er his mustache like a child's; it was so sunny and so
quick. Harry saw a neat little figure in a perfectly fitting gray
check travelling suit, with a rose in the buttonhole of the coat lapel.
Armorer wore no jewellery except a gold ring on the little finger of his
right hand, from which he had taken the glove the better to write. Harry
knew that it was his dead wife's wedding-ring; and noticed it with
a little moving of the heart. The face that he saw was pale but not
sickly, delicate and keen. A silky brown mustache shot with gray and
a Van-dyke beard hid either the strength or the weakness of mouth and
chin. He looked at Harry with almond-shaped, pensive dark eyes, so like
the eyes that had shone on Harry's waking and sleeping dreams for months
that the young fellow felt his heart rise again. Armorer ended by asking
Harry (in his most winning manner) to help him pull the ordinance out of
the fire. "It would be," he said, impressively, "a favor he should not
forget!"

"And you must know, Mr. Armorer," said Harry, in a dismal tone at which
the president chuckled within, "that there is no man whose favor I would
do so much to win!"

"Well, here's your chance!" said Armorer.

Harry swung round in his chair, his clinched fists on his knee. He was
frowning with eagerness, and his eyes were like blue steel.

"See here, Mr. Armorer," said he, "I am frank with you. I want to please
you, because I want to ask you to let me marry your daughter. But I
CAN'T please you, because I am mayor of this town, and I don't dare to
let you dismiss the conductors. I don't DARE, that's the point. We have
had four children killed on this road since electricity was put in."

"We have had forty killed on one street railway I know; what of it? Do
you want to give up electricity because it kills children?"

"No, but look here! the conductors lessen the risk. A lady I know,
only yesterday, had a little boy going from the kindergarten home, nice
little fellow only five years old----"

"She ought to have sent a nurse with a child five years old, a baby!"
cried Armorer, warmly.

"That lady," answered Harry, quietly, "goes without any servant at all
in order to keep her two children at the kindergarten; and the boy's
elder sister was ill at home. The boy got on the car, and when he got
off at the crossing above his house, he started to run across; the other
train-car was coming, the little fellow didn't notice, and ran to cross;
he stumbled a