f a tragedy in which all have borne more or less important parts.
The most thoughtless of them cannot but feel that a more powerful hand
than their own has shaped their lives and determined their destinies.

The boys are called in, and the company gather to their banquet, amid
conversation and laughter.

Mr. Balfour turns to Jim and says: "How does this compare with Number
Nine, Jim? Isn't this better than the woods?"

Jim has been surveying the preparations with a critical and
professional eye, for professional purposes. The hotel-keeper keeps
himself constantly open to suggestions, and the table before him
suggests so much, that his own establishment seems very humble and
imperfect.

"I ben thinkin' about it," Jim responds. "When a man has got all he
wants, he's brung up standin' at the end of his road. If thar ain't
comfort then, then there ain't no comfort. When he's got more nor he
wants, then he's got by comfort, and runnin' away from it. I hearn the
women talk about churnin' by, so that the butter never comes, an' a man
as has more money nor he wants churns by his comfort, an' spends his
life swashin' with his dasher, and wonderin' where his butter is. Old
Belcher's butter never come, but he worked away till his churn blowed
up, an' he went up with it."

"So you think our good friend Mr. Benedict has got so much that he has
left comfort behind," says Mr. Balfour with a laugh.

"I should be afeard he had, if he could reelize it was all his'n, but he
can't. He hain't got no more comfort here, no way, nor he used to have
in the woods." Then Jim leans over to Mr. Balfour's ear, and says: "It's
the woman as does it. It's purty to look at, but it's too pertickler for
comfort."

Mr. Balfour sees that he and Jim are observed, and so speaks louder.
"There is one thing," he says: "that I have learned in the course of
this business. It does not lie very deep, but it is at least worth
speaking of. I have learned how infinitely more interesting and
picturesque vulgar poverty is than vulgar riches. One can find more
poetry in a log cabin than in all that wealth ever crowded into
Palgrave's Folly. If poor men and poor women, honest and patient
workers, could only apprehend the poetical aspects of their own lives
and conditions, instead of imagining that wealth holds a monopoly of the
poetry of life, they would see that they have the best of it, and are
really enviable people."

Jim knows, of course, that his old cabin