f hands and kicking of heels and some
slapping of suspenders, as the voices of Kenyon and Lila came into the
veranda from the lawn, and the Doctor cast up his accounts: "Let's see
now--naught's a naught and figure's a figure and carry six, and subtract
the profits and multiply the trouble and you have a busted community.
Correct," he piped, "Bedelia, my dear, observe a busted community. Your
affectionate lord and master, kind husband, indulgent father, good
citizen gone but not forgotten. How are the mighty fallen."

"Doctor," snapped Mrs. Nesbit, "don't be a fool; tell me, James, will
Tom Van Dorn want to run again?"

Making a basket with his hands for the back of his head the Doctor
answered slowly, "Ho-ho-ho! Oh, I don't know--I should say--yes. He'll
just about have to run--for a Vindication."

"Well, you'll not support him! I say you'll not support him," Mrs.
Nesbit decided, and the Doctor echoed blandly:

"Then I'll not support him. Where's Laura?" he asked gently.

"She went down to South Harvey to see about that kindergarten she's been
talking of. She seems almost cheerful about the way Kenyon is getting on
with his music. She says the child reads as well as she now and plays
everything on the violin that she can play on the piano. Doctor," added
Mrs. Nesbit meditatively, "now about those oriental rugs we were going
to put upstairs--don't you suppose we could take the money we were going
to put there and help Laura with that kindergarten? Perhaps she'd take a
real interest in life through those children down there." The wife
hesitated and asked, "Would you do it?"

The Doctor drummed his chair arm thoughtfully, then put his thumbs in
his suspenders. "Greater love than this hath no woman shown, my
dear--that she gives up oriental rugs for a kindergarten--by all means
give it to her."

"James, Lila still grieves for her father."

"Yes," answered the Doctor sadly, "and Henry Fenn was in the office this
morning begging me to give him something that would kill his thirst."

The doctor brought his hands down emphatically on his chair arms. "Duty,
Bedelia, is the realest obligation in the world. Here are Lila and Henry
Fenn. What a miserable lot of tommy rot about soul-mating Tom and this
Fenn woman conjured up to get away from their duty to child and husband.
They have swapped a place with the angels for a right to wallow with the
hogs; that's what all their fine talking amounts to." The Doctor's
shrill voic