way! Where do they get their money?"

Ames himself wondered. And he determined to find out.

"Leave it to me, Claus," he said at length, dismissing the brewer.
"I'll send for you in a day or so."

* * * * *

It was well after midnight when the little group assembled in the
dining room of the Beaubien cottage to resume their interrupted
discussions. Hitt and Haynerd were the last to arrive. They found
Doctor Morton eagerly awaiting them. With him had come, not without
some reluctance, his prickly disputant, Reverend Patterson Moore, and
another friend and colleague, Doctor Siler, whose interest in these
unique gatherings had been aroused by Morton.

"I've tried to give him a resume of our previous deductions," the
latter explained, as Hitt prepared to open the discussion. "And he
says he has conscientious scruples--if you know what that means."

"He's a Philistine, that's all, eh?" offered Haynerd.

Doctor Siler nodded genially. "I am like my friend, Reverend Edward
Hull, who says--"

"There!" interrupted Morton. "Your friend has a life job molding the
plastic minds of prospective preachers, and he doesn't want to lose
the sinecure. I don't blame him. Got a wife and babies depending on
him. He still preaches hell-fire and the resurrection of the flesh,
doesn't he? Well, in that case we can dispense with his views, for
we've sent that sort of doctrine to the ash heap."

Reverend Moore opened his mouth as if to protest; but Hitt prevented
him by taking the floor and plunging at once into his subject. "The
hour is very late," he said in apology, "and we have much ground to
cover. Who knows when we shall meet again?"

Carmen stole a hand beneath the table and grasped the Beaubien's. Then
all waited expectantly.

"As I sat in my office this morning," began Hitt meditatively, "I
looked often and long through the window and out over this great,
roaring city. Everywhere I saw tremendous activity, frantic hurry, and
nerve-racking strife. In the distance I marked the smoke curling
upward from huge factories, packing houses, and elevators. The
incessant seething, the rush and bustle, the noise, the heat, and
dust, all spelled business, an enormous volume of human business--and
yet, _not one iota of it contributed even a mite to the spiritual
nature and needs of mankind_!

"I pondered this long. And then I looked down, far down, into the
streets below. There I saw the same div