nd
somewhat scared.

Mrs. Chester arose, and Oldfield's heart ached for her. "Madame," he
said, "any man who leaves wife and child to worry over him for days
while he carouses is to an extent a brute. There is no comprehensive
excuse for him. But when one is living with, and intends to go on living
with a man who at times becomes such a brute, it is as well to know and
acknowledge his weak points, and forbear to press him too far, even in
the best cause, even when you are perfectly right, as I am sure you
always are, for example. But let us come back to our original topic of
conversation. I am afraid you cannot see Ned to-day. I will call upon
him, and then telephone you his exact condition, telling you if he needs
anything. And to-morrow, after the doctor has made his morning visit, I
will send you another message. Ned will be all right and at home in a
day or two.

"In the mean time you might think over what I have said to you, and make
up your mind whether I am right or not. About what, you ask, Miss
Chester? Oh! only some nonsense I have been talking to your mother, a
sort of theory of mine with which she has no patience, I can see.
Good-by, ladies--no, don't waste time thanking me; I am glad if I have
been of any use. Good-by."

He bowed them into the elevator, and slowly drifted back into the club
library. "Of all fools I am the prize fool!" he murmured to himself. And
he called Joseph, and with him set forth to the Barrett House to see Ned
Chester.

THE RAIN-MAKER

John Gray, civil engineer, good looking and aged twenty-eight, was
engaged in the service of the United States of America. He had, upon
emerging from college, been fortunate enough to secure a place among the
new graduates who are utilized in making what is called the "lake
survey," that is, the work upon the great inland seas we designate as
lakes, and had finally from that drifted into work for the Agricultural
Department--a department which, though latest established, is bound,
with its force for good upon this great producing continent, to rank
eventually with any place in the cabinet of the President. In the
Agricultural Department John Gray, being clever and a hard worker, had
risen rapidly, and had finally been appointed assistant to the ranking
official whose duty it was to visit certain arid regions of Arizona and
there seek by scientific methods to produce a sudden rainfall over
parched areas, and so make the desert blossom as