professed to have had his supper Jennings did pretty well.

When the meal was over Brown sent Jennings back to the fireside while he
himself washed the dishes. When he rejoined his visitor Jennings looked
up with a sombre face.

"Life's just what that card a fellow tacked up in the office one day says
it is:--'_one damned thing after another_,'" he asserted grimly. "There's
no use trying to see any good in it all."

Brown looked up quickly. Into his eyes leaped a sudden look of
understanding, and of more than understanding--anger with something, or
some one. But his voice was quiet.

"So somebody's put that card up in your office, too. I wonder how many of
them there are tacked up in offices all over the country."

"A good many, I guess."

"I suppose every time you look up at it, it convinces you all over
again," remarked Brown. He picked up the poker, and leaning forward began
to stir the fire.

"I don't need convincing. I know it--I've experienced it. God!--I've had
reason to."

"If you don't believe in Him"--Brown was poking vigorously now--"why
bring Him into the conversation?"

Jennings laughed--a short, ugly laugh. "That sounds like you, always
putting a fellow in a corner. I use the word, I suppose, to--"

"To give force to what you say? It does it, in a way. But it's not the
way you use it when you address Him, is it?"

"I don't address Him." Jennings's tone was defiant.

Brown continued lightly to poke the fire. "About that card," said he.
"I've often wondered just how many poor chaps it's been responsible for
putting down and out."

Jennings stared. "Oh, it's just a joke. I laughed the first time
I saw it."

"And the second time?"

"I don't remember. The fellows were all laughing over it when it first
came out."

"It _was_ a clever thing, a tremendously clever thing, for a man to think
of saying. There's so much humour in it. To a man who happened to be
already feeling that way, one can see just how it would cheer him up,
give him courage, brace him to take a fresh hold."

Jennings grunted. "Oh, well; if you're going to take every joke with such
deadly seriousness--"

"You took it lightly, did you? It's seemed like a real joke to you? It's
grown funnier and funnier every day, each time it caught your eye?"

But now Jennings groaned. "No, it hasn't. But that's because it's too
true to keep on seeming funny."

Brown suddenly brought his fist down on the arm of Jennings's rocker
with a