. With this end in view, he was making more than
ordinary village speed when disaster befell him in the shape of a break
in his electric connections. Two blocks away from the hotel he sought,
the car suddenly went dead.

While he was investigating, fingers blue with cold, a voice he knew
hailed him. It came from a young man who advanced from the doorway of a
store, in front of which the car had chanced to stop. "Something wrong,
Rich?"

Richard stood up. He gripped his friend's hand cordially, glancing up at
the sign above the store as he did so.

"Mighty glad to see you, Benson," he responded. "I didn't realize I'd
stopped in front of your father's place of business."

Hugh Benson was a college classmate. In spite of the difference between
their respective estates in the college world, the two had been rather
good friends during the four years of their being thrown together. Since
graduation, however, they had seldom met, and for the last two years
Richard Kendrick had known no more of his former friend than that the
good-sized dry-goods store, standing on a prominent corner in the large
town through which he often motored without stopping, still bore the
name of Hugh Benson's father.

When the car was running again Benson climbed in and showed Richard the
way to his own home, where he prevailed on his friend to remain for
lunch with himself and his mother. Richard learned for the first time
that Benson's father had died within the last year.

"And you're going on with the business?" questioned Richard, as the two
lingered alone together in Benson's hall before parting. The talk during
the meal had been mostly of old college days, of former classmates, and
of the recent history of nearly every mutual acquaintance except that of
the speakers themselves.

"There was nothing else for me to do when father left us," Benson
responded in a low tone. "I'm not as well adapted to it as he was, but
I expect to learn."

"I remember you thought of doing graduate work along scientific lines.
Did you give that up?"

"Yes. I found father needed me at home; his health must have been
failing even then, though I didn't realize it. I've been in the store
with him ever since. I'm glad I have--now."

"It's not been good for you," declared Richard, scrutinizing his
friend's pale and rather worn face critically. It would have seemed to
him still paler and more worn if he could have seen it in contrast with
his own fresh-tinted fe