prayer meeting! He couldn't
remember when he had attended one--they were too dull for him. He
wondered at Mr. Jones for writing such a letter, and almost felt as
though he had been impertinent. He threw the letter in the waste
basket and did not even answer it. He would not have been guilty of
such a lack of courtesy in regard to a business letter, but a letter
from his minister was another thing. The idea of replying to a letter
from him never occurred to Mr. Hardy. And when Thursday night came he
went down to a meeting of the chess club and had a good time with his
favourite game: for he was a fine player, and was engaged in a series
of games which were being played for the State championship.

The superintendent of the Sunday-school had lately timidly approached
Mr. Hardy and asked him if he would not take a class of boys in the
Sunday-school. What! _he_ take a class of boys! He, the influential,
wealthy manager of one of the largest railroad shops in the world--_he_
give his time to the teaching of a Sunday-school class! He excused
himself on the score of lack of time, and the very same evening of his
interview with the superintendent he went to the theatre to hear a
roaring farce, and after he reached home spent an hour in his favourite
study of chemistry in his laboratory at the top of his house: for Mr.
Hardy was a man of considerable power as a student, and he had an
admirable physical constitution, capable of the most terrible strain.
Anything that gave him pleasure he was willing to work for. He was not
lazy; but the idea of giving his personal time and service and talents
to bless the world had no place in his mind.

And so, as he lay on the lounge that evening and listened to his wife's
plain statement concerning his selfishness, he had no intention of
giving up a single thing that gratified his tastes and fed his pride.

After a silence just about long enough for someone to make the
explanation just given, Mrs. Hardy said, speaking coldly, as if it were
a matter of indifference to her:

"Mr. Burns, the foreman, called while you were out."

"He did? What did he want?"

"He said four of the men in the casting room were severely injured this
afternoon by the bursting of one of the retorts, and the entire force
had quit work and gone home."

"Couldn't Burns supply the place of the injured men? He knows where
the extras are."

"That was what he came to see you about. He said he needed furth