ght
o'clock antemeridian Monday, as he hied himself to his daily duty at
the Washington National Bank. Yet more than the merely funereal
gloomed out from the hillocky area of his countenance. Was there not,
i'faith, a glow, a Vesuvian shimmer, beneath the murk of that darkling
eye? Was here one, think you, to turn the other cheek? Little has he
learned of Norbert Flitcroft who conceives that this fiery spirit was
easily to be quenched! Look upon the jowl of him, and let him who
dares maintain that people--even the very Pikes themselves--were to
grind beneath their brougham wheels a prostrate Norbert and ride on
scatheless! In this his own metaphor is nearly touched "I guess not!
They don't run over ME! Martin Pike better look out how he tries it!"

So Mother Nature at her kindly tasks, good Norbert, uses for her
unguent our own perfect inconsistency: and often when we are stabbed
deep in the breast she distracts us by thin scratches in other parts,
that in the itch of these we may forget the greater hurt till it be
healed. Thus, the remembrance of last night, when you undisguisedly
ran from the wrath of a Pike, with a pretty girl looking on (to say
nothing of the acrid Arp, who will fling the legend on a thousand
winds), might well agonize you now, as, in less hasty moments and at a
safe distance, you brood upon the piteous figure you cut. On the
contrary, behold: you see no blood crimsoning the edges of the horrid
gash in your panoply of self-esteem: you but smart and scratch the
scratches, forgetting your wound in the hot itch for vengeance. It is
an itch which will last (for in such matters your temper shall be
steadfast), and let the great Goliath in the mean time beware of you!
You ran, last night. You ran--of course you ran. Why not? You ran to
fight another day!

A bank clerk sometimes has opportunities.

The stricken fat one could not understand how it came about that he had
blurted out the damning confession that he had visited Beaver Beach.
When he tried to solve the puzzle, his mind refused the strain, became
foggy and the terrors of his position acute. Was he, like Joe Louden,
to endure the ban of Canaan, and like him stand excommunicate beyond
the pale because of Martin Pike's displeasure? For Norbert saw with
perfect clearness to-day what the Judge had done for Joe. Now that he
stood in danger of a fate identical, this came home to him. How many
others, he wondered, would do as Mamie had do