ference in Joe's ears,
J.W. stared with inane bewilderment. "Is one really larger than the
other?" he asked, helplessly.

Joe took his hands down, and laughed. "I knew it," he said. "You've
never observed my ears, and yet you think you have observed Main Street.
As it happens, each of my ears takes the same-sized ear-muff. But you
didn't know it. Well, never mind ears; I'm thinking about Main Street.
What do you know of Main Street?"

J.W. thought he could make up for the ear question. So he said, boldly,
"Joe Carbrook, I can name every place from here to the livery barn
north, and from here to the bridge south, on both sides of the street.
Want me to prove it?"

"No, J.W., I don't. I reckon you can. But I believe you're still as
blind as I've been about Main Street, just the same. I know Chicago
pretty well and I doubt if there's as big a percentage of graft and
littleness and dollar-pinching and going to the devil generally on
State Street or Wabash Avenue as there is an Main Street, Delafield."

"You're not trying to say that our business men are crooks, are you,
Joe?" J.W. asked, with a touch of resentment. "You know I happen to be
connected with a business house on Main Street myself."

"Sure, I know it, and there's Marshall Field's on State Street, and Lyon
& Healy's on Wabash Avenue, and Hart, Schaffner & Marx over by the
Chicago River; just the same as here. But I--well, of course, there's a
story back of it all. Mother heard a couple of weeks ago that one of our
old Epworth League girls was having a hard time of it--she's working at
the Racket store, helping to support her folks. They've had sickness,
and the girl doesn't get big wages. So mother asked me to look her up.
Mother can't get about very easily, you know, and since I'm studying
medicine she seems to think I'm the original Mr. Fix-It. I made a few
discreet inquiries, discreet, that is, for me, and can you guess who
that girl is? You can't, I know. Well, she's Alma Wetherell, and that's
the identical girl who gave me such a dressing down one day at the
Cartwright Institute four years ago. Remember? Say, J.W., that day she
told me so much of the deadly truth about myself that I hated her even
more for knowing what to say than I did for saying it. But she had a big
lot to do with waking me up, and I owe her something."

J.W. had not remembered the Institute incident. But he recalled that
Alma was at Cartwright that summer, and he had seen her at ch