whips for the town
herd. Then he remembered the verses Watts had written about Bob
Hendricks and him in that very room, and the music he and Watts had
played together there. The old song Watts had made in his presence in
the hospital at St. Louis came back to his mind. Did it come because
outside the band had halted and was playing that old song to serenade
Watts McHurdie? Or did it come because John Barclay was wondering if,
had he made a poet of himself, or a man of spiritual and not of
material power, it would have been better for him?

Heaven knows why the old tune came into his head. But when he
recognized that they were serenading the little harness maker, and
that so far as they thought of John Barclay and his power and his
achievements, it was with scorn, he had a flash of insight into his
relations with the world that illumined his soul for a moment and then
died away. The great Mr. Barclay, alone, sitting in the dingy little
harness shop, can hear the band strike up the old familiar tune again,
and hear the crowd cheer and roar its applause at the little harness
maker, who stands shamefaced and abashed, coatless and aproned, before
the crowd. And he is only a poet--hardly a poet, would be a better
way to say it; an exceedingly bad poet who makes bad rhymes, and
thinks trite thoughts, and says silly and often rather stupid things,
but who once had his say, and for that one hour of glorious liberty of
the soul has moved millions of hearts to love him. John Barclay does
not envy Watts McHurdie--not at all; for Barclay, with all his
faults, is not narrow-gauged; he does not wish they would call for
him--not to-day--not at all; he could not face them now, even if
they cheered him. He says in his heart of pride, beneath his stiff
neck, that it is all right; that Watts,--poor little church-mouse of
a Watts, whom he could buy five times over with the money that has
dropped into the Barclay till since he entered the shop--that Watts
should have his due; but only--only--only--that is it--only, but
only--!

CHAPTER XXVI

And now as we go out into the busy world, after this act in the
dawning of John Barclay's life, let the court convene, and the
reporters gather, and the honourable special counsel for the
government rage, and the defendant sit nervous and fidgety as the
honourable counsel reads the indictment; let the counsel for the
defendant swell and strut with indignation that such indignities
should be