fore the aged priest.

"How may I help you? asked the Cardinal. He was an old man and this was
a young man. No more; no less; both of them children.

"Your Eminence, I am the unfortunate American who in his misguided way
has tried to feed the hungry in order that New York's grown children may
realize that charity is not dead. If I have used the methods of a
mountebank it is because I have labored where God had been forgotten,
almost."

"Generalities are not always verities, though they may come close to
them. I know about your work. I shall be glad to do what I can for you."

"Thank you, sir. I promised to give ten thousand dollars in cash to any
New-Yorker who could answer this question: What is it we have all heard
about from earnest childhood and that we acknowledge exists; that is
neither a person nor a beast, neither a thing nor an object, but
something that no man can kill, though it is dead to-day; that all men
need and most New-Yorkers neglect; that should be present everywhere and
is found in no trade? The answer is a word of five letters and begins
with 'A.' There is a synonym that, though not exactly obsolete, is at
least obsolescent."

"Five letters? Is it in English?" smiled the Cardinal.

"It is in every good English dictionary. I think the dictionary is the
only place in which I can find it nowadays."

"Oh no, my son." And the Cardinal shook his head in kindly dissent.

"Reverend sir, I said anybody with brains could guess it."

"It was not an ingenuous question, Mr. Rutgers."

"It was a coupon that entitled anybody who held it to answer the
question and get ten thousand dollars. It was part of a ticket for
which the holder paid twenty-five cents to feed a starving fellow-being.
But what I wish you to do is to assure the reporters that it was a
legitimate question. The word is _Anima_."

"I knew it."

"Because you use it every day."

"But your condition--"

"New York's condition, your Eminence," corrected H. R., politely. "I
said the synonym, _soul_, would answer. Nobody won the ten thousand
dollars. New York will cudgel its brains because it did not win the ten
thousand dollars. In searching for the missing word it may find
something more precious--the missing _soul_."

"Your way is not our way, but perhaps--" The Cardinal was silent, his
kindly eyes meditatively bent on H. R.

"The reporters, your Eminence--" began H. R., apologetically.

"Ah yes!" And the white-haired prelate accom