ith me. Surely, Brother Gorringe, between
a pastor and a probationer who--"

"No," Gorringe broke in; "quarrel isn't the word for it. There isn't any
quarrel, Mr. Ware." He stepped down from the door-stone to the sidewalk
as he spoke, and stood face to face with Theron. Working-men with
dinner-pails, and factory girls, were passing close to them, and he
lowered his voice to a sharp, incisive half-whisper as he added, "It
wouldn't be worth any grown man's while to quarrel with so poor a
creature as you are."

Theron stood confounded, with an empty stare of bewilderment on his
face. It rose in his mind that the right thing to feel was rage,
righteous indignation, fury; but for the life of him, he could not
muster any manly anger. The character of the insult stupefied him.

"I do not know that I have anything to say to you in reply," he
remarked, after what seemed to him a silence of minutes. His lips
framed the words automatically, but they expressed well enough the blank
vacancy of his mind. The suggestion that anybody deemed him a "poor
creature" grew more astounding, incomprehensible, as it swelled in his
brain.

"No, I suppose not," snapped Gorringe. "You're not the sort to stand up
to men; your form is to go round the corner and take it out of somebody
weaker than yourself--a defenceless woman, for instance."

"Oh--ho!" said Theron. The exclamation had uttered itself. The sound of
it seemed to clarify his muddled thoughts; and as they ranged themselves
in order, he began to understand. "Oh--ho!" he said again, and nodded
his head in token of comprehension.

The lawyer, chewing his cigar with increased activity, glared at him.
"What do you mean?" he demanded peremptorily.

"Mean?" said the minister. "Oh, nothing that I feel called upon to
explain to you."

It was passing strange, but his self-possession had all at once returned
to him. As it became more apparent that the lawyer was losing his
temper, Theron found the courage to turn up the corners of his lips in
show of a bitter little smile of confidence. He looked into the other's
dusky face, and flaunted this smile at it in contemptuous defiance. "It
is not a subject that I can discuss with propriety--at this stage," he
added.

"Damn you! Are you talking about those flowers?"

"Oh, I am not talking about anything in particular," returned Theron,
"not even the curious choice of language which my latest probationer
seems to prefer."

"Go and strike my