the courage to print it. He had put in a tremendous amount of hard work on the volume which was a bold treatment in original form of the Race Question in America. The manuscript had been sent to eight different publishers and had been returned, in three instances with scathing comments.

Paul doggedly clung to his first estimate of the book. Each rejection by the last publisher only served to increase his faith in what he had written.

"I tell you, Esther, the publishers don't know a thing. Half the time their office readers can't spell. They don't know gold from mica schist. Half the books the publishers put out are dead failures. They don't know anything more about it than a native of Ponape knows about making an igloo."

Esther smiled.

"You are naturally a little prejudiced, don't you think? But I don't blame you. It's lucky for us though, that we don't depend on book sales for a living. Let's see, how much has the book cost you so far?"

"Well, in typewriting, and postage on returned manuscript it has cost me about one hundred and fifty dollars," said Paul good naturedly. "But I'll send it to every publisher in America before I'll give up. I've written a good book and I know it. And I've made up my mind to one thing, Esther. When it comes to making terms I'll sell the manuscript outright for cash and give the money away to the most needy cause I can find."

"Better have the stipulation with the publishers stereotyped, father," said Helen, who was present when this conversation was held. "It will save you time and money."

"Very well, Miss," replied her father. "But don't you dare ask for any of this extra when my ship does come in. Not a cent of it does this ungrateful, unappreciative family get. It is my book and the 'child of my heart' and if it brings me anything I will spend it in riotous living on the other fellow."

Esther and Helen laughed and Paul went down to the office and courageously expressed the manuscript to one of the eastern publishers who had not yet seen it.

All this had occurred several months before Walter's letter about Bauer and when Paul went down to the office after getting the news his heart and mind were burdened with plans for Bauer's relief. He began to open his mail and a letter from the eastern publisher specially interested him. After reading it, he looked at the check accompanying the letter and chuckled in anticipation of meeting Esther and Helen at lunch when he came home.

The mother and daughter were continuing their talk about Walter's letter.

"Can Mr. Bauer get well out there? Walter did not say very clearly?" Helen asked.

"Many cases like this do recover," said Esther. "But he ought to go at once. If he is having severe hemorrhages that will be his only hope."

Helen was silent for some moments.

"How much did Walter say it would cost to keep him out there a year?"

"He said three hundred dollars."

"It seems like a very small sum, doesn't it?"

"It certainly does. But you remember in some of Mr. Masters's letters to your father about the mission expenses at Tolchaco how ridiculous the amounts seemed to us? You remember one year the entire mission force including seven persons lived on less than fifteen dollars a month for each? I suppose Walter had something like that in mind. And you remember how often in his letters Walter has spoken of Bauer's horror of the luxurious habits of one of the students at Burrton as if it were a great wrong?"

"It was Van Shaw," said Helen with a short laugh. "Walter spoke last Christmas about the solid silver dog collars Mr. Van Shaw purchased for his kennel. Fancy Mr. Bauer buying solid silver dog collars! Fancy him even buying a dog!"

"Unless it was to prevent someone from abusing it. I never met a young man with such a kind heart as Bauer."

Helen did not answer. She sat with her hands clasped over her knees, looking off through the window. At last she rose and went into her room, and returned almost immediately.

"Mother," she said, with a note of hesitation that was new to her, "would it be all right for me to help Mr. Bauer out of my allowance? If the rest of the family is going to help I'd like to give twenty-five dollars."

She put the money into her mother's lap and sat down in front of her.

Mrs. Douglas was startled at the girl's perfectly transparent act. She thought she knew Helen, but for a moment she questioned her own insight. Then she did what she had always done in the intimacy she had encouraged between herself and her children.

"Why do you want to do this, Helen?"

"Because—because I can't help feeling———"

"Well?"

"I don't love him, mother,—no,—I am sure of myself. But it seems dreadful to think of him dying, just because of the need of a little money. I have never been sick. I wonder how I should feel to face such a fate. I believe it would drive me crazy."

"But how do you think Mr. Bauer will understand your gift? If he is so sensitive as Walter says———"

Over Helen's face the warm colour swept.

"Why does he need to know? We are all going to help, aren't we? But we don't need to tell him. I would not have him know for the world."

"Wait till father comes home. We will talk it over with him," said Esther after a pause. "I don't question your sincerity. It is a terrible loss to lose the physical strength and face death at a sure distance. Poor Bauer! And all that family trouble, too. He never hinted at that when he was here."

Helen recalled her innocent questioning of Bauer about his people and the silence he had maintained at the time. In the light of what she knew now, the figure of the German student assumed a tragic character, invested with deep pathos, and she had to confess that it was treading on dangerous ground to dwell too long on the picture. Still she asserted stoutly that her feeling was one of simple friendship, and even went so far as to anticipate a possible question again on her mother's part.

"You must not think, Mommy, that I have any other feeling for him. That is not possible. The man I marry must have money. And poor Mr. Bauer has lost all of his. That is the reason I am willing to help him. Money seems so absolutely necessary in this world, mother, isn't it?"

"Not so necessary as a good many other things."

"But in this case, mother, what else can do any good? It is money that Mr. Bauer needs. Not sympathy nor—nor—even friendship, just money. Is there anything else that can save his life?"

"It seems not."

"Then money is the great thing," said Helen with a show of getting the better of her mother in an argument. "I don't pretend to hide my admiration for money. You know, mother, it is the most powerful thing in the world."

"There are other things," said Esther quietly. She did not try to argue with Helen over the subject. They had several times gone over the same ground and each time Esther had realised more deeply and with a growing feeling of pain that Helen had almost a morbid passion for money and the things that money could buy. She was not avaricious. On the contrary, she was remarkably generous and unselfish in the use of her allowance. But there was a deep and far reaching prejudice in the girl's mind for all the brilliant, soft, luxurious, elegant side of wealth and its allurements that made Esther tremble more and more for the girl's future, especially when her marriage was thought of.

All this had its bearing on Esther's thought of Bauer. He had never been to her a possible thought as Helen's lover. All his own and his people's history were against him. But no one had ever come into the Douglas family circle who had won such a feeling of esteem, and Esther had felt drawn towards the truly homeless lad with a compassion that might in time have yielded to him a place as a possible member of the family. Now anything like that relation seemed remote, and Helen's own frank declaration put the matter out of the question. Over all these things Esther Douglas pondered and in her simple straightforward fashion laid them at the feet of her God for the help she could not give herself.

When Paul came home to luncheon both Esther and Helen could see at once that something had happened greatly to please him. Paul was transparent and never made any pretence at any sort of concealment of his feelings.

"Yes, now you people laugh at that," he said as he handed the eastern publisher's letter over to Esther.

Esther read the letter out loud. It was an extended business statement acknowledging the receipt of the book manuscript and Paul's blunt announcement of the terms he was willing to make for it publication; cash down, waiving all royalty rights, the book to be published entirely at the publisher's risk and the plates to be the property of the publishing house, no rights reserved for the author.

The eastern publisher acknowledged the frankness of the author's note, which he said was unusual. Also the terms, which were not generally considered, few manuscripts being purchased outright by the firm. However, the book was more than favourably reported by two of the three principal readers and by the senior member of the house, and they were prepared to make an offer in the shape of the enclosed check which it was hoped would be satisfactory to Mr. Douglas.

"Five hundred," said Esther, reading the amount as she held up the check for Helen to see. "Why, isn't it worth more than that?"

"The way you people have been talking lately," said Paul, pretending great indignation, "it wasn't worth five cents. I'm satisfied. At ten per cent royalty they would have to sell five thousand copies and it would be two or three years before I got the money. No, I prefer the cash, and let them take the risk. Now we can help Bauer. That is, I can. This is all my philanthropy. I'll send one hundred dollars to Masters for the mission work and the balance for Bauer. Walter's estimate of three hundred dollars a year is too small. It won't give the fellow the things he needs. My! But won't it be fine to help him! There's nothing like money, is there, Esther?"

"Just what I keep telling her," said Helen, her eyes sparkling and her lips smiling at the sight of her mother's somewhat grave acceptance of Paul's statement.

"I'm glad he is going to get the benefit of it," said Esther heartily. "And I think we owe you an apology for the way we have treated your little book. I feel proud to think my husband can write a five hundred dollar book. I hope it will be one of the six best sellers."

"If it is, the publishers will make a lot," said Paul. "But I hardly think it. Trashy fiction makes best sellers. My book is written to make people think, not to lose their thoughts. So I've no false ambitions for it."

As a matter of fact, in course of time Paul's volume sold between seven and eight thousand copies and then the sale ceased. But the book had good notices from several thoughtful reviewers and gave him considerable advertising, encouraging him to go on with another volume on popular government.

"Now the problem will be to get Bauer to take the money," said Esther. "It's going to be a delicate matter."

"Do you think so? I hadn't thought of that. Surely Walter can manage it. He will have to take it."

"I think you will find it is not so easy. It seemed to me last winter that Mr. Bauer was about the most stubborn and independent young man I ever saw."

"But what can he do? He can't help himself. He will have to take it."

"Leave it to Walter to manage," said Esther. "He is better acquainted with him than we are."

So Paul wrote Walter, enclosing a check for $400, and asking him to manage the matter with Bauer the best he could, and at the same time he wrote to Masters telling him of Bauer and making inquiry about the climate and especially concerning the possibility of Bauer fitting into any work about the mission.

After Paul had gone away from the table to his office to attend to this matter, Esther took out Helen's money and quietly handed it to her.

"You won't need to offer this now."

"No, not now," said Helen, blushing.

"Nor any time, I hope. If Mr. Bauer gets well there at Tolchaco he will probably be able to secure permanent work and take care of himself."

"Yes," Helen said, after a pause in which she seemed to her mother about to make a confidence. But she did not seem quite certain of herself and finally without any more words went up to her room.