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He was not clean,-this best of God's gifts to the home, rich or poor,-but Craigin took him on his knee and fed him grapes and told him fairy stories until he fell asleep.

When the boy was once more in bed O'Leary returned to the old subject. "You think my business was as bad as it could be," he said, "and you don't think I was bad. How can a business be bad and the men in it good?"

"King David was a good man, was n't he?" "I guess so."

"He did what a man would be hung for nowadays. 'Most two thousand years ago there was a Roman emperor who hunted Christians to death and had men trained to kill each other to make sport for the people. He was one of the best men that ever lived."

"How could he be if he did such bad things?"

"No one thought of them as wrong or cruel then. Two or three hundred years ago the best of people, Protestants and Catholics alike, thought it was God's work to burn Unitarians at the stake, but they did n't think the African slave-trade was wrong. Only thirty years ago the best people in the South sold men like cattle, and millions of people in the North said it was right. Now everybody says it was wrong. It's the same with the liquor traffic. It's always been, just as slavery had always been. People are only beginning to find out that it 's the greatest of all curses. By and by, when they understand it a little better, they'll crush it, and the world will move on to something else."

แ Then you don't think a man must be bad because he does bad things?"

"No, not always. Right does n't change, but the point of view does."

"I see what you mean. I never thought of it that way before."

A few days later, as Craigin called to see his new friend, he caught a glimpse of a familiar form vanishing around a corner. On a table beside the bed were the remains of the most delicate little supper that a sick man could crave.

"Miss Denman 's been here," said O'Leary, with tears of gratitude glistening in his eyes. "She sent lots of things to us the other day, and now she's come herself. See there! she cooked and brought all that with her own hands. Five minutes ago she sat by the window where you are, talking and laughing with me and cheering me up, just as if I was n't a poor man and she worth her millions; and I could n't help feeling as if she was an angel with the light of heaven shining in her eyes. Then she looked out the window, and all of a sudden I could see her face grow kind of drawn, like as if she was in pain, and first I knew she'd got on her things and was gone." O'Leary was a shrewd fellow, and he gave the editor a searching look. "She was here more 'n an hour," he continued; "and for all she 's so rich and handsome, it's just as easy to talk with her as it is with common folks. I told her how you watched with me, and then -I would n't have thought I'd have darst to-I told her everything you said about the liquor business and the men in it."

"What did she say?" inquired Craigin, with a longing to know that overcame delicacy, for he and Isabel had ceased to be on speaking terms.

"She looked as she did, only not so much so, when she saw-when she went away so quick, and she said, might she give me some more chicken? That's all she said."

VII

TUNNELING

H-TH-THE L-ord is w-w-walking in h-his g-g-garden t-t-to-d-d-day," observed a stuttering wit, as Denman crossed the common to Woods's office.

"Seen the paper this morning?" inquired Woods, as Denman crossed the threshold. The lawyer was reading one of Craigin's strongest editorials. "That young man 's got the making of a dozen Mariuses in him."

"I don't know who Marius was," growled Denman. "I know Craigin. I want to spare him if I can; but if he does n't let up after next term of court,-and he won't,―he 'll have to be put out of the way."

"Put out of the way?" gasped Woods.

"You need n't look so blank," said Denman, with a bitter laugh. "I sha'n't stick a dagger in his back. Suppose I should control a majority of the stock in his paper-the young lion goes somewhere else to roar, does n't he?"

"It strikes me, if you ever want his paper out of the way, it's now."

"It does, does it? The thing can't be done in the middle of a campaign; 't would make too much of a howl. Besides, it may be bad for the party; but so far 's I'm concerned, I don't care a

about the paper till after those five hundred and forty-six complaints are disposed of. The greater the odds the sweeter the victory."

"If it is victory."

"There's no 'if' about it. Did n't you tell the mayor and aldermen the law could n't be enforced?" "Amounted to that."

"Tell 'em what you thought?"

"Might have colored it a shade-not much."

"Where's your new light?"

"How could I think Strickland would take the position he has? No one ever did before, and it's sound law. It's the same with the evidence-impregnable as Gibraltar. Then, the cranks mean business at last, and they 've got an organ that 's a power and that can't be flattered, bought, or scared."

"Woods," said Denman, with a grim smile, "do you remember how you talked about the railroad fight, fifteen years ago?”

"Yes; and the best lawyers in this part of the country talked the same way. Because you won then where no one else could, it does n't follow that you will now. You sweat gold ten years before you came

out ahead."

“The railroad folks have sweat it back three times over, have n't they?"

"Till there was n't anything more to sweat. Clifford never got it through his wool how you won.

If

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