n the fire. Richling, gather fagots for pastime if you like,
though it's poor fun; but don't think that's your mission! _Don't_ be a
fagot-gatherer! What are you smiling at?"

"Your good opinion of me," answered Richling. "Doctor, I don't believe
I'm fit for anything but a fagot-gatherer. But I'm willing to try."

"Oh, bah!" The Doctor admired such humility as little as it deserved.
"Richling, reduce the number of helpless orphans! Dig out the old roots
of calamity! A spoon is not what you want; you want a _mattock_. Reduce
crime and vice! Reduce squalor! Reduce the poor man's death-rate!
Improve his tenements! Improve his hospitals! Carry sanitation into his
workshops! Teach the trades! Prepare the poor for possible riches, and
the rich for possible poverty! Ah--ah--Richling, I preach well enough, I
think, but in practice I have missed it myself! Don't repeat my error!"

"Oh, but you haven't missed it!" cried Richling.

"Yes, but I have," said the Doctor. "Here I am, telling you to let your
philanthropy be cold-blooded; why, I've always been hot-blooded."

"I like the hot best," said Richling, quickly.

"You ought to hate it," replied his friend. "It's been the root of all
your troubles. Richling, God Almighty is unimpassioned. If he wasn't
he'd be weak. You remember Young's line: 'A God all mercy is a God
unjust.' The time has come when beneficence, to be real, must operate
scientifically, not emotionally. Emotion is good; but it must follow,
not guide. Here! I'll give you a single instance. Emotion never sells
where it can give: that is an old-fashioned, effete benevolence. The
new, the cold-blooded, is incomparably better: it never--to individual
or to community--gives where it can sell. Your instincts have applied
the rule to yourself; apply it to your fellow-man."

"Ah!" said Richling, promptly, "that's another thing. It's not my
business to apply it to them."

"It _is_ your business to apply it to them. You have no right to do
less."

"And what will men say of me? At least--not that, but"--

The Doctor pointed upward. "They will say, 'I know thee, that thou art
an hard man.'" His voice trembled. "But, Richling," he resumed with
fresh firmness, "if you want to lead a long and useful life,--you say
you do,--you must take my advice; you must deny yourself for a while;
you must shelve these fine notions for a time. I tell you once more, you
must endeavor to reestablish your health as it was before--before t