eads Alice nowadays, ten read the
author of 'Reborn Through Righteousness' and 'Called by the Cause.'
Isn't it so?"

"Mathematically unimpeachable."

"Therefore I ought to get ten times as many people as the other place.
Don't you think so?" she inquired wistfully.

Who am I to withhold a comforting fallacy from a hopeful soul.
"Undoubtedly," I agreed. "But do you love him?"

"Who?" said Barbran, with a start. The faint pink color ran up her
cheeks.

"Harvey Wheelwright, of course. Whom did you think I meant?"

"He is a very estimable writer," returned Barbran primly, quite ignoring
my other query.

"Good-night, Barbran," said I sadly. "I'm going out to mourn your lost
soul."

One might reasonably expect to find peace and quiet in the vicinity of
one's own particular bench at 11.45 P.M. in Our Square. But not at all
on this occasion. There sat Phil Stacey. I challenged him at once.

"What did you do it for?"

To do him justice he did not dodge or pretend to misunderstand. "Pay,"
said he.

"Phil! Did you take money for that stuff?"

"Not exactly. I'm taking it out in trade. I'm going to eat there."

"You'll starve to death."

"I haven't got much of an appetite."

"The inevitable effect of overfeeding on sweets. An uninterrupted diet
of Harvey Wheelwright--"

"Don't speak the swine's name," implored Phil, "or I'll be sick."

"You've sold your artistic birthright for a mess of pottage, probably
indigestible at that."

"I don't care," he averred stoutly. "I don't care for anything
except--Dominie, who told you her father was a millionaire?"

"It's well known," I said vaguely. "He's a cattle king or an emperor of
sheep or the sultan of the piggery or something. A good thing for
Barbran, too, if she expects to keep her cellar going. The kind of
people who read Har--our unmentionable author, don't frequent Bohemian
coffee cellars. They would regard it as reckless and abandoned
debauchery. Barbran has shot at the wrong mark."

"The place has got to be a success," declared Phil between his teeth,
his plain face expressing a sort of desperate determination.

"Otherwise the butterfly will fly back West," I suggested. The boy
winced.

What man could do to make it a success, Phil Stacey did and heroically.
Not only did he eat all his meals there, but he went forth into the
highways and byways and haled in other patrons (whom he privately paid
for) to an extent which threatened to exhaust his means.

O