last straw. He warned in a half whisper:

"Again I say beware! That is the word--beware!"

He almost shuddered as he spoke, and leaning close to the boy's ear,
added in a confidential tone:

"The King of Babylon! A sinking business! An evil man!" He looked
sternly into the eyes of the boy and whispered: "Very! Oh, very!" He
sat back in his seat again, while the expression of his whole figure
seemed to say, "Thank God, my conscience is clear, whatever happens to
you."

Jack was so taken down by all this that, for a moment, his head swam.
Mr. Pinhorn added:

"Prospered, but how? That is the question. Took the money of a friend
and spent it. Many could tell you. Wine! Women! Infidelity! House
built on the sands!"

Mr. Adams had heard most of the gloomy talk of the slim man. Suddenly
he said to the slanderer:

"My friend, did I hear you say that you have been visiting your wife?"

"You did, sir."

"Well, I do not wonder that she lives in another part of the country,"
said Mr. Adams. "I should think that Philadelphia would feel like
moving away from you. I have heard you say that it was a sinking city.
It is nothing of the kind. It is floating in spite of the fact that
there are human sinkers in it like yourself. I hate the heart of lead.
This is the land of hope and faith and confidence. If you do not like
it here, go back to England. _We_ do not put our money into holes in
the wall. We lend it to our neighbors because they are worthy of being
trusted. We believe in our neighbors. We put our cash into business
and borrow more to increase our profits. It is true that many men in
Philadelphia are in debt, but they are mostly good for what they owe.
It is a thriving place. I could not help hearing you speak evil of
Doctor Franklin. He is my friend. I am proud to say it and I should
be no friend of his if I allowed your words to go unrebuked. Yours,
sir, is a leaden soul. It is without hope or trust in the things of
this life. You seem not to know that a new world is born. It is a
world of three tenses. We who really live in it are chiefly interested
in what a man is and is likely _to be_, not in what he _was_. Doctor
Franklin would not hesitate to tell you that his youth was not all it
should have been. He does not conceal his errors. There is no more
honest gentleman in the wide world than Doctor Franklin."

Mr. Adams had spoken with feeling and a look of indignation in his
ey