until it is struck. He would go. He would see with his own eyes
for the purpose of information. He would have his boasted bout with sin.
After this highly valorous conclusion he fell asleep.

The next morning found him wavering again, but he put all his troubled
thoughts away and spent the day in sight-seeing. He came in at night
tired and feeling strange and lonesome. "Whom the gods wish to destroy,
they first make mad," we used to say; but all that is changed now, and
whom the devil wishes to get, he first makes lonesome. Then the victim
is up to anything.

Brent had finished his supper when Perkins came in, but he brightened at
the young clerk's cheery salute, "Hello, there! ready to go, are you?"

"Been ready all day," he replied, with a laugh. "It 's been pretty
slow."

"'Ain't made much out, then, seeing the sights of this little village of
ours? Well, we 'll do better to-night, if the people don't see that
black tie of yours and take you for a preacher getting facts for a
crusade."

Brent blushed and bit his lip, but he only said, "I 'll go up and change
it while you 're finishing your supper."

"Guess you 'd better, or some one will be asking you for a sermon."
Perkins laughed good-naturedly, but he did not know how his words went
home to his companion's sensitive feelings. He thought that his haste in
leaving the room and his evident confusion were only the evidence of a
greenhorn's embarrassment under raillery. He really had no idea that his
comrade's tie was the badge of his despised calling.

Brent was down again in a few minutes, a grey cravat having superseded
the offending black. But even now, as he compared himself with his
guide, he appeared sombre and ascetic. His black Prince Albert coat
showed up gloomy and oppressive against young Perkins's natty drab
cutaway relieved by a dashing red tie. From head to foot the little
clerk was light and dapper; and as they moved along the crowded streets
the preacher felt much as a conscious omnibus would feel beside a
pneumatic-tired sulky.

"You can talk all you want to about your Chicago," Perkins was rattling
on, "but you can bet your life Cincinnati 's the greatest town in the
West. Chicago 's nothing but a big overgrown country town. Everything
looks new and flimsy there to a fellow, but here you get something that
's solid. Chicago 's pretty swift, too, but there ain't no flies on us,
either, when it comes to the go."

Brent thought with dismay ho