re,--home missionary, he calls it, though I always thought a home
missionary was one that was home from China on a half-pay visit.

Mainly he says he drifts around through the coke oven and glass works
district, where all the Polackers and other dagoes work. He don't let it
go with preachin' to 'em, though. He pokes around among their shacks,
seein' how they live, sendin' doctors for sick babies, givin' the women
folks hints on the use of fresh air and hard soap, an' advisin' 'em to
keep their kids in school. He's one of them strenuous chaps, too, that
believes in stirrin' up a fuss whenever he runs across anything he thinks
is wrong. One of the fights he's been making is something about the boys
in the glass works.

"Perhaps you have heard of our efforts to have a child labor bill passed
in our State?" says he.

"No," says I; "but I'm against it. There's enough kids has to answer the
mill whistle, without passin' laws to make 'em."

Then he explains how the bill is to keep 'em from goin' at it too young,
or workin' too many hours on a stretch. Course, I'm with him on that, and
says so.

"Ah!" says he. "Then you may be interested to learn that young Mr. Rankin
is the most extensive employer of child labor in our State. That is what
I want to talk to him about."

"Ever see Bobby?" says I.

He says he hasn't.

"Know anything of his habits, and so on?" I asks.

"Not a thing," says the Rev. Sam.

"Then you take it from me," says I, "that you ain't missed much."

See? I couldn't go all over that record of Bobby Brut's, specially to a
preacher. Not that Bobby was the worst that ever cruised around the Milky
Way in a sea goin' cab with his feet over the dasher; but he was
something of a torrid proposition while he lasted. You remember some of
his stunts, maybe? I hadn't kept strict tabs on him; but I'd heard that
after they chucked him out of the sanatorium his mother planted him here,
with a man nurse and a private doctor, and slid off to Europe to stay
with her son-in-law Count until folks forgot about Bobby.

And this was the youth the Rev. Mr. Hooker had come to have a heart to
heart talk with!

"Ain't you takin' a lot of trouble, just for a few Polackers?" says I.

"They are my brothers," says he, quiet like.

"What!" says I. "You don't look it."

His mouth corners flickers a little at that, and there comes a glimmer in
them solemn gray eyes of his; but he goes on to say that it's part of his
belief th