wearily.

"Isn't this the bitterest luck!" he cried. "I've finished the town. I've
almost walked off my legs. I've sold flowers by the million, but I've
not had a sight of her."

"It's been almost a tragedy with me," said the doctor gloomily. "I've
killed two dogs and grazed a baby, because I was watching the sidewalks
instead of the street. What are you going to do now?"

"I am going home and bring up the work to the July mark. I am going to
take it easy and rest a few days so I can think more clearly. I don't
know what I'll try next. I've punched up the depot and the policemen
again. When I get something new thought out I'll let you know."

Then he began emptying his pockets of money and heaping it on the table,
small coins, bills, big and little.

"What on earth is that?"

"That," said the Harvester, giving the heap a shove of contempt, "that
is the price of my pride and humiliation. That is what it cost people
who allowed me to cheek my way into their homes and rob them, as one
maid said, for my own purposes. Doc, where on earth does all the money
come from? In almost every house I entered, women had it to waste, in
many cases to throw away. I never saw so much paid for nothing in all my
life. That whole heap is from mushrooms and flowers."

"What are you piling it there for?"

"For your free ward. I don't want a penny of it. I wouldn't keep it, not
if I was starving."

"Why David! You couldn't compel any one to buy. You offered something
they wanted, and they paid you what you asked."

"Yes, and to keep them from buying, and to make the stuff go farther, I
named prices to shame a shark. When I think of that mushroom deal I can
feel my face burn. I've made the search I wanted to, and I am satisfied
that I can't find her that way. I have kept up my work at home between
times. I am not out anything but my time, and it isn't fair to plunder
the city to pay that. Take that cussed money and put it where I'll never
see or hear of it. Do anything you please, except to ask me ever to
profit by a cent. When I wash my hands after touching it for the last
time maybe I'll feel better."

"You are a fanatic!"

"If getting rid of that is being a fanatic, I am proud of the title. You
can't imagine what I've been through!"

"Can't I though?" laughed the doctor. "In work of that kind you get into
every variety of place; and some of it is new to you. Never mind! No one
can contaminate you. It is the law that only a ma