, he was of late. Hazy optimism: O'Neill
repeated the phrase, liking it. Still it was possible he might manage to
work on the girl's feelings--O'Neill was sure it was the girl--whatever
that was worth. He was a kind of appealing fellow, and did have
connections with the swells, though it was really he, O'Neill, and Mrs.
O., who ought ...

"Well, be good," said he, as they emerged from the decayed grand
entrance. "I'm breakin' in a new stenographer--troubles of my own. See
you again in a day or two."

"All right. And by the way," said the tall doctor, speaking with polite
restraint, "please don't get it into your head that I'm letting up on
these people, or anything of that sort. As a matter of fact, my tendency
is all the other way. Not to judge them too harshly--not to do the--the
most serious injustice--that's what _I've_ got to guard against...."

He turned away, bareheaded in the mild January sunshine, and crossed to
Meeghan's, where his telephone call proved to be from Rev. Mr. Dayne,
desiring a personal conference later in the day. Cumbered with many
cares though he was, the kind-faced Secretary of Charities had been
captured at sight by Vivian's plan of buying the old Dabney House, and
bringing it to life again as a great Settlement. The problem now
engrossing both was how to raise the necessary money, twenty-five
thousand dollars being a large sum, particularly with the benevolent
field just swept clean by the Associated Charities canvass. However, the
tireless Secretary seldom despaired, V. Vivian never. The young man
promised eagerly to call on Mr. Dayne, whom, in common with most of the
rest of the world, he admired immensely.

Hanging up the receiver, Vivian purchased a five-cent box of blacking, a
commodity not ranking among Meeghan's best sellers, and returned to make
ready for his professional rounds. In the closet of his bedroom, where
he went for hat and coat, he was struck with the brooding sense of
something lost, and readily recalled the episode of the trousers. He
became conscious of a certain feeling of destitution. Undoubtedly the
whole question of new clothes would have to be taken up seriously some
day. For the present there did not lack a sense of economic
precariousness: it was he and these trousers against the world....

While brushing his hat in the bedroom, Vivian wondered if Mister had yet
donned the gift articles, and how he looked in them. He fell to musing
about Kern's erring paren