s was a capitalist of national importance.

The neighbourhood they traversed was characteristic of our rapidly
expanding American cities. There were rows of dwelling houses, once
ultra-respectable, now slatternly, and lawns gone grey; some of these
houses had been remodelled into third-rate shops, or thrown together to
make manufacturing establishments: saloons occupied all the favourable
corners. Flaming posters on vacant lots announced, pictorially, dubious
attractions at the theatres. It was a wonderful Indian summer day, the
sunlight soft and melting; and the smoke which continually harassed this
district had lifted a little, as though in deference to the Sabbath.

Hodder read the sign on a lamp post, Dalton Street. The name clung in
his memory.

"We thought, some twenty years ago, of moving the church westward," said
Mr. Parr, "but finally agreed to remain where we were."

The rector had a conviction on this point, and did not hesitate to state
it without waiting to be enlightened as to the banker's views.

"It would seem to me a wise decision," he said, looking out of the
window, and wholly absorbed in the contemplation of the evidences of
misery and vice, "with this poverty at the very doors of the church."

Something in his voice impelled Eldon Parr to shoot a glance at his
profile.

"Poverty is inevitable, Mr. Hodder," he declared. "The weak always
sink."

Hodder's reply, whatever it might have been, was prevented by the sudden
and unceremonious flight of both occupants toward the ceiling of the
limousine, caused by a deep pit in the asphalt.

"What are you doing, Gratton?" Mr. Parr called sharply through the tube.

Presently, the lawns began to grow brighter, the houses more cheerful,
and the shops were left behind. They crossed the third great transverse
artery of the city (not so long ago, Mr. Parr remarked, a quagmire), now
lined by hotels and stores with alluring displays in plate glass windows
and entered a wide boulevard that stretched westward straight to the
great Park. This boulevard the financier recalled as a country road
of clay. It was bordered by a vivid strip, of green; a row of tall
and graceful lamp posts, like sentinels, marked its course; while the
dwellings, set far back on either side, were for the most part large and
pretentious, betraying in their many tentative styles of architecture
the reaching out of a commercial nation after beauty. Some, indeed, were
simple of line and r