man or woman and influences that life so long as it is lived here on
earth, is on the surface sufficiently finite for us to say: It was on
such a day I made my decision; to such and such an event I can look back
as the cause of all that has followed. The How thereof remains traceable
to our purblind eyes for a month, a term of years, one generation,
possibly two; the Where and When can generally be defined; but the _Why_
we ask blindly, and are rarely answered satisfactorily.

Had young Googe been told, while he was walking homewards up The Gore,
that his life line, like the antenna of the wireless, was even then the
recipient and transmitter of multiple influences that had been, as it
were, latent in the storage batteries of a generation; that what he was
to be in the future was at this very hour in germ for development, he
would have scouted the idea. His young self-sufficiency would have
laughed the teller to scorn. He would have maintained as a man his
mastership of his fate and fortunes, and whistled as carelessly as he
whistled now for the puppy, an Irish terrier which he had brought home
with him, for training, to come and meet him.

And the puppy, whose name was Ragamuffin and called Rag for short, came
duly, unknowing, like his young master, to meet his fate. He wriggled
broad-side down the walk as a puppy will in his first joy till,
overpowered by his emotions, he rolled over on his back at Champney's
feet, the fringes of his four legs waving madly in air.

"Champney, I'm waiting for you." It was his mother calling from the
door. He ran in through the kitchen, and hurried to make himself
presentable for the table and their guest whom he saw on the front
porch.

As he entered the dining-room, his mother introduced him: "Father
Honore, my son, Champney."

The two men shook hands, and Mrs. Googe took her seat. The priest bowed
his head momentarily to make the sign of the cross. Champney Googe shot
one keen, amazed look in his direction. When that head was lifted
Champney "opened fire," so he termed it to himself.

"I think I've seen you before, sir." It was hard for him to give the
title "Father." "I got in your way, didn't I, at the theatre one evening
over a year ago?"

His mother looked at him in amazement and something of anxiety. Was her
son in his prejudice forgetting himself?

"Indeed, I think it was the other way round, I was in your way, for I
remember thinking when you ran up against me 'that