igmarole beginning, 'Friends, Romans, countrymen,'" Mark Antony's
immortal oration.

"Well," said the minister, as they drove away from the school, "what do
you think of that, now?"

"Marvelous!" exclaimed his wife. "What dramatic power, what insight,
what interpretation!"

"You may say so," exclaimed her husband. "What an actor he would make!"

"Yes," said his wife, "or what a minister he would make! I understand,
now, his wonderful influence over Hughie, and I am afraid."

"O, he can't do Hughie any harm with things like that," replied her
husband, emphatically.

"No, but Hughie now and then repeats some of his sayings about--about
religion and religious convictions, that I don't like. And then he is
hanging about that Twentieth store altogether too much, and I fancied
I noticed something strange about him last Friday evening when he came
home so late."

"O, nonsense," said the minister. "His reputation has prejudiced you,
and that is not fair, and your imagination does the rest."

"Well, it is a great pity that he should not do something with himself,"
replied his wife. "There are great possibilities in that young man."

"He does not take himself seriously enough," said her husband. "That is
the chief trouble with him."

And this was apparently Jack Craven's opinion of himself, as is evident
from his letter to his college friend, Ned Maitland.

"Dear Ned:--

"For the last two months I have been seeking to adjust myself to my
surroundings, and find it no easy business. I have struck the land
of the Anakim, for the inhabitants are all of 'tremenjous' size, and
indeed, 'tremenjous' in all their ways, more particularly in their
religion. Religion is all over the place. You are liable to come upon a
boy anywhere perched on a fence corner with a New Testament in his hand,
and on Sunday the 'tremenjousness' of their religion is overwhelming.
Every other interest in life, as meat, drink, and dress, are purely
incidental to the main business of the day, which is the delivering,
hearing, and discussing of sermons.

"The padre, at whose house I am very happily quartered, is a
'tremenjous' preacher. He has visions, and gives them to me. He gives
me chills and thrills as well, and has discovered to me a conscience, a
portion of my anatomy that I had no suspicion of possessing.

"The congregation is like the preacher. They will sit for two hours,
and after a break of a few minutes they will sit again for two hou