nted----"

"Look here: suppose you give a cook a soup-bone and some vegetables, and
pay her to make you a soup: has she got a right to take and sell it? You
know better!"

"I know ONE thing: if that old man tried to keep your own invention from
you he's no better than a robber!"

They never found any point of contact in all their passionate
discussions of this ethical question; and the question was no more
settled between them, now that Adams had succumbed, than it had ever
been. But at least the wrangling about it was over: they were grave
together, almost silent, and an uneasiness prevailed with her as much as
with him.

He had already been out of the house, to walk about the small green
yard; and on Monday afternoon he sent for a taxicab and went down-town,
but kept a long way from the "wholesale section," where stood the
formidable old oblong pile of Lamb and Company. He arranged for the
sale of the bonds he had laid away, and for placing a mortgage upon his
house; and on his way home, after five o'clock, he went to see an old
friend, a man whose term of service with Lamb and Company was even a
little longer than his own.

This veteran, returned from the day's work, was sitting in front of the
apartment house where he lived, but when the cab stopped at the curb he
rose and came forward, offering a jocular greeting. "Well, well, Virgil
Adams! I always thought you had a sporty streak in you. Travel in
your own hired private automobile nowadays, do you? Pamperin' yourself
because you're still layin' off sick, I expect."

"Oh, I'm well enough again, Charley Lohr," Adams said, as he got out and
shook hands. Then, telling the driver to wait, he took his friend's arm,
walked to the bench with him, and sat down. "I been practically well for
some time," he said. "I'm fixin' to get into harness again."

"Bein' sick has certainly produced a change of heart in you," his
friend laughed. "You're the last man I ever expected to see blowin'
yourself--or anybody else to a taxicab! For that matter, I never heard
of you bein' in ANY kind of a cab, 'less'n it might be when you been
pall-bearer for somebody. What's come over you?"

"Well, I got to turn over a new leaf, and that's a fact," Adams said. "I
got a lot to do, and the only way to accomplish it, it's got to be done
soon, or I won't have anything to live on while I'm doing it."

"What you talkin' about? What you got to do except to get strong enough
to come back to th