didn't you, Carleton?"

"I emigrated," I answered.

He looked up eagerly.

"I remember now. It seems to have agreed with you."

"You're still with the leather firm?" I inquired.

He almost started at this unexpected question.

"Yes," he answered.

His eyes turned back to his trim little house, then to me as though he
feared I was bringing him bad news.

"But I've been laid up for six weeks," he faltered.

I knew what was troubling him. He was wondering whether he would find
his job when he got back. Poor devil! If he didn't what would become
of his trim little house? Grover was older by five years than I had
been when the axe fell.

I talked with him a few minutes. There had been a death or two in the
neighborhood and the children had grown up. That was the only change.
The sight of Grover made me uncomfortable, so I hurried about my
business, eager to get home again.

God pity the poor? Bah! The poor are all right if by poor you mean the
tenement dwellers. When you pray again pray God to pity the
middle-class American on a salary. Pray that he may not lose his job;
pray that if he does it shall be when he is very young; pray that he
may find the route to America. The tenement dwellers are safe enough.
Pray--and pray hard--for the dwellers in the trim little houses of the
suburbs.

I've had my ups and downs, my profits and losses since I entered
business for myself but I've come out at the end of each year well
ahead of the game. I never made again as much in so short a time as I
made on that first job. One reason is that as soon as I was solidly on
my feet I started a profit sharing scheme, dividing with the men what
was made on every job over a certain per cent. Many of the original
gang have left and gone into business for themselves of one sort and
another but each one when he went, picked a good man to take his place
and handed down to him the spirit of the gang.

Dick went through college and is now in my office. He's a hustler and
is going to make a good business man. But thank God he has a heart in
him as well as brains. He hopes to make "Carleton and Son" a big firm
some day and he will. If he does, every man who faithfully and
honestly handles his shovel will be part of the big firm. His idea
isn't to make things easy for the men; it's to preserve the spirit
they come over with and give them a share of the success due to that
spirit.

We didn't move away from our dear, true friends until th