d, peddling papers to pay your bills with! Them folks found
him one morning in a doorway, asleep!"

The old seaman's voice choked. He slowly refilled his pipe. When he
resumed his narrative, his breath was coming heavily. "This Rogers
feller lost all track of 'em. He made money fast after he got on his
feet, but all his searching got him nothing. The old lady said they kept
paying some interest or other on a debt Adoniah owed to you in order to
save some property of his. I didn't tumble just then what 'twas she
meant. But I found out to-night. When the old man died, Mrs. Rogers shut
down on that paying business and began in real earnest to look for her
darter."

The Elder had slouched forward in his chair.

"You thought you was hid, and so you come back to this town to stick
your head in one of its sand-heaps. I tell you, Jim, I ain't been very
strong on the p'int of a Providence directing our ways. It's always
seemed to me like a blind force pushing us from behind. But I'm getting
converted. When that there missionary showed up at the installing
meeting, the devil come right forward and asked for his pay. Means
wa'n't long in seeing the mother's face in Mack.

"It was Mack who sold them papers. It was that low-down missionary of a
Means who was working in a mission down on the East Side after coming
back who put him in with that janitor woman. You both done all the dirt
you could to his dad by stealing all he had, and now because you've been
scared that he'd squeal on you, the both of you are trying to steal his
right to live as a man. I suppose if you'd have known that he was as
ignorant as a babe about all this, you'd done nothing against him. But
Providence come in by way of your own home. Harold got that woman over
here afore he knew where the scent was going, but he can't stop her now.
Beth found it all out to-day, too."

The expected blast of hot denial and bitter denunciation did not follow.
Instead, the Elder merely bent his head and acknowledged it all. He did
not bewail his misfortune. He seemed beyond that.

"It's a mighty bad thing, Jim, when a feller lets the furniture of his
house get more important than himself, ain't it? It leaves him kind of
bare when it's all moved out."

"Josiah, you're right. It's even worse when the furniture has been
stolen," remarked the man. He raised his head and looked at the little
gilt-framed picture on the desk. He covered his face. With a dry sob he
folded his arms