he church uncomfortably full of
strangers and run you out of your pews." Thus he had capped the
financier. Well, if they had caught a tartar, it served him, Nelson
Langmaid, right. He recalled his talk with Gerald Whitely, and how his
brother-in-law had lost his temper when they had got on the subject of
personality . . . .

Perhaps Wallis Plimpton could do something. Langmaid's hopes of this
were not high. It may have been that he had suspicions of what Mr.
Plimpton would have called Hodder's "reasonableness." One thing was
clear--that Mr. Plimpton was frightened. In the sanctuaries, the private
confessionals of high finance (and Nelson Langmaid's office may be called
so), the more primitive emotions are sometimes exhibited.

"I don't see what business it is of a clergyman, or of any one else,
whether I own property in Dalton Street," Mr. Plimpton had said, as he
sat on the edge of the lawyer's polished mahogany desk. "What does he
expect us to do,--allow our real estate to remain unproductive merely for
sentimental reasons? That's like a parson, most of 'em haven't got any
more common sense than that. What right has he got to go nosing around
Dalton Street? Why doesn't he stick to his church?"

"I thought you fellows were to build him a settlement house there,"
Langmaid observed.

"On the condition that he wouldn't turn socialist."

"You'd better have stipulated it in the bond," said the lawyer, who could
not refrain, even at this solemn moment, from the temptation of playing
upon Mr. Plimpton's apprehensions. "I'm afraid he'll make it his
business, Wallis, to find out whether you own anything in Dalton Street.
I'll bet he's got a list of Dalton Street property in his pocket right
now."

Mr. Plimpton groaned.

"Thank God I don't own any of it!" said Langmaid.

"What the deuce does he intend to do?" the other demanded.

"Read it out in church," Langmaid suggested. "It wouldn't sound pretty,
Wallis, to be advertised in the post on Monday morning as owning that
kind of a hotel."

"Oh, he's a gentleman," said Mr. Plimpton, "he wouldn't do anything as
low as that!"

"But if he's become a socialist?" objected Langmaid.

"He wouldn't do it," his friend reiterated, none too confidently.
"I shouldn't be surprised if he made me resign from the vestry and forced
me to sell my interest. It nets me five thousand a year."

"What is the place?" Langmaid asked sympathetically, "Harrod's?"

Mr. Plimpton nodded.

"N