ke her court stenographer next month right after the
election."

When the Doctor drew in a breath to speak, Van Dorn put out a hand,
checked the elder man and said blandly and smilingly, "And, Father Jim,
I'm going to be elected--I'm dead sure of election."

The Doctor thought he saw a glint of sheer malicious impudence in Van
Dorn's smile as he finished speaking: "And anyway, pater, we mustn't
quarrel right now--Just at this time, Laura--"

"You're a sly dog, now, ain't you! Ain't you a sly dog?" shrilled the
Doctor in sputtering rage. Then the blaze in his eyes faded and he cried
in despair: "Tom, Tom, isn't there any way I can put the fear of God
into you?"

Van Dorn realized that he had won the contest. So he forbore to strike
again.

"Doctor Jim, I'm afraid you can't jar me much with the fear of God. You
have a God that sneaks in the back door of matter as a kind of a divine
immanence that makes for progress and Joe Calvin in there has a God with
whiskers who sits on a throne and runs a sort of police court; but one's
as impossible as the other. I have no God at all," his chest swelled
magnificently, "and here's what happens":

He was talking against time and the Doctor realized it. But his scorn
was crusting over his anger and he listened as the young Judge amused
himself: "I've defended gamblers and thugs--and crooks, some rich, some
poor, mostly poor and mostly guilty. And Joe has been free attorney for
the law and order league and has given the church free advice and
entertained preachers when he wasn't hiding out from his wife. And he's
gone to conference and been a deacon and given to the Lord all his life.
And now that it's good business for him to have me elected, can he get a
vote out of all his God-and-morality crowd? Not a vote. And all I have
to do is to wiggle my finger and the whole crowd of thugs and blacklegs
and hoodlums and rich and poor line up for me--no matter how pious I
talk. I tell you, Father Jim--there's nothing in your God theory. It
doesn't work. My job is to get the best out of myself possible." But
this was harking back to Violet Mauling and the young Judge smiled with
bland impertinence as he finished, "The fittest survive, my dear pater,
and I propose to keep fit--to keep fit--and survive!"

The Doctor's anger cooled, but the pain still twinged his heart, the
pain that came as he saw clearly and surely that his daughter's life was
bound to the futile task of making bricks wit