g men, have been clergymen," he found himself protesting.

"Well, they haven't dropped in on me. The only one I ever saw that
measured up to something like that was you, and now you've chucked it."

Had he, as she expressed the matter, "chucked it"? Her remark brought
him reluctantly, fearfully, remorselessly--agitated and unprepared as he
was--face to face with his future.

"You were too good for the job," she declared. "What is there in it?
There ain't nobody converted these days that I can see, and what's the
use of gettin' up and preach into a lot of sapheads that don't know what
religion is? Sure they don't."

"Do you?" he asked.

"You've called my bluff." She laughed. "Say, do YOU? If there was
anything in it you'd have kept on preachin' to that bunch and made some
of 'em believe they was headed for hell; you'd have made one of 'em
that owns the flat house I live in, who gets fancy rents out of us poor
girls, give it up. That's a nice kind of business for a church member,
ain't it?"

"Owns the house in which you live!"

"Sure." She smiled at him compassionately, pitying his innocence and
ignorance. "Now I come to think of it, I guess he don't go to your
church,--it's the big Baptist church on the boulevard. But what's the
difference?"

"None," said Hodder, despondently.

She regarded him curiously.

"You remember when you dropped in that night, when the kid was sick?"

He nodded.

"Well, now you ain't in the business any more, I may as well tell you
you kind of got in on me. I was sorry for you--honest, I was. I couldn't
believe at first you was on the level, but it didn't take me long to see
that they had gold-bricked you, too. I saw you weren't wise to what they
were."

"You thought--" he began and paused dumfounded.

"Why not?" she retorted. "It looked easy to me,--your line. How was I to
know at first that they had you fooled? How was I to know you wasn't in
the game?"

"The game?"

"Say, what else is it but a game? You must be on now, ain't you? Why. do
they put up to keep the churches going? There ain't any coupons coming
out of 'em.

"Maybe some of these millionaires think they can play all the horses and
win,--get into heaven and sell gold bricks on the side. But I guess most
of 'em don't think about heaven. They just use the church for a front,
and take in strangers in the back alley,--downtown."

Hodder was silent, overwhelmed by the brutal aptness of her figures. Nor
did he take